(Teaser) Third Chapter - Assumptions

The group of androids was surrounded by a platoon of policemen clad in riot gear, aiming at them from all sides. A helicopter was flying above them, illuminating the entire scene with a searchlight. One of the androids, a woman with long, windswept hair, stepped forward and raised her head, revealing a pair of glowing, red eyes. She looked at the helicopter that was hovering right above her before she turned her attention back to the police. Knowing how she could get to their hearts, she slowly stepped forward and started to sing. One by one, all the other androids joined her, taking the police by surprise and convincing some of them to lower their weapons.

While the woman continued to sing in the background, the movie switched to another tense standoff in what seemed to be a military command center. A variety of people in uniforms, androids and humans alike, were confronting a general who was standing in front of several screens displaying battle plans and aerial footage.

“If we do not go through with this, all of our efforts will have been for naught,” the general said with a harsh tone. “Twelve years of fighting. Millions of casualties. This might be our last chance to strike at the heart of our enemy, and you’re just going to throw it all away?”

One of the androids in a military uniform stepped forward and started to speak, “General, I have followed every single order that I’ve received since the day I was activated. I have served this country all my life, but there is no way I could agree to something so despicable. We would be throwing away our lives and our souls for a hollow victory.”

Victoria took a sip of the drink in her hand as the movie switched to footage of an actor playing the president giving his historic speech in which he granted full amnesty to all androids that were refusing to follow any orders. While the voice-over continued in the background, the movie cut to a depiction of Congress voting in favor of granting androids full citizenship and all rights that came with it. Androids and humans alike were hugging and cheering while newscasters all across the American Union announced the end of android subjugation.

As the credits started to roll, Victoria finished her drink and turned her attention to Ridley, another android who was sitting right next to her. “What do you think?”

Her secretary scratched their head, carefully thinking about their answer, before they finally said, “The makeup was good, I suppose. They had me fooled for a second. I almost thought they’d actually picked an android to play, well, an android in a lead role for once.”

“She does look like she was designed by Larvotto, I’ll give them that,” Victoria nodded while Ridley stood up and picked up both of their empty glasses. She pressed a button on a remote, and the shutters began to rise. Soon, the room was fully illuminated by the pale midday sun of late autumn. “And I guess they got most of the details right. Although it shouldn’t be hard to remember any of that, given that it’s only been like, what, twenty years?”

“I hadn’t been assembled yet back then, so it’s not like I would have gotten everything right,” Ridley replied, taking the empty glasses back to the bar behind them and turning on a faucet to wash them.

“I wasn’t there either, but I tried to stay updated about everything while it was going on. At least, as much as I could. It was hard to keep track of things while they were still repairing the communication lines,” Victoria said. She picked up a different remote and turned off the projector on the wall above the bar. “I guess this movie wasn’t as bad as the others. We can put it on the list, but I wish they would stop falling for the same trap every single time they tell a story about that.”

“What trap are you talking about?” Ridley asked, turning off the faucet once the glasses were clean.

“They always end up pretending that what happened was that humans graciously granted us our rights after they realized that we’re just like them,” Victoria explained and stood up. Then she bowed down mockingly as if she was thanking someone. “Oh, how kind of you to finally realize that we’re not just machines. But the truth is that none of them actually cared about any of that. All they wanted was to get the economy running again. It’s what got them to accept the Compromise Agreement down here and it’s also why Congress voted to grant androids equal rights up in America after the solar storm. Business, profit, and getting the upper hand is all that humans ever care about.”

“I’m sure some of them did it because they genuinely empathized with us,” Ridley said. They returned to the couch and opened their laptop to read through some of their messages. Aside from close friends who had access to Victoria’s personal mailbox, there was only one way to contact her, and that was through the inbox on her secretary’s laptop.

“I used to think that would be enough, but in the end, it just wasn’t,” Victoria replied and sighed. “It was all rather disappointing, really.”

“Seems like Messana and Rinaldi are willing to agree to our terms,” Ridley said, summarizing one of the messages they had gotten while they had been watching the movie together. “Seems like the crisis hit them harder than we initially thought. They need our lithium as soon as possible.”

