The Great Attractor

Chapter 2

The minute on a wall clock passes as Gabriel taps his foot in anticipation.
"No."
"What? Cmon, it's just a short walk."
"No, Gabriel."
Gabriel groans, "I'm trying to help her and I have no one else to help me. Nathaniel is on a date with Maya."
An increasingly exasperated girlfriend, who had just finished working out, finally caves, "fine. But only because I love you, and I suppose since I just got finished with my jog I'll still have a little adrenaline in my system. If I get your stuff and come back to the hospital and you aren't there, I'll kill you."
"Thank you, Dee, did I mention you're the best girlfriend in the world? And that I love you?"
Dee rolls her eyes, "I'm hanging up."
"I'll make it up to you, I promise," he lies.
"Bye, Gabriel."
"Bye, DeeDee."
He sighs after the call ends. Unfortunately, the hospital is very busy today. It seems its the school childrens' day to visit, and they're keeping all the chairs to themselves. A small boy around the age of 7 started staring at Gabriel as soon as he entered the hospital. He tries to avoid looking back at the kid so not to enable him, but when he would occasionally glance, the kid always stared right back at him.
He heard his saving grace as his name was called.
"Hi Gabriel, long time no see," the nurse smiles as she leads him behind the waiting room and through a corridor of patient rooms.
"Hi Tina, how are the kids?" He asks.
The nurse opens a room, "they're doing better than that girly you brought here. Kris learned how to count to 10."
"Really?" He exclaims, "Wow, I remember holding her as a little baby for the first time."
She laughs, "time flies, doesn't it? Anyway, we checked her, she's doing ok, vitals are normal. Yada yada, he'll be here in a minute so just sit down and relax a little."
"Alright, thank you Tina."
"I'll see you later, Little Gabbie," she teases before closing the door behind her.
He shakes his head and scoffs as he sits down next to the girl. She looks strangely familiar to him, as if he had just met her recently. He couldn't quite put his finger on it. He couldn't place a name or any information, only that he had seen her somewhere, and very recently.
He decided to give up on trying to figure out how she's familiar in pursuit of the less frivolous act of napping. Gabriel should be at school right now, but seeing how his curiosity had led him to miss the entire day, he naps as a form of short-lived ignorance towards the inevitable parental lecture.
His tidal pool of thoughts to browse while dozing off is interrupted by the door opening. He prepares for the worst before he hears 2 female voices.
"10? You're kidding? Does Gabbie know?"
"I just told him earlier, isn't that crazy?" the nurse responds.
"He can't even count that high, trust me, I've tried teaching him."
The girl laughs along with the nurse. Hey I know that voice, Gabriel thinks to himself. He smiles and opens one eye to get a glance at the girl coming into the room.
She has curly green hair which reaches towards the butt Gabriel had so graciously set his sights on.
The door closes the girl in. She huff and drops the bags she had been holding.
She makes her way towards Gabriel, "hi, sleepy head."
She brushes his hair up and pets his forehead with her thumb.
"Hi, gorgeous," he pleasantly responds.
"You look so peaceful," she looks longingly at his comfy recliner, "making me do all the work."
He smiles, "I would only want to be in the best condition possible for my favorite person ever."
"And who would that be?" She retorts.
He leans his head back in the chair, "guess."
She rolls her eyes and sits on his lap perpendicular to him, "guess what I found?"
He runs his hand up her leg, almost petting it.
"Gabriel."
He had stopped paying attention to her, rather, he was examining her thighs.
"Gabriel," she says louder this time.
He looks up to her and reaches a hand up to her face, inching her closer to him.
"Yeah?" He responds.
She reclines into his chest and kisses him. It had been weeks since they had last seen each other, and they needed recharging. He moved his hand around and lays it comfortably on the bottom of her thigh. She responds by reaching her hands around his back and dipping her fingers under his shirt.
She retracts first, "it feels weird making out in front an unconscious chick."
"You think?" He asks, "It's a close as we can get to your fantasy of having hot rugged sex in public."
She leans back while laughing, "oh, you wish I fantasized about that."
He reaches for her waist and reels her back into his chest, "don't tell me you've never at least thought about it."
She scoffs in surprise, "and you have?"
"Would my answer be held against me in a court of law?" He winks.
"Not if it isn't illegal." She responds.
"I won't take my chances."
"Hm.." she thinks, "I don't think I would mind."
It's his turn to be surprised, "you're kidding?"
"No really, what are people gonna do? It would be an honor to see this body," she defends jokingly.
He grabs her face, "don't be getting any ideas, now."
"I'll try not to." She mumbles mischievously before dipping in for one last kiss.
