The Architect's Plans

Two hundred and seventy.

The number of stripes across the lobby’s wallpaper. 

She had counted the entire length of the room three times, starting her fourth. A one hour wait had turned to two before... 

“Ms. Crawford? Hello? Ms. Crawford?” 

The receptionist flailed her arms for added effect. 

“Can you hear me?” 

Alex flopped an unread magazine from her hands to her lap, swallowing a nasty bit of irritation rising into the base of her throat.

“Yes?” she answered. 

The receptionist adjusted her mad clumps of rose-colored hair before answering.

“You left several fields blank on your questionnaire,” she said. “You must have insurance, don’t you?”

Alex hesitated, surprised the woman expected such a response from across the room. 

“No,” she answered, “I left it blank for a reason.”

There were three others waiting, scattered amongst the chairs. None of them so much as raised an eyebrow towards Alex, but her already-weary face flushed anyway.

The receptionist, mildly agitated, spoke through the amplifier module pinned to the center of the glass barricade. 

“Would you mind joining me over here?” she asked. “I have a few more questions.”

Alex frisbeed the magazine to the end table and pried her body from the chair. The sudden movement discharged a painful ripping sensation through the muscles of both her legs, enough to stiffen her gimpy shuffle. 

Her pulled-up morning hair hadn’t been cared for, at least for several days, but it was never the first thing people noticed about her. The way she tucked her tank top into the waistband of her baggy cargos told a more specific story—a military girl with a penchant for athleticism, built on home-cooked empanadas and fish tacos, and taught very early that muscle meant more than beauty.

“Ms. Crawford,” she said. “How do you plan on paying for your visit today?”

“Send me an invoice,” Alex answered. 

These types of conversations only happened when patients couldn’t pay, but it was Alex’s job, nonetheless, to lull the receptionist into verbal submission.

“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” the receptionist continued. “We no longer accept delayed billing from our customers.”

“Since when?” Alex asked. 

“The first of July.”

“That was yesterday.”

The receptionist narrowed her eyes.

“I’m aware.”

Now her blood was boiling. The receptionist’s snark felt like a splash of gasoline to fire. Alex slid a curling strand of her raspberry hair behind her ear where it could no longer tickle her cheek. The absence of it must have made her expression more brooding because the receptionist balked, albeit only slightly.

“Can you make an exception?” Alex asked. 

“I’m afraid not, Ms. Crawford,” the receptionist continued. “Is there any other form of payment available to you at this time?”

“What’s your name?” Alex asked, deflecting. 

The receptionist peered down at her nametag just below her clavicle. 

“Rhea.”

“Well, Rhea,” Alex continued. “I’m having a difficult time understanding why I wasn’t told of these policy changes beforehand. I could’ve made other plans.”

Rhea scrunched her forehead in mild confusion, swiveling to the computer beside her.

“It says here we sent you five emails and called four times, leaving two messages.”

“Apparently they never went through,” Alex said. 

“None of them?”

Alex rolled her eyes. 

“I guess not.”  

“Would you like me to update your contact information then?” Rhea asked. 

The throb in the back of Alex’s brain had now grown to a pulse, tightening the muscles in her neck. 

“I have credit,” she said, “but I don’t want to use it.”

Rhea’s eyes shifted up toward the ceiling for a moment of pause—a twitch, maybe a tic?—then returned to the computer. 

“Without insurance, Ms. Crawford, your requests of Doctor Martineau will cost you…” Rhea hesitated, no eye contact, “...$5,133.22. Will your credit line support this bill?”

The number wasn’t surprising—Alex had seen it before—but hearing it out loud felt like a jab to the gut. Adding more to her credit, she worried, would be a very bad idea.

“Did you hear what I said?” Alex barked. She raised her voice enough to make certain her point registered. “I don’t want to use it if I don’t have to.”

“Okay, let’s see what alternative options you have,” answered Rhea. “Do you have cash?”

“No.”

“Check?”

“No.”

“We offer financing for customers if they use our Health Alliance credit card. Would you like to apply for one today?”

“No.”

“If time is what you need, I’m happy to reschedule your appointment until you have the necessary funds. Is that something you’d like to consider?”

