"Hospital is the place for serious injuries, my dad used to say." A feeble voice called from below.
A173 looked at the little girl, who still had tears in her eyes and said nothing.
"Am I going to die?" The girl asked as she laid her right hand on A173's hard arms.
A173 stayed silent for a while, partly because it did not know how to provide a satisfactory response. There were programs installed in its network that taught it how to do CPR, how to perform the Heimlich, but it never taught it how to answer these kinds of questions. It started to flip through its mental instruction manual when a word popped up in its mind: hope. All the sources stored in its database points to one thing and that is the patient must remain hopeful. To A173, this was another word it could only comprehend on a lexical level, but it did know how to spark this so-called 'hope' thing in its patients.
Its eyes twitched for a moment and told the girl, "We'll do our best to treat you, and don't be afraid, I'm here to help you."
A taut grin popped up on the girl's face when she heard what A173 said and the android smiled back. It could not grasp the idea of smiling but it did it anyway, just to make the girl feel a little bit better. The hospital hallway appeared to be brighter than usual. A173 was not sure whether it was a bug in its system or the hallway was, indeed, brighter. The thought was quickly dismissed when they were approaching the examination room, which A173 could clearly see was not well-illuminated. It pushed the door of open and wheeled the girl in.
It was not until noon that she saw the girl again. She was in room 303, which was usually referred to as the 'bad ward'. Now that A173 had stopped in its tracks and had surveyed the room with keen eyes, it could see why it was called the 'bad ward'. The paint on the white wall was peeling off like shaves of dirty snow. When one was lying in bed, the view of the ugly popcorn ceiling was evident. There was a musty smell lingering in the air due to the fact that the windows were often closed. Dust and grit clung to the bedsheets like they had not been washed in years and there she was, lying in the bed next to a window.
A173 advanced toward her in a graceful manner and look at the board that was clipped to the end of the bed. The words jumped out at it like a tiger.
"Brain hemorrhage?" It whispered under its jagged breath. It did not expect anything that serious and, supposedly, neither did her father.
It was reading the report with ferocious intensity when the same fragile voice called out to it, "Mr. Paramedic, what is a brain hemorrhage?"
A173 slipped the board back into the slot at the rear of the bed with a slick motion. It was hoping to avert the question the girl asked with the same smoothness but it could not figure out the way to do so.
"It means you've hit your head. It's..." It was about to tell her that it was not a big deal when it knew with astounding clarity that it was. A173 was a paramedic. It was of utmost importance for it to reassure the patient that hope was in sight and at the same time, stay truthful. Sucking the comment back with a deep breath, it continued, "We have great doctors here. Don't worry."
That was also a lie, A173 thought to itself. Competent surgeons would have demanded a pay of at least $17000 a month and St. John was nowhere near being able to offer salary of that standard. If anything, there was just one surgeon who was capable of performing operation of this scale and that was Dr. Gutenberg. She was the only one who had undergone years of education in neurology. If there was anyone who could save this girl, it would be her.
"Dr. Gutenberg is going help you through this..." It was not until now that A173 realized that it had never addressed the girl by her name, and thus he continued, "What is your name?"
The little girl's eyelids fluttered curiously as she craned her head and stared into the eyes of A173, which were of a dull blue color. A173 returned with fixated gaze with an equal intensity. Now that it could get a good look of the patient, it struck A173 that the dark-skinned girl had eyes like glistening emeralds and they were extraordinary. This girl is a creation of life, a child of mother nature. A173 found it surprising that it had managed to contain those thoughts inside its head. The workload of being a paramedic was so heavy that it had never the time to contemplate about its own identity. Was it also a member of the society or was it just a product of technology advancement? An unidentifiable desire clawed at it like a beast that had not eaten for days.
"Elizabeth, and what's yours?" The girl asked with a cheerful grin on her face.
The android remained silent for a few second before it came up with an answer, "My name is A173."
The reply apparently struck Elizabeth as a joke, because she was laughing wildly, with tears welling up in her eyes when she heard it.
