Artifact Read Free

away from the platform, I could see the wall behind the artifact bulge, as if it were losing viscosity. Undulating waves of heat sucked the PPE suit against my body, and when I turned toward the airlock to run, the humming grew louder. The pitch increased until my visor cracked, and then everything went dark.
    4.
    When awareness finally came back, I remembered only brief moments. Everything seemed to move like a series of snapshots. The earliest thing I can remember, and the shortest, was being loaded into an ambulance. At the time, I couldn’t really understand what was happening. My protection suit peeled away from a substantial burn on my chest, and I bled precious oxygen faster than the EMTs could replace it. I vaguely remember going over the Parkland formula, trying desperately between fleeting moments of awareness to factor my weight with the amount of fluids they were giving me – it became very important for me to know how much of my body had been burned. The paramedics worried that I had inhaled some of the flame, as they pried my mouth open and inspected my bronchial. That’s the last image I had before they started pumping me full of pain meds and monitoring my airway.
    The next thing I can remember is being transported from the emergency area to a private room reserved for more stable patients, and the woman from the observation tank coming to visit. She brought a pink stuffed animal and a card, and when she allowed herself to look at what was left of me, she would wring the stuffed animal as if she were sacrificing it to the gods. She visited intermittently, but I couldn’t remember her name. I desperately wanted someone to explain what happened, but my questions remained unanswered. Whenever I asked the woman about the accident, she would stare vacantly at some distant point through the window and change the subject. She eventually left and didn’t come back.
    The final thing I remember was a man – and when he wasn’t sitting at the foot of my bed, he paced the room talking quietly into his flex–phone. He was instantly familiar, but at the same time completely unrecognizable. There was something about the smile lines around his eyes that begged familiarity, and the fact that he was around my age should have made me feel less anxious, but it didn’t.
    “Rest up, killer.” The man said, forcing a smile, “We need your butt back in the lab as soon as possible.”
    “What happened?” My words slurred through the pain–meds.
    “Something amazing.” He cracked open a bottle of water and filled my plastic cup, “But don’t worry about that now. Get plenty of sleep, and we’ll fill you in on the details when you get back.”
    “Alright…”
    The man patted me gently on the leg and rose to leave. “We have some of our people posted outside, should you need anything.”
    He studied me from the doorway, waiting for the fog to clear my eyes. “Lance,” he said seriously. “If anyone you don’t recognize tries wheeling you out of here, get the guard’s attention – no matter how official they seem, alright?”
    “Sure…”
    He smiled again and turned to leave.
    “Wait,” I said suddenly. “What’s your name?”
    The man stopped and stared at me for a few moments.
    “Joseph,” he said finally. “My name is Joseph . Now get some sleep, pal. And remember what I told you.”
    The last bit shook me. Not only were there men outside of my room, but the possibility at least existed that someone could have tried taking me away. It was a strange thought, lying in my hospital bed, mentally stumbling through the thick fog of my half reality, unable to differentiate between those I could trust and those I couldn’t. If what Joseph warned me about actually happened, I honestly didn’t know what I would do – I couldn’t recognize anybody.
    5.
    The first thing I forgot was how to measure the passage of time. Night was when it was dark outside. Day was when there was light. I was sustained with a