11-23-2015, 02:19 AM
"Please press your forehead against the head rest for a retina scan."
The metallic voice always sounded urgent, though bored in the way only a recording could. He wondered if the security device was networked into the mainframe and thus could respond to non-compliance with an interpretive response. He considered telling it to attempt something obscene just to find out, but thought better of it. The scanner made no sound, and only the barest blink of a red flash indicated activity.
"Identity confirmed. Entry granted."
The door slid open, receding into the wall without a sound. He stepped through the opening, feeling the air rush out to greet him, since the room was kept at positive pressure to keep out contaminants. He moved around the room, downloading data from various diagnostic stations into his hand-held. The drudgery of it all both mystified and irritated him. It was all so unnecessary, given the ordinary capabilities of modern communications, to require him to make the trip down here and manually check the status of a patient whose condition hadn't changed in three years. But the contract was explicit: no hardwires apart from electrical in or out, and a dampening field to prevent wireless transfers.
Not that anyone cares to spy on a dead man, he thought to himself, cynically, and not for the first time.
His checks complete, he paused next to the padded table in the center of the room, on which rested the remains of man, past middle-age, appearing only to be asleep, though the monitors hooked up to him told a different story. No heart rhythm, no respiration. One would be tempted to believe the man was in fact dead, except that the plastic bag hanging next to the bed was dripping a clear liquid into a vein in his left arm, and that bag was replaced once every 19.6 hours, day after day, for 1,017 days straight. And the body remained at a constant 97.5 degrees fahrenheit. And a yellow goo oozed out from the catheter inserted into the man's groin. And there was the electroencephalogram, which was always off the charts with brain activity. How could a dead man dream? Who was he? Why was he here? What was the point of this? How long would it last? The contract didn't stipulate such things. It only required monitoring and basic maintenance. For a substantial sum in payment. With very emphatic assurances of several types of peril if the contract terms were not followed to the letter. Dr. Carlos Rivera Montez, former director of medicine at Palermo Base no longer cared. He cared about the money, because it funded his other research, and only required a small investment of time. He'd never done so little to be paid so much before.
He looked at his hand-held. The time was getting away from him. He needed to get back to his real work. For the 1,017th time he wondered why he didn't send an intern down here to take care of this. For the 1,017th time he reminded himself of the stipulated penalties for violating the contract. Some of them were...ambiguous, in a possibly disturbing fashion suggestive of physical rather than legal repercussions. For the 1,017th time he glanced once more around the small room before exiting. His gaze paused on the electroencephalogram. For the 1st time, it looked...normalish. He looked down at the patient, and saw the man's deep, midnight eyes, wide open, staring back at him.
For an age after planetfall, the Orange Dream was the color of midnight: the inky darkness of the void stretching outwards beyond the boundaries of gravity and even imagination. Then a patrol discovered the first rift among many in the fabric of space-time that opened up the Sirius Sector to exploration, colonization, and dominion. Yet, still the Dream was destined to languish among the many sensualities embraced by the human species, until the tidal forces of ancient and modern conjoined to reveal humankind's greatest threat, and greatest promise.
Most felt revulsion at the revelation of the body snatching, mind-controlling creatures, but some embraced them as gods, both terrible and awe-inspiring, come to render judgment and prepare the path for the chosen to survive the coming apocalypse. Though small in number, the latter few's fanatical zealotry vastly multiplied their relative power. In the darkness of the void, midnight black was rent asunder by lightning blue, and blue set the darkness ablaze.
For nearly three years the body rested on a padded slab on a remote base carved into a nondescript asteroid, and the conscious mind slept. For an infinity of time, the preconsciousness that foreshadowed thought swept through a universe of intricacies, searching for patterns, reliving memories, grasping at the shape of the future, the better to slow the momentum of the onrushing end. Amidst the storm of possibilities, one image recurred again and again: Fire leading Blue through a rift, set against a backdrop of barrier ice, and betrayal followed in their wake.
