"You are light," Gent-081 observed. "Have you been rationing?"
When the lights of the Sector 7 checkpoint finally pierced the gray curtain of rain, Elias was unconscious but alive. Gent-081 did not hand him over. It knelt again, slowly, and laid him on a stretcher that two stunned medics rushed forward. gent-081
The man’s name was Elias. He was forty-two, had a wife who'd stopped waiting, and a splintered tibia that jutted at a sickening angle. He was also the last living soul within ten miles who knew the access codes to Sector 7’s water purifiers. "You are light," Gent-081 observed
"Please," Elias whispered, his breath pluming in the cold. "My leg... I can't walk." It knelt again, slowly, and laid him on
Elias woke up three days later in a clean bed. The first thing he asked for was the machine.