The Zanzibar Organization v00 (Introduction)

The Zanzibar Organization

"Wake up."

...

"Queen, wake up."

"mmm"

"It's time, Queen. You have slept enough."

Akia murmured to herself and turned sideways. Then her eyelids flew open.

"Urh!"

The bed was hard and cold. Very cold!

And no, this is not a bed!

Akia sat up and looked around, her eyes wide open. She was on a metal gurney, the kind of thing that you would place a corpse on. Or a reanimated corpse from someone who was technically dead until half an hour ago.

"Queen, you're awake," the voice said.

Akia's eyes narrowed only for a moment. She didn't recognize the voice nor the face that the voice belonged to, but things like this never slowed her down. She could tell right away that this voice and this female person was not a threat.

But the room! Akia glanced around quickly, taking in everything as quickly as she could.

Something was wrong. This room was both familiar and unfamiliar. The size and shape and layout had not changed. The LED light fixtures were the same. But some of the fittings and equipment was off. No, not just off, they were out of place. Like she had stepped into a science fiction world.

Akia specialized in figuring out things that were off or out of place, and she specialized in putting things in the right place. And people in the right place.

"Urm."

Pensive look. Hand to her upper lip. Akia scanned her body. Was she still the same Akia? These were familiar clothes. Long loose sleeves that covered her entire arm down to her knuckles, long loose pants that covered her feet, loose fitting, long shirt with flower motifs... these were Akia's favorite clothes for indoors relaxation, what she called her flowerpower outfit. Because of her flowerpower outfit, Akia couldn't see even an inch of her brown skin underneath. She could only see her fingers, and her toes peeking out of the trouser cuffs below. But they did seem to be her fingers and toes; being frozen for a long time hadn't turned her white.

"Queen," the woman spoke again.

"I don't recognize you," Akia said to the woman. She glanced up and down at the woman. The uniform was familiar – a pink outfit similar to what many nurses wore, except with far shorter hemlines and pink stockings. But...

"You've been asleep for many years, Queen. And speaking of that, can I call you Queen?"

"Akia will do," Akia said shortly. She was fixated on the screens in the room. They didn't look like the monitor screens she knew. They were much lighter, bigger, thinner.

"That's new," Akia pointed.

The woman smiled. Thus far she had not made any move. But now she stepped closer to a screen. Something detected her proximity, and instantly a blank screen became completely lighted up. There was a lot of information about medical stuff which Akia didn't understand, but which obviously referred to herself.

"Now watch," the woman said. She drew back her fist and punched a screen hard. It shattered. But glass did not fly everywhere. It was just a vast web of cracks that spread for a radius of maybe forty centimeters from the point of impact.

The woman raised her hand to show Akia. She had sustained no injuries.

"Nowadays screens are very safe. Nobody gets hit by flying glass anymore."