Chapter Six

The old-fey

March 16. Friday. 5AM. 225 S.A.

Canton du Valais, Monthey General Hospital, Switzerland.

Enfer and Ignis came through the hospital doors, throwing them wide open. Causing some of the nurses circulating at the time to startle at the sudden appearance.

It was no wonder.

Enfer was a rather thin-looking male fey, with pronounced cheekbones and a goatee almost as white as his eyebrows and skin. He appeared to suffer from some sort of albinism, which even made his eyes look like two flaming yellow pupils. He wore a dark-colored light overcoat, and a white T-shirt, with black pants and black loafers and covered his head with a woolen cap.

From the lapel of his coat hung a badge, which had five stars engraved in high relief at the top. In the middle was a bearded lammergeier's head, on what looked like a mountain range. On the lower part only one word could be read: Pyrene.

Ignis, on the other hand, was a brown-skinned fey girl, with long ash-blond hair and yellow eyes, which seemed to flash with every glance. Her ears stood out because they were slightly longer than those of her companion. She wore a light blouse, with metal ornamented parts, with bracelets on her wrists and a metal shoulder pad on the left side, richly decorated with bas-reliefs. She wore black pants and shoes with metal parts also decorated. A badge, the same as Enfer's, was fastened to her pants.

They were both going fast, because they had been called hours before. And they would have arrived at the hospital sooner, except that Enfer wanted to talk to the witnesses as soon as possible.

Three of them were still frightened, and the fourth had not been able to testify because he was under the influence of alcohol. So they had to settle for the testimony of the two young women and one boy, and later, when he was sober, they could talk to the other witness involved.

 

The pair simply showed their badges at the reception desk and continued their journey, turning down one of the corridors towards an elevator, when they were stopped, by a white cylinder-shaped robot, with a semi-spherical head that smiled at them, projecting the smile on the photochromic film on its head.

"Good morning. Where are you headed?"

"Floor 5, ICU wing, room 4," Ignis said.

"They're expecting us," Enfer added.

The robot checked their badges, and through its system entered the secret fractal code of the badge. Almost instantly he was able to corroborate their identities and stepped aside, as the smile appeared in his head again.

"Have a good day, agents."

The elevator disc whisked them up in less than a second, and the two passed like a wind down the 5th floor corridor, heading for the Intensive Care Unit.

Ignis knocked softly on the glass door, drawing the attention of a doctor, who was talking to an Aesculapian-nurse type droid, in charge of intensive care. The doctor rushed to the door.

"Agents," greeted the doctor, with dark circles under his eyes, and looking like he had been on call all night. "I'm glad you've come. I didn't want to go home without first seeing you and seeing how you're going to proceed."

The two agents greeted him and he led them to a window that showed through to a secluded intensive care sector, which only seemed to have one patient at the moment.

"Is that him?" Ignis asked.

"Yes," the doctor nodded.

"Those kids weren't lying when they said he was really old," Enfer said.

"It's really a relief that you've arrived. I'm not quite sure how we can proceed with this patient. He got here at about eight o'clock at night, and the police have also been interested. Someone from the welfare sector came, but he's not in their database either. We thought he was a CotW, but he's not in the records either."

Through the window of the room they could see a really old body, which at that moment seemed to be resting with assisted respiration, inside a medical glass capsule. He had white hair, as well as a long white beard. He was too thin and it seemed that even the hospital gown he was wearing was too big for him.

"Is he having breathing trouble?" Enfer asked.

"No. The assisted breathing is just a precautionary measure. When he arrived, we thought we had to clean his lungs, because he had mud from head to toe. But we were even more surprised when we ran a non-invasive diagnostic test and found no mud, or any other substance, clogging his lungs. Although that was not the weirdest thing... well I guess you know if you read the report..."

"Can we take a closer look?" Ignis asked.

"Yes," replied the doctor, ushering them into the room.

Both Enfer and Ignis stood on either side of the capsule to better examine the old fey.

"Wow," Enfer said, examining his ears. "How is that possible?"

"Well, it's not uncommon, but we haven't seen an old fey show up in decades. At least that we know of," Ignis said, observing the old man's hands with his thick knuckles.

Here and there she could see that he had scar marks that blended into the wrinkles of the skin.

The old man's face was unremarkable, except for his wrinkles, but as far as Ignis could tell, he seemed to have certain Asian features. But he had a parchment-like skin that made it difficult to discern his age. He might have looked eighty years old, or perhaps a hundred years old in human time measures, though he was in a grim state. But if he was a fey that could change, although it certainly had been a long time since they had seen an old fey.

One of the characteristics that the fey had, at least all those that possessed a humanoid form, was that for some reason they were always youthful in appearance, ranging from eight or ten years old, to around thirty or late-thirty years old, with a mature appearance. In fact, for feys with humanoid characteristics, this was the majority range, comprising at least 85% of all humanoid feys.

There were too many theories as to why this could happen, and its connection to the Other Side. But the most accepted theory, was that originally the fey humanoids had been human first, before becoming fey. That could not be denied, because there was already proof of it. There were too many studies, and analyses, that could get to know where the human had come from, before becoming Fey.

