The break room was all cut up and dented, most of the furniture was overturned, and the windows to the call center were covered with bloody sheets. Blood stains could be seen everywhere you looked, and in some places it spilled in puddles with no apparent source. Empty bags were stacked in the corner, near the water cooler. And to the left, near an overturned table, stood a man in a black and red uniform. He was looking directly at Carmen, or rather she could assume he was looking at her, because she couldn't see his eyes, they were hidden behind some kind of facial apparatus that resembled a night vision device, but with eight tubes.
She thought of running... But to where? Blindly down the stairs? And even if she made it outside in one piece, where would she go? No, this was where she belonged. This was where her life was.
The man was already approaching, his heavy boots squelching on the floor. He opened his mouth about midway, but the words came out only now.
- Excuse me, miss, ma'am - He began like the most unthreatening man in the world - Please... don't run, don't panic, it will be better this way.
The hooded stranger made illogical pauses between words here and there.
- Did you...come alone? Didn't... anyone escort you out? - He looked over Carmen's shoulder, apparently expecting to see Someone.
Carmen tried to answer for a few seconds, but she didn't have the energy to speak, so she just nodded. She didn't even notice that her back was already against the reception desk, and the stranger had to step forward again. With every step he took, she expected the man to lunge at her and take her head right off, bringing her fears to a culmination.
While he was still in the light of the room, Carmen could catch a glimpse of him: the man was wearing a black knee-length coat with a hood and red trimmings here and there. On his shoulder was a red triangular symbol with black branch patterns and a red number three. On his belt hung something like a folding weapon with a blade similar to that of a scythe. The blade was clean without a hint of recent fluttering in someone else's insides.
In response to the nod, the stranger's lips rolled inward slightly and the tips of his lips quivered. He hummed unhappily.
-I see... please come inside. - he pushed her casually toward the door, -I can't explain, I don't have time. - he pointed to the end of the room - Ask a colleague, she knows, she'll explain... sorry for the mess... Don't think anything of the sort. - He went out, made sure Carmen was out of the way, and slammed the door behind him.
She stood in confusion for a long time. Surrounded by death, blood, and turmoil, she had only recently been gently pushed into a room, told to wait, and apologized to. Carmen waited until the cavity behind the door was as quiet as it had been before and pulled on the knob. The knob held well and didn't even think about turning. The slight panic was replaced by a momentary relief when she remembered that the door had to be unlocked first, but she was again overcome with hopelessness when the card reader wouldn't accept the pass. She hit her head on the door. Then her shoulder. Then again and gave up. The stranger's words finally reached her and she turned around. In the opposite direction, on a gray couch in front of a glass table that was completely untouched, probably brought here from another room, sat a newly unfamiliar woman, watching Carmen intently with an understanding, sad, but at the same time strangely detached gaze, as if looking at, in, and beyond her at the same time. On the table in front of her, a yellow duster coat was crumpled up sloppily.
The lady stared at her for another five seconds, but suddenly she seemed to wake up and moved to the left side of the couch, then stared at Carmen again, woke up once more and moved her things to "her" side of the table. Carmen slowly walked over and sat down, expecting to fall right through. Due to stress, It was uncomfortable to sit, as if on bricks, but she couldn't bear to stand while a soup of fear, sadness, shock and confusion was brewing in her head.
The stranger turned from time to time to look at her, thinking to say something, but then she turned away again and went back to her thoughts. At last the words left her lips:
- You work here, don't you? Yes, you do. - she answered her own question and continued - What's your name?
- Carmen"-she answered quietly, and in the exhalation, probably only a short "rmen" could be heard. Shock and confusion slowly dissolved and were replaced by fearful logic and a disturbed reason.
- I see - without even hearing her full name, the blonde stranger said - if... to be brief and to the point, About three hours ago there was a building takeover, we were in the crosshairs of some kind of a personnel hunt.
Carmen looked toward the stranger, then at the card placed on the duster. On it was a black-and-white photograph of a woman who sat to her left, the only difference being that now part of her head and her left eye were hidden by a bandage, which for some reason didn't immediately catch her eye. Above it was written "Golden Rose," and below that the name, Myla, and a few other details confirming her position as conseeker.
Myla made sure that her friend in distress was listening to her words, and continued:
- They must not have come for a complete purge, but anyone who resisted was killed or maimed. They said they were looking for candidates to recruit and join the cluster as a limb.
Apparently, the contradictory facial expressions on the pale face of her conversation partner, where one could not distinguish pure euphoria from terrible grief and tremor, made her divert the conversation to another direction.
- Don't be so hard on yourself, if I wasn't on a mountain of opioids right now, I'd probably be on my knees from misery and helplessness, too. We're both lucky. If it makes you feel any better, there were two other people in the hospital with me, how many worked here with you?
That makes three with Carmen. Arithmetic delivered a cruel verdict.
-Nine. - she answered after a while.
Silence. Carmen, sufficiently sobered, jumped up from her chair and looked around for the door to the hospital, which she was disappointed to find locked. The noise of the medical equipment inside was reassuring, however, someone indeed was there.
Then a question came into her head, which in any other situation would have come to her first, but it came up only now.
-What are you doing here? - She asked the woman whose workplace was in the opposite wing.
-In brief, a few days ago there was a failed arrest, I don't remember anything, only that I was supposedly not wearing my face. Our wards were full, but on request, your director or his deputy allowed to bring me to your ward, you must have been doing better... were.
-Who, Max? - Apparently the director was much nicer to representatives of other organizations.
Myla responded by sinking deeper into the couch.
-I don't know, Max, not Max, but that's the bottom line. I know things are lousy, but there's nothing else we can do.
- What do you mean? - she frowned, shock giving way to resentment and anger - Are you going to join them? I'm sorry, but don't you see what they've done? Even if our lives are spared now, we're going to be just expendables! Exactly who are they? Don't you have any respect for the people who laid their heads here? - sadness, bitterness, fear and confusion burned, releasing the anger and frustration that poured out at the only person around.
- Do we have any other choice? You think they've allocated a few squads of conseekers, stormed and seized a company looking for manpower just to let that manpower go when it doesn't feel like signing a contract? We're caught in the middle of it all. - she sat back down on the couch. - And being a wage slave is nothing new for us, we chose our profession, made our bed and now it's time to lie in it. Maybe I'm just not thinking straight right now..." she tilted her head.
Carmen breathed raggedly and paced the room, then suddenly she felt so indifferent. She leaned against the wall and thought. It seemed that all of her ties to this world had been severed in a moment: acquaintances, workplace, coworkers, friends even, everything was somehow connected to SAe, and now it didn't exist. She had wandered a lot from company to company and it hadn't weighed heavily on her, but now that it had happened beyond her will and beyond her expectations it was as if a piece had been torn off.
- Soon they'll start coming and taking people away for reattachment. Better rest and gather your senses, the world unfortunately is still in motion.
Carmen really had no choice but to accept it and vanish for a couple of hours.
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