CHAPTER 13
CRAWLING IN THE DARK
Every movement was a torment. It was terribly cold, and cold was also the metal of the shaft where I had crashed. The anger that had shoved me in there began to subside and my brain to realize what situation I had gotten myself into. 'Now?", I thought finally aware that I had neither a plan nor a direction to follow.
I felt like a mouse locked up by some perverse scientist in an absurd labyrinth. I wandered for hours inside that burrow until I came to a series of openings, closed by some grates similar to the one unhinged to enter. Some light filtered through the bars and I immediately headed as silently as possible in that direction attracted to it like a moth. It looked like some kind of hangar, from that position I could barely see the floor some thirty feet below, and the light was coming from an opening that looked directly into space. Perhaps a force field like the hangar I had seen the time before but that was just a guess.
I continued my journey through the darkness for another few more heavy minutes and panic began to assail me. There were no exits or outlets of any kind of sufficient size for me to get out. I could not even turn back. I didn't know how to do it after passing several forks in the road. I was lost. I thought it wise to try to climb vertically. As soon as it was possible, I took a suitable shaft and laboriously reached an upper floor by pointing my hands and feet. It was a hard climb and I arrived exhausted.
The material with which the shaft was made changed. Just as it happened wandering around the environments, I noticed how strange materials and designs blended with normal technology. The shaft took on a different shape; it looked as if it were inside a root. Creeping along, I walked a long way until I finally found the right opening. It was different from the others, the grating was artistically worked and covered with a spongy white membrane, a kind of filter. In addition, the bars could swing and allowed the airflow to be regulated. I looked through them and glimpsed what appeared to be a bedroom. It looked deserted. I got into position and with all the strength I could muster, pushed with both feet. The grate fell to the floor with a thud. I jumped out and squared the room with my gaze. Empty.
It seemed strangely familiar and I understood where I had ended up: it was very similar to Christelle's old room. Good thing, since I knew the route from there to the cells where I was locked up. Deena could have been locked up there if she was still alive. I had no information. I looked everywhere for material useful for my purpose, maps, computers connected with the internal network of the base, books or anything that might come in handy, but I found nothing. I sat on the bed and put my head in my hands in despondency.
Suddenly, I heard a clanging, creaking and finally a dull thud. The door to the living room before the bedroom had been opened and then closed. Someone had entered. I crawled under the bed and took the safety off the gun, forgetting it was unloaded. The wooden door to the bedroom slowly opened and a black figure strode into the room, turning on the lights and closing the door behind him. I could see the shiny leather boots and black pants of Charon's officer, intent on staring at the wall from where I had entered. He walked over to examine it.
"Hm, it just fell off," he concluded. "Maintenance here Rico, send two guys to fix a fallen grate in the VIP room at OL4. If they happen to move the huri Charon will want it in order." "Roger that, I've got everyone out there because of a problem with the second reactor, it needs to be put back online for re-entry, can you hold on?" they radioed back.
"It doesn't look bad, I'll try to fix it and get back to you. Rico out," he said huffing at the end, "Let alone if those pricks were coming all the way here to work."
I crept silently behind him and walking on my toes reached to put the gun to his throat, until bent over he examined the inside of the duct.
"I'm sorry, it looks expensive, it looks like hand-wrought iron. Are you insured?", I said taking him by surprise. He said nothing, evidently panicked. Understandable reaction, although from a Diĝir-ga-šum officer I expected a little more preparation. "Where are we?" asked I.
"A-Special Alerts, OL sector room 4," he stammered in terror.
"Well, I see the staff here is knowledgeable and courteous. So let's hear, a new guest arrived a few hours ago by shuttle. You understand me right?"
"I don't understand," he lied. Perhaps he was still more afraid of his master than of the end he might come to at that moment.
"I think so," I said pressing the rod hard against his skin causing him to moan.
"Wait, wait! The huri no? She has been taken to her quarters!"
"How do recruits get around here without getting lost? How do you find your way to the toilet? I mean how do I get there? I'm sure you don't have a single SAI that works in here." "I-The PDA," he said, pointing to a pocket. I slipped my hand into it and pulled out a touch screen the size of the palm of my hand.
"How do you unlock it?", I asked. "Old-fashioned stuff." "I-Fingerprint," he explained.
