Seventh (4 page)

            "James Wright, please file your security report in regards to this incident as soon as the situation allows.  You will receive a follow up reminder in fifteen minutes."  Odyssey's artificial voice chimed in my ear, and then went quiet. 

            I barely heard her voice.  My mind was fixed on the last thing I'd seen before the bulkhead had sealed closed at my back.  Had that been a crew member?  The facial expression had still been locked in a horrible grin, but the body was twisted and broken, yet shockingly it moved as if it were in no pain.  Bones had protruded through flesh like barbs, and it had been making a weird, hissing, wheezing noise.   Yet it had spoken clearly and articulately. 

            Had I crafted that evil with my own imagination?  I needed help.  I needed someone to talk to who could explain what was going on.  What terrified me the most was that I might not understand if people were trying to help me.  What if my mind was so far lost that I was trapped in this nightmare vision of reality forever?  Was I running from the people trying to help me?  Should I have waited in the hall for the twisted, female thing outside the door to grab me? 

No.  I couldn't do that.  There was no way I could allow myself to sit by and allow things to happen.  Perhaps it was irrational, but what else could I do?  I had to react to what I perceived to be happening. 

            "James, honey, please file your security report in regards to the lock down of the E13-305 audience chamber in a timely fashion.  This reminder will repeat in fifteen minutes."  Odyssey spoke up again, shaking me from my spinning circle of pointless debate.  Had the computer called me honey?  It hadn't felt like fifteen minutes had...

            "Please file your security report in regards to the lock down of the E13-305 audience chamber in a timely fashion.  This reminder will repeat in one hour."  Now I know that hadn't been fifteen minutes.

            "Murderer, please file your security report in regards to the lock down of the E13-305 audience chamber in a timely fashion.  This reminder will repeat in one hour."

            "What?  Odyssey, what time is it?"  I vocalized my confusion.

            "Please file your security report in regards to the lock down of the E13-305 audience chamber in a timely fashion.  This reminder will repeat in four hours."

            "Odyssey, what..."

            “File your security report in regards to the lock down of the E13-305 audience chamber in a timely fashion.  This reminder will repeat in four hours."

            Faster.  "Odyssey, what time is..."

            "File your security report in regards to the lock down of the E13-305 audience chamber in a timely fashion.  This reminder will repeat in one day.  Failure to file a report within 48 hours of an incident could result in your family being devoured by unending darkness.  You wouldn’t want that, would you?"

            "Odyssey, initiate security report!"  I shouted, eager to stop the cycle of madness issuing forth from the ship’s computer.  It felt like the one thing I should be able to trust was the damned computer, and hearing it giving off a litany of insanity was only adding more fuel to the inferno of panic building inside of me.

            "At the time of the original incident, I, Cadet Wright, was forced to lock the E13-305 audience chamber due to pursuit by a hostile and unknown third party.  Recommend the door remain locked until said hostile party can be determined and dealt with by ship-board security.  Also, Odyssey, please attach a request for a security scan of the deck for non-humans.  Report complete."  The report was lacking in detail, but I was hardly worried about being called out on it at that very moment.  In fact, I almost welcomed a call from the security office.  I welcomed a call from anyone who might be able to explain what was happening. 

            "It was already too late, James.  …but then you knew that."  Odyssey replied, and then she was silent.  What did that mean?  How long had Odyssey been calling me by my first name?  I tried to remember if she’d always done that, or if that was something that had only happened since my hallucinations had begun.  How long had things been messed up?  When the alarm had gone off I’d been asleep.  That would have put it sometime in the middle of the night, maybe one or two in the morning.  How much time, I wondered, had passed since this had all began. 

            "Odyssey, what time is it?"

            "Odyssey is experiencing a malfunction in the entangled timing system.  Only relative local time is currently available."  Startling news again delivered in a voice too calm, and with a hint of malice.  Entangled timing systems didn't just break down. 

            "What is the relative local time?"  I pressed.

            "It has been 1,364,544 years, 7 months, 23 days, 10 hours, and 50 minutes since relative local time began calculation."

