TR: 6

Chapter Six: The Devil Wears A Suit

Garbage piled into the intake of the incinerator, disintegrating almost instantly. The machine looked almost sinister with small, flaming portholes for eyes and a ravenous mouth consuming everything fed to it. In but moments that would also include Kade. Kade struggled to ford through heaps and heaps of garbage as he scrambled toward the wall, fighting against the motion of the conveyor beneath him. He felt like he was watching himself die in slow motion, though any irony in the situation was lost by the fact that he was, in a very real way, about to be reduced to carbon. He got to the wall and began jumping up and down, trying to get a hold of a low-lying pipe but he couldn’t manage to reach it. He spun around, sweat trickling down his face from the increasing heat radiating out into the room.

“Think Kade, think!” He yelled to himself.

He panned around the room, searching for a control console or any other such station, hoping he could find an emergency shutoff switch or the likes. It looked like there was some kind of panel on the incinerator itself but now that it had started up it was impossible to get anywhere near it without becoming a charcoal briquette. There was a glint of metal and Kade’s eyes tracked to the location. An oblong, metallic rod stuck up amongst piles of garbage several blades off. He thought it odd that a console would be buried in trash but he had seen stranger things that day and didn’t waste any time making his way over to it. He clambered over the heaps of refuse, cold, slimy things brushing against his skin. He pushed away the horrible images of what may lay beneath, lest he vomit up what little food he had left in his system. As he approached the object, he could make out that it was part of something larger obscured by the waste. He grabbed a hold of the rod and pulled on it with all his might. It wasn’t budging; too heavy. Kade looked up and saw the incinerator growing larger, felt the temperature climbing. He watched the exhaust climb up the transparent piping feeding out of the incinerator and into the network of brass piping in the ceiling where, through some process he couldn’t put a name to, it diffused into a liquid exchange, siphoning off into the plumbing manifolds in the ceiling. He imagined his charred corpse’s ashes subliming into that system, his ultimate legacy ending up as some kind of chemical soup.

Return to the earth? Not so much.

Kade began pulling off items from around the object as the floor slowly crept forward. He pushed aside some broken machine parts and a metal access panel was revealed. Kade was ecstatic—he had found a console after all! There didn’t appear to be any kind of user-friendly interface so he pulled out his Holomate and withdrew an extendable cable from the bottom of it. He opened up a panel on the front of the console, revealing a series of ports and switches.

“Let’s see what we have here.”

Kade matched the end of his cable to the mating end in one of the ports. Upon contact, the terminal automatically sensed the input and threaded itself onto Kade’s connector. Kade sighed with relief at discovering the device had power and waited for his Holomate to boot back up.

“Come on, come on!”

He glanced up at the incinerator anxiously, afraid that the machine–whatever it was–may not have enough reserves to jump his device.There was a familiar chime and his Holomate screen flashed back to life. Kade signed with relief.

WELCOME BACK, KADE. I APOLOGIZE FOR MY ABSENCE. MUST HAVE BEEN SOMETHING I ATE. TOTALLY DRAINED THE LIFE OUT OF ME. DID ANYONE CALL WHEN I WAS AWAY?

Kade scowled at the cheesy remark and swiped away the dialogue with his finger, pulling up an icon that showed a symbol with a gear and a wrench.

RUNNING DIAGNOSTIC TOOL…

“Come on…come on…hurry up!” He growled at his device.

There was a ping and a series of numbers appeared on the screen as an extensive report. Kade swiped down the list, scanning through the data as he tried to make sense of what he saw. After a moment his eyes opened wide as it became clear to him what he was looking at. He glanced down at the metal slab, half-submerged in garbage, with newfound hope.

“You’re not a console… your a service drone!” He exclaimed.

Kade looked up at the intake vents near the ceiling where he had come out of.

“Hmm, this might still work. Now, let’s see what kind of shape you’re in.”

Kade scrolled through the report until he came to the information he was looking for.

