Prisoner 52 (25 page)

Day 43

The lift thundered down the shaft, its walls replete with the bare cabling that governed it and the
few glowlamps which flickered past. Sparks shot up from the gears that turned madly along their tracks within the walls and lay cruciform at the edges of the platform, at turns grinding and screeching. Hastur Victor Sejanus stood eyes forward and his hands clasped together at the wrist magnetically, held at his bare navel. He shivered as he looked up into the dark heights they had left behind and felt the cold droplets of leaking coolant tubes fall upon him, freezing him the more. One of the guards that stood on either side behind him thrust his head forward again.

The air grew heavy, warm. He ceased to shiver and commenced to sweat and to lose track of the air he breathed. He looked without moving for a readout somewhere on the flat plane of the lift, some panel upthrust through the shadows that could indicate to him their depth. But he did not need it to know that they had begun to plumb the far depths of that planet, to escape the freeze of its surface and be taken into the fire that is within every world. And with still many more miles to fall yet, beyond the braced glass and steel at his feet.

The brakes engaged of a sudden, though he knew not how much time had gone by. Great profusions of sparks erupted from the machinery and it sounded with a terrible keen. The lift shuddered beneath them as it met the suspension columns at the base of the shaft and they braced themselves against the impact. Then there was a crackling, warbling noise that came from a panel beside the doorway ahead and one of the men escorting him shouldered Sejanus aside to go to it.

“Passcode.” A tired voice said from within the noise.

“Bhukard, Fulgh. Code 129558372221.” Said the Enforcer. “You know who it is.”

“Verified.” The man said, but the door did not open. “Well what are you waiting for?”

“Suck my dick, Zirdat. Just open the door.”

“You’re welcome to drop your pants.” The panel said. “I could use a laugh tonight.”

“Let me through the door and I’ll show you how small it is.”

“I bet you’d certainly like to.”

“Can you guys cut it short?” The other Enforcer that was with them said.

“See,” Zirdat said. “Llord knows.”

“Come on, Zirdat. We’re missing out on Suzie’s.”

“You got it, youngster.” He said and they heard the magnetic whine of the locks deactivating. “Door opening; come on in, people. Make yourselves at home.”

The dim light of the shaft burned meagerly outward into the total dark of the sublevels. The guardsmen activated the flashlights of their helmets. They pushed Sejanus out before them, into the dueling cones of their light, and stepped out behind him to push him along with the stocks of their rifles. It was a wasteland of half-seen metal and distant glows that he was ushered into, and which contained within it the unmappable power that isolation wielded over man.

Far ahead they could see the light of the observation booth that sat at the intersection of the level’s four main walkways. The guardsmen waved at the dark figure they saw to be standing within and leaning over its consoles to peer out the window. It waved back and they marched onward into the wall of night. Sejanus could feel its gates opening to him, those they had already damned beyond crying out to him.

The thin viewing ports of the nullgrav isolation tanks stretched without end above and along the walls as so many crosses of light. He saw the dark vagaries of those interred within, floating, and their torment which seemed so silent and tranquil on the outside. So much akin to the dull metal of the ships he had seen during combat in orbit, passing calmly but for the hull punctures that had forever silenced the crew.

He felt stairs beneath his feet and he was thrown headlong down them. The hard grating
of the steps cut coldly into him and the low chuckling of the guardsmen above followed him down to where he crashed upon the landing, sprawled out and unable to move. The world shook with the great, laborious beating of his heart and threw the light that was nearer now in strange ways. So that he thought something had fled into the darkness then at his sudden coming.

“Come on,” Fulgh said and he felt hands round his arms, dragging him upright. “Get up, traitor.”

He found his footing again on the damp metal, but he went on at a stumble across it. The Enforcers pulled him into the humid gloom ahead and he pulled back against them, away from what he had seen go into the shadows. His eyes wide, stinging at the sweat that ran into them.