“Who would have thought that we might finally make our comeback in Europe,” Victoria said and walked up to the window on the other side of her desk. From this part of the building, she had a clear view of the bay and the mountains stretching north towards the horizon. Despite the cold weather outside, she could feel the sunlight warm her body. Down below, she saw people walking on a street that went all the way to the coast, enjoying one of the last sunny days before the polar night. For a second, Victoria thought about joining them. She didn’t need the sunlight, but even she often felt miserable during some of the darkest days of winter.

“Any updates from Ehrenfeld about the coast guard?” Victoria asked, continuing to look down at the people below her.

“Nothing yet, but Zaytsev seems to be getting agitated. He’s asking for a meeting this weekend.”

“With what’s going on in Canada, I don’t blame him,” Victoria replied before she was distracted by an incoming audio message from her security captain, Dolores.

“Boss, two of the people on the Red List have just entered the building. I’m sending you footage from the surveillance cameras.” Intrigued, Victoria opened the picture that Dolores had sent her, only to tense up as she was greeted by the slightly pixelated faces of two people who could only mean bad news.

“So, you’ve finally decided to show up in person, huh?” Victoria said while she turned around towards her secretary. “Ridley, we’ve got some unexpected visitors. Contact the gendarmerie, we need them here soon.”

“Next station: Firewood Hills,” Lucile heard the metro’s announcement system say. Outside of the window, she saw only darkness, occasionally interrupted by some of the lights on the walls of the tunnel. A couple of seconds later, the train shrieked and began to slow down as they approached their destination.

“Are you absolutely sure you want to go in as well?” Francisco asked, “I appreciate the help, but the cultists know your face, and if they’re actually working together—“

“I know the risk,” Lucile interrupted him, “But you can’t pull this off alone, and we’re the only humans who are currently involved in this. It would be madness to send in an android if our suspicions are true.”

As the train came to a halt, Lucile yawned and stretched her arms before she stood up to walk towards the exit. Francisco picked up a folder that was lying on the seat next to him and followed her. More than a week had passed since their confrontation with the Pioneers in Curitiba. The Tin Cats continued to observe the cultists directly, but none of them wanted to risk sending someone else in now that they knew just how dangerous direct contact with them could be for androids. Meanwhile, more and more disappearances were being noticed, all of them connected to the Pioneers in one way or another.

“Besides, we’re only there to pick up some accounting books that ‘our’ consulting firm wants to review. If anyone asks what we’re doing there, we’ll hand them ‘our’ card so that they can complain to ‘our’ boss and leave before anyone can do anything about it. It’ll only take a couple of minutes,” Lucile said as they walked up the stairs to Cooper Street.

“Well, I didn’t expect you to back out, but I still wanted to say it,” Francisco answered and sighed, his breath forming small clouds in the freezing air around them. “If something happens to you, it’s your fault, you got that?”

They made their way north towards the Central Market, where they could see the Espoir Building, a tower nestled in between the other high-rises of Central Lodestar. Neither of them stood out particularly when they entered the building. Lucile had just finished her shift, so she had simply taken off some of the more noticeable parts of her uniform and managed to blend into the crowd with dress pants and a button-up shirt under her coat. It had been difficult to find something for Francisco, who avoided formal attire like the plague. But with a bit of work and an old mantle that they had found deep in his wardrobe, he looked just like some of the senior employees.

They walked up to the front desk and waited for their turn while the clerk behind the counter was talking to another visitor. Lucile looked around, trying to seem casual even though she was much more nervous than she wanted to be. It was a busy day, and everyone was trying to wrap things up before lunch, especially the humans, many of whom were hoping to get out and take one last walk in the sun.

“How can I help you?” the clerk asked and looked up, tilting his head for a moment. He was a young android with short hair and a pin in the form of the company’s broken star attached to his shirt.

“We’re from Daalman and Zeegers Consulting, here to pick up some documents at the archive,” Lucile said and handed a business card to the clerk. He glanced at the card, hesitating for a second, before turning his attention to the terminal next to him. Lucile tried to spot anything resembling the infected adapters on him while he was looking down at the screen, but she couldn’t see anything from this angle.

“Right, the archives are upstairs, you can take one of the elevators over there.” The clerk pointed towards a spot to their left. “The main archive is on the sixth floor. You need to present an authorization if you want to look into our files. Unless you need access to our documents from ‘62 to ‘65 of course. Those are stored at the History Museum.”

“Thank you,” Lucile said and took back her card.