"Anyway," she starts, "about the thing I found."
"You found something?" he asks.
She gets off of the recliner and goes toward her bag, "yeah, you showed me that picture of the girl and it looks exactly like this picture of this girl in the building."
She hands him a rickety, framed photo of a girl with a few little kids, the exact one he had saw earlier.
"Hey, I saw this when I was there, too," he finally remembered how she was familiar.
He hands it back and she ushers him over to the bed where the unconscious girl lies. She holds the frame next to the face of the girl. They look identical, except for the very prominent scar that adorns the unconscious girls face.
"That's her... or maybe a sibling?" He comments.
"A twin?" She adds.
"Maybe."
They lean closer to try and get a better look at both the girl and the picture when the door opens.
"Please don't kiss patients while I'm on the clock."
Gabriel stands up straight and turns towards the door, "hi, dad."
He ignores Gabriel, "hello Pandora, long time no see. Please don't enable him."
Pandora smiles awkwardly and slowly steps away from the unknown teen, "of course not, Dr. Heleah."
The disgruntled dad makes his way toward his patient, "oh please, I may be at work but stop with the 'Dr.' stuff it drives me crazy already, I don't need you of all people calling me that, too."
"I found her in a weird abandoned building, is she ok?" Gabriel asks.
"So how has mom been? Not working you too hard, is she?" He continues, ignoring his son.
"Oh no, she hasn't. But having a small business is hard these days, especially with you-know-what," dee responds, also ignoring Gabriel.
As they chat, the parental doctor is scribbling on screen and taping buttons. Gabriel, who has seen his father work since birth, still had no idea what any of them do.
The doctor sighs and leans back in his chair, "those damn idiots are ruining the whole structure of our society as we know it. Soon enough they're gonna bring back governments and social classes."
Dee fakes a gasp, "not social classes."
She looks towards Gabriel who rolls his eyes at her.
"Gabs," he calls.
"Yes, pa-pa?" Gabriel retorts.
"Don't test me. Why weren't you at school?" He asks.
The sound of a deflating balloon comes out of Gabriel's head as he looks for some sort of escape from his fathers loving eyes.
"I was at a store," he says honestly.
Suddenly the doctors cold demeanor changes to a worried father as he turn away from his screen to his son, "Are you dropping out?"
"Dad... no... I'm not dropping out," Gabriel covers his face to hide the embarrassment as Dee silently giggles.
He leans closer to Gabriel, "are you sure? Because Lara told me that her son had dropped out after getting involved with some of those regressor people and I don't want you falling out of school."
"I think Maya would drag me by the ear if I ever thought about dropping out," Gabriel tried to assure his father so he isn't so worried.
His father has always had the habit of lecturing his kids on staying safe and, specifically, to stay away from people the common folk are calling "regressors" which is just a fancy word for people who are retro. These people prefer old government, stocks, and trade over the self-established macro-cities that rely on goods made within a certain vicinity. Most modern macrocities arent as black and white as that, but the Cronuscus rarely maintains a definition. One would think that retro people would be like anyone else, but in most cases they're involved in gangs, polluting streets with pre-titan-age propaganda.
"Good, she's a smart girl. And you're a smart boy. You must get it from me," the dad proudly states.
Gabriel snorts, "sure, dad."
"Anyway, the girl is fine. Her muscles show signs of acute atrophy, but guessing from the rest of her condition, she doesn't move very much at all. That's nothing to be worried about, though. That can be solved with more exercise."
Gabriel sighs, "well thats good. I was afraid she was really hurt- hanging out in a place like that."
"Yeah... there is one issue, though," the dad raises him monitor towards the young couple, "she isn't in our database. Meaning either she was born outside of a hospital, which is very dangerous might I add, or maybe she was subject to one of those glitches that were supposed to be ironed out a few years back and her information suffered on account of it."
Dee crosses her arms, "so we have no idea who she is?"
"No, unfortunately," he responds.
"What about dental?" Gabriel asks.
The dad shakes his head, "we always check dental, Gabs, you know that."
"I know but..." Gabriel tries to find some response but comes short.
They sit in silence for a minute as the dad taps his table.
"Oh," Dee exclaims, "Ren, can you trace back a picture?"
"Maybe?" The dad inquires.
"Because I may have taken this framed picture from the crime scene..." she admits.
"Pandora," Ren says sternly.
She raises her arms up in defense, "I'm sorry, but it looks practically identical to her."
Ren looks between Dee and his son before lowering his head and raising his hand out to take the picture. She hands it to him and he looks closely at it.
He concurs, "It does look like her, doesn't it?"
