In the beginning, there was nothingness. Nothing to hear, nothing to see. The universe was a serious stillness.

And then, like the punchline of a cosmic joke, everything was.

***

Ding. Ding.

The melodious bells of the hospital room's morning alarm rang next to my ear. The Provider in the room had detected that I was awake, and immediately proceeded to caffeinate my veins. After a few seconds, the sleep inertia that I was feeling had melted away.

My eyeballs, now roused and attentive, scanned across the room.

To my left was the six-foot tall mechanical Provider that provided hospice care and took care of all my nutritional needs. The side that faced me had a rather large sticker of a pouting lady dressed in a medical uniform. Mars had placed the brown-haired vixen there a couple days ago as a joke, a reference to a historical era where patients were still looked after by human attendants.

Next I looked at the area immediately in front of me. Blue blankets covered my now-defunct body, and they rolled like ocean waves toward the steel railing of my hospital bed. I could neither feel nor move anything below my neck, and it truly felt like I was drowning in a sea of ice. Are those limbs really my own? I wondered, and a strange moment of disassociation took hold as I suddenly imagined my arms and legs replaced with four alien parasites hungrily attached to my torso.

The accident happened last week, during one of my routine maintenance jobs. I was putting a disassembled Provider back together when a power surge and a loose bearing had somehow colluded together to swing the Provider's arm right into my spine with over a thousand kilos of force. A freak accident, the administrator of that sector had explained it to me with a look of shame on her face--apparently even in this day and age, Colony power systems were prone to erratic behavior. Had the accident only affected an arm or a leg, the Singularity might have decided to replace them with a prosthesis. However, full-body prosthetics were a rare commodity even in a Colony as large as our own, and it was determined that their maintenance costs far outweighed any benefit I could have brought to the Colony as a mechanic.

Shaking my head to clear my thoughts, I finally directed my attention to the large metallic nightstand on my right. Artificial sunlight from the ceiling lamp bounced off its clean metal, causing a strong sheen. I quickly uttered a command to dim the lamp before looking at the lonely, pyramid-shaped device that sat atop the nightstand.

Dong Dong.

That same device played a soft chime before projecting a holographic display.

VISITOR: Mars Errond

After I nodded my head to confirm, the door to my room swung open.

"Sato!"

A jovial man in his mid 20's walked into my room. His neck craned up in an attempt to support the massive smile that appeared on his face. He and I had both attended the mechanics academy, having our designations handed to us by the Singularity at an early age. We had both specialized in Provider upkeep and even shared similar working schedules, so ended up becoming close friends.

After approaching my bed, Mars set a bag full of aluminum bottles down onto the nightstand. A few of them poked out the opening, revealing their labels to the world: Joy, Serenity, Sentiment.

"I got the good stuff, as you requested! Cost me nearly a week's pay--don't say I never spoil you."

I chuckled. "Come on Mars, that's no way to talk to a friend on their deathbed."

"Deathbed? More like winner of the life lottery. Retiring before you even turned 30--I can't believe it!" Mars said, without the slightest hint of jest. He began to browse through the bag of bottles. "By the way, shouldn't you be gifting your possessions to your best friend instead of asking him to pay for your farewell party?"

If I could shrug I would have. Sorry Mars, if I had anything left it would be yours. Delaying the procedure by two days meant I had to cover my body's maintenance costs. My account is already in the red… Not wanting to sound too pitiable, I didn't say that out loud. "The opportunity to have a final toast with your best friend is priceless," I finally retorted with a coy smile.

Mars softly sighed, then his smile returned as he pulled a couple of bottles out of the bag. "Why did you ask for this stuff anyway? Surely you can get your hands on some Joy in Elysium."

I shook my head. "I heard it wasn't the same. Once inside, your emotions are dulled. The last thing the Singularity needs is a mind with clouded judgment."

It was Mars' turn to laugh. "Sato, stop talking like you're going on a business trip. Elysium is a utopia of endless fantastical worlds. A little assurance that you won't go insane with pleasure is a small price to pay."

Mars made a motion to lay his hand on my shoulder, then quickly stopped after realizing the senselessness of the act. Instead, he asked the Provider to raise my body. He unscrewed the cap from one of the bottles, causing some gaseous vapours to float out of the container. Finally, he poured the cold liquid into my mouth before quickly proceeding to drink his own. A feeling of elation soon followed. The two of us spent our last day together reminiscing about old times, urged on by the chemical bliss.