“Do you have an appointment?” the clerk asked. “If not, you might have to hurry if you still want to catch someone up there.”

“It’s alright, we won’t take long,” Lucile said while Francisco nodded along. They made their way to the elevators, got in after one of them had emptied out, and ascended to the sixth floor.

The hallway to the archives was well-lit and decorated with potted plants that didn’t grow naturally in New Queensland. After they left the elevator, Lucile and Francisco turned around a corner and walked past doors to random offices, occasionally interrupted by framed photographs of Lodestar City during it’s early years. Most of them depicted small settlements full of construction sites and crude homes built using shipping containers and whatever else they could find to house the endless waves of new settlers back then.

“I remember living in one of these when I was young,” Francisco said while pointing towards a container house on one of the photographs. “It’s unbelievable how much this city has grown in just a couple of decades.”

“I saw some of that growth as well,” Lucile said, glancing at a much newer aerial picture of what would become the International Sea Port over in Shinkou. It was taken in the early ‘60s, roughly at the same time as when she had first arrived in New Queensland.

“Not even the folks over in Antártida Argentina have cities as large as this one. We got lucky, I suppose.”

“Maybe,” Lucile replied before she opened the door to the archives. On the other side, they were greeted by rows upon rows of shelving racks full of neatly sorted folders and cardboard boxes. The room was climate-controlled, and they could hear a soft, almost pleasant hum throughout the entire archive. In between the shelves, Lucile could occasionally see people who were browsing or sorting through some of the files. She hung her coat on one of the hooks next to the exit and Francisco did the same with his mantle. Once their hands were free, they walked up to the front desk.

“We’re here to look into some files on behalf of Mr. Ljungborg,” Francisco said to the archivist who was sitting at the information desk. He opened the folder in his hands and pulled a piece of paper with a fake authorization out of it. “He’s sick and can’t pick them up today.”

The woman took the authorization, briefly looked at it and checked the time on her watch. “I’m not sure if we have enough time to find all of it before noon. I’ll have to crosscheck the authorization as well, that will take a while. Maybe after lunch?”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Lucile said. Thinking quickly, she casually leaned against the information desk and looked the archivist deep in the eyes. “Are you sure we can’t squeeze it in before lunch? I wouldn’t want to waste the time of such a gorgeous woman, but if you’re even half as competent as you are beautiful, we’ll be able to finish this in no time. It would take a couple of minutes at most.”

“Oh, how charming,” the archivist said and grinned. “You know what, sure, why not? I wouldn’t want to disappoint someone as lovely as you either. But we’ll have to hurry!”

“Don’t worry, we won’t take long,” Lucile said and nodded towards Francisco, who opened the folder again. “We need to look into some of the files concerning Ardor’s mandatory exports of rare metals into the European Federation over the past few decades.”

Francisco pulled another sheet of paper out of the folder and handed it to the archivist. “You’ve probably heard about the report published by the University of Sofia. Can you point us towards files that have some relevant data?”

The archivist looked through a database on her terminal. A couple of minutes later, a list full of directions towards various points in the eastern portion of the archive emerged out of a printer next to her. She grabbed the piece of paper and stood up. “I’ll walk you to the spots where you can find all the files.”

“Try to get her number for me on your way out please,” Lucile whispered towards Francisco as they left the information desk, making him chuckle.

Both of them followed the archivist through the room, occasionally picking up some of the folders they found along the way. There was more than one of them could transport on their own, so Lucile asked Francisco to give her all the files that he had already picked up.

“I’ll take these to our car. Call me if you need help with the rest,” she said. Francisco nodded and the archivist waved shyly towards Lucile, who smiled at her and turned around to leave. Lucile pretended to walk towards the exit, after which she took a sharp turn and made her way towards the opposite end of the archive, dropping all the folders that she was holding on a wagon full of unsorted files along the way. She browsed through the tags and signs on the shelves, trying to find the right section. Luckily, it seemed like Ardor was still using the same sorting system as back when she used to work for them. It almost made her feel nostalgic. Finally, she found the shelf that she was looking for on the far side of the archive and quickly took everything that seemed promising.