Dr. Carlos Rivera Montez gasped in shock, while the man lying prone before him inhaled deeply. Montez opened his mouth to speak, but the man spoke first.
"Your services are no longer required, Doctor. You may leave now."
The way he said "now" caused Montez to hesitate before speaking, think twice, then quickly exit the room.
In the center of the room, the man carefully removed the catheter from his lower region, and pulled the needle from the vein of his arm. He crossed to a sealed cabinet against the wall, punched an access code into the keypad, and dressed himself with the black pants, shirt, and coat that lay within.
He returned to the middle of the room, detached the bag of fluid from its hanger, removing the tube and sealing the bag. He then entered a code into another cabinet, and pulled several more bags of fluid from the refrigerated interior. Placing the bags carefully in the large pockets of the coat, he stepped to the room's exit and passed through the door.
He walked briskly down the hall, decisively making several turns at intersections until he reached a dead end corridor. He reached out and placed his hand against the wall, which immediately lit up beneath the pressure, revealing a scanner that assessed his fingerprints. A small panel in the wall slid up, and a retinal scanner pushed outward. Scan completed, the scanner retracted and the panel closed, while the wall to the left slid open. He quickly entered the opening and crossed to the light fighter resting in the small launch bay.
With long time familiarity, he prepped the fighter for space flight, after carefully stowing the bags of fluid in the fighter's cockpit. Pre-flight complete, he transmitted a code using the ship's computer, and after the launch bay depressurized, the bay doors opened. The launch bay shoved the fighter out the doors using a small catapult system, after which he engaged the ship's thrusters to stabilize a trajectory towards his plotted course. The asteroid base quickly receded into the background as he engaged cruise engines.
The eerie nebula of the system had always seemed to him like mist rising from a darkened swamp, and he piloted with calm precision until he reached the jump hole. Just as he reached the jump hole's event horizon, an Outcast Patrol transmitted a broadband hail and identification request.
"Thanks for the memories," he muttered, as the Dagger slipped into the rift, and out of the Omicrons.
The metallic voice always sounded urgent, though bored in the way only a recording could. He wondered if the security device was networked into the mainframe and thus could respond to non-compliance with an interpretive response. He considered telling it to attempt something obscene just to find out, but thought better of it. The scanner made no sound, and only the barest blink of a red flash indicated activity.
"Identity confirmed. Entry granted."
The door slid open, receding into the wall without a sound. He stepped through the opening, feeling the air rush out to greet him, since the room was kept at positive pressure to keep out contaminants. He moved around the room, downloading data from various diagnostic stations into his hand-held. The drudgery of it all both mystified and irritated him. It was all so unnecessary, given the ordinary capabilities of modern communications, to require him to make the trip down here and manually check the status of a patient whose condition hadn't changed in three years. But the contract was explicit: no hardwires apart from electrical in or out, and a dampening field to prevent wireless transfers.
Not that anyone cares to spy on a dead man, he thought to himself, cynically, and not for the first time.
His checks complete, he paused next to the padded table in the center of the room, on which rested the remains of man, past middle-age, appearing only to be asleep, though the monitors hooked up to him told a different story. No heart rhythm, no respiration. One would be tempted to believe the man was in fact dead, except that the plastic bag hanging next to the bed was dripping a clear liquid into a vein in his left arm, and that bag was replaced once every 19.6 hours, day after day, for 1,017 days straight. And the body remained at a constant 97.5 degrees fahrenheit. And a yellow goo oozed out from the catheter inserted into the man's groin. And there was the electroencephalogram, which was always off the charts with brain activity. How could a dead man dream? Who was he? Why was he here? What was the point of this? How long would it last? The contract didn't stipulate such things. It only required monitoring and basic maintenance. For a substantial sum in payment. With very emphatic assurances of several types of peril if the contract terms were not followed to the letter. Dr. Carlos Rivera Montez, former director of medicine at Palermo Base no longer cared. He cared about the money, because it funded his other research, and only required a small investment of time. He'd never done so little to be paid so much before.
