Kraken Orbital (22 page)

No, it
isn’t a wall, it’s a sheet of glass. I feel it
flex just that tiny amount under my weight and bounce me back like
glass does. I stand up right away, dazed and confused, I start
swinging my arms around for Lucy’s kidnapper, who must have somehow
escaped my grasp. But the figures are gone. And all I can see in
the distance, down the straight corridor I had sprinted down, is
the feint glow of my light stick.

Was it another vision? Or was I just
loosing it?
My lungs
burn even more fiercely and I fall once again to my knees, panting
hard for breath. But I’m, almost instantly, shocked out of my state
of self pity, by the loud banging behind me. I rise up, spin around
with clenched fists ready, only to see Lucy, safe and well behind
the glass I had fallen into.

I relax and
instinctively, even though I have no idea what good it would do me
more than raise my rock bottom morale,
place my hands on the glass. She does the same. I can feel
the electricity through the cold reflective surface and we both, I
can sense, breathe a little easier.

She
’s talking. But I can’t hear
her. She wipes away the odd tear of what I hope is relief. We part
our, for want of a better phrase, “distant embrace” and I start
rubbing my ear, shaking my head and waving my hand to signal to her
that the room she’s hidden in must be soundproofed. She catches on
quickly and smiles sweetly. She raises a single finger, a single
dainty digit, to get me to wait a moment.

The room
behind her must have been in some former life, in days long gone,
some kind of lab. It
’s safe, and even
through the darkness I can see there is an airlock door at the
other end. That must have been how she got in. There are two large
towers housed in an area no larger than a closet that would purify
the air. I can just about make out nozzles in the area above that.
They would spray for any contaminants and kill any bacteria. The
room itself is lined with microscopes on top of benches, various
machines of design I can not place the use for, and the odd chart
and white board still hanging from the other two visible
walls.

I
’m calm. And that means I’m
thinking straight. I start to figure things out again and read my
surroundings. Like I should have been all along. I’m stood behind a
pane of glass, looking into a lab. What could that mean?
Where was I?
People in labs, looking through toughened glass into a room
beyond, are more often than not, studying something in a secure
area.
Damn!
That must mean I’m in the secure area.

And I could
only hope they weren’t studying something dangerous. And if they
were, that it wasn’t still around to be
upset with me on their behalf!

Lucy had been
staring at me for a few seconds. While I was in a trance reading
the room around me and the room around her too. She was thinking
too. I could see the
distance in her
eyes. The vagueness in her expression. Though she still looked as
pretty. And then came the eureka moment. Her posture bolted more
upright and her gorgeous eyes focused immediately.

She reaches
into her back pocket and reveals a small canister of ruby red
lipstick. She starts to apply it to her thin and seductive lips,
with the faintest hint of a smile and a sly, barely noticeable wink
too. I can tell she is teasing me. Even though I feel, deep down,
the situation to be too desperate for such frivolity, I accept the
gesture, smile beneath my mask and place a hand back on the glass
so she knew I liked it.

She just
giggle
s. Even though I can’t hear it. I
know it would have been cute.

She
stops playing with me and starts thinking hard.
The focus returns to her eyes and she ran her free hand through her
copper red hair just once and starts drawing.

A little
stick man first, then a line, and a little stick girl behind that.
That must be us. She
’s drawing me a map.
A few corridors, extending and never finishing, most likely because
she had no memory of them and hadn’t explored that far, a few
doorways too. Some discovered, some not. And with the odd turn and
twist here and there, my directions to where she is.

I
commit it to memory. Turn to face my right. A
short walk. A left, a long corridor, another left. She doodles some
blocks and what looks like stones and boulders in the way, and a
diversion that swung through some more corridors to the
right.

In those
corridors she
had doodled what looked
like waves. I guess that they must have be flooded. With one final
left turn, the route would lead to the airlock behind where she was
stood in the lab before me. I hadn’t noticed before, I was just too
glad to see her, but her hair was wet.
How badly flooded was that section of the
ship?

She draws a
heart in lipstick at the point where we would meet again. I smile
again, remember that she couldn’t see it behind my mask, and
bravely trace the outline of a heart shape with my own finger. She
must have liked it. Because she started to cry again and pressed
her lips against the glass.

I
’m scared more than ever before.
But I don’t want her to worry, and I guess there’s some bravado
there too, so I just wave bravely, stand tall and walk away into
the fog again. I look back after a few paces once I’m sure she
can’t see me anymore and fall back to my knees in the pain I had
been hiding.

Chapter 16

The Dead

I just
c
an’t lie anymore. My back feels worse
than ever. I can lie to others. I can hide it. I can cover it up,
but I can’t lie to myself and just carry on ignoring it. But at the
same time, I need to keep moving. This place is no place to die.
Alone in this ship, not being able to see two fingers in front of
my face, and choked by this creeping gas.

I
persuade myself off my knees and stumble to the
wall at my left. I place a hand on it and use that to support my
weight as I shuffle down the hallway. I can remember the map she
had drawn. I need to turn left. My hand finally finds it’s way
around a sharp corner and the rest of my body follows.

I
kn
ow the next task is a long walk down a
corridor, before I have to negotiate some tougher obstacles. I need
to take it easy, try to breathe my way through the clenching pain,
and take this easier walk to try and put myself right.

I manage to
scrape myself down the hall and reach the first turn to the left.
The slow walk and gentle pace relaxes my back muscles and the spasm
from before subside
s a little bit. I can
breath a little easier now and it calms me enough to
refocus.