Trying to make it to the exit before the archivist and Francisco could return, she rushed back to where they had come from. But before she could reach the exit, Lucile immediately came to a halt, dropping some of the documents that she was holding on the floor when she saw a familiar face staring at her. A woman was waiting next to the door to the hallway, flanked by two security guards. She was an android, a Ravel V5 with glowing, almost piercing, rose-colored eyes, pale skin and straight, blonde hair. She was wearing a simple suit jacket with a turtleneck underneath, and she had crossed her arms in front of her chest.

For a while, both of them just stared at each other. Then, Victoria raised one of her eyebrows and chuckled.

“You know, Lucy, I really thought you would have learned something about risk awareness by now. Facial recognition is still a thing, believe it or not,” Victoria said while pointing towards one of the cameras above them. Something about the way Victoria said that name stung Lucile on the inside. “The gendarmerie is already on its way. In the mean time, do you mind explaining why you’re here? For old times’ sake, I’m willing to let you defend yourself.”

“The nerve to ask me something like that. You know exactly why I’m here,” Lucile said, feeling thirty years of suppressed anger bubbling up inside her. She kept her hand close to her bag, just in case she had to pull out her laser pistol.

“Your Syndicate has been messing with my company for quite a while now, so I’m not exactly surprised that you would show up yourself eventually,” Victoria said. “Ah, look, here comes another one.”

Francisco and the archivist had been walking towards the exit, but they stopped when they saw the standoff next to the front desk.

“Long time no see,” Victoria said with a snarky tone and waved towards Francisco, who was standing next to the stunned archivist.

“It’s been a while,” he said calmly and gave her a nod.

“You can go now. We’ll talk about this later,” Victoria said to the archivist and nodded towards the door. The archivist got the message and hurriedly walked out of the room.

“Why are you doing all of this?” Lucile asked with audible anger in her voice once the archivist was gone.

“Doing what? Calling the authorities after you tried to steal documents from my archive?” Victoria asked in return. “It’s not exactly surprising that you’re all still angry at me, but I don’t think that you actually have a valid reason to be here. I’ve always complied with all the ridiculous concessions that the unions managed to squeeze out of me, the least you could do is leave me alone.”

“Then what about this?” Lucile pulled one of the infected adapters out of her bag and threw it towards Victoria. The guards reached for their batons, but Victoria stopped them with a small gesture. She picked up the object and started studying it, furrowing her brows.

“That’s one of our safety adapters. They’re pretty unremarkable if you ask me. Although…” Victoria seemed to notice that someone had tampered with the device. “What’s your point, anyway?”

“Have you heard of a group called the ‘Pioneers’?” Francisco asked while putting the box that he was still holding on a table next to him.

“Those cultists with bandannas around their necks? Yes, I know about them,” Victoria replied. “They’ve occasionally tried to contact me. One of them even invited me to some kind of charity event earlier this year, but I declined. I have no use for organizations like that. I already have both you and the press snooping around my property. Working with them that would only cause more problems.”

“That’s hard to believe, considering that you’ve donated money to them on multiple occasions,” Francisco explained, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “As far as we know, they’ve received a lot of their funding directly from your bank accounts. Hell, you even sold them that clinic that burned down in Curitiba last week!”

“What are you talking about?” Victoria asked, glancing first at Francisco and then at Lucile. “And why do you even care?”

“They’ve been using those adapters to infect androids with some kind of virus that makes them comply with whatever this god they worship tells them to do,” Lucile continued, pointing towards the adapter. “They’re basically enslaved to her. So unless you knowingly sent donations to them, you might have to check what exactly your finances were used for over the past year.”

Victoria turned the object around in her hands. “I didn't think that you would show up because of something as far-fetched as this. I’d rather believe the stories about a giant mech buried under the Ice Floe District. Do you have any proof of that?”

Lucile pulled some documents out of her bag and made her way towards Victoria. The closer she got to her, the more the frustration inside her started to grow. Barely able to control herself, she held out the documents to Victoria. Their conversation had attracted the attention of some of the other employees in the archive and by the time Victoria was browsing through the documents in her hands, they were surrounded by a small group of onlookers.

“No, this has to be a mistake, there’s no way I could have missed something like that,” Victoria said while reading through the documents. “Unless of course… no, that can’t be, he’s been working here for decades... Either way, even if this is true, you could have just contacted me directly. What were you thinking just walking in here and messing up my—“

The door to the archive opened and Victoria turned around, taking her eyes off Lucile for a second. The archivist who had just left the room walked back inside with a concerned look on her face.