"Thank you," I said. I locked him in a hold and choked him until he was unconscious. I watched him to discover that for better or worse we had the same build. I undressed him, abandoning forever my coat and the rest of my cadet clothes under the bed I thought had been Christelle's. I put on his uniform minus his shoes, tested the fingers of his hands one by one until I found the magic one and cut it off with the knife, slipping it into my pocket. I had nothing left of my own now. A dog tag had been kept by Deena after the failed funeral, my pistols, unloaded, would expose me wearing on their uniform, and I decided to leave them behind. From a pants pocket fell to the ground the hideous earring given to me that night on the beach and Erik's dog tag. The memories hurt, I clutched them tightly and put them in my pocket along with the severed and bloody finger.
Now I could move undisturbed and without getting lost. I shoved the guy with the mutilated hand under the bed, hoping the asphyxiation would give me enough time.
I closed the air grate roughly and arranged the bed carefully. The room seemed to be in order. I began to tinker with the officer's handheld terminal and discovered many interesting things. It was that nice gadget that kept the demi-humans in check in case the psychic control imposed by that fellow Christelle didn't want to name was weakened. I quickly got the hang of it.
Had I encountered demi-humans, they would have taken me for a full-fledged officer of theirs. All I had to do was avoid the real humans, concentrated in the control rooms, and get to the boss room undisturbed. I had a map, the way to neutralize the guards and the access keys. It was like a video game in simple mode.
I exited and circumspectly set out toward my destination, walking through corridors I had never actually seen, often running into demi-human patrols. Otherwise, the base was apparently deserted. Life, if it could be called that, took place almost solely in the forges, factories and control rooms. I found no miniature golf courses or billiard halls up there. Just lots of corridors and lots of warehouses full of locked iron crates. I didn't like it as an environment, especially because of that strange arboreal and vegetal design that made up the places. DGS's engineer father must have been working on acid the whole time.
I walked for a long time, a good half hour I would say, until I came to a door guarded by four demi-humans. I deactivated them with my PDA and slipped inside. Behind was a room identical to the previous ones complete with a bronze doorway. I had arrived.
I burst into the room, shocked to see Deena's clothes, worn and dirty thrown confusedly on the bed. Of the owner, however, not even a shadow.
"What the hell is going on here!" someone shouted behind me. I acted on instinct. With a kick unleashed while he was still behind me I disarmed him and turning around I unleashed a flying kick that caught him in the face, knocking him to the ground dazed. "Good," I said with satisfaction, "just what I needed." Another officer entered, attracted by the scuffle, but he did not catch me unprepared and I cooled him with a couple of shots fired from his colleague's weapon.
"You won't get out of here alive no son of a--," he tried to say, but I shushed him with a punch on the teeth.
"I won't break them all for you because I need you to be able to talk for now. Answer or I'll kill you! What are you doing here? And what happened to the girl they brought into this room! Answer or you'll end up like the other one. There are many of you here and I'm in no hurry to leave," I said menacingly. Hank's prophecy was coming true faster than I thought. I was acting like a beast and moved only by personal desires.
"I was sent to check the demi-humans' shutdown!"
"Are they active now?"
"No! I checked first to see if anyone was there!"
It could have been a lie, and for that I had to hurry. "The girl, where is she?", I asked tugging at him holding him by the neck. I was squeezing tighter and tighter.
"It's ... it's in the ... in the main hall ... in the presence of the Judge ... let me, are you ...," he said, trying to pull his hands away from my grip.
"The Judge? But wasn't that software? Ah, never mind. Give me the coordinates of the hall." "Let me ... not respir ...," he hissed, widening his reddened eyes.
"Oh, sure," I said and let go of him.
"Dog," he said, coughing. "Charon will rip your heart out with his bare hands."
"Yeah, and he taught me the technique," I replied, looking at him fiercely. "Give me the coordinates if you don't want a demonstration."
"Great Hall, OL1, easy. They'll find you out right away and feed you to the demi-humans' mess!"
"You say? Then to you the honor," I retorted before dismissing him with a gunshot between the eyes, "of being a starter."
