Zeit

***

SOME WEEKS AGO

A full week had gone by, and I still hadn’t heard a word from Inertia. Seven days felt like an eternity. How much longer would I be left in the dark? Was Inertia dead? Had her phone broken? And what did this new app have to do with any of it?

The same questions kept circling in my head, and no matter how many there were, sitting around wouldn’t give me answers. So I called an emergency meeting with myself, hoping to find some loophole in all the information I had, some way to reconnect with them in 6025.

First, I gathered proof that I wasn’t losing my mind, that everything up to that point had really happened.

My first piece of evidence was the phone. It worked perfectly, with only two apps installed. But they were useless, since both the start combat button and the start call button were disabled. The phone was proof enough, so I set it down on my bed.

The second piece of evidence was the dog. I picked up Toby and placed him next to the phone. He lay down obediently in front of me, tilting his head as if puzzled. Toby was a very intelligent dog, and more importantly, he was real, living proof that Inertia’s house existed.

The third piece of evidence was Toby’s pendant, the one with those coordinates that led nowhere.

The fourth was the picture frame holding her parents’ photo, which I had taken from their room before escaping.

Taking that picture frame had been the best decision of the day. Looking at it again gave me new ideas, and now the face in the photo had a name — Filip Nowak.

I sat at the desk with the computer and typed his name into the search engine. One of the first results was a digital health platform that connected patients with healthcare professionals and clinics. It was exactly what I had been looking for.

Finding the address of his clinic wasn’t difficult. The very first site the search recommended had everything I needed.

At that moment, my only option was to go to the address where Inertia’s father supposedly worked and try to find some clue. The place wasn’t far from Inertia’s house; it was right in the center of her neighborhood.

I got up, gathered everything I needed including her parents’ photo, and left. Carrying the entire frame would have been impractical, so I slipped the picture out of it.

It didn’t take long before I was standing in front of the clinic, or rather, a commercial building. Presumably, the clinic was located on one of its floors.

I had to stop at the building’s reception desk and tell the receptionist the clinic’s name.

“Good afternoon, I need to go to Clinic XXX.”

“Alright, do you already have an appointment scheduled?” the receptionist asked.

“No... but I have an emergency. I need to see Dr. Filip Nowak today.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but you need to schedule an appointment in advance.”

“Please, just check if there’s an opening. I urgently need a neurologist’s evaluation,” I insisted, adding a touch more drama. I could have come back another day, but something told me it had to be today.

She called the clinic, someone answered, and miraculously, they agreed to squeeze me in as the last appointment of the day. The receptionist directed me to the proper floor and let me inside.

I chose the floor, stepped out of the elevator, and saw that the entire level was occupied by the clinic, a polyclinic to be precise. At the entrance, another receptionist asked for the specialty and the doctor I wanted to see. I paid for the consultation and waited anxiously in the reception area until I was called into Room 10.

“Kojima Rei?” A man with gray hair, wearing glasses and a white coat, called out as he opened the office door.

“Yes!”

“Please, come in.”

I stepped into the office and immediately noticed its size. It was spacious, with the usual elements: a desk with a computer, an examination table, and a glass cabinet filled with various medical instruments you’d expect to see in any doctor’s office. Still, this one felt more luxurious.

There was also another door leading to an adjacent room.

Before I even sat down, I asked if he was Filip Nowak. He confirmed, though there was no doubt in my mind — he was the same man from the photo in my pocket.

“How can I help you?” Filip asked.

“Doctor, I have a problem, and I think only you can help me,” I replied.

“Alright, take a seat,” he said.

I sat down and immediately began my line of questioning.

“You have a daughter named Inertia, correct?”

“What?!” He stared at me, startled, as if witnessing something supernatural for the first time. Then he shifted into a defensive posture behind the desk.

“That’s right. Inertia, your only daughter. Where is she?”

“My daughter and my personal life have nothing to do with my work. I don’t see how that information could help you. Are you a friend of my daughter who hasn’t heard what happened?” he asked.

“What happened?”

“My daughter... has been in a coma for five years, since the accident,” he said slowly.

“What?!”

“My daughter is in good hands. Is that what you wanted to know?”

“I’m sorry, but do you recognize this phone?” I pulled the phone I had found on the train from my pocket and set it on the desk. I wasn’t breaking any rules by showing it; I just wanted to see his reaction and figure out if he was behind all this.

“I don’t recognize this phone.”

“Do you, by any chance—”

Before I could finish my question, the door to the adjacent room swung open. I turned my head and felt a sharp sting in my neck. Two men stood in the doorway, dressed entirely in black, one of them holding a weapon.

My first reaction was to reach for my neck, and there I felt a dart, the kind used to sedate wild animals.

My body collapsed backward, my head slumping to the side. I lost control of my movements but not my consciousness — I was trapped inside my own body.

“Hey, what are you doing?” Filip rose from his chair and stepped toward the man.

“We’re taking him. Don’t interfere,” one of the men said as he grabbed the phone from the desk.

No! Not the phone — it can’t happen. If I lose the phone, I’ll be back to square one.

I tried to fight against the paralysis, to force my body to move, but it was impossible. All I could do was dart my eyes frantically around the room.

“Rei, you’re coming with us,” the man said as he hoisted me onto his shoulder.

We went out the same door they had entered and headed for a smaller elevator just a few meters away.

I don’t think I had ever felt as defenseless or as vulnerable in my seventeen years of life. The fear was overwhelming, unlike anything I had ever experienced. Where were they taking me? Who were they? Were they going to do the same thing to me, send me to the future? Or were they planning to kill me and erase every trace?”

Slung over the man’s shoulder, I couldn’t see much of my surroundings. But I could hear the elevator descending to the third basement level. Through my narrow field of vision, I caught sight of another man waiting with a mobile stretcher. They laid me on it and strapped me down with mechanical precision.

The three men pushed me down a corridor and into an isolated room.

There they sat me down and taped my head to the chair with surgical tape. A few minutes later, another man entered the room and the other three left. This man looked like an elderly gentleman, with gray hair and a beard. He was of average height, but his posture and physique didn’t match his years. He looked like a young man trapped in an old body.

“Hello. I apologize for the aggressive approach, but you came to us at a very opportune moment. I’ve been needing that phone, but I couldn’t find a way to retrieve it without raising too much suspicion.”

I couldn’t respond, so the conversation unfolded as a monologue.

“Rei, has Inertia stopped contacting you as well?”

I looked at him, terrified — looking was all I could do in that moment.

“I’m worried too. I hope everything is fine with them, but I don’t know what’s happening with our connection. I need the phone to reestablish your link.”

With that, I could say without a doubt that this man was the true owner of the phone and the one behind all of this.

He glanced at a monitor in the room before turning back to me.

“Rei, calm down. Your heart rate is dangerously high; it needs to come down. I didn’t abduct you to harm you, quite the opposite. I’m deeply grateful to you. And again, I apologize for the rough way I had to bring you here.”

How did he expect me to calm down? I had no idea what this lunatic was capable of.

“Well, my name is Zeit.” He sat down in a chair and began dismantling the phone on a nearby table.

“Not that it matters much, since no one remembers me. But I think you need to know — I’m Zeit Nowak, the forgotten twin brother of Inertia Nowak.”

What?!

End of Report 25