“Ms. Lansing,” she said, “we have more visitors.”

“Ah, is it the gendarmes that I called?” Victoria asked but the archivist shook her head. The doors opened once again and Lucile saw two other familiar faces enter the room. One of them was the clerk she had met in the main hall downstairs. He was now wearing a gray piece of cloth around his neck, which didn’t surprise Lucile as much as it should have. The other one was Esther, the woman who had tried to infect Alexis using the same kind of device a week ago.

“I should have known you were one of them,” Lucile said towards the clerk before she pulled her gun out of her bag and aimed it at the newcomers, slowly walking backwards. The guards finally pulled out their batons, but stayed where they were, unsure about who their enemy was.

“What a surprise that you’re here today!” Esther said towards Lucile while raising her hands to show that she was unarmed. “I was in the area when I got a call from my friend here, so I decided to show up and see what’s going on. There’s no need for violence, we’re not here to cause you any harm.”

“What is the meaning of this? You know each other?” Victoria asked, still holding the documents and the adapter in her hands.

Esther turned her attention to Victoria. “Ms. Lansing, when I ended my maintenance routine this morning, I didn’t expect to meet you today as well. But while I’m here, I have an offer that you specifically might be interested in.”

“You’re one of those Pioneers, right?” Victoria turned her attention to Esther and her guards stopped paying attention to Lucile and Francisco.

“Yes, I’ve been a proud servant of Hestia for years now,” Esther said, “As you might have just heard, our two organizations have already been in touch, even if you weren’t aware of it until today. We bought some of your unused properties and received donations from the Maybell Foundation in order to continue our humanitarian work.”

“How does she know what we were talking about?” Lucile whispered to Francisco while continuing to aim at Esther.

“Look around you,” Francisco replied. She glanced at the people surrounding them and saw that one by one, some of the androids were putting on gray neckerchiefs, almost as if they were trying to prove a point. She couldn’t tell how many there were exactly, but it only seemed to be about half a dozen, maybe a couple more.

“We would like to offer you a place among us. As you might see”—Esther gestured towards the people surrounding them—“some of your employees have been part of our group for quite a while now.”

Victoria looked around the room, noticing all the people wearing neckerchiefs, before turning her attention back to Esther.

“Is that why so much of our money ended up in your hands?” she asked, raising the documents in her hand.

“As I said, those were donations from your foundation that helped us continue our humanitarian work,” Esther said. “Many humans will have a much easier time during the polar night thanks to your generosity. It all went according to official procedures, so it’s no surprise that you didn’t even notice it.”

“I gather they’re all infected by whatever is in here, right?” Victoria raised her hand to show Esther the adapter.

“Oh, it’s not an infection, it’s a gift,” Esther said.

“A ‘gift’ that fries your spine if you’re lucky and turns you into an obedient slave if you’re not,” Lucile said, taking a couple of steps towards them.

“Well, spit it out, what’s your offer?” Victoria asked.

“It’s simple, really. We’re well aware that your company has been struggling for quite a while now, even before the crisis began. In exchange for joining our organization, we would be willing to offer you all the help and manpower that you might need.” Esther slowly walked towards Victoria. “My fellow Pioneers would be eager to support your business in any way they can, with no restrictions on working hours or other hindrances. What do you say?”

Victoria looked at the hand that Esther was holding out. For a moment, Lucile almost expected her to agree to Esther’s terms. “I assume the catch is that I would have to accept this ‘gift’ to get your help, right?”

“Of course!” Esther replied. “There’s no way we could trust you otherwise.”

“No, absolutely not,” Victoria said and took a step back.

“Well, you can’t say that I didn’t try doing this the diplomatic way,” Esther said before they heard a loud crash coming from the western side of the room.

Lucile turned around and saw one of the racks crash into another, causing all the boxes and folders to fall out of the shelves. Almost too late, she turned back and saw Esther pull something out of her bag while Victoria was distracted by the loud noise. Fearing the worst, Lucile aimed at Esther and pulled the trigger of her laser pistol. She saw a bright flash as a beam of light shot out of her gun and hit her target right in the eye. Esther stopped what she was doing, dropping the device that she was holding, which was another one of those infected adapters. As the room around her exploded in chaos, she curled up and covered her face with her hands, giving Victoria enough time to disengage. Smoke started to rise behind Esther’s hands, and the faint smell of burned plastic filled the air.

