Category: Published

Author’s note: This is third installment of a Science Fiction story from my fourth book, 7D: Tales from the Future. You can find the other installments here: The Phlebologist: Part 1 and Part 2

Day 6

Now that I had tried everything else, I moved to Plan C—entering the facility. In theory, the plan was simple. Get inside a busy facility close to the closing time, hide behind something until the place closes for the day and spy around once it is empty of people.

Simple…in theory.

In reality, it is too difficult to hide my five-foot eight-inches frame in a lab. Huge head offices are simpler with too many unused rooms to hide in, but labs are quite small with less rooms and usually no cover. I had seen it before. At that time, I had walked back out pretending I was looking for a restroom, because Trespassing is a crime. If I am caught, I will have to serve jail time, and my pictures in the news could kill my anonymity and career as an Industrial Spy.

So, I saved Trespassing for the most difficult and most paying cases. This one qualified as both.

I had deliberately waited till Sunday, a public holiday, and chose the busiest close of the day hours to ensure that the facility was packed with people to give me the much‑needed cover and more time to hunt for information if I didn’t get a space to hide.

Three technicians were collecting samples of fifteen patients at a time with three to four minutes between batches. With seventy-five patients ahead of me, I had a maximum of twelve to fifteen minutes if I did not get a cover (which seemed highly probable at the time). The hidden cameras in my earrings were already capturing footage. As soon as the technicians took samples from the people at the front, I quietly left my place.

I pretended as if I was looking for the toilet and, stealthily, slipped inside the door with the “Employees only” sign. The short lobby ended in a busy hall—no cover. I had a couple of minutes at the most before a technician came out for more samples and discovered me standing in the lobby. I should have turned back right then but the lure was too strong. For the moment, I was a bat—blind and focused on the target alone.

I peeped in the hall. It looked like all offices. The room was bustling with activity and sounds of chit‑chat. Several employees sat on comfortable chairs with the latest Palmtops. Some of them used huge Wall Screens with virtual keypad holograms floating close to their fingers. Small racks of labelled blood vials sat atop a drinks table in the middle. There was no microscope in the sight to test the blood. The grey‑haired man closest to me had just finished filling a blood report form on his Wall screen and sent it to the patient’s email.

I focused on him as he picked a vial, excited to finally know the trade secret of Sangue Heder Labs.

He took a long swig of the blood, swirled it in his mouth and started filling the blood report form.

I let out a tiny gasp.

Suddenly, all the eyes in the room zeroed on me. The grey‑haired man I had been concentrating on was suddenly behind me and had blocked my retreat. His canines grew. I think, I fainted.

I remember hearing a voice from afar. “Set her aside for dinner, Luke. We are trying to concentrate on work here.” Now I lay inside a coffin, probably six feet underground, complete with fangs and all. Having tried unsuccessfully to claw my way out for a couple of hours, I now wait for them to come back for me.

I’m hungry. I hope they will give me a job as a Phlebologist.

END

Author’s note: If you would rather read it all together in the book, 7D: Tales from the Future is available for free download here: Link

Photo by Akram Huseyn on Unsplash

Author’s note: This is second installment of a Science Fiction story from my fourth book, 7D: Tales from the Future. You can find the first installment here: The Phlebologist: Part 1

Day 3

I decided to catch an employee during a lunch break and strike a conversation. A couple of drinks and an attentive listener can loosen a tongue easily. Usually, they begin with the rant about too much workload, bad manager and difficult clients, and, with careful steering, can easily overstep the line of discretion and divulge confidential information without really knowing.

So, I donned a brunette wig and boarded my trusted faded‑grey copter—both common and anonymous. Stylish rides draw attention and blending in with the crowd was imperative for my job. I flew to the biggest Sangue Heder Lab and parked in the overcrowded rooftop parking of the Food Court next door. I sat down next to the biggest window from where I could see the reception of the lab through the glass wall as I pretended to work on my palmtop.

The receptionist was a tall, gorgeous man with red hair, and suddenly I wanted to visit the lab just so that I could look at him closely. I shook my head to clear it. Where did that come from? A couple of lab technicians—different races but just as breath‑taking—were collecting blood samples. Are all Proxima natives like that? Does fresh air and unprocessed food make you look like Roman Gods?

I waited at the cafeteria all afternoon. The Food court was busy but none of its clients were Lab employees—only the Lab patrons nursing their pinpricks and their attendants. The closest couple was discussing the blood results they had received via email within a couple of minutes of tests. The stream of patients coming for tests never ceased, and none of the employees came out for lunch. The organisation was probably ordering food and drinks for its employees to stop them from leaving their desk to eat. I gave up at midnight.

The facility was the biggest and, hence, the busiest, so I decided to try at a smaller facility the next day.

Something wasn’t feeling right about this assignment—the constant failure felt like a sign. Most of the lab’s clientele belonged to low‑income societies who wouldn’t have been able to afford these tests. If it wasn’t for the unbelievably low rates of Sangue Heder Labs, they all could have died without a diagnosis.

Conscience pricked me for a brief moment.

Then it passed. I could see myself luxuriating at the Proxima resorts, looking like a Goddess, with fresh air and unprocessed food, and preferably with a boyfriend from the same planet.

*****

Day 4

On day four, I took the Airbus to a different city and haunted the streets outside a smaller facility of the Sangue Heder Labs on my uber‑expensive featherweight eco‑bike. It was ideal for following people. When needed, I could simply fish it out of my purse, unfold it and get going at a moment’s notice. It removed the need to switch between following on foot and rushing to the air parking area to retrieve my copter first.