“Looks like you didn’t pass your last mechanical assessment. Says the reason was…huh. All it says is mobility issues-miscellaneous. That’s not vague. Jeez, how much money do these guys have that they can just toss you away without even a proper diagnostic?”

Kade sighed, running a hand over the smooth metal surface. “Probably cheaper just to build another than spend the time, I guess. Well, I’ll give it a shot!”

Kade pressed a series of buttons on his Holomate and pulled up a command prompt. He entered a string of text, glancing up intermittently at the nearing furnace as he programmed away. Sweat pooled down off his face, dripping down on to his screen. He grumbled and wiped it away.

“Come on you stupid stick, why do you never auto-complete when it matters. I should just…”

There was another chime as the Holomate interjected.

IT APPEARS THAT YOU ARE TRYING TO RUN A PROTOCOL TO REBOOT THE BACKUP POWER SUPPLY OF AN UNKNOWN DEVICE. I STRONGLY ADVISE AGAINST THIS MEASURE AS IT IS UNCLEAR IF THIS POWER SOURCE IS STABLE AND THE RISK OF ELECTROCUTION IS REAL. DO YOU WISH TO OVERRIDE SECURITY MEASURES?

Kade pressed the YES button.

ARE YOU SURE?

“Yes, I’m sure! By the Thirteen, mom, I told you not to touch my stuff! Always messing with the parental settings on my crap. I’m not a bloody baby anymore.”

YES, again.

The screen began flashing and a bar appeared, showing a meter slowly filling. Kade looked up at the incinerator as it grew larger in his field of vision, getting uncomfortably close. He backed away from the heat but he jerked to a stop as his Holomate cable went taut. Kade watched the digital meter slowly filling, feeling like he was watching a timer counting down his last seconds.

Suddenly, a flickering of colourful light came to life from within the pile of garbage and Kade could see the mass shifting as something moved beneath it. There was a series of beeps and boops and then a large metallic object burst out of the trash, hovering upside-down in front of Kade with the Holomate cable still attached. Kade looked up at it in awe as the drone pivoted around, its optical sensors shifting about as it took in its environment.

“Hello!” Kade said, waving at it.

The drone turned toward him, its sensors locking onto him.

Hello valued guest! 

It was as pleasant of a voice as he’d ever heard from a bot, though it was one of those canned, prerecorded ones. Nothing too sexy, to be sure.

I notice that you appear to be having difficulties with your seating arrangement at the moment. We at Falkner’s recommend refraining from standing on the ceiling as it is against security protocol. Safety matters to us; we want you to have the best time that you can have, so at your earliest convenience, we would ask that you please, take a seat, and enjoy the amenities that Falkner’s has to offer!

Kade frowned at the bot. He looked up at the ceiling quizzically then realized what was happening. He pointed at it.

“No, silly! It’s you who’s upside-down!”

The bot hovered silently for a moment as it processed what was being said. Kade could practically hear its circuits working as it attempted to crack the simple riddle of its own positioning. After a moment the drone turned itself over, facing Kade right-side up.

Good evening valued guest! My scanners tell me that you may be hungry. Can I offer some refreshments, perhaps? We have Butter-butt popped-corn, Double-Whammie brain freezers, Slamjaw gumball teasers and Killer Kal’s famous jambu jerky! We also offer a wide assortment of delicious beverages, including…

“No, I don’t need any of that stuff! I need you to help me get out of here…NOW!”

The bot’s sensors moved side to side as it attempted to decipher Kade’s request.

Do you need to use the washroom, perhaps? Worry not! You can find facilities on nearly every level! Here at Falkner’s, we believe in a positive guest experience, and that’s why we don’t want you to ever get lost when you’re just simply trying to go! Just follow the blue holograms with the toilet logo…

“Arrgh, this is pointless! Now I can see why they threw you out, you piece of scrap. Stop with the spiel already and get me out of this inferno!”

Abuse is not tolerated here at Falkner’s. All of our staff work very hard to please our customers. If you have any complaints, please refrain from violent and derogatory gestures towards our service crew and complete a formal appeal at any concierge. They would be happy to help you resolve your issues.