This was done by performing anthropological and anatomical studies, as well as blood analysis, bone density, isotopic studies, and a whole variety of other studies, that could determine with an accuracy of 80% where the human that became a fey had come from.

The fey humanoids had been humans who, for some reason, had disappeared from the world. Their existence was completely erased, without leaving any trace behind. It was as if some strange DE mechanism rewrote a person's timeline, and they disappeared completely without leaving anything behind. They disappeared from the memory of their relatives, acquaintances and friends. All the papers, ID, photographs that linked them to the world disappeared. Nothing remained.

But the situation was different when they arrived. They came into the world with no memory of their previous life, nor where they had gone during all that time, and sometimes, some of them, came back with strange abilities.

But where the memory had disappeared, science intervened, and thanks to that it could be determined quite accurately where the human had lived before becoming a fey. Although, beyond that, there were other problems, such as that there were almost always strange cases, where there were studies that determined that there were lapses of hundreds of years, or that others had not even been born.

Even if a fey was found that seemed to come from a period of time of a few years, or a few tens of years, it did not mean that it could return to its family or relatives. The process of forgetting went in both directions. Even if a fey could be related to a certain family by blood, no one would remember it, and the fey in question would not remember that once belonged to a certain family either.

Different was the question for the Chaos children, pseudofeys or the so called H-fey, who were basically born from unions of feys and humans, but who acquired immortality at a certain age, that could enter in the same range that had stopped the age of their human parent before transforming into fey.

Beyond that, old-looking fey were a rarity and not common at all. That was the reason the case had come to their attention, and Pyrene's operations desk had sent two of their agents to take over the case.

Pyrene, an organization with jurisdiction over five European Union countries for the investigation of DEs, had agents in close contact with Euro-pol. This was the reason that Euro-pol almost immediately alerted the nearest Station to where the event had occurred.

"So he really is a fey?" sighed the doctor.

"Well at least he looks like one, although his ears are a bit smaller than usual," Enfer pointed out.

"Have you been unable to carry out any kind of internal study?" Ignis wondered.

"Only non-invasive with the scans. We really freaked out when we tried to draw blood and the extractor couldn't pass through his skin. We even tried with needles, but it didn't work, they broke when we tried to pierce the skin. Somehow the dermis hardens when we try to penetrate it. We couldn't even put a catheter in."

"He hasn't voided?"

"No. We haven't been able to give him IV fluids either. We've been hydrating him orally a little bit when he came in, but now..."

"What time did he go into coma?"

"Around dawn," the doctor stated.

Ignis looked at Enfer and snorted, putting her hands to her hips. "What do we do?"

"We have no way to treat him, if we can't get a more detailed analysis," the doctor explained.

"What does the scan analysis say?"

"Despite being in a coma, he has great brain activity, which may be why he fell into a coma. His entire brain looks like a Christmas tree. And of course there is this…this is what made us doubt whether we were dealing with a fey or some kind of metahuman mutation or maybe even a magician."

The doctor typed a few commands on the surface of the capsule, and a hologram of the old man's entire body popped up, where through the skin could be seen his organs and skeleton. "This is what scared us the most."

Ignis and Enfer looked confused for a moment, but he had already won their interest.

"What is this old man?" Ignis asked.

"That's what we wondered when we saw his organs and skeleton. We have treatments for over 156 different types of fey, we even have a veterinary wing for fey animals and try a few... but this is the first time we've seen it."

"This old man..." Ignis began.

"...He has no fey core in his heart," Enfer finished, looking astonished.

"We tried to look for it elsewhere but, sure enough. There is no core. Not to mention the organs and what about the skeleton?"

The hologram showed an anatomy that was human-shaped, but the organs, to a greater or lesser extent, seemed to differ quite a bit from those of the usual humans and fey humanoids. Perhaps it was an abnormal type, but the fact that it had no core really caught their attention.

That was another feature that differentiated the feys. All of them possessed a core near their heart, or at least almost all of them, which like the Fractus had organic and fractal characteristics, with a system of tendrils that used to coil around the heart. It was not the same fractal structure that was usually found in the lungs, nervous system, neuronal or coronary system, which is naturally present in all living beings.

The composition was something that remained a mystery because, although studies had been carried out, as soon as one wanted to study it in depth, it became fused with the coronary system of the heart, and did not pass as anything more than an anomalous structure in the heart. Once it was no longer studied, the structure changed again, exhibiting a nucleus shape that could vary in its structure, although it often seemed to keep certain polyhedric geometrical patterns. It had been given the name, somewhat jokingly, of the shy organ, since it seemed to hide when it was studied.

So the old man was much rarer because, although it was not possible to make detailed studies of the cores of the fey, it was possible with other methods to determine their shape and structure. But one that was not present even with such non-invasive studies was very rare.

His skeleton was different as well. The femurs seemed to have a different type of structure while the shoulder blades had a different shape as well. The spine also appeared to have a series of tiny protrusions that extended a few inches into the inner part of the body. It must be an abnormal fey type, although they could not be sure if he had any ability or not.