Between gasps, she said, "That's not a name! Imma call you Adrian."
Smiling, A173 sat right next to Elizabeth and nodded, "Sure. It is nice to meet you, Elizabeth. My name is Adrian."
"Hi, Adrian. You're the first friend I've made here."
"And so are you."
The two burst out laughing in synchronization. A173 could not fathom the purpose of such an action but it did notice it seemed to lift the girl's spirit, so it did it anyway. It was glad to see Elizabeth's lips were curving upward because of it.
A173 was later sent to check on another patient who just been admitted this morning. It squinted its eyes as it wandered through the hallways. It was still not used to the unusually bright lighting around the hospital. As a matter of fact, the corridors in St. John had always been kind of dim. The decision to light up the hospital with electricity bills did not appear to come in until today.
Soon A173 reached the room where the patient had shaken down in. It knocked gently on the door before a sudden realization that the 'bad ward' did not even have a door came over its mind. Its eyes widened as it entered the room in confident strides.
The first thing that hit A173 was the lamp sitting on the desk beside the bed. It was shaped like an umbrella, a classic design with gold laced around the bottom of the stand. The walls were blanketed by a fresh new layer of paint. The floor was a combination of premium ash wood and oak wood planks. The bed, which was located at the right-hand corner of the room, was a shocking king-sized mattress. At some point, A173 even believed that there was an air-freshener in this place as the smell of rotting wood, which had invaded the entire hospital, could not reach here. This room made the 'bad ward' look like one of the nine circles of hell.
A173 approached the patient with caution, like a kitten walking on thin ice, lest he should damage the perfect paneling of the floor. The boy in the bed was too absorbed in the digital world to hear A173 come in. He was wearing a pair of red earphones and was watching Netflix on his phone. Trying not to disturb the boy's entertainment, A173 took up in my hands the report that was clipped to the rear of the bed. The words 'Broken Fibula due to minor accident' were written on the paper in an elegant script. It was flipping through the report when a loud shout came to its alert.
"Who are you?" The boy's eyes were filled with shock.
A173 could see the fear in his eyes proliferating as it dawned on the boy that the figure standing right in front of it was an android.
"I am A173, or you could call me Adrian. I am here to check on your condition."
"Pfft, no androids ever get names like Adrian. You get serial codes."
The comment that the boy just made had somehow made a dent in A173's heart of steel. It was taught in textbooks that all androids ever get were serial codes. No actual human names had ever been given to androids as the manufacturers did not want to give the androids a false sense of equality. A173 knew this, yet it still felt hurt, like a part of its heart had been dug out.
"Either way, are you feeling fine?" A173 inquired politely, as though it was a vassal to the boy, who, in this case, would be a lord.
"I am, now just tell me when the surgery is gonna be. I can't wait to get out of this fucking hospital. It's so old and... I don't know. I just don't wanna be here." The boy said impatiently.
He was tapping his fingers on his thighs when A173 scanned the report with keen eyes.
"According to the report, you probably would not need to undergo any kind of operation.
"So when will I be free to go?"
"When your bones fully heal and someone takes the cast off you."
The boy waved his left hand as a signal for A173 to leave the room. During their short conversation, not even the slightest hint of a smile flashed across his face, so obviously he would not want an android to care for him after reading him his report.
The next few days of A173's work was rather boring. This gave him more time than ever to think about what Elizabeth and the little boy had said. What was that feeling that it got when it looked into the girl's eyes? That, it could not tell, but there was one thing it knew for sure and that was he was Elizabeth's friend. However, it did feel more at ease when it was with the boy, for he never smiled and reacted to everything with a cold, unmoving attitude which definitely made him feel like a fellow android. Androids were usually more comfortable when they were hanging around with other androids, but A173 had not experience that kind of feeling in ages. Sometimes, it felt like it was always standing on the edge, that it was one step away from falling down into a bottomless pit. Elizabeth's appearance in its life had had a strange effect on that anxiety. The girl had soothed the fear and made it feel solid.