Kade wasn’t surprised to hear a service bot programmed with a predilection towards its own safety; it was, after all, just an automated response. The drone could certainly do a number on a belligerent guest if it wanted to but Kade figured Falkner’s did their best to reserve the knockout punches to the ring only. Ironically enough, underneath its overtly pandering  customer service model was a drone just one plasma cannon short of a death machine.

Service with a smile.

Then it donned on Kade: there was an answer in there. While he certainly didn’t want to be liquefied, it was a good thing if he pissed off the drone just a bit.

He needed to get arrested.

Kade reached over and grabbed a large machine part–an alternator maybe—from the top of a pile of other mechanical debris. He hefted the weight in his hand–substantially heavy. He reared back and threw it at the drone, the piece knocking it askew, denting its frame slightly. The drone made an irritated buzzing sound and its optics changed to a bright red light, telling Kade he had accomplished his task of making it angry.

Attention guest, you have violated Falkner’s code of ethics by assaulting one of its crew. You will now be escorted to security for detention and further processing. 

The bot came at him, its claw-like appendage reaching out  and grabbing hold of him by the wrists.

“About time. Now let’s get…”

Before Kade could finish, the drone’s thrusters engaged, but not delicately; as if propelled by rocket fuel, huge gouts of flame burst out from a port on its top and it jerked Kade off of the conveyor belt and into the air at a breakneck speed. Kade yelped as he turned his face away from the heat of the flames lapping just above him. Darkness enveloped him and he found himself back in the disposal chute, zooming through the dark corridors. The drone zipped along, jerking around corners with timed precision, Kade’s feet dragging behind him, skipping along the ducts. After a time they emerged into a lit area, light pouring in through vents beneath them which looked down into rooms, though they were moving too quickly for Kade to get a good look. They came to a shaft blocked by a series of grated partitions and the drone took no heed of them, ploughing through each as if it were made of paper. They passed by a network of fans inset into the ducts and Kade barely managed to avoid being nicked by their rapidly spinning blades as the drone pulled him abruptly along.

The corridor doglegged and Kade found himself sailing upwards toward a square of light pouring through a vent. If he didn’t do something soon, Kade worried that he could find himself in much worse hands than the ones he was in. As the drone sped upwards, Kade attempted to free his hands from its iron grip but the claw wouldn’t budge. The drone rose up to the grate, stopping in front of it as it dialed down its thrusters, hovering in the air. It reared back one of its appendages, punching the grate and knocking it off its hinge.

On the other side, the grate flew from the wall and sailed into a kitchen, bouncing along a tabletop, kicking up clouds of flour and knocking cookware all over the floor. A portly pastry chef hollered and fell backwards on to his rear. His dumbstruck apprentice was not so lucky and found themselves covered head to toe in flour and powdered sugar. The grate clanged down the line until it collided with a rack-and-roll, shattering a glass of hot liquid that had been cooling there, the yellow stuff spewing all over the kitchen floor.  A robust woman in a chef’s uniform burst through the pantry door, storming into the room.

“What in the name of Ojot is going on in…”

The woman stopped as she watched a service bot attempting to pull a child unsuccessfully through a ventilation duct. She glanced around at the mess on the floor, the rest of her kitchen staff staring at the debacle speechless. She felt her blood pressure rising at the sight of what had happened to her prized kitchen. Kade dug his heels into the side of the vent, his legs splayed wide on either side of the opening as he resisted the pull from the drone. Gusts of flame burst out the drone’s rear end, Kade having to lean back to avoid losing his eyebrows.

”Holy hell! I thought SFR-8 was bad! You gotta get this looked at.”

Ventilation grate, estimated value two hundred fifty credits. Please be advised that this amount will be deducted from your personal accounts, along with the standard fines for vandalism. For your convenience, security is able to procure payment at the time of your processing.

“What? That was on you!” Kade yelled at the bot as he struggled to free his hands.