I went back to the starting floor, which is to say, I slipped back into the icy vents. But this time I had a map with a nice little red dot that said "You are here," which moved to correspond with my position. I crawled through the dark again, descended down burning my hands trying to make friction in the vertical shafts that led to the levels below, and eventually, I got where I wanted to be. I emerged into one of the many corridors that had a fairly wide grate, and after deactivating the demi-humans and opening the door, I entered through what was indicated on the PDA as a secondary opening. On the other side, a long purplish tapestry hung from the very high ceiling, at least thirty feet high, blocking my view of the interior. I pushed aside that giant and very heavy drape and admired the interior.
The hall was probably immense. At least fifty meters long by as many meters wide was priceless because of the pitch blackness that ruled it. The ceiling was perhaps some forty feet from the floor, also lost in darkness. Darkness held sway in that cold and still place, Terra's reflected light being the only glow that illuminated the interior. The planet's glow came through immense pointed windows, framed by the now-typical design of DGS rooms, that is, gleaming greenish metal roots or branches. There were three of them, and the central one was the largest of all. How they had been made, I could not imagine. They were apparently composed of a single huge sheet of glass that I assumed was actually transparent aluminum as was common on spaceships and more modern buildings. That kind of opening was totally out of place on a space station, but the creator of that place perhaps had access to such advanced materials that he could afford any eccentricity. I moved to try to wake up from the stupor I had fallen into as soon as I stepped inside. The silence and utter lack of vibration encouraged my theory that the place was empty. My instincts, however, told me otherwise. I could not continue in the dark. I silently headed into the semi-darkness, although it was the riskiest place. My ears were like a hare's, straining at every single noise. I held my breath with every step.
"Come little mouse," said a voice. The usual voice. "Come on, I've heard you by now. Come out of the shadows, it took you even too long to get here." I did not answer. I didn't ask any questions. I stopped and fired in the direction of the voice. The flash produced by the detonation made me see for a few tenths of a second what the darkness concealed. I caught sight of a solitary staircase rising from the center of the room. Two figures, one tall and one short, more or less in front of me, standing and motionless.
"You just don't know when to quit, do you Daith? All heart and zero brain."
"You are a murderer," I judged him without possibility of appeal. "You have killed many enemies, like me. But your first murder was against yourself. Then you killed Jalen. Then you continued your murders, taking with you to hell every single poor soul who had the misfortune to cross your path. Innocent. Helpless. I had to watch... I can't take it anymore...Sean."
"Collateral damage is inevitable in war," he replied detachedly. "I can't do anything about it. But if you are upset about that sukkal Daith, let me tell you clearly that that despicable creature was nothing but...."
"Cut the crap Sean! Show yourself! This ends now and here!", I shouted furiously toward nowhere. I had a morbid fear of the place that I could only conceal with anger. Should I have listened to what he had to say? I don't know, baby. Then, it was impossible for me.
"No."
I remained frozen. That "no," Charon had not said it.
"Right. The.... thing Daith, it's going to start right now. So far I have only played with them. You'll see Humanity tremble when I come down on their heads," Charon announced in a solemn tone. "Watch me kick a god's ass."
The floor began to shake. Or rather, jerking up and down violently. I fell. I remained on the floor with my gaze turned toward the stained glass windows facing Terra. I seemed to get bigger and bigger, and before long I realized that "big" was not the most accurate term, but rather "close" was the more correct word. The acceleration was such that I even lifted off the ground by a couple of centimeters. As soon as we entered the atmosphere, the glass windows ignited and I thought they would not withstand the heat. But once again, I was wrong. The descent was terrible and the arrest even more so. Daylight illuminated the hall more and more, and numerous layers of clouds passed in front of the stained glass windows. Finally, after about ten minutes if not less, the entry into the atmosphere was over and the base floated terribly above the planet's surface. I got up and ran to the glass windows. They were hot from inside, too. I looked below and saw the sea. Not far away, a few kilometers, a coastline. The base was floating and its lower part was submerged in the waters, perhaps to cool it. I turned around.
Charon lay at the foot of a black staircase that led to a wide platform about two meters above the floor. Above, an immense black throne with smooth, plain edges stood. Seated, a mysterious figure in loose white robes whose knees I could see only as far as I could see. Beside Charon, still at the foot of the steps, a black shadow, small standing still, stared at me.
"Deena," I called to her relieved. I got no answer. "Deena, are you all right? Did they hurt you?"
"Bad? Or no, indeed. We set her free," Charon told me. "From doubt. From fear. From the chains that held her bound to you and to a ridiculous pretense of humanity. She is now herself."
