Chapter Text
PROLOGUE
Null Space.
Scientists and fiction writers alike had theorized about this place. A place between universes, a gap in what could be considered reality or the ‘material’ places.
Science and technology were advanced, but they had limits, and it was only now that general theory was even beginning to stand on the cusp of understanding alternate planes of reality and perhaps — incredibly — traveling to them.
As far as he knew, he was one of a handful of people to have ever come here. Maybe even the second ever.
He might have been freaking out like a kid in a candy store if not for the very real danger he was in.
Low gravity environment, Hiro’s analytical side provided in a rapid-fire sequence as his mind raced, trying to take in all the factors and account for everything that could go wrong in this place. ‘Presence of oxygen? Possible. Suit’s not hermetically sealed, but the ambient temperature can’t be too far below freezing or else I’d be feeling it. Atmospheric pressure seems normal...
So much unknown, and unexplained, so much he could discover...but that wasn’t what he was there for and he had a very real time limit.
“Baymax! Can you see her?” He yelled.
“Scanning.” The big, healthcare robot, decked in enough armor to tackle a battle tank, answered him, as calm as ever.
Robert Callaghan’s daughter was in this place somewhere.
They had to find her and get out before that portal collapsed and trapped them all here forever.
God...how long had she been here? A year? Five? Ten?
‘Based upon details of Professor Callaghan’s appearance around the time of the incident versus now, factoring the effects of stress on aging, accounting for the growth of the vegetation at the test site...no less than five months, but no more than five years…’
At least five months without food or water...
How was she still alive?
Hiro shook his head; it was something he could figure out later. Right now, he needed to focus.
Hiro guided Baymax through the field of debris that spun about, still bleeding momentum from the force that had sucked it in. Half-awed by the eddies and swirls of the nebula-like clouds that stretched out to infinity, he found himself wishing he’d installed a camera in his helmet when they finally spotted the pod.
“There!” He pointed, pulling one of the magnetized gloves off of the corresponding node on Baymax’s armored back.
The big red robot drifted through the debris field towards the pod, latching onto it with gloves and boots like an overgrown limpet. Hiro turned, looking over his shoulder towards the wormhole that lead back home to San Fransokyo. Just go through that and they’re in the clear…
“Alright buddy, let’s turn this thing around and —”
“Secondary life-forms detected.”
Hiro blinked. “What?”
“Secondary life-forms detected.” Baymax repeated. “One hundred seventeen meters.” He pointed. “That way.”
Hiro looked into the void towards where Baymax was pointing. The debris was still spinning off, chunks ranging in size from a soccer ball to a monster truck pinballing against each other and jetting off in new directions. The prismatic gasses and dust inched outwards in the distance like the corona of a supernova, but there was nothing else of note, nothing more to see — except, he realized as he spotted it, a glimmering white dot.
Were those...lights?
He looked to the Wormhole again, worry and fear mingling in his chest. If they stayed too long, then it would collapse, and both he and Callaghan’s daughter would be trapped, again.
And then, he remembered his brother.
Tadashi had looked just as afraid, just as worried.
And he’d still gone into that building.
Steeling his nerve, he looked to Baymax. “Ok. We can’t leave whoever it is in here. Thrusters on, take us closer. Be fast and careful.”
They moved, and Hiro took a moment to peer through the glass of the pod: Callaghan's daughter resting within, unconscious and completely unchanged.
He had no idea what had preserved her, but he was glad of it. It looked like she hadn’t aged a single day.
“Visual contact.” Baymax brought him back to the present. “Scanning. Shall I intercept with the pod and Miss Callaghan?”
Hiro looked at the glimmering white...square.
No. Not a square...
A… door?
There was a woman standing there, a woman whose age he couldn’t quite place with a suit and a hat that looked straight out of a fifties movie.
From the distance, he couldn’t make out details, but he saw clear movement behind her — a person? Two?
With the backdrop of light, it was impossible to see. But the sound he heard in the next second was unmistakeable.
*BANG*
*BANG*
Thunderous, echoing out into the void- Two gunshots.
Fear, sharp and cold, lanced through his stomach with each massively loud crack.
Then, through the door thing, a body was thrown, tossed in here like so much garbage.
“Female victim injuries severe, consistent with —”
“Go! Go! Get her!” And Baymax’s foot and jetpack thrusters burst alive as he pushed the pod towards the individual. Hiro gave directions, guiding Baymax around any debris as they angled upwards towards the falling figure, who was slowly spinning into the weightlessness of zero gravity. It was then, when he glanced up for a reason he wasn’t sure of, that Hiro finally got a good look at the woman in the miniature doorway just before it closed.
Dressed in a suit and fedora, sculpted with attractive, distinctly Italian features, she gave him the most dismissive of glances — like he was an ant or a stray housefly — before turning away, the doorway sealing shut behind her.
No time to focus on that. Hiro turned his eyes back to the falling figure, clothed in little more than a hospital gown, with a crown of long brown hair that spread out and undulated in the lack of gravity.
He stretched out his arms to grab her.
He caught her, shifted her so he could get a better grip, and looked at her face.
Only to discover the massive hole in her head.
And her missing right arm.
“B-Baymax...she’s —” He gulped, nausea welling up in his gut.
He’d just witnessed an execution.
“She’s dead...”
“Incorrect.”
Hiro blinked, looking at the back of his robot’s armored head. “What?!”
“The patient has been grievously injured, but is still alive. The bullets did no extensive damage to her brain. Based upon her heart rate, blood pressure, and neurological activity, the chances of survival are —”
“Double time back! Now!” He shouted.
“What is double time? I am unclear on the definition of —”
“Double thrust output! Max power!” Baymax obeyed, the rocket boots’ ignition doubling in output as Hiro held onto the person in his arms tight. His magnetic boots and suit were the only things keeping him upright and not flying off as Baymax held the pod, veering straight towards the wormhole and to home.