He looked at his hand-held. The time was getting away from him. He needed to get back to his real work. For the 1,017th time he wondered why he didn't send an intern down here to take care of this. For the 1,017th time he reminded himself of the stipulated penalties for violating the contract. Some of them were...ambiguous, in a possibly disturbing fashion suggestive of physical rather than legal repercussions. For the 1,017th time he glanced once more around the small room before exiting. His gaze paused on the electroencephalogram. For the 1st time, it looked...normalish. He looked down at the patient, and saw the man's deep, midnight eyes, wide open, staring back at him.
~
For an age after planetfall, the Orange Dream was the color of midnight: the inky darkness of the void stretching outwards beyond the boundaries of gravity and even imagination. Then a patrol discovered the first rift among many in the fabric of space-time that opened up the Sirius Sector to exploration, colonization, and dominion. Yet, still the Dream was destined to languish among the many sensualities embraced by the human species, until the tidal forces of ancient and modern conjoined to reveal humankind's greatest threat, and greatest promise.
Most felt revulsion at the revelation of the body snatching, mind-controlling creatures, but some embraced them as gods, both terrible and awe-inspiring, come to render judgment and prepare the path for the chosen to survive the coming apocalypse. Though small in number, the latter few's fanatical zealotry vastly multiplied their relative power. In the darkness of the void, midnight black was rent asunder by lightning blue, and blue set the darkness ablaze.
~
For nearly three years the body rested on a padded slab on a remote base carved into a nondescript asteroid, and the conscious mind slept. For an infinity of time, the preconsciousness that foreshadowed thought swept through a universe of intricacies, searching for patterns, reliving memories, grasping at the shape of the future, the better to slow the momentum of the onrushing end. Amidst the storm of possibilities, one image recurred again and again: Fire leading Blue through a rift, set against a backdrop of barrier ice, and betrayal followed in their wake.
~
Dr. Carlos Rivera Montez gasped in shock, while the man lying prone before him inhaled deeply. Montez opened his mouth to speak, but the man spoke first.
"Your services are no longer required, Doctor. You may leave now."
The way he said "now" caused Montez to hesitate before speaking, think twice, then quickly exit the room.
In the center of the room, the man carefully removed the catheter from his lower region, and pulled the needle from the vein of his arm. He crossed to a sealed cabinet against the wall, punched an access code into the keypad, and dressed himself with the black pants, shirt, and coat that lay within.
He returned to the middle of the room, detached the bag of fluid from its hanger, removing the tube and sealing the bag. He then entered a code into another cabinet, and pulled several more bags of fluid from the refrigerated interior. Placing the bags carefully in the large pockets of the coat, he stepped to the room's exit and passed through the door.
He walked briskly down the hall, decisively making several turns at intersections until he reached a dead end corridor. He reached out and placed his hand against the wall, which immediately lit up beneath the pressure, revealing a scanner that assessed his fingerprints. A small panel in the wall slid up, and a retinal scanner pushed outward. Scan completed, the scanner retracted and the panel closed, while the wall to the left slid open. He quickly entered the opening and crossed to the light fighter resting in the small launch bay.
With long time familiarity, he prepped the fighter for space flight, after carefully stowing the bags of fluid in the fighter's cockpit. Pre-flight complete, he transmitted a code using the ship's computer, and after the launch bay depressurized, the bay doors opened. The launch bay shoved the fighter out the doors using a small catapult system, after which he engaged the ship's thrusters to stabilize a trajectory towards his plotted course. The asteroid base quickly receded into the background as he engaged cruise engines.
The eerie nebula of the system had always seemed to him like mist rising from a darkened swamp, and he piloted with calm precision until he reached the jump hole. Just as he reached the jump hole's event horizon, an Outcast Patrol transmitted a broadband hail and identification request.
"Thanks for the memories," he muttered, as the Dagger slipped into the rift, and out of the Omicrons.