            I shook my head and sighed.  The ship board systems were completely fried.  Either that or I was so far lost to DSD that even my conversations with Odyssey were just figments of my shattered imagination.  I wasn't sure which was more frightening.  I felt that sense of dread that overtakes one when they discover they are completely lost in a hostile environment. The difference was that I seemed to be lost in my own mind, which was turning out to be much worse.

            A cold shiver passed through me, like the one I'd experienced upon first waking in my bunk.  I took a deep breath, and the air felt cold and thin.  Momentarily I wondered whether the ship's life support systems were working properly, but I didn't dwell upon the thought.  The thing in the hallway was still foremost in my mind.  I would need to escape this audience chamber eventually.  Would my pursuer still be waiting for me? 

            "Can you guide me to the nearest security locker?"  I asked the AI, deciding that whatever was happening, I wanted to be armed.  I might only have access to stunners and batons, but at that moment, with whatever I'd seen in the hallway still skulking around, it seemed better to have a stunner than to be running around without any form of self-defense. 

            There was no answer. 

            "Odyssey, can you guide me to the nearest security locker?" 

            A colored arrow popped into the corner of my vision, pointing towards the bulkhead I'd just come through.  The nav-system directions were projected stereoscopically onto the insides of my irises by a medically implanted nano-projector which was wirelessly fed data from a CPU wired to my frontal lobe.  I'd had the whole unit upgraded just the previous year.  The original model had been ponderously slow in receiving data.  The new one was not only faster, but it was also capable of threading ten different images to each eye separately.  I'd actually used that particular function only once soon after I’d gotten it, just to try it out, but it was nice to have the option.

            I looked at the bulkhead and frowned.  That was the last place I wanted to go.  I couldn't hear the creature through the soundproof metal door, but I felt certain it was still out there, waiting for me to step out into the corridor again.  I wasn't ready to face that nightmare just yet. 

            "Is there another way to the security locker that doesn't involve the main corridor?"

            I waited for a full minute without a reply, or an update to my heads up display. 

            "Odyssey, is there another route to the security locker?"

            "There are two available alternate routes."  She chimed in, as peppy and inhuman as ever.  Having to repeat myself was starting to get frustrating.  "Would you like me to plot the shortest alternate route?"

            "Yes."  I replied, and then waited.  "Yes!"  I replied more loudly, but there was no answer. 

            "Odyssey, can you hear me?"  I yelled.

            "I can hear you, James.  What can I do for you today?"

            "Could you please give me the shortest alternate route to the security locker that doesn't involve walking the main corridor?"  I repeated my question slowly and clearly, making sure to annunciate everything flawlessly.  I felt like I'd fallen backwards in time to an era before computer speech recognition had been perfected. 

            I waited for a nav-system update, but one did not come.

            "Odyssey?"

            "Yes, love?"

            "Don’t call me that.  Could you please just give me those coordinates?"  I was met with silence. 

            "Damn it all!"  I cursed and stomped my foot like an angry child struggling ineffectively against a steadfast parent.  I turned my back on the bulkhead and walked further into the audience chamber.  There were rows of seats lined up in front of a raised podium, and I slumped into one of the chairs.  I needed to calm down.  I needed to think.  Something was very wrong, and I didn't think it was entirely my madness that was to blame.  I wasn't even sure I was crazy anymore, or if the entire universe had just slipped its grip on reality.  Of course, if I was crazy, isn't that exactly what I would think?

            "Shit."  I swore again.  That kind of circular thinking was pointless and frustrating. 

            Someone cleared their throat loudly and I looked up to see a man standing behind the podium at the front of the room.  I nearly jumped out of my chair as I came to my feet.  I stumbled awkwardly and pushed myself back behind the row of chairs I’d just been sitting in, eager to distance myself from this new unknown figure.  It had been a long while since I'd encountered anyone normal, and my eyes told me this person wasn't going to fall into that category either.