In the blink of an eye she was in front of me, suspended in midair and ready to strike me in the face, succeeding in her intent. Never had I felt so much pain at once. My brother's fists seemed like caresses in comparison. I slammed against the glass window and lost my breath, only to slump to the ground knocked out. I coughed and spit out three or four teeth, screaming in pain. A tiny hand grabbed me by the collar. With frightening force it lifted me into the air, then a blow caught me in the stomach. I felt something break and lost the feeling in my legs.
I slammed into the glass window one more time only to fall back down again, calling her with my last air by name. I don't know how she did it, but she shattered that armored crystal with a sharp blow. I felt the cold wind penetrate the interior of the room, regaining lucidity. He took me by the collar again and lifted me up, as if I weighed nothing. She lifted me up and then grabbed me under my jaw so that I could see her face. Her eyes were completely black like a shark's. She raised me up until my legs dangled in the void, hundreds of feet from the bubbling sea water.
I tried to say something but only whispers came out, carried away by the wind. I no longer understood anything. She, the girl I had protected and was learning to love. The girl who hated violence. There she was, besotted about to throw me into the void. With a savage scream she kicked me in the stomach that I didn't even feel and I flew down. I did not even feel the water. I lost track of existing in midair. The last thing I remember was a dark face watching me fall into the void.
*
When something eludes you, just when you can touch it. You've run, you've struggled, you've sweated, you've cursed to get it, you've even betrayed, for it. Finally it appears to you as it is. Like hot steam coming out of a pot. You feel it, you see it but by some absurd law that you cannot control, you cannot grasp it. It slips through your fingers and you can only scald yourself.
One moment I thought I was dying, and then there I was, wrapped in something smooth and black, like a cold, smelly second skin. I tried to figure out where I was. I had a great headache and couldn't tell if my nose was pointing up or down. I spat and what little saliva was available fell back onto my leprosy, a sign that I was supine. I realized where I was. With little effort I broke the black plastic bag in which some idiot had locked me, giving me up for dead. 'Ah, another time?", I thought. I sat down with my legs stretched out still inside the sack. I stood on a dusty floor in what had all the appearance of being a barn. Piles of straw lay behind me reaching almost to the ceiling. The structure was made of wood and orange brick and housed a rusty old hydrogen tractor with an even more oxidized small plow attached parked in front of the ajar door. The light was dim but it must have been a very warm and sunny day outside. I rose to my feet. With my hands I felt all over to find that I did not have a scratch. I smelled of salt spray and freshly cut grass; I was not a pretty sight. I took off the bandage Agatha had made, yellowed and smeared with blood. I could see my ribs so much I had lost more weight. By now I was a skeleton.
Holding those filthy bandages in my hands put a bitter feeling of nostalgia on me. The person who had clutched them thoughtfully was probably dead, the place where it had happened lost and far away, the reason I had fought perhaps lost forever. I wrapped them around my knuckles and slipped them into my pocket.
Staggering, I made my way one step after another and, with one hand to my forehead and the other on the door, stepped out into the open air. At first I thought that the light dazzling me mixed with the thirst burning from within were the accomplices of some kind of illusion but I was wrong. I could not believe my eyes.
An olive-skinned man dressed in a long yellowed robe and a round straw hat stared at me wide-eyed about 20 yards from where I stood. In front of him, another uniformed man examined me earnestly, and behind him, a Federal Fleet hovercraft waited with its engine off. All around, barren almost desert countryside and a hint of sea not far to the north. The two must have been intent on discussion. The dark-skinned man took a step back, then lifted his heels and ran off in terror toward a flat-roofed house, shouting words whose meaning I could not grasp without my SAI to translate. The guy in uniform, on the other hand, smiled smugly, squaring me from the tips of his toes to the toes of his matted hair. I recognized that smirk in a flash, that expression somewhere between smugness and cynicism. Yes, I can say that Major Carter, in that instant, was doubly happy. Not because he had found me alive and in good condition. Now instead of just burying me he could degrade me, put me in irons for months and then expel me, perhaps, from the academy.
"Well," she said, smiling wickedly, "Dying would have been all too easy a way out for her.
Time for justice, agdgadu!"