I
’m trying to keep that mental
map alive in my head but it isn’t easy. I’m still fuzzy in the
mind. Probably suffering concussion and definitely starved of water
and food. Then there’s the blood loss on top of that.

No way
am I firing on all cylinders. I try to think of
the basic sweeping pattern around the lab and to the airlock on the
other side. But there are some doors and areas she hadn’t drawn on
her lipstick map. And they throw me a little. I guess I need to
stick to the path of least resistance. That must have been what she
did. That was the only way she might have made it down the twisting
halls so quickly.

I
’m walking slowly still, even
after that first left turn, and I have one arm pressed with my palm
open across the wall to my right. It’s there to steady me. To stop
me from falling if my back has another spasm or anything like that.
Whatever painkillers Kolt had given me had completely worn off and
failed in my system.
Maybe
there will be more in that lab?
I can
hope.

That thought might help me drive through the
last of the challenges and get me through that door. That as well
as the chance of seeing Lucy again.

I come
across, quite by accident as I slid my hand over the flame choked
and scarred walls, a door that was peculiarly warm. Warm like it
shouldn’t be. Not here on this ice cast mountain. After a raging
torrent of a fire ripped through the ship many years ago. It was
nice though. Just the touch and the feel of it.
What were the chances?
I thought to myself. Of there still being an odd burning
ember on the other side, one that might warm me and comfort me. One
that might burn a hole through this suffocating gas so that I may
be able to see.

And what were
the chances still that I might be abl
e to
get the door open? I fold my apron to one side and reach into the
pocket of my armor. I haven’t used my access card for a long time.
Since we left the rig so many miles and what feels like so many
days ago.

What were the chances that it might open this door?
I thought hard. Through the mire of gas, through
the shaken concussive blasts to my head, through the claustrophobia
and to some entrenched memory that I could barely still grasp at.
All the cards worked off a personal area network. They used the
electric field the body generates to spark the door
open.

The
tech
nology was old. Really old. I hold it
to the door. To the spinning lock in the middle, of the same design
as all of the others but infinitely smaller. And to my shock,
amazement and horror, it opened in front of me.

I wish there
had been a port hole so that I could have looked in first. I wish
there had been a camera by the door, or that I had my
wits about me and denied myself the guilty
pleasure of seeking out he warmth. But there wasn’t. And I
didn’t.

So nothing
prepared me for the six foot tall burning man that slumped out of
the door and fell upon my boots.
I jump
so hard in shock that I slam myself against the opposite side of
the hall. My heart starts again, even though I don’t know how it
has the energy to keep beating, and my chest burns like never
before. The gas billowed around the tall, licking and oddly
persistent flame. And he stands.

I start
backing away, crouched down as low as I c
an through fear or some other silly reaction. The burning
man looks right into my eyes through his. Bloodshot like Kolt’s.
Masked like his too. Dressed the same and threateningly poised. I
dare to lie to myself and say that he hadn’t seen me.
How could he have?
Through the gas and past the flames that still failed to
consume him.

But he had. I
know it. He looks just like Kolt but he isn’t. I know he wasn’t.
Kolt was my friend, in death, his at least, and I knew it wasn’t
him. Even though the two might easily be mistaken.

‘
Forgive…
me?’ The dead man ask
s with a long pause
between breath.

‘What?’ I
demand of him and bravely stand. He confused me. Worried me
clearly.

‘I am sorry
for my sin. I beg you to forgive me.’ He lurches forth with an
outreached flaming hand. But he spoke sincerely and sweetly.
Through dried up tears and many years of solemn thought. There was
weight behind his words. Truth and meaning too.

‘
How can I?’
I ask him but c
an’t help to back away. It
might have been a cliché but I got the feeling that by asking for
forgiveness, he was about to do something that needed it, and he
was about to kill me.

‘
Are you not
God?’ He ask
s again. More aggressively
and determined this time. But with a further weight of impatience
and desperation.
What can I
say in reply to him?

‘No. I’m sorry…’ I wasn’t sure what I was
sorry for but I sure was.

‘Then you are
like me?’ I don’t answer but accidentally shake my head.

‘What do you mean? Like you?’ I ask him to
clarify and for once stood my ground.

‘Dead. And
Lost.’ I could feel the shiver that raced down my spine churn my
stomach. I don’t have time to protest.

I didn’t have
time to answer back. He backed away. Back into the doorway where I
had discovered him. And I heard it lock behind him. I have no idea
why I even tried, but my access card would
n’t open it again.

But I touch
my palm once more to the surface. To feel it still warm. My throat
is jumping out of my mouth. I feel sick but have nothing there to
throw up.

I have seen visions on this ship before. I
don’t want to think about who that was. Or what he was. And
furthermore what he meant by his parting words. So I have to let my
mind relax in the assumption that this was another vision. Even
though it gave me no comfort to think of it either way.

But what else can I do?
I need to
ignore it. To put it down to some kind of silly vision or even my
concussion. Because I need to keep going. I need to push on. So
that’s what I do. I just keep moving. Fighting back the pain and
the torture going on in my head, I move further along the otherwise
barren hall. My hand still feels warm. And it won’t cool
down.

I guess, no I
hope, that must be in my head too.
I take
the next left and try to stand firm again. My back pain is coming
and going. But when it comes it feels excruciating. But it seems to
be on the way down for now. So I breathe easy for now. I remember
from the map in my mind, a copy of the one she drew for me in her
ruby red lipstick, that the way ahead is blocked.