Chapter 369: Under the Hood

The doctor touches my shoulder.

"Sir, I need you to step back so we can finish the assessment."

"I’M WITH HER!"

My voice crosses the room before I can control the volume.

The man takes his hand away and stares at me. One of the nurses stops what she was doing at the gurney, while the other checks the badge clipped to my jacket.

I realize what I just did.

I take a breath.

"I’m the registered companion. I just need to stay near her."

"And we need to work, Mr... Sands?" the doctor answers, apparently knowing my name now. "You can stay, as long as you don’t interfere with the procedures."

I nod and move back to the head of the gurney.

Rhayne follows the exchange with her eyes. She’s more awake than she was a few minutes ago, though she still has trouble keeping her head in the same position. Her fingers are still between mine, and she squeezes my hand when she realizes I’m not planning to leave.

"I’m here," I say, quieter.

The doctor goes back to the assessment.

One nurse brings a small light near her eyes, checking pupil response. The other monitors vitals and adjusts the sensors attached to her chest and arms. Rhayne follows instructions with a delay, blinking when they ask her to track a point of light or turn her face.

"Do you know where you are?" the doctor asks.

She takes a while to answer.

"Earth..."

"That’s right. Can you tell me your name?"

"Rhayne... Vesper."

"Good. Now squeeze my hand."

The nurse offers her fingers.

Rhayne manages to close hers around them, but the effort shows on her face. When the nurse pulls her hand away, Rhayne’s fingers stay curled for a few seconds before relaxing onto the blanket.

The doctor moves to the foot of the gurney.

"Let’s check your legs. Try to lift the right one."

Rhayne looks down.

Her knee tightens slightly under the fabric.

Nothing beyond that.

She tries again, frowning, until the doctor puts a hand over the blanket.

"That’s all right. Don’t force it."

Rhayne turns her face toward me.

I know that look.

The body knows what it has to do. The head sends the command, but the answer arrives weak and late, as though someone put an enormous distance between the two.

"Den..."

"I know."

I squeeze her hand.

"I’ve been in this situation. Let them finish."

She nods, though she keeps watching her own legs.

The rest of the assessment takes a few minutes. Reflexes, sensitivity, coordination, muscular response. Rhayne improves in small steps, getting back the ability to follow questions without having to gather all of her attention to answer them. She even manages to raise an arm on her own, but gives up before it reaches her face.

The nurse settles the limb onto the blanket and adjusts the pillow.

The doctor checks the results.

"Vitals are stabilizing. Neurological response is satisfactory as well. I don’t see any indication of an acute complication at this point, but she’s going to need assisted recovery and physical therapy."

"How long?" I ask.

He looks over the Diving history.

"That depends on her response to treatment. The length of submersion is a significant factor."

Two years in Thirstfall.

About eight months on Earth.

A long stretch for a body kept inside a tank, even with all the preservation systems working properly.

"You know a Diver only gets ninety-six hours," I say.

The doctor looks up.

"Of course I know how it works, but I’m not the one who writes the biological laws of this world."

"Then you also know there are unconventional treatments."

"Look, Mr. Sands, I just can’t promise you she’ll walk out of here in four days."

He shows me the recovery plan on the terminal. Neuromuscular stimulation, assisted sessions, motor follow-up, and an evaluation before discharge.

The cost appears at the bottom.

[Assisted Recovery Program]

[Cost: 3,000 GNC]

For someone from District 4, that could mean months of a family’s expenses.

I look at Rhayne.

She’s listening. When she sees the number, she drops her eyes to the blanket.

"Den, I—"

"Leave it to me."

The doctor continues.

"The program can accelerate functional recovery, but continuity is essential. She’ll dive again before finishing rehabilitation, and we’ll have to reassess her condition at the next Reentry."

I know the procedure.

In my first life, after my own first return, I went through something similar. I barely got any time with my family. Most of those days disappeared into appointments, assisted exercises, and attempts to make my legs hold their own weight, and every bit of money I brought to Earth simply vanished and still left me in debt to the bank.

When I had to go back to Thirstfall, I hadn’t recovered everything yet.

I started organizing my later returns around the treatment. I needed to get another Pearl, come back to Earth, pick up where I’d left off, and try to preserve the progress between one visit and the next.

Every Reentry seemed to start with the same question: how much of the recovery was still left?

