"Be Careful What You Wish For..." Part 3 He woke in a dream. He floated along in the nothingness of eternity. The images passed before his eyes that were meaningless. He lived in a world of pain, that seemed unending. Then he stopped moving. He looked around and it looked as though he was trapped in a mine shaft. The walls surrounding him were so dark that it looked as though you could loose yourself in them. Shards of light were seemingly embedded into the wall and they shone weakly. Above him, from a distance of what seemed several miles, two bright pinpoints of blue light shone pulling him up. The Chief blinked. Everything came into focus. He wasn’t trapped in a mine shaft, a young lady was looking over him. Her hair was long and dark and it had fallen forward partially shading a searing sterile light shining above him. The pinpoints of light were he astonishing blue eyes. ‘Why is she so sad?’ the Chief thought, ‘And why does she seem so familiar?’ "We can do this now or we can wait," commented a far away woman’s voice "It will be far more painful now but...." "I just want him back to normal ASAP," stated the Lady coldly, "Can you do that without my help?" The Chief was trying to pay attention but he was failing. He had a massive headache that made his entire body ache. It even hurt when he blinked. Pain gradually took the place of conscious thought and it was a while before he could understand anything that was going on. Carmen still couldn’t believe it. The Chief was human! Actually, if you wanted to get technical, he was trapped in a humanistic droid. But it was still the closest he had ever come to the real thing. But even thought was amazing, it was getting annoying fast. He had been talking about flying chocolate doughnuts for an hour before switching over to talking in binary code. Even though Sara was working frantically to get her equipment ready for pulling the Chief out, Carmen was still incredibly angry at her. She wanted to fire her, punch her and throw her out of a ten story window at the same time but she defiantly had no time to show it. The only thing she thought about was that she needed to get the Chief out of there as fast as possible. She looked at him again. He still looked like he was in incredible pain and she was getting very annoyed and worried that she couldn’t do a thing about it. "We’re ready," Sara finally told Carmen "But I’m telling this is going to hurt him more than it’s going to help him." Carmen ignored her. "Chief, listen. I know it’s probably going to hurt, but you’ve got to cooperate with us on this one. We’re going to pull you out and temporally place you in VILE’s Data banks. Do you understand?" "101010010100101010111010101010011101," said the Chief sympathetically. The shock hit the Chief's body like a ton of bricks and he screamed harder and longer than he had before. The restraints on the table began to bend and twist as he desperately tried to pull away. Carmen empatheticly felt every jolt and wave of pain that he was given until she couldn’t stand it any longer. "Turn it off! Can you hear me Sara? Turn it all off!" she screamed over the noise. Sara quickly turned the machines off and the Chief fell back unconscious on the operating table. Sara rushed over and checked the Chief's Onbody computer. "He’s OK, but I would seriously consider waiting this time." "I hate to say it, but I agree with you on this one. How long do we have?" Sara glanced at her watch. "A little over 46 hours. He’s got plenty of time." "All right. I’ll come back in an hour to check on him. Until then, you and I are going to have to talk..." The next thing the Chief could understand was that the Lady was looking at him again. The light had been dimmed and his hands were now free, but the pain in his neck hadn’t died down. And he was still curious about who she was. ‘Is she my sister?’ he wondered ‘Do I work for her? Is she my guardian angel?’ he decided to try the last one. "Are you my guardian angel?" he asked. His voice sounded so far away! The Lady smiled. "Sort of. How are you holding up?" "My wrists hurt," the Chief told her, even though he knew it wasn’t the most intelligent thing he could have said, but it was a heck of lot better than, ‘I’m fine, and you?’ The Lady took one of his arms and rubbed the wrist. As the feeling began to return in his arm the Chief grew more curious about who she was. ‘She’s not my wife because there’s no ring on her finger and she’s too old to be my daughter, but somehow I feel that we’re related. Maybe I should just ASK her...’ "Excuse me.........I know this is going to be a bizarre question .........but who are you?......I mean......I know you........but how do I know you?" "Sara thought this might happen. You’re suffering from temporary amnesia. You’ll remember in time, and until you do I’ll be right here." "Will I be in any more pain?" "Yes, but not for a while yet." "That’s good." The Chief tried to shift his neck but the movement was so painful it brought tears to his eyes. The Lady looked concerned. "Don’t try to move around so much. Do you want an ice pack for your neck?" "It wouldn’t hurt to try...would it?" The Lady laughed, "No, of course not! Hang on..." The Chief gingerly tinted his head and saw the Lady walk up to a small freezer, hunt around for something, then come back with a flat blue block. She lifted the Chief’s head up and placed the block at the base of his skull. A wonderful feeling flooded his bruised senses. The pain that had seemed as unstoppable as molten fire cooled, hardened, and then blew away like sand in a desert storm. "Is that better?" she asked. "Much! Thank you. