The Infirmary was a place of service. That was the official reason he was there. Elias had put his name on the rota for contemplative service, an act of humility that involved sitting with the Oracles. The station’s leadership encouraged it. They said it was a reminder of the grace required to hear the Sum and remain whole. Elias knew it was a chance to study the wreckage. He had a new purpose, and it required him to walk through the boneyard of the old one. He had to see the cost of their faith up close.
He entered the ward. The door slid shut behind him, and the familiar, station-wide Equilibrium Hum was replaced by a quieter, more specific set of sounds. The soft, rhythmic puffing of ventilators. The low, electronic chime of a biometric monitor flagging a minor deviation. The air smelled clean, too clean, a sterile blend of antiseptic and recycled oxygen that failed to cover a faint, underlying scent of sickness and sweat. The walls were the same sterile white as his cell, but here the color felt different. It was the white of surrender.
He saw eight of them. Eight bodies in eight beds, arranged in a neat, clinical circle. The Oracles. They were the station’s broken saints, the listeners who had heard too much, or perhaps had listened too well. Most were perfectly still, their heads lolled to one side, a thin line of drool tracing a path from the corner of a mouth to the crisp white pillowcase. Their eyes were open but saw nothing. They were statues of men who had been hollowed out. He thought of the Cracked Slate hidden in his wall, its fractured screen a perfect map of what had happened to these minds.
One of them was different. In the bed to his left, a man was mumbling. His name was Brother Simon. Elias knew this from the chart at the foot of his bed. Unlike the others, Simon was not a placid ruin. He was a leaking vessel. A quiet, continuous stream of words trickled from him, a sound like dry leaves skittering across pavement. Elias moved from the entrance toward the far side of the room, his path taking him closer to Simon’s bed. He kept his head bowed, affecting the posture of a reverent novitiate.
He settled onto a small stool beside the bed, about an arm’s length away. He was now a part of the scene, another quiet figure in the white room. He folded his hands in his lap and listened.
— Lost the car keys in ’78, — Simon whispered. The words were faint, a dry rustle in his throat. There was no emotion in them, no memory. Just the sounds. — She smiled.
Elias felt a cold prickle on his neck. The words were nonsense. They were the ravings of a mind shattered by the psychic gravity of a trillion souls. That was the doctrine. That was the comforting story. But Elias had held Korbin’s slate. He had heard the sobbing woman and the soldier’s curse. He knew the texture of the raw Sum. It was not a divine chorus. It was a junkyard of moments, each one specific, each one real.
— North pier, page twenty, — Simon mumbled, his head twitching on the pillow.
The phrase was too precise. Madness was a storm, a chaos of disconnected feelings. It wasn’t a string of numbers. It wasn’t a page reference. This was something else. This wasn’t noise. It was signal. A very, very faint signal buried in the static of a broken man. Elias’s skepticism, the very thing that made him an anomaly, was now his most valuable tool. He refused to dismiss it.
He had to be sure. He had to collect it.
He reached into the sleeve of his tunic, his movements slow and deliberate. He pulled out his personal datapad, a simple device for notes and schedules. He angled his body away from the ward’s central observation desk, shielding the screen with his own shadow. His heart hammered against his ribs. This was a violation. He was treating a holy Oracle like a data source. The price of this choice was his own standing, his own safety. If caught, he would be seen as a ghoul.
He activated the audio recorder. A tiny red icon appeared in the corner of the screen. He set a timer in his head. He would give it five minutes. He held the datapad in his lap, the microphone aimed at Simon’s whispering mouth.
— The rain smelled like wet asphalt, — Simon said, his voice unchanging. — Always late. Always.
Elias listened, his entire being focused on the stream of broken phrases. He was no longer a novitiate in contemplation. He was a scientist in the field. A new hypothesis began to form in his mind, crystallizing out of the cold facts. Simon wasn't mad. He was a radio. His mind had been shattered, his own personality erased, but the receiver was still on. He was picking up fragments from the Sum and re-broadcasting them, raw and unedited. He was a living archive. A human version of the Cracked Slate.
The thought was so clear, so powerful, that he almost missed the sound of soft-soled shoes approaching from behind.
— Finding your peace in their silence, novitiate?
Elias flinched. He quickly blanked the datapad’s screen and slipped it back into his sleeve. He turned to see a medical orderly standing over him, a tall, thin man with a tired, impassive face. The orderly’s eyes flickered from Elias to the mumbling form of Brother Simon.
— He is rarely silent, — Elias said, his voice steady. He forced himself to meet the man’s gaze.
— No, — the orderly agreed, a hint of something that might have been pity in his voice. — He is the exception. The others find their peace. He just finds more words.
The orderly made a small adjustment to Simon’s blanket, his movements practiced and detached. He was just another piece of machinery in this quiet, humming room. He was tidying the saints.
— You are new, — the orderly stated, not a question.
— Yes, — Elias said.
— Many new ones come here. They think it is a test of their strength. To sit with the void and not fall in. It is not a test. It is a preview.
The orderly looked at Elias then, a long, searching gaze. Elias felt the weight of the datapad in his sleeve, a small, warm square of treason against his skin. He held the man’s gaze, his face a mask of placid contemplation. He feigned the very emptiness the Cognitive Anchor was supposed to provide.
The orderly gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod and moved on to the next bed. The moment of danger passed. Elias let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. He had his recording. He had his five minutes of raw, unfiltered history spoken by a ghost.
The low hum of the biometric monitor was a steady, indifferent pulse. The air carried the clean, antiseptic smell of recycled oxygen and sterilizing agents.
He had to see if the dead man's slate held the same ghosts as the Oracle.