Alex sighed. It took every bit of willpower to keep herself from lashing out, from shattering the glass and strangling that condescending smile from Rhea’s smug, double-chinned face. 

“Ms. Crawford?”

“If I could just speak with Dr. Martineau,” asked Alex, “I think we could work this out.”

“Dr. Martineau is busy at the moment. I can forward him a note, but unfortunately, I can’t guarantee he receives it before your appointment. Is that something you’d like me to do?”

The questions pelted Alex like rubber bullets. Nerves coalesced into bundles across the muscles of her back, shooting spasming pain south into the dip of her spine.

“My credit is open. Just plug my name into the Portal and run the card on file.” 

Rhea turned to the computer again, typing several words into a field box at the top of the screen. 

“You’re correct, Ms. Crawford,” she said. “Your payment has been accepted.”

Rhea’s eye contact, once again, faltered. Her strange social habits put Alex on edge.

“Is that all?” Alex asked.

“I’m afraid not, Ms. Crawford. I, unfortunately, have a few more questions.”

The front entrance opened to a grease-ball of a man neck deep in a leather jacket. He lurched into the lobby, slipping into a seat beside a kitty-cornered aquarium. A cloud of cheap cigarettes followed him while he sucked loudly at his teeth.

“Sir?” Rhea called. “Please fill out a questionnaire. We’ll be right with you.”

It took a moment for the man to register the request, but eventually, he approached the glass, took a clipboard, and met Alex’s eyes for a moment too long. 

“Do I know you?” she asked. 

It was defensive, but justified in the man’s disconcerting linger. His face struck her as familiar, but only from a peripheral angle. From straight on, she lost the impression. 

He shrugged without answering, turned away to roam the lobby before finding his original seat. 

Rhea, on the other hand, shifted back to Alex. 

“The second medication on your list is difficult to read,” she said. “Could you please repeat it to me?”

“Amitriptyline,” Alex answered. 

Rhea’s blank stare persisted, so Alex rolled her eyes and spelled it letter-by-letter until the computer checkmarked the name. 

“Will you be needing a prescription refill today for any of your medications?”

“Is it included in today’s cost?” Alex asked.

Rhea lifted her eyes to the ceiling once more, as if allowing her mind to process the question.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “If you would like to refill all three of your prescriptions, it will be an additional cost of $401.22. A refill of only amitriptyline is $87.55.”

“That’s one hell of a rip off,” Alex jeered.

“I can run a search for pharmaceutical coupons if you’d like?” Rhea asked. 

Alex crossed her arms in front of her, grimacing through the pain.

“Go right ahead.”

Rhea smiled—one of the emptiest smiles Alex had seen in quite some time. 

“One moment.”

The computer screen toggled from one window to another until it settled on a grid of yellow and blue horizontal lines. The medication name flickered at the center of the grid, then disappeared amidst a matrix of numbers, locations, and dates. 

“If you want to refill your prescription in Glenwall, this coupon can save you $15.45. I can place it for you now, if you want?”

“You want me to drive two hours to save fifteen dollars on a lousy prescription?” Alex asked. 

“Ms. Crawford,” Rhea answered, lowering her voice as best as she could. “Judging by your financial comments earlier, I am obliged to mention any resource we have in order to make your experience here the best it can be. You are allowed to refuse, of course, if that is what’s best for you, but please keep your voice down.”

A line of newly-entered patients had formed behind Alex, including the man in the leather jacket, clipboard in hand. 

“I’m not driving to Glenwall,” Alex answered. “Send the refills to the pharmacy in town.”

Rhea scrolled through the grid.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Your local pharmacy doesn’t carry amitriptyline.”

“What do you mean?” Alex asked. “I just picked it up from there last month.”

“Jesus. Hurry it up, will ya? People have places to be.”

The man in the leather jacket chuckled proudly to himself from the back of the line, dragging hard from a cigarette. She knew it was him. She recognized the growl in his cackle, but chose to ignore it, instead focusing on the digital migraine-worms that had crept into her vision. 

“Sir, you can’t smoke in here,” Rhea said, shaking her head. 

He nodded through a laborious eyeroll, sucked in another hard drag and snuffed out the tip.