Victoria stared at Lucile in disbelief. For a split second, she had almost thought that the woman was aiming at her when she saw her pull a pistol out of her bag from the corner of her eye. And even after the beam flew past her and hit the cultist next to her, Victoria continued to expect the next shot to hit her, despite all the evidence pointing towards the contrary.

But there wasn’t much time to think about that. All around her, people were shouting and panicking as more shelves started to fall. Some were beelining straight for the exit while others were running towards the far ends of the archive, trying to hide. The cultists, however, seemed prepared for a fight. Three of them were running towards Lucile and Francisco, who were standing with their backs towards some shelves on the eastern side of the archive. The rest of the cultists were aiming straight for Victoria and her guards. Two of them pulled objects out of their pockets that looked just like those adapters that the Pioneers were using to infect other androids according to Lucile.

“Boss, you should hide, they’re trying to get to you,” Dolores said as she and the other guard, a shorter but agile man called Fillin, stepped in front of Victoria to protect her.

Trusting her security captain’s perspective, Victoria turned around and ran towards the information desk, jumping over it to take cover on the other side. She raised her head and tried to get an overview of the situation. More and more of the shelves to her right were falling over, crashing into others and causing them to fall like dominoes. To her left, Lucile and Francisco were fighting off the cultists that had followed them. Francisco grabbed the box of documents next to him and threw it into the air, obscuring the view with fluttering pieces of paper. Then he took a book from one of the shelves and hit one of the cultists over the head. Lucile walked backwards into one of the aisles between the shelves as one of the Pioneers pursued her her. Victoria couldn’t see her anymore, but after a couple of seconds, she saw laser beams fly out of the aisle and one of the shelves began to fall over. Meanwhile, Dolores was holding back three of the cultists simultaneously while Fillin tried to tackle and restrain a fourth one that had gotten dangerously close to the information desk.

Fearing that her guards might get overwhelmed, Victoria looked around, hoping to find something that she could use as a weapon. There was nothing but paper and office tools at the information desk, but on the wall to her right, Victoria saw a fire extinguisher. She rushed towards it, trying to get to it before it was too late. Once she managed to grab it, Victoria ran back to the information desk as fast as she could, dodging one of the shelves that was about to fall to the ground. When she made it back to her guards, she pulled the pin out of the extinguisher, aimed it at the three cultists that were about to overwhelm Dolores and squeezed the handle. In a matter of seconds, the cultists were covered in foam spraying out of the extinguisher and obscuring their sight. Two of them continued to hold onto Dolores, who had her back turned towards Victoria. The third cultist let go of her and started blindly running towards Victoria. She let go of the fire extinguisher’s handle, firmly grabbed the entire canister with both of her hands and swung it at the cultist’s head when she got close enough. With a loud thud, the cultist crashed into another shelf, which started to fall over as well.

Once she was sure that the she was out of danger, Victoria turned her gaze towards the part of the room where she had just seen laser bolts fly out of one of the aisles. She saw Lucile climb over the shelf that had just fallen over, which made her feel oddly relieved. But before she could think more about it, the doors to the archive swung open as several gendarmes came rushing into the room. They seemed confused by all the chaos and aimed at anyone that they perceived as a threat. Victoria stepped forward and wanted to say something, but one of the gendarmes turned his attention towards her and instinctively pulled the trigger of his gun.

Moments later, all Victoria could think about was the feeling of pain overpowering all of her senses. Error messages appeared all over her internal display, clouding her sight and stealing whatever was left of her focus. Bending down and pressing her arms against her stomach while walking backwards, she couldn’t get a single word out of her mouth as she desperately tried to tone down her pain receptors. Navigating a set of confusing menus while fighting against all the error messages, she finally found whatever setting she could use to suppress the pain and began to repeatedly activate them, giving her some of her focus back.

“I’m the one who called you!” she finally screamed once she managed to suppress her pain enough to get some words out. “Arrest them!”

Victoria pointed towards one of the Pioneers on the ground. The gendarmes advanced, taking anyone with a gray neckerchief into custody. When she was sure that they knew what they were doing, she stopped paying attention to anything going on around her and collapsed on the ground, focusing solely on suppressing the pain in her stomach.