“Come on.” He said again and swung the butt of his rifle into the small of Sejanus’s back when he made no move to comply. “He’s being an asshole, Llord; we’re going to have to drag him.”

“He’s a big son of a bitch, Fulgh.”

“Quit your crying.” He said and took hold of one arm and one leg himself. “They give us these suits for a damned reason.”

“I thought it was for the climate control."

"Damn it, Llord.”

“Alright,” He said and took the other limbs. “Only trying to lighten the mood.”

“My mood don’t need any damned lightening.” Fulgh said as they hauled Sejanus down the walkway, wrestling against them. “You want to lighten my mood, you get me to Suzie’s. Until I see those girls I’ll be as pissed as I like.”

“Would you shut up.” Llord said.

They drew up then alongside one of the dozens of docking pulpits that lined
that level, fitted to the array of containment tubes below them. They tossed Sejanus to the patch of grating inset between its clamps and he struggled to his feet. The boil and warmth of the air encroached upon him and his sleepless nights were close at hand. It was all he could do to focus on the sounds of his breathing, that he might remain awake and alert.

“Zirdat,” Fulgh said into the comms receiver of his helmet. “Raise IMP 12-B.”

“12-B is occupied. Some Crimson Mask piece of work from Tower 3.”

“Well what the Hells is he over here for then?”

“They’ve got a lot of Crimson Mask in Tower 3.” Zirdat said as though it were a readily apparent thing that he said and required nothing more. “Those sons of bitches cycle in and out of iso faster than you could a Khagani whore. Or any whore, I guess.”

Fulgh shook his head and said, “What about the one next to it?”

“12-C is at your disposal. Raising now.”

Its machinery started up below and whirred low as the column of dark, reddish metal rose up from the sea of dusk it had a home in. The cables that
wound into its ports trailed up after it through the shadow, wavering in the glow of the flashlights. Sejanus turned as its shadow fell over him and recoiled at the sight of it, but the butt of a rifle held him onto the boarding plinth.

             
He gave a cry and snatched at the gun with bound hands, laid hold of it. Long ago thought-mantras and the chemical shaping of neural pathways overtook his bodily needs as they had been trained to in the face of threats. His mind became clear again and in an instant. He heaved on the weapon with muscles made weak by fatigue and abuse; but the guard pulled back on it and with the inexhaustible strength of his exo-suit. It came easily out of his grip and the rifle of the other guard beat him to his knees.

“Please,” He said, bleeding from his scalp. “Don’t put me in there.”

“You ever see an OBPAFer beg before, Llord?”

“Don't believe I have, Fulgh.”

“I wonder what's got him so spooked.” He said and planted his boot on Sejanus's shoulder when he tried to rise. “You ain't going anywhere, punk. Overseer's orders are the only thing that's kept a shell out of your skull, but if you want to keep pressing buttons you go right on ahead.”

“You can't.” The inmate said and tears made tracks through the dirt along his cheeks and welled from the hysteria in his eyes. “Shoot me; but I won't go back in.”

“You ever see one cry?”

“I reckon that I haven't, Llord.” He said and kicked Sejanus hard in the chest, knocking him onto his back. “I won't shoot you,
71. But I'll make it so you can't make much argument.”

Sejanus made to get up again and Fulgh slammed the rifle home into his nose and his head bounced down to the grating from the force of the blow. Blood ran from the c
rater made there and the shadow-world around him spun in streaks of light and haze. He rolled to lean on his elbow, that he might stand, and a boot visibly depressed his sternum.

“The prick won't stay down.” Fulgh said over Sejanus as he howled like some lost thing, a wastrel soul upon the walkway. “Go on, Llord. Get some practice in.”

Llord nodded as though something waited above him out of sight and shuffled over to the inmate, stole glances at the other guard behind him. He came to stand over Sejanus and raised his rifle as if with a great weight. He began to stand from his hands and knees then and the first blow fell and awkward upon his shoulder. It knocked him prostrate again and Llord looked upon him with quickening heart, the symbol of the Magnartig Hieraccies's brutal power brought low before him and all he would never be. He began to sweat in spite of the suit's temperature regulators and kicked him in the ribs. There was a muffled crack and he stomped upon his head. Llord drew his sidearm in a fevered rush and held it to the neck of the man.