Rhayne waited so long to come back. Now she could spend her ninety-six hours between a gurney and a rehabilitation room, knowing she’d have to earn another chance at returning in order to continue.

Maybe three of them. Maybe six. Depending on how her body responds.

Without a healer, the three thousand GNC was an understandable cost. The alternative took time, and time was exactly the resource Divers could never buy in sufficient quantity on Earth.

The doctor waits for my answer.

"Leave me the estimate," I say. "And continue with the standard care. I want to talk to someone before I authorize the full package."

He agrees and attaches the document to Rhayne’s record.

Rhayne looks at me, apparently wanting to ask something, but the effort of keeping her eyes open is already charging her for it.

I move to the head of the gurney.

"Hey."

She looks at me.

"I’m going to take care of a few things. You need to rest, and I need to get you some clothes."

Rhayne looks at the blanket covering her.

The tank preserves the body. It doesn’t provide a wardrobe.

She did the Dive in her underwear and now has nothing suitable to leave here in. Even if there were some old piece stored with her belongings, I’d rather get her something clean and comfortable.

"You’ll come back?" she asks.

There’s a small hesitation in her voice.

I run my thumb over her fingers.

"I’m right outside."

Rhayne nods.

"Okay..."

She closes her eyes for a few seconds.

I let go of her hand carefully and leave the team to finish.

At reception, I take my phone out of my pocket before going back to the desk.

The investment app with the Sands Ventures holdings is still installed exactly where I left it.

I open the account.

The automatic orders I set before the last Dive did part of the work. The Hydracore sale appears in the history as executed, the value settled and available. The other positions are still listed in the portfolio, along with the notifications that piled up while I was gone.

I look at it for a moment.

The available balance solves my immediate problem without my having to touch the fifty thousand GNC I handed my mother.

I put the phone away and go up to the attendant.

She recognizes me.

"How is Ms. Vesper?"

"Improving. The doctors are still with her. I need some help."

"Of course."

"Do you keep a spare change of clothes in your locker?"

The woman blinks.

"Sorry?"

"Pants, a shirt. Anything casual, clean, and comfortable."

"Mr. Sands, there’s a commercial area two streets from here. I can point you—"

"I don’t have time to go there."

I rest a hand on the counter.

"Two hundred and fifty GNC for whatever change you’ve got put away."

She stares at me.

The number gets her attention.

A simple set of casual clothes would cost around fifty GNC. I’m offering almost five times that, but I have no intention of spending half an hour looking for a store and picking out pieces.

The attendant glances discreetly toward the administrative area.

I know she has spare clothes.

Anyone who works in a clinical center learns early to keep a change in their locker. Lockdowns aren’t as frequent as the news makes them sound, but they happen. A criminal Diver trying to break into a transfer wing, rival guilds looking for an item that just crossed over, someone convinced that the contents of a quantum drawer belong to him.

The clinics close their doors.

Staff stay inside until security clears the building.

Some employees have gone entire days without being able to go home.

"I have pants and a shirt," she says finally. "But they might not fit her."

"We can try."

"Two hundred and fifty, really?"

"Really."

She checks the terminal, confirms someone can cover her post for a few minutes, and disappears through a side door.

She comes back with a fabric bag.

Inside there’s a comfortable pair of black pants, a light-colored shirt, and something warm folded on top.

"The jacket’s old," she explains. "I was going to take it home today."

"Is it clean?"

She looks offended.

"Of course."

"Then it’s perfect."

I make the transfer.

The confirmation appears on her terminal.

The attendant looks at the amount, then hands me the bag.

"I hope your friend gets better soon."

"Thank you."

I’m closing the app when the entrance door opens behind me.

A woman crosses the lobby.

At first I only notice because her appearance draws the attention of a few people in the room.

Her black cargo pants have wide pockets and metal chains hanging near the waist. A white crop top leaves part of her tattoos visible, and others climb her arms until they disappear under the fabric. Her hair is black, straight, and long enough to reach her back.

She has the look of someone I’d expect to find in a nightlife district, maybe leaving a show or walking with a band.

Even so, she comes into the clinic at an unhurried pace.

She takes in the corridors without rushing, finds the reception desk, and then looks directly at me.

The woman comes over.

"Are you Mr. Sands?"

I frown.