I didn't know how to respond. I tried to remember how I had ended up there but instinct made me stand at attention and my brain lost the power to think. "Major Carter, sir," I said, "Lieutenant Daith Lester reporting for duty, sir."
"Lieutenant? Not for long," he added, returning glacially. "You have no idea what the Services had to do to track you down. I expected to bring her home tied up in a sack, but life is never what you want it to be ... I'll settle for driving her home in handcuffs. Given your condition, it would almost be in your best interests. You are under arrest and will be tried by the Council of Rectors. Get him!" In a flash, two SpecOps in black gear were on me and after groping me for weapons and handcuffing me like a criminal, they yanked me to the hovercraft.
*
My first waking thought strangely enough was 'wrong glasses.' I shook my head and remembered I wasn't wearing any at all, and oblivious to the dream I was having, I found myself fighting with the artificial light that was blurring my vision and irritating my eyes. I tried to put a hand on my forehead for shelter but a soft, light blanket resisted.
"He has recovered! At last! Come one, come all!" rang a female voice to my right. I answered with a hysterical hiss and the voice apologized. I felt as if I had a hangover.
I turned my head to the right and then slowly to the left and saw myself in a hospital bed. It was a small single room with bare white walls. A window to shield me from a blue sky and two small armchairs were all the furnishings. The owner of the entry came back through the door and in a moment returned to her seat, displaying a smile. "You."
"D! Did you almost die again! I was in pain for weeks! Disappearing abroad like that! And then, when you were reported missing!" said the girl on the verge of bursting into tears. "You're the same old jerk!" she insulted, and then hugged me, putting a whimper on my shoulder.
"Sophia," I called her name with a sigh, "Sophia, get out of my way! I'm running out of air." She let go of me and with puffy eyes sat back composedly on one of the small chairs next to my bed. "I died of anxiety!" she repeated before wiping her eyes with a tissue. Sophia Woods was a peer of mine, a fellow student at the academy.
I met her on her first day at the academy, and from then on she pestered me with incessant cares and requests for attention. Many people told me she had a crush on me, but I paid even less attention to them than I did to her. She was a pretty girl with beautiful features, rosy skin hazel eyes and wavy brown hair that she usually wore loose past her shoulders and collected in a bun at work. She was not suited for that life and as soon as she could, she opted to specialize in the fleet process. Her dream was to leave the academy and become a singer.
She had the nightingale voice and talent for music to pull it off, but I saw her only as a pushy, nosy, and apprehensive brat, as I used to tell her again and again. I loved her in my own way, in short.
"He's right. You've been gone almost two months. You could have tried to contact us somehow, couldn't you?" a different voice said to me from behind the door. That tone sent shivers down my spine and an incredible urge to punch the owner in the face. With a straight face he entered with a triumphant smile.
"You," I said again in the same tone as before.
"Hello, did you sleep well?" he smiled at me as if nothing had happened.
"You," I repeated in an irritated tone.
"Just me. Happy to see me?"
"You," I repeated again, baring my eyes. In an instant I was on him, with a leap I was out of the blankets and clutching that bastard like I had never done before. "You're alive! You're alive!" I shouted with a joy I had never dared to let show. He was little more surprised than I was. Sophia, on the other hand, was about to be moved again. I hugged him tenderly. "Matt, you're alive! I was told that...."
"Calm down! What's wrong with you?" he said loosening from my grip. "Of course I'm alive! What did they tell you? Bullets hurt me less than they hurt you, Little D!"
"Go back to bed D, the dean will be here as soon as news of your awakening reaches his BRAIN," Sophia intimated.
"Where are we?" I asked confused. "It looks familiar."
"In the academy infirmary. You're home Daith but you're also in trouble," Matt frowned at me.
"Home?!" I exclaimed, blinking. I had ended up several times in the infirmary, not recognizing her right away seemed strange.
"They told us you fell asleep like a rock on the helicopter and there was no way to wake you up," she told me. "You are so thin, what happened to you can anyone know?"
"Dean Sophia! Let's go!" said another voice out in the hallway, which I could not recognize. "Go back to bed. See you later with the stories," Matt said and ran off.
"Do as we say. See you later," she greeted me with a treacherous kiss on the cheek. She ran out, closing the door behind her. I rubbed my cheek in disgust, as a child does at his first kiss. I slipped back under the covers and tried to assume a pathetic, suffering air.
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