I had planned to follow any employees out for a coffee or stroll and meet them ‘by chance’. It was a long wait, and I was exhausted by the time a female receptionist finally ventured out alone in late evening. I saw an opening, but as I drew closer, I had an urge to walk over and touch her skin—it was so flawless that it glowed in the moonlight. Considering I am straight…

By the time I had collected my wits, she was gone. The opportunity to strike a conversation had passed. When she returned shortly, she was carrying an icebox, which meant she wouldn’t stay long enough to talk.

*****

Day 5

Next day, I tried another facility. While I waited for the employees to walk out to a close‑by cafe for a break, I searched the employees online by uploading the pictures I had taken the day before.

Nothing.

One of the pictures strikingly resembled one of the war prisoners from the Second World War, but I wasn’t interested in History lessons right now.

No employee came out all day. At midnight, they closed the facility and all of them walked out together. I followed them from a distance, hoping to catch one of them once they split‑up at the Airbus station, but I lost them once they all turned into a dark street.

I should have given up then, considering the next move was too risky. But I was nothing if not pig‑headed.

Author’s note: To be continued…

If you would rather read it all together in the book, 7D: Tales from the Future is available for free download here: Link

Photo by Akram Huseyn on Unsplash

Author’s note: This is first installment of a Science Fiction story from my fourth book, 7D: Tales from the Future. You can find the second installment here: The Phlebologist: Part 2

This assignment was a bad idea. The signs were evident right from the beginning—not sure how I missed them all. Maybe, the gold in sight had blinded me with its glare. Now all I could do was freak out inside this dark place, waiting for someone to return for me.

I wish I had missed that call from Mikhael, my employer, six days back. I knew he wanted to call me back from my vacation yet again—fourth time in a row. That day, if I could spit venom, I would have killed his hologram that grew from my watch.

“You better make it worth my time if I have to kill my vacation for you again.”

But he knew exactly how to pacify me. “My dear, the client promises to weigh you in gold.”

With those golden words, he had all my attention. Nothing motivated me better than money. Love I had too much of—being tall and curvy with perfect features. I stopped counting after my tenth boyfriend.

“Can’t tell you their name for privacy but the client is a giant in the Blood Test industry. They own thousands of laboratories across Earth with the annual turnover of several billion dollars. They are looking for information about…”

“…Sangue Heder Labs,” I finished his thought. He nodded.

I continued, “Of course! The fastest‑growing laboratory chain on Earth…I assume, our client is looking for their ground‑breaking technology that diagnoses the complete list of diseases, including Cancer, from a single vial of blood within minutes.”

He nodded again.

The breakthrough was nothing short of a miracle and was all over the news last year. By providing general health check‑ups at unbelievably low rates, they had wiped out the smaller competition in a matter of months. Now, even bigger competitors were struggling to stay open.

 “I’m on it. I’ll have results in a week or less. Keep that gold ready!”

*****

Day 1

My internet search was the first sign that I should have backed out.

In a universe connected tightly through the Universe Wide Web, celebrities can’t sneeze without someone publishing it. Yet hardly any information existed about the most successful lab chain on Earth. All I found was that the Sangue Heder Labs Inc. was owned by Marco De Rossi, the youngest member of a multi‑billionaire family. Two hundred years back, in 2086, his family was the first to move to Proxima Centauri B, the closest habitable planet. They travelled on the legendary Spaceship Noah’s Ark, loaded with seeds of all kinds and DNA of all varieties of animal life in cryopreserved state. They sowed the seeds and established the first biological lab in Proxima to bring the DNAs to life. Most of them survived on Proxima, populating the empty planet in the next two hundred years. They turned the planet into a wildlife preserve and a favoured travel destination for the super‑rich celebrities in the known universe. But the De Rossi family declined to share any pictures of their family members throughout its five-hundred years of history on Earth and Proxima—a practice Marco De Rossi seemed to have kept alive till date.

His company was equally elusive. Sangue Heder Labs’ website stated an address on Proxima as the company headquarter. It had mentioned using an ‘ancient technique’ to diagnose diseases from the blood. But their diagnosis accuracy was correct up to three decimal digits. Was it even possible with anything ancient?

Next, I contacted the patent office—off the record—but found nothing. Sangue Heder Labs hadn’t patented the ‘technique’, or maybe they couldn’t if it really was ancient. To check whether there was any ‘ancient’ technique offering diagnosis through blood, I deep searched medical sites from Earth and Proxima but to no avail. Some Proxima health resorts offered ancient healing through local herbs, animal extracts, and solar heat but there was nothing about diagnosis through blood.

The pictures of Proxima left me wondering how it would be to live on a planet where trees still grew in forests and not pots. Someday, with all the gold I am going to earn soon, I may own a home there.

*****

Day 2

The next day, I moved to Plan B, looking for the employees of Sangue Heder Labs on social media. Employees are a treasure of information. There is always someone complaining about their job and technological challenges. But soon, I realized that they probably had some employee agreement barring them from declaring their job online because I found no one.

With a couple of days gone, I decided to contact them personally. Everybody has a price tag: some talk for money, others for ‘love’. But my contacts from the Earth Employee Benefits organisation could not dig out a single email, address or phone number. Apparently, both the organisation and its employees were ‘alien nationals’ and protected by the inter‑planetary laws.

I should have stopped then, but my reputation as the best Industrial Spy on Earth wasn’t for nothing.

Author’s note: To be continued…

If you would rather read it all together in the book, 7D: Tales from the Future is available for free download here: Link

Photo by Akram Huseyn on Unsplash