“Is there another pharmacy you’d like to use?” Rhea asked, returning to Alex.

“What’s the closest?”

Rhea flittered her fingers across the keyboard until stopping mid-search. She hesitated before answering.  

“Glenwall.”

The word hit Alex’s ears like a trigger and sent both of her hands down onto the reception counter in an impressive display of frustration. Chunks of granite separated from it, leaving an open chasm in its wake. Plumes of dust showered the room in gray. 

“Get Dr. Martineau,” Alex snarled. “Now.”

“Dr. Martineau is busy at the moment. I can forward him a note, but unfortunately, I can’t guarantee he receives it before your appointment. Is that something you’d like me to do?”

Rhea ducked as Alex pulled her slingshot of a shoulder back, then released it. Glass shattered across the floor, save for several jagged icicles clinging to the bolted hinges in the ceiling. 

The crowded lobby rushed for the door. Bodies bottlenecked the exit, keeping as much distance from Alex as possible. 

“Please don’t hurt me,” begged Rhea.

The pleading only added to Alex’s anger. 

“You’re useless!” she yelled, towering over the receptionist with a pointed finger. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Major Crawford!” the greasy-haired man spoke. “Think about what you’re doing.”

Alex’s vision had started to dim, but she widened her eyes enough to see the man straight-arming a pistol in her direction. He lit another cigarette, holding the smoke in his lungs as he talked. 

“You had very specific instructions,” he said. “The kind you don’t screw up.”

If he meant to hijack her attention, it worked.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” she asked. “Who are you?”

The man flipped open a wallet-sized badge, extending it alongside the gun. 

“I’m the man in charge of making sure you don’t murder someone,” he said. “Agent Urma—Internal Recovery. You knew the rules, Major—we fix you and you stay quiet. You haven’t quite lived up to your side of the deal these days.”

Alex tried shaking away the confusion, but it stuck to her thoughts like mud.

“Internal Recovery? Never heard of it.”

“Dr. Martineau called,” Urma explained, “and good thing he did. You’re making one hell of a mess here.”

She peered down at her hands, shocked by the amount of shredded synthetic flesh ripped from her palms and down the curves of her wrists. Underneath, a series of metallic wires and threading jostled inside the tubes of her rotating arms, encased in a sophisticated transparent sheathing. 

“Come on, Major. Don’t tell me you can’t remember anything.”

More baiting, but she tried anyway. The memories in her head only pixelated like a series of frozen computer screens.

“Nothing?” Urma asked.

“I don’t know,” Alex grimaced, reaching for her head. “I can’t...remember.”

Urma dropped the gun to his hip, but kept his finger glued to the trigger. 

“Dhaka? The Orjabe Insurgence?” he continued. He searched her eyes for a spark. “The Republic? None of it rings a bell?”

A new sequence of blurry images fluttered through Alex’s claustrophobic brain, but disappeared as quickly as they surfaced. 

“I need my meds,” she grumbled. “Dr. Martineau will know what to do. Please, just get him.”

“Dr. Martineau is busy at the moment. I can forward him a note, but unfortunately, I can’t guarantee he receives it before your appointment. Is that something you’d like me to do?”

 Rhea’s voice echoed through the room. 

“Shut up!” Alex screamed.

“Enough, Major. Focus on me,” Urma continued. “You knew what you signed up for when you came here. This is bad. Really bad.”

Alex ground her teeth enough to make the muscle in her jaw twitch. 

“Please,” she said. “Just get Dr. Martineau. He’ll explain.”

“Dr. Martineau is busy at the moment. I can forward him—”

“Oh for Christ’s sake,” Urma barked. 

He redirected the barrel of his gun to Rhea, who raised her arms timidly at the sight of it. Fear replaced the calm in the wrinkles of her face; her eyes losing their shine. 

“Don’t shoot,” she stuttered.

But Urma popped three rounds into her forehead without hesitation. Any rage Alex had struggled to tame immediately went cold. Shock, instead, took its place. 

“Holy shit,” she grumbled. “What did you do?”

“Look closer, Major,” he said. “Things aren’t what you think they are.”