The doctor touched the head part of the hologram, and then expanded that part, and another part of the arm bones, until he enlarged them to a size almost as if he had put the bone under an electronic microscope. "See those notches in the bone? At first we thought it might be some kind of degenerative bone disease. But they are not localized to any one part of the body. They are all over the body and, from what you can see, it's as if they were produced by some kind of structure that at some point was attached to the bone."

"At some point?"

"Yes because we don't see residue of any kind now. It's as if every bone had some layer of some material that caused those nicks at some point, but whatever it was it's not present at the moment. It's a shame we can't do a biopsy to find out what's going on."

"What's that on the back?" Ignis asked. In the lower part of the hologram there was a darker portion in the lumbar area.

"The scan detects it as bruising. Apparently he has poor circulation in that part."

"The kids told us he couldn't move, and they couldn't get him to stand up. He has reflex on the legs?"

"Minimal, from what we've been able to observe."

"They also said he's blind. Is that true?"

"Yes, apparently he's been blind since birth, has complete pupillary discoloration, compatible with congenital cataract."

"Blind, with limited mobility, and fey..." Ignis sighed.

The three looked at the capsule not quite sure what to say.

"Strange fey indeed," Enfer snorted, "but no stranger than others we've already observed."

"You people haven't detected him?"

"I started running the recon program as soon as I entered the room and no. It's not in the Pyrene database, or any of the known agencies."

"Our satellites haven't detected any MAP emissions where he appeared either," Ignis continued.

"So is it possible that he has been hidden all this time?" the doctor asked.

"We don't know. We are collaborating with local forces to get more information, but so far nothing has come up. There are no reports of him in any agency."

"If he really is a fey, it's like it's a bad joke,” the doctor said in a heavy tone “I mean what kind of immortality can have someone who is transformed into a fey with such a weak body?"

"We don't know if he's weak or not yet," Enfer admitted.

"You people have the authority now. I don't know what you want to do," the doctor said.

Enfer pursed his lips into a grimace and looked at his companion. "Shall we move him?"

"I think it would be best," Ingis said. "We have a near facility on the French side, where they can study him and maybe help him if he regains consciousness."

The doctor seemed genuinely relieved, even though he didn't say anything.

"Do you think we can move him upstairs, to the air-port for transfer? We'll return the capsule when we switch him to one of ours," Enfer suggested.

"Sure. No problem," nodded the doctor.

He continued to inform them of the little they had learned from the studies, and that if he regained consciousness they would have to send a report to the hospital as well. There was a possibility that the old man might become a new discovery, and for the doctor it was a case worth keeping an eye on as it developed. He didn't like having to leave patients like that, but given the circumstances he had no choice but to leave the task to Pyrene, who had more experience dealing with feys. If the two agents had delayed it was likely that someone from Nevermore would have arrived and it would have turned into a jurisdictional nightmare, so the doctor was glad at that point that everything had gone smoothly.

Filling out all the forms and preparing for the transfer took no more than twenty minutes, while two droids took care of carrying the old man in the capsule another fifteen floors up to the roof, where they waited for Pyrene's transfer ship, a light Delta-TAB.

The ship did not take long. Both of them were already worrying about what could happen and they called for the transfer beforehand. At least until they were sure that the old man had not regained consciousness, and gave no explanation as to where he had come from, they would have to move him to be cared for in better facilities suitable for feys.

A fey of unknown origin and without a core should bring new possibilities that had not been contemplated in the already vast medical and biological encyclopedias concerning feys and their different types.

Enfer watched as two of Pyrene's medical staff loaded the capsule into the ship and prepared to leave for the Grenoble station on the French side, where they had better medical equipment for feys. He and Ignis would have to stay behind, to go to the police and fill out more forms in person for the transfer of jurisdiction, as well as make further inquiries in the area, to see if no one had seen the old man before.

"You've got to hand it to that doctor, he was right," Ignis said, arms folded as she watched the ship soar through the skies.

"About what?"

"What kind of son of a bitch universe grants you something like immortality with a body so old and with so many problems?"

"Yeah, well. It's not like we have a choice as to whether we want an ability or not when we come back to earth."

"Have you ever thought that we do?"

"What? if we had a choice?"

"Well, none of us remember anything about the Other Side. Have you ever wondered what would happen if we actually chose the Other Side, and our mind is wiped when we cross over?"

"Well... if that's the case, I must tell you that my ability is really useful in winter," Enfer said and took off his cap.

The moment he lifted the cloth from his head his entire head burst into flames. His hair was fire.

Enfer ran his hands over his head, without burning as if he was scratching his flaming scalp.

"Too bad I don't have any sausages now."

"My head's not for cooking your breakfast…"

"You said it yourself, it's useful," Ignis said smiling.

"Fuck you," Enfer said, pulling out a cigarette which, when he put it in his mouth, ignited on its own as if by magic.

Just a few meters away the hospital nurse droids looked at him as if at any moment they were going to throw him off the roof.

The no smoking sign was only a few meters away from him.