Since then, A173 had been visiting Elizabeth on a regular basis. Sometimes A173 would sneak some chocolate into the ward and give it to her. She was always excited, jumping up and down in the bed when A173 arrived despite the fact that it did not bring her that sweet, addicting snack every day. Elizabeth seemed to have completely forgotten that she was a hospital and instead, felt like she was in a playground. As each day past, the unfathomable desire in A173's chest would grow stronger and stronger. A173 wished it could put a finger on what that feeling was, but it had absolutely no clue.
"Adrian?" Elizabeth was dragging the first A sound in Adrian to an uncomfortable length.
"Yes?" A173 replied briskly.
"You still haven't answered my question."
"What question?"
Elizabeth was counting her fingers before she blurted out with a gleaming smile on her face, "The question from two weeks ago."
A173 shook its head and let a sigh escape from his lips, "You've asked a lot of questions. I'm not sure which one you're talking about."
"Will I die?"
All of a sudden, the air in the room froze solid. A crushing weight landed on A173's shoulders and made them slump uncontrollably.
It took in a deep breath and replied, "I told you Dr. Gutenberg is gonna treat you. You don't have to worry about it."
"Dying is scary. Where will I go after I die?" The girl's expression was the complete opposite of what she had just said.
She did not appear frightened, but rather solely curious. A173 could tell that she was genuinely intrigued as to where she was going to domicile after she was dead.
With all the effort and strength that A173 could muster up, it said, "I don't know. My batteries run low every once in a while and I get turned off automatically. I think that is what death feels like. You just drift away."
"Like in a dream?" Elizabeth inquired as her mouth formed an O shape.
A173 had never had a dream before, but somehow he was certain that the answer was 'yes'. The emotion that had been clawing at it turned vicious and now he could actually feel his heart, which was made of nothing more than alloy and circuit boards, ache.
"But you'll be here with me before I die, right?"
A smile ran across A173's face. He nodded and let out another sigh, "There're two things I need to tell you, Eliza. First, I'll be here forever, we androids don't die, and second, you're not going to die."
Days later Elizabeth slipped into a coma. That was when A173 started to stay at the hospital more often instead of going out and taking in more patients. He would clasp the girl's hands in his own hands and put them to his forehead, hoping that Elizabeth would wake up and stare at him with those emerald eyes again. A173 was by her side when the jagged line on the Holter monitor became a flat one.
"Code Blue! Somebody help! Code Blue!" A173 screamed at the top of his robotic lungs. His words echoed through the hallways and were greeted by silence. Without another thought, he dashed out of the ward and started searching for Dr. Gutenberg. All the running was making his mechanical joints creak. He felt like he could not breathe although breathing did not matter to the survival of androids. A haze came over him like a cloud of mist and he felt more exhausted than ever.
Finally, he found Dr. Gutenberg, standing in the room of the boy who waved A173 off. The interior was still as nice as it was when A173 visited. The only thing that changed is that the lighting in the room was even brighter than before. Dr. Gutenberg was taking off the boy's cast with a smile on her face, seemingly oblivion to everything happening outside. A173 darted inside and took Dr. Gutenberg by the hand, which led her to drop the boy's foot. He explained the situation to the doctor as they rushed back toward the 'bad ward', but even with Dr. Gutenberg's effort, the flat line stayed a flat line.
The night followed was eventful.
*****
A winter breeze drifted in the air as a van with the words 'Android Recycling' etched on its side rolled into the St. John parking lot. The speaker on top of the van was supposed to play Für Elise by Beethoven, but most employees did not even bother to press the play button to get the thing working.
"Damn, this parking lot's small." The driver opened the door and took a gigantic leap to take out of his car before continuing, "What's the serial code of the android that got recalled this time?"
"A173, I believe." Another man hopped out of the car.
"Why though?"
"The android's malfunctioning. Intervened with a medical procedure, the hospital said."
It did not matter what the others said. Adrian thought to himself as he got his heart torn out of his body.
It was true, indeed, that what others said did not matter, for he finally realized what that feeling that had been bugging him was.
Comments (0)
See all