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this sooner." "Maybe....because you’ve never tried it....ever?" offered the Lady uncomfortably. The Chief was confused. "Does the word ‘ACME’ mean anything to you?" "Not really." "It will," she told him mysteriously. The Chief was now really confused. "What are you talking about?" The Lady sighed "Let me put it this way: Have you ever felt pain, physical pain, like this before? Can you remember any other time you have felt even mildly like this?" "Well....Not pain like this! Not even something mildly similar to this! Of course I remember being happy, sad, lonely, mad, annoyed.......annoyed," He looked her in the eye. "I was annoyed with you about saying something before I got knocked out." "Yes! What else do you remember?" "Well you were trying to apologize....it was something trivial...and you were trying to find a way to explain yourself when everything went black....Black...you wear black gloves when you work! .....I can’t remember what you do for a living yet but you wear black gloves and some kind of old fashioned hat that you wear at an angle.....and you almost never pull your hair back.....which I think is good, you look better...." "Yes..." "And there are two names that are very important to me...neither is yours....one is a girls name that has to do with a plant.....the other is an old-fashioned boys name...I can’t remember if it begins with an X or a Z." "Yes. What else do you remember?" "I........I.........nothing." "Don’t worry. As I said before, it’ll all come back in time." The Chief yawned, "Well at least I know that much. Say, do you know how long I was asleep?" "A little over an hour, why?" "Well, If I slept that long, I shouldn’t be tired. Can I get up and move around a little?" "An hour isn’t long. In fact if you’re still sleepy you could take a nap." "Well in that case, I’ll consider it if you tell me what else will be done to me while I’m sleeping." The Lady laughed "Nothing will be removed or attached or modified while you’re asleep. I swear it. Do you want a blanket?" "All right." The Lady covered him with a slightly scratchy gray blanket, and with some hesitation kissed him on the forehead. "I’ll be right here until you wake up." She told him as she sat down on a nearby chair. The Chief began to get sleepy. "Thank you....you know....I still don’t remember your name..." "It’s Carmen." "Carmen....that’s a lovely name...it suits you..." remarked the Chief as he fell asleep. As Carmen watched the Chief sleep she couldn’t help feeling sad. The only time in what could be considered his life that he was even remotely close to being human, and he had to spend several hours of it trying to sleep off the damage she had done. Maybe she could make it up to him somehow. What would he have done with the time that he was now sleeping away? Well he had always wanted to go on a roller-coaster, taste pizza, drive a car...Carmen pushed that thought away. She was defiantly not going to let him drive. But there were other things she could show him, he had wanted to see what it was like to swim in the ocean, stand on top of the Empire State Building, to type.... Carmen started making a mental list of all the things she had heard him talk about over the years. Maybe she could show him a piece of humanity before he had to go back into the world of microchips and data banks.... There was a sharp knock on the door. "Boss? Are you in there?" "Yes, what is it?" "It’s those two ACME detectives. No one can figure out how they hooked on to our frequency, but they made sure we can’t kick them out. They’re asking for you and if looks could kill..." "All right, hang on," she called. She took a brief glance at the Chief. She had promised that she would stay until he woke up but if she didn’t calm Zack and Ivy down things could get messy. She replaced her hat and gloves and glanced again. "Can you stay here until I get back?" She asked him under her breath. "Mmnn," he said in his sleep which really could have meant anything. Carmen took that as a maybe and exited the lab. "How long have they been waiting?" "Just a few minutes." "Good." She turned to the henchman. "Listen, while I go clear this up, I need for you to guard this hallway." "This hallway?" "Yes, I think I know what they’re mad about. And that thing is behind one of those doors and I don’t want it to get damaged. Got it?" "Hey I don’t want them to get any madder than they already are! I’ll watch out for you, just please get up there!" The Chief dreamed he was running on a ribbon of light in a cold sea of darkness. He didn’t know where he was going and he was getting tired but he didn’t stop running. He ran until he found himself at the edge of a pit of light. He jumped. The Chief woke up and completely remembered who he was.....for a few seconds. "I’m.....I’m....," he stuttered trying to hold on to the memory. It faded away anyway. "Augh!!!....I had it! I knew who I was! I can’t believe that I lost it again!" he exclaimed. ".........well....... at least I know it’s there." He reassured himself. He sat up and looked around. The rooms lights had been dimmed and the ice pack Carmen had given him had been replaced with a pillow. The headache had dulled and he could move without being in intense pain. The Lady...Carmen...wasn’t here. "So much for keeping her promises." He remarked to the room, "I wonder if that was what I was angry about." He felt stiff and he really needed to walk around. ‘It probably wouldn’t hurt to pace around a little to get the blood flowing in my legs.’ He reasoned. So after testing his legs he swung them off the table and jumped onto the floor. Almost instantaneously his legs collapsed under him, and he found himself on the floor. "I know that’s not supposed to happen." He reasoned. "Maybe if I used the table as leverage...and I hook my arms over the..and slowly put one foot....then the other..." he told himself as he manuvered his awkard new limbs. After a few twists and a lot of turns he ended up back on the operating table. "Okay....let’s try this one more time..." To be continued...