He scans the photo and runs it through their archive.
"Facebook."
Dee and Gabriel walk over to his monitor, "Facebook?"
"Oh you know, Meta?" Ren starts.
"We know Meta, what's a Facebook?"
"Well, Facebook was under that, like a... a branch," he responds.
"Was?" She asks.
"You had to learn about YouTube in your classes, didnt you?"
Gabriel scratches his head, "what's that got to do with Meta?"
"Meta at first was a conglomerate name for those... sort... of installations, all pre-titan," Ren looks back at the computer screen, "the platform had installations like Instagram, Messager, WhatsApp..."
Gabriel and Dee give him a confused, blank stare.
"Anyway..." Ren cleared his throat, "Facebook was a photo and.. uh.. words.. sharing site. So I checked the archives. You know, the record of people who are dead or missing to see if she was somehow transferred into that by said glitch."
"And what did you find?" They ask.
"Facebook, she's on Facebook."
"What?" Dee leans into his desk, "like... back from YouTube time?"
Ren rolls away from the desk, "yep, take a look for yourselves."
It was a picture of a picture frame on a desk with a picture of the girl with little kids.
Ren look from the picture to his computer to the girl, "this is... interesting."
Gabriel walks around the hospital bed and sits back in his recliner, "tell me about it."
"I don't think I could," Ren wipes his forehead, "what will I tell her parents? Does she have any? How am I supposed to contact them?"
He sets his head in his hands, defeated. The doctors chair rolls to the hospital bed and Ren inspects the scars on the girls face. 'Should I talk to the liaison? I can't imagine they'd be able to do much, but they could contact other hospitals to see if...' Ren contemplates, 'no, they'd know no more than I do'. Gabriel and Dee share concerned glances to the obviously stumped doctor. He rolls back to his desk and continued scrolling through the archives. The last record of her existence on the archive dates June 5th, 2019.
"Ok then," Ren scoffs, "there's no way this girl is that old. So, therefore, we're mistaken. Simple solution."
"Are you sure?" Gabriel asks.
"Well if I actually use my brain instead of blindly accepting they're the same person, I'd understand that this kid is probably a descendant of this lady. They look very similar, but the girl in these pictures don't have the same scars as this girl," he rationalizes.
"She could be a time traveller," Dee comments.
"I highly doubt that," Ren refutes with a smile.
Dee walks up to his desk and investigates the girls Facebook page with curiosity, "who is this girl anyway? What's her name?"
The page was hard to navigate but she eventually found a name at the top of her account. 2 of them, in fact. She didn't exactly understand why this was the case, but since they were the same, she brushed it off as a strange old people thing.
"It says this ladies name was Greer King, I like her last name, I'm sort of jealous," Dee admits, "sounds old."
"Well we can fawn over dead people when we find this kids parents," Ren groans as he rubs his temples.
The group stays silent for a moment.
"Are you gonna keep her here?" Gabriel asks.
Ren taps his pen again the bed frame and ponders," that is the question... isn't it?" The quiet returns, only broken briefly as someone walks by the room.
The doctor blurts, "well then. I'll be back," and briskly leaves the room. 
Gabriel and Pandora stay out. Both young adults were unsure if that meant they were allowed to leave or not. Pandora had previous plans to clean her house. She already took her school final which meant her school break was extended. She prepared ahead so she would have spare time to tidy the mess her family made around the home. Gabriel, however, was planning on taking his final today. Now he would have to spend part of his break at the school making up for it.
"Now I have to spend a couple hours at school over break. Great."
Dee scoffs, "I did offer for you to come with me."
"Why would I want to be at school on a free day? That's a stupid idea," he counters.
"Stupid idea retrospectively."
"Oh shut it, would you?" He snaps.
She puckers her bottom lip and mocks him, "you're just upset I'm right, aren't you?"
Gabriel shakes his head dismissively and slouches in the recliner. Pandora rolls her eyes at his whining. He had always had the habit of putting things off, which is why she had offered to do it early with him in the first place.
"Does this mean no public sex?" Pandora teases.
"You're sick," Gabriel chuckles.
"Hey, you're the one who joked about it first, freak, don't judge me."
He staggers for a moment, "freak? Is that how you treat your loving, amazing-"
"Oh here we go again."
"-and sexy, might I add, boyfriend who wanted to see you after so long? How dare you."
They both stare at each other for a moment, "are you done?"
Gabriel answers her question with a grin, "and also-"
Pandora was saved from another satirical lecture when the supposedly comatose girl suddenly gasps and sits up. They share a frightened passing glance before standing up to help her.
"Where am I? What's goin' on? Who- who are you people?"