Allaying Alideya (2)

Alideya was going crazy and Cal didn't know how to help her.

Cal remembered back to this morning, when the Fosters came to his door. They looked more like they were there to beat him then give him any kind of news. There's been an accident at the factory, please have your parents report to Saint Felia's Hospital, Wing B as soon as they return home. The curt thank you at the end was like a lash across his face. The eerie politeness meant one thing, something terrible had happened.

He had pleaded for more information, but the men gave him no further answers as they walked down the cobbled path and back to their posts. They didn't care what happened to some seventeen year old girl, they weren't programmed to. Fear placing careful lines across his face, Cal turned back into the house.

He began scrawling out a note to his parents explaining what had happened before leaving both of his parents messages with as calm a voice as he could. Then he ran. Bursting into the B wing of Saint Felia's Hospital, poorly named for Felia was anything but a saint, Cal made his way to the nurse’s station.

"Yes, I'm looking for Alideya Solaya, she's my sister," he slid the robotic woman his identification chip.

"Identification confirmed. Calaech Solaya, Maintenance Worker at Warehouse 4B."

"Yes, yes, please where is she?" he asked.

"She is residing just down the hall, room 58."

The robotic voice made him shiver. The doctors in the hospitals were still mainly human, but the nurses were all robotic. He gathered himself and walked down the long hallway, passing door after door until he found himself planted in front of room 58. It began to sink in for Cal. He hadn't expected to be let in by the nurse, not unless his sister really was involved in something.

He turned the knob of the door; heart pounding, the sound of rushing blood filled his ears. It could be anything from a cut to something that would malform and make Alideya maimed for the rest of her life. When he made his way to her bedside he looked over his sister's still body.

He forced a smile and pulled a chair next to her bedside trying to figure out what had happened. "Hey Ali, how are you doing?"

"It was the arm you know. Never needed it anyway."

"What happened?"

Alideya stared at him and turned her head to the side, that's when he saw it. Her arm was missing. With shaking hands he touched her shoulder, the empty space just below it nearly causing him to lose his temper.

How could they have let such a fight happen. Fosters were made to prevent these sort of things, why didn't they step in. He knew the layout of the Factory one foster for every two workers. You couldn't get away with much and certainly not any type of brawl that would land your arm into gears.

"The moon tells me things. It tells me of death. It tells me of how mother is wrong. So very wrong when she says there is still hope," she paused, "Cal, the moon told me these things so it must be true."

"I know, I know."

He leaned forward and kissed her forehead, he couldn't bear to look at the smile across her face it was forced, perpetual--another side effect of the drugs. Just like the delusions and rambling, at least she was chipper.

"This house has no windows. Where are the windows, Cal?"

"We're not in a house, Ali. We're in the hospital."

Alideya slurred out a few more word, but Cal couldn't make them out. He rested his hand on hers, eyes flickering to her then to the doorway, waiting for his parents to get there.
"I did it on purpose," she said.

"You what?"

"There is unity, there is peace. Can I have some glasses, my vision's all blurry."

"What did you say, Ali."

"I got into the fight on purpose, silly."