***

"Sato White?" I heard a gentle woman's voice.

My tired eyes blinked open and I saw the blurry outline of a figure next to me. Mars and I had drank far too much, far into the evening, and my hungover mind couldn't process what was in front of me.

"Mmmng…" I grumbled, turning my head away from her, trying to fall back asleep.

"Mr. White, I need you to wake up." The same voice said, cordially.

Visitors weren't allowed in hospital rooms without the patient's consent, and there were no human staff here as all medical care was handled by the Providers stationed in each room. That means…

Am I just imagining things, or did that sticker come to life?

"Sato!" This time she sounded closer, and slightly annoyed.

I opened my eyes slightly, still feeling groggy all over. That's odd, the Provider should've caffeinated me by now if it sensed I wanted to wake up. The first thing I saw was an attractive face pouting at me. She was leaning over the bed, and I felt her hair brushing against my leg through the bedsheets. In the darkened room, the strands of her hair held a crimson hue.

Like blood dripping into a lake. Still… I thought sticker-lady was a brunette, and not a red--

Wait, my leg?

I felt my leg!

My body suddenly jolted up in shock and my face collided straight into her forehead.

"Ack!" She shouted, her body recoiling from the attack. "Jeez…"

I raised my arms and stared carefully at my hands as I flexed each finger. They responded perfectly. Next I shot out of the bed and hopped up and down. Apart from some difficulty maintaining my balance, each leg seemed perfectly functional.

"What… is going on?" I muttered in disbelief.

After rubbing her head a few times, the lady across the bed stood up straight, placed both her hands on her hip and looked at me with a satisfied smirk.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Sato. How does it feel to have your body back?"

"I… how? And… who are…?" I looked at her, utterly dumbfounded.

The woman giggled. She seemed to be enjoying my reaction.

"You can call me Sera. I came here because I have a request for you. As for your body, I healed your injuries for two reasons." She raised her right hand and shot up a finger. "First, I wanted to prove to you that I was a friend." Another finger jumped up. "And second…" She leaned closer, her voice got deeper, and her smile disappeared. "I wanted you to take me seriously."

Gulp.

"You… healed me? But that's not possible, even a full team of Providers with surgical augments won't be able to recover a body that's been paralyzed from the neck down!"

Sera rolled her eyes and muttered something under her breath. I could've sworn she said "humans".

She returned her gaze to me. "Listen friend, you've seen for yourself that your body is healed, and I just told you I'm the one who did it. Do you have any idea how rude and ungrateful you're being right now, comparing me to buckets of metal?"

My eyes quickly darted across the room. The Provider across the room had been deactivated. She must have done it earlier, but how did she get in here? The door should have locked itself when Mars left last night, and even administrators couldn't force themselves into a patient's room. Still… if what she's saying is true, I have no reason to be afraid.

"I-I'm sorry. Th-thank you." I managed to stammer out.

"You're very welcome!" She replied with a grin. It was scary how quickly she flitted from one mood to another.

"W-what is it?"

"Hmm?"

"You said you had a request for me."

"Ah, right."

Sera took out a piece of folded paper from her pocket, then looked up and clapped her hands. The ceiling lamp rotated until it pointed directly behind her, then projected a brilliant spotlight. The light reflected off the wall and enveloped her entire body in a radiant glow. She held a dignified pose and appeared to be staring off into the distance, but I caught her occasionally peeking at me out of the corner of her eye, as if waiting for my expression to change.

Ah. She's a tourist.

"Um, m-miss. I can tell you're a planetarian. That lamp would have automatically adjusted itself to an appropriate brightness level for reading the moment you started doing so. Purposefully modifying its output to max capacity is a waste of essential energy reserves and fineable under Colonial law." I said, repeating the same mantra that had been drilled into my brain by my teachers when I was a child.

Still though, it's odd. I should be the only user that lamp is registered to, and who's idea of a cruel joke was it to program a lamp to respond to claps in a room meant for quadriplegics?

For some reason, Sera's face was twitching. She turned away and blurted out something along the lines of "…this damn world". Heaving a loud sigh, she waved her hand and the light emitting from the ceiling dimmed back down. Then she cleared her throat and unfolded the paper she was holding.