"I am. Do we know each other?"

She stops in front of me.

There are tattoos near her collarbone and a small set of chains attached to her pants. Her hair falls over her shoulders when she tilts her head slightly.

But the eyes...

I stare at them.

That calm.

The way she watches me without showing any need to fill the silence.

I know that expression.

I know it very well.

"Zhang... Xi?!"

She smiles shyly.

"Hi..."

My eyes drop to the tattooed arms.

Then to the clothes.

Back to her face.

"Son of a bitch."

Her smile grows a little.

The monk I know in Thirstfall wears a grey hooded tunic. Her head is shaved, her posture is austere, and there’s an almost irritating serenity in the way she faces situations that would make other people lose control.

The woman in front of me carries all of that serenity.

The rest looks like it was chosen by someone who has never heard of monastic vows.

"I knew Thirstfall shapes our appearance according to the image we believe belongs to us," I say. "But I admit I wasn’t prepared for this."

Zhang glances briefly at her own clothes.

"Are you surprised?"

"I’m trying to work out where you hid the hood."

She lets out a low laugh.

’Same laugh.’

Even that is identical. There’s no mistaking it.

"You look pretty different too," she says.

"I hope my difference is a little less traumatic."

Zhang shakes her head, smiling.

"Just your face... it looks more like a man’s now. It suits you."

I keep studying her face.

A Diver’s appearance in Thirstfall says something about how they recognize themselves. On Earth, the body tells another part of the story, shaped by the life they actually had before entering the tank.

Rhayne is exactly identical in Thirstfall.

But for the first time, I’m standing in front of this part of Zhang Xi, and it surprised me.

I don’t know where the tattoos came from.

Or what led her to choose those clothes.

And honestly, now I’m very curious.

But when our eyes met, I recognized the woman who crossed the dungeon with us without needing any explanation.

"You look like a different person," I say. "But I recognized you the second I looked straight at your eyes. That quiet way of yours is still in there."

Zhang takes the observation with a calm smile.

"I’m glad."

She looks at the bag in my hand.

"Rhayne?"

I go straight back to the subject.

"She’s awake. Stable, but the recovery is going to be complicated. The doctors are still finishing the assessment."

Zhang gets more focused.

"Was she able to speak?"

"Yes. She recognized my face, answered the questions. Her movement is very limited."

"I see."

I hold up the bag.

"I went to get clothes while they worked."

She looks at the fabric, then at me.

The small smile comes back.

"You thought of that? That’s thoughtful."

"Somebody had to, right?"

Zhang brings a hand to the counter.

"Can we see her?"

"Let’s get you registered first."

The attendant studies Zhang when we come back over.

It seems to take her a few seconds to connect that woman to the request I’m making.

"I need to add a second companion to Rhayne Vesper’s record," I say. "She’s a support Diver."

Zhang offers her hand to the reader.

The terminal recognizes her and opens her identification.

The attendant checks the data, confirms the Diving registration, and asks for a supplementary declaration for access to the recovery section.

"Do you hold a support specialization in Thirstfall?"

"I do," Zhang answers calmly.

"Skill use inside the clinic requires medical authorization. I can register you as a companion and forward your identification to the responsible team."

"That’s fine."

Zhang fills out the form.

The attendant prints another badge and hands it over.

"Access to room B-12 and the adjacent recovery section, subject to team clearance. Mr. Sands already knows the way."

"I know it far too well," I answer.

She smiles and doesn’t comment.

We go back to the elevator.

Zhang stays beside me while we descend. The reflection in the metal doors gives me another chance to look at her Earth appearance.

The tattoos.

The chains.

The long hair.

Then she folds her hands in front of her body while she waits for us to reach the lower level.

The gesture is so familiar that I can almost see the grey tunic over her shoulders.

The elevator stops.

We follow the blue markings.

"Was she frightened when she woke up?" Zhang asks.

I think about Rhayne’s small smile.

About the hand that tried to reach mine and couldn’t.

"I think she was. But she was better by the time I left."

Zhang nods.

"We’ll take care of her."

We reach the door of the recovery section.

I hold the badge to the reader. The system checks both authorizations, confirms the medical clearance, and the light turns green.

I look at Zhang.

"She’s awake, but don’t expect her to be able to talk much."

"That’s all right."

I push the door open, and we go in together.