Bridger: a Dystopian Serial

The Ring Planet

Greta Erwell broke her long stride just long enough to run her hands over her chin-length grey hair and straighten her jacket before she burst into the infirmary.

You know, I had hoped to have an hour to drink a cup of coffee and just... put my feet up.

Her meeting with the higher ups had not gone anywhere near well. She could still feel the sting of getting ripped a new one after she'd told them that the last round of fission experiments had failed.

Smile at me, Doctor, and everything will be fine.

Erwell pushed open the door.

Seth and the security woman stood facing each other, both with arms crossed. They looked up. The doctor's handsome face was tight.

"Ah, Char. You're here too," Erwell said. "What have we got?"

Seth took a step over and slid open the curtain around one of the beds.

Erwell leaned in over the bed. The man was at least six and a half feet tall, flagpole-thin. His skin was so pale that she could see bluish veins beneath the surface, like grass in muddy water. The only colour on him was short, silky black hair.

"Okay," she said.

"So," Char began, glancing at the doctor. "This fellow told Seth quite the story."

"Oh?" Seth, was it? She'd worked with him for a year now and he was still Dr. Thompson.

Seth cleared his throat. "He claims to have come from another world through what he calls a 'bridge.'" He made air quotes.

Erwell raised both eyebrows. "Do go on. What else did he say?"

Seth smiled wryly. "His name is Venn. He is a Na'odani from the ring-world of Nao, and apparently these bridges form where the multiple universes touch." He took a deep breath. "With the aid of some kind of metal or stone thingy, they're able to pass through the bridges into other worlds."

"All right," Erwell drawled. "And he came here why?"

"He was fleeing these creatures called... Kaa."

"Kaa." Erwell nodded slowly. "Hmm."

"In his defense—" Char reached over and picked up something from the counter "—we did pull this out of his leg." She held up an eight-inch, knitting-needle-like object.

"Oh, shit." Erwell reached for it. Char handed it over and Erwell held it close to her face. It was perfectly smooth and tapered to a sharp point. "It's like a giant mosquito proboscis."

The doctor nodded. "Apparently they suck out your insides."

Erwell screwed up her face. "All right, the proboscis is a problem. Otherwise I'd say he'd French-fried his head on drugs. I do hear drugs are quite the problem in the communities around here."

"That's true," the doctor said dryly, "but he's definitely not Tlingit."

Erwell felt a faint burn in her cheeks. "Right. But did you check if he has drugs in his system?"

Seth nodded. "He's clean."

She sighed, folded her arms and said to Char, "you didn't call this in to Juneau?"

"No, uh, I could though," Char said.

"Don't," Erwell said. "I'll figure this out. I wish you'd called me sooner, though. I should have heard about it as soon as he was spotted."

"Yeah," Char mumbled. "I was preoccupied with saving him."

"If he was Russo-Chinese, saving him wouldn't matter."