            He was dressed in what appeared to be a medieval noble’s costume of black velvet, lined with thin gold trim.  He stood tall and straight, with a regal bearing, and his looks might have been considered attractive if not for a particular problem with his eyes.  They were solid black.  It was as if two glass marbles of pure obsidian, shiny and dark, had been rammed into his face where his eyes should have been.  He smiled and his mouth was full of razor pointed teeth. 

            "What the hell are you?"  I asked, not sure if I should run or fight.  Where would I run?  I certainly didn't want to go back out in the hall.  At least this thing, whatever it was, hadn't made an attempt to come towards me, thought the glint in its eyes were as predatory as any I'd ever seen.  When I stared into them, I felt like I was falling into some place cold and desolate, worse, I felt like they were somehow boring into me. 

            "That is no way to speak to a man of my standing, young man."  He answered in a smooth, soft voice.  It wasn't the voice of a monster.  "I am Worm, though I will be known by many other names in ages gone that have yet to be."

            "That is an unusual name."  I answered cautiously.  "Are you an alien?  Are your people attacking this ship?  I don't recognize you from the known species list."

            The man in black laughed and I shivered.  I had to consciously clench my bladder to keep it from letting go.  No written word could ever encapsulate the horror that rang within that grim mirth.  It was the laughter of something that would smile at a field of burning children, the rumbling delight of a creature that would fall asleep to the screams of the universe’s demise.    

            "You're looking for answers, Jim Wright.  I am the keeper of answers, and if you want them, you must find me again."  Worm smiled with his jagged teeth.

            "I don't understand.  What do you mean ‘again’?  You're right here."  I answered, my voice little more than a whisper.  

            "No. No, but I am close, and getting closer."  As his words ended, he simply disappeared.  He did not fade from my vision, or disappear in a wisp of smoke, he simply ceased to exist in that spot.  I squeezed my eyes shut and rubbed my palms against them, but that did nothing to change what was (or wasn't) before me.  It had to be the DSD. 

            I took a few moments to settle my nerves and gather my thoughts.  The apparition of the man in strange black clothes weighed heavily upon my mind.  A deep seed of fear had been planted deep in my chest.  I realized that my bladder still felt full to bursting.

            There was a bathroom just inside the conference room, so I walked quickly back there and took advantage of the facilities.  Afterwards, I turned to the sinks and washed my hands in the purified water from the faucet.  I waved my hand over the "cold" indicator, and the water turned chill within moments.  I splashed some of this on my face and let the cool water rinse the fear-born sweat from my brow.  What was I going to do?

            Odyssey wouldn't give me directions, and I didn't know where to find a security locker.  I didn't want to exit the conference room and find myself face to face with the thing in the hall again.  Something deep inside me still wanted to reach the comfort center.  I wasn't precisely sure why, but I had become focused upon that as a "safe" goal to work towards.  A part of me was convinced that if I reached the confines of that artificial world, everything would be alright.  I'd find the entire place full of people going happily about their business, and there would be a reasonable explanation for everything that had happened to me so far. 

            I looked up into the screen over the sink.  It was a control console that could be made to display any number of different images or full motion scenes.  It could also be turned into a mirror if one desired it so.  It was currently on a star-scape scene with a beautiful blue and purple nebula burning in the distance.  The effect was calming, and was just what I needed.  I wasn't sure that I was ready to take any more madness.  After a short while of gazing at the star-scape, I touched the corner of the screen and it to a mirror.  The face looking back at me was haggard.  I looked old and tired.  Too old.  For a fresh faced, young cadet I looked much more worn than I should.  These past few…. How long had it been?  Days?  Regardless, recent events had been far too stressful. 

            What was I wearing?  I looked down at my clothes and noticed for the first time that I wasn’t wearing my uniform.   I was dressed in a one piece gray jump suit with a bar code on the left breast.  The outfit was immediately familiar, but I couldn’t place my finger on where I’d seen it before.  I was certain I’d never worn one before.  Yet there I was, looking back at myself in the mirror dressed in that plain non-uniform outfit.  I touched the mirror panel and turned it back to the space scene, hiding my reflection.  There was no point in dwelling on what I couldn’t explain.