“Should I kill him?” He said.

“Ease down, Llord.” Fulgh said at length and put his hand overtop the barrel of the pistol, lowered it gently. “Easy.”

He let out a shuddering breath and shook himself. Fulgh bent down to the inmate as he
stowed away his pistol and took up the rifle from where it hung at his side by its sling.

“Is he dead?” Llord asked.

“Who knows,” Fulgh said and took hold of Sejanus beneath the arms. “Let's just get him inside. Get over to that panel there.”

Llord went to the pedastal and submitted his bio-tech credentials. Its interface lit up and flickered into the dark around them in a display of diffuse spectres. He keyed on the touchscreen for the door
to open and the face of the metal cylinder revolved away to reveal a gloom that defied their flashlights. Fulgh tossed Sejanus onto the small platform therein, limp and lifeless, and Llord shut the hatch upon him.

“12-C ready to lower.” Fulgh said.

“The Hells took you so long?” Zirdat said.

“Prisoner was giving us trouble.” Fulgh said and gave Llord a look, who looked away.

“Well,” He said. “Awaiting parameters.”

“Beaming now.” Fulgh said and did so upon the hardlight console of his bracer.

“Hastur Victor,” Zirdat said and broke off into mumbling. “2 weeks?”

“Just do it, Zirdat.” Fulgh said and started away from the tube. “Overseer's orders.”

“Overseer's orders are getting to be a hell of a thing.”

Day 43

His breath made hollow sounds and he knew little more than that. He floated interminably through the void; he had been encased forever in a stasis field that knew no failing power source or set deactivation. His eyes moved nowhere but to other nowheres and blank darknesses that brightened not at all to shadow. A crackle broke through the silence and a light came into being somewhere above, but he could not m
ove to see the origin of either sight or sound.

“Conducting preliminary scans,” Master Control said.

Blue beams erupted from along the close, circular walls and above upon the domed ceiling and formed a hatchwork of light that ran across him once and then twice. The emitters were returned along the tracks to their rest positions and deactivated. He saw in their dying light the blood that had pooled beneath him. There was another noise overhead and it settled into a whine that then resolved into words.

“Severe trauma located: cranial;
facial; bodily. Rectifying...”

The walls sprouted into churning machinery that he could only see in his periphery as vague shapes, cast as reaching monsters in the low light of the tube. A pair of pincers took him up by the wrists and raised him into the air, dragged his dangling feet through his own blood. He was brought to stare into the tiny screen that had deigned to show him light and saw therein the imagined face of Master Control, angular and obdurate and pale with unconcern – bathed in a tearing glow.

“Commencing maintenance sub-processes.” It said and he watched in his half-life the uncanny smoothness with which the countenance moved to form the words, never to resemble the imperfections of its model.

The mechanical arms that had ar
rayed themselves about him began to close in on him and he tracked their proximity with a growing fear that he could not give voice to. The prongs of the cutting laser stopped before his eyes and he looked on as their points brightened overtop his shattered nose. Below it the rotary saw moved into place and he could hear as though across a great distance its angry grind begin to build. He felt then the needlepoints of a dozen hypos pierce to his veins all across his body and knew that it was not for the pain, but for what the pain could bring his mind to do. A thing felt that had no use.

“Priming nano-fabrication units.” Master Control said and repeated until it had been done. “Sterilization of operating areas, commencing...; complete.
Maintenance...commencing. Please standby for osteomechanical fixturing.”

Far away in the c
ontrol booth, Zirdat was awoken. He listened as the wails of some animal, lost and wounded out in the sub-level, echoed through the silence and twilight beyond the window of the control booth. A revenant awoken in those catacombs and confronted with its fate.