It was hard to open my eyes. I could see a blinding light behind my corneas if that was even possible. When the floor felt soft, I realized that I wasn't on the rooftop anymore. I was lying on a bed with white sheets covering me. If I had to guess, I was in the medical wing located in the fourth floor. I tried to get up but I felt a piercing pain in my right leg. All of a sudden, everything came to me in a flash. I remembered the heart rate alarm going off, explosion in the twenty first floor, the rooftop fight and the shimmering wall they vanished into. I felt terrible. I didn't even stand a chance against him. It almost felt like he was never fighting me but here I am, with a broken leg. I tried to pull myself up and sat on the bed, my back to the pillow. There were no bandages on my right leg but I still felt pain whenever I tried to bend my knee.
I heard footsteps and saw a doctor coming into my room. She was tall, lean and fair with shoulder length black hair. Late twenties, I guessed. Ms. Noulin Ahmed, her tag read. She looked into her tablet and asked, "How are you feeling, John?"
"Okay, I guess. I feel pain when I bend my knee."
"And you are supposed to. Your tendons on your right leg are damaged. Nothing is broken though. In two or three days, you'll be up and running. Until then, stop moving your legs too much."
"So nothing's broken and I'm not hurt anywhere?" I asked her confused.
"If you want something broken, I might be able to help." She looked at me smiling. I looked at her with an empty face. She cleared her throat and said, "Well, no. You're not hurt anywhere".
"Then how did I faint?"
"Now that's complicated. We don't know. We only know that you were injected with a drug that put you to sleep."
"What was I injected with? You must've already run some tests."
"That's the problem. We don't know what drug it is. It's something I've never seen. My best guess is that it's a neural drug engineered to attack your brain cells. I've no idea how it works or how it affects since it wore off your system when it was done."
"How long have I been out?" I felt like I've lost a week.
"You've been here exactly", she looked at her watch, "three hours and thirty two minutes".
I felt relieved to hear that. I already felt terrible losing her when I had the chance. "Did I have any visitors?" I asked her.
"Yeah. The commissioner and the chief minister were here. I've already notified the commissioner when I heard the ping that you're up. He must be on his way now. Do you need anything to drink or eat?"
"No, thanks. I'm good." She left the room and I picked up my communicator from the table. It was switched off. I turned it on. I have received a few messages and a report. The report was from Ram, the guard I sent up to check TeCorp.
'I tried calling you but you didn't pickup. I just checked with TeCorp's security. They haven't seen anything out of the ordinary. I went through their thermal scans too. The rooftop was empty when I got there and I didn't see anyone or anything suspicious.'
Even though the message was clear, I felt that something was wrong. I dialed for the surveillance team and asked for today's security footage. I didn't get my hopes up since we had no security cams on the rooftop. But as I ran through the footage, I noticed that no one came in or went out. The explosive on the side of the wall was not there at one moment and then it was there, like it materialized out of thin air. I didn't even see her bring dragged out of the window. The only person I saw get out of that window was me. Either nothing happened or the cams were compromised. I chose the latter owing to the fact that I can't move my legs. It must be an inside job. I checked the footage access history to no avail. I was dealing with dead ends all around, I nearly threw my communicator away in frustration, when the commissioner walked in.
Sundar Ramanathan was one of the honest cops I've met in my life and he still is. We used to discuss a lot while I was working as a simple security guard for Mrs. Ramachandran. He was a tall and proud man with a heavy moustache and a perfect build, which are not common in this age. You could say we were friends in a way.
"You look like crap, John." The commissioner commented as he walked in.
"I feel like crap, to be honest."
"There's nothing on the security footage, no signs of a forced entry, the rooftop patrol and the other patrol doesn't remember anything. Except for a small explosion on the wall, there's nothing we can move on. Tell me you remember." I sensed his desperation.
"That's the worst part. I remember."
"Shouldn't it be great that you remember?" He looked at me perplexed.
"Doesn't feel that way."
"I remember when you helped me with my daughter. I actually felt sorry for the other guy when I saw you at work. No. No one can put you down easily. Don't be hard on yourself. You would've done everything possible." He sat near my right leg on the bed.
"I was put down today with one hit."
I started explaining the events from the moment of the alarm, the hallway bomb, the fire escape, rooftop fight and when I got to the cylindrical device, he looked at me intently but I knew he didn't believe me.
"I know you don't believe me but trust me. I know what I saw. He vanished with her into a shimmering wall."
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