Alex hesitated, but eventually hopped the shattered barrier. A strange electric click led her to the bullet wound in Rhea’s forehead. She peered inside. Wiring, older than hers, cluttered the receptionist’s head, metal-on-metal dangerously spewing showers of sparks inside her artificial skull. 

Alex found it difficult to breathe.

“She’s a—”

“Machine? Yeah. There’s a dozen more out back just like her,” Urma said. 

He averted his attention to the watch on his wrist and spoke into it, but Alex couldn’t hear what was said. 

“Who are you talking to?” she asked. 

“Just updating your cybernetic chart. You’re more programming than machine now, Major. It’s messing with you.”

He edged forward cautiously while Alex retreated. 

“You’re wrong,” she said. “I’m still me.”

“You’re still 45% of you,” he explained. “Your heart, your brain, your teeth, your right shoulder, half of your ribcage, and half of your brain—all of it remains organic.” 

Alex lifted her metallic hands.

“So what’s all of this?” she asked. 

“Advanced cybernetic technology,” he answered. “Courtesy of Project Daedalus.”

Urma widened his eyes as if the name should have triggered a response in her, but he found nothing. 

“Wow,” he said. “You’re really gone, aren’t you?”

“Should I know what that is?” she answered. 

Urma smiled.

“You should know,” he said, “because you created it.”

She scoffed, rubbing the lines in her forehead with her metal fingers. 

“You’re lying.”

“You never built any of it, but you held the plans,” Urma explained, pointing to his head. “Up here.” 

Pain intensified to the point of buckling knees. She pinned herself against the wall to keep herself upright.

“It’s getting worse, isn’t it?” Urma asked. “The pain?”

“My meds,” she answered. “They’re the only things that work.”

“That’s not possible,” an unfamiliar voice said. “No amount of medicine can take away that kind of pain.”

Behind a second glass window, a man in a lab coat sporting a pad of inky-black hair made himself known. He fixed his rimless glasses and leaned into the microphone. 

“Doctor Martineau?” she asked. 

“I think it’s time we told you the truth,” he said. 

Silence inundated the room until Alex answered. 

“I’m listening.” 

“We never wanted to keep you. You were supposed to die in Dhaka with the rest of them, but we discovered who you were,” Martineau explained. “The Architect.”

His eyes grew darker as he spoke—a man with unmitigated control.   

“Daedalus isn’t just a supersoldier mockup. It’s a reality. But your designs were expensive. We needed resources, access to deregulated technology, and a place to experiment. We found all of that here, in Tel Aviv.

“But you think you’re in Chicago, don’t you? You’re not. This room? It’s a virtual construct of your childhood dentist’s lobby, everything down to its smell. Rhea, according to your memories, worked in that office for twelve years. Even Agent Urma is a modification—an age-verified replica of your high school chemistry teacher.”

Alex balked, suddenly afraid of the truth.

“You expect me to believe that?” she asked.

“Do you believe that the wires in your arms are real? How about the headaches splitting your brain in two?”

She peered down at her arms, gazing at both the marvel and the terror of it all.

“What did you do to me?” she asked.

“I told you. We took Daedalus and made it real,” Martineau explained.

He snapped his fingers and, on command, the lobby twitched. Familiar wallpaper melted into slabs of concrete. Dusty wire-drawn lamps replaced the lobby’s fluorescent ceiling panels. Reception dwindled into cardboard boxes and plastic trays.

And Alex remembered everything. 

“You’re Orjabe,” she whispered. “We lost the war.”

Martineau, like the construct, had morphed along with it. A gray collared shirt and scrubbed denim replaced his lab coat. His cream-colored skin darkened to a moonglow black. A toothy smile spread across the wrinkles of his boyish face—a grin that told Alex how far he’d really taken her down the rabbit hole. 

“You, Major Crawford, are the first successfully integrated cybernetic human platform the world has ever seen,” he answered. “Yes, it belongs to the Orjabe now, but your dreams have become a reality. You should be proud.”

She fell to her knees, paralyzed by shock. Urma stepped closer and raised his pistol to the back of her head. 

“Vive l’Orjabe,” the men spoke together.

Alex closed her eyes, praying there would be dreams in a quiet kind of death.