“If you think I’m going to pay for your mess…”

Resisting arrest is highly discouraged here at Falkner’s, as you risk not only harm to yourself but to others as well. If you feel that you have been unrightfully assessed, please allow our agents to peacefully assist you for processing where you may file a civil dispute against any wrongdoing that you believe you have been exposed to.

“Like hell, I’m going to let you assist me! Assist this!”

Kade managed to get the Holomate between his two hands and he entered a protocol into the system. The drone’s body pivoted around so that it’s rear end pointed into the kitchen. The chef pushed aside some of her workers as she approached the embattled bot.

“Now listen here you two, this is a fine dining establishment. I’ve got fifty covers right now, all paying hundreds of credits ahead, half of them top-level execs from a reputable film board. My reputation’s on the line here. So whatever trouble you’re cooking up here, do it in someone else’s’ kitchen. Otherwise I’ll…”

Suddenly the drone’s thrusters came to life blazing, sending a huge stream of flame into the kitchen, scorching the adjacent wall and several ovens along with it. The staff screamed and ran past the chef, knocking her onto her rear before she too scrambled to her feet and left with the exodus. The drone slammed into the inside wall of the vent as its thrusters drove it headlong into the aluminium sheeting of the duct. The impact caused the drone to lose its grip on Kade and Kade tumbled back down the shaft several feet before his Holomate cord went taut, pulling him to a stop. He dangled from the cord, holding on strong to his device as the drone burned brightly above him.

Resisting….arrest…is highly discouraged….here at Falkner’s…

Kade struggled to punch in a command as gravity pulled him downwards, his grip slowly sliding off of his device. He managed to punch in the last of the command and the drone’s optical sensors began to fade, as did the hum of its thrusters, its engines winding down. The flames sputtered, coughing out the last of their life. Kade pushed a button and retracted the cord from his Holomate, disengaging from the terminal on the drone. He fell several blades, landing on his back with an almost humorous metallic pong. Luckily, the flexible sheeting cushioned his fall somewhat, though the malleable metal was still enough to wind him. He barely had time to catch his breath before he glimpsed the corpse of the drone falling straight toward him–a good tuller of dead steel. Kade yelped and rolled to the side, the inert form slamming into the place where Kade had been just moments before. Kade craned his neck, looking over his shoulder at the lifeless bot. He sat up and wiped sweat from his brow, looking over at the motionless pile of metal. He let out an exasperated sigh as his racing heart slowly stabilised.

“Mobility issues? Understatement of the year. Crusp!”

***

Kade climbed out of the vent and into the kitchen. There was a large scorch mark across the wall in front of him and the rest of the kitchen looked like a herd of buffalo had been through it. Luckily, it looked like none of the staff had returned; he didn’t like the idea of facing that angry-sounding lady anymore than a disgruntled service drone. But he knew he was on borrowed time; it wouldn’t be too long before security arrived so he didn’t linger. He made his way over to a pair of bi fold doors and stood up on his tiptoes, glancing through the window to the other side. It was a restaurant, and a fancy one by the look of it. It was an ambient setting, only two to a table, real candles with real wax, which told Kade it was also expensive since bees were scarcer than gold. The restaurant was filled with people, so popular too. There was a bar to one side which took up nearly the whole wall. Above it, there was an aquarium with a number of long snakelike creatures in it. Sea snakes perhaps? Kade watched one of the creatures as a sudden discharge enveloped its body, the entire tank flashing through a series of bright colours momentarily, followed by a chain of lights which ran around the trim of the bar as a cascade of blinking diodes performed brilliantly in a seconds-long display of grandeur.

Not snakes–electric eels. 

“Cool!” Kade exclaimed.

Kade watched a waiter leave the bar with a tray full of glowing drinks as he made his way over to a table. Kade wondered if the eels electrified the cocktails too. As he watched the waiter pass by the entrance to the restaurant, Kade saw a woman in white standing there, talking to two armed sentry bots. It was the grumpy chef. She pointed in Kade’s direction and the bots turned their head in unison. Kade cursed and sunk down against the door.

“Not cool!”

Kade thought about his position.

“Well, the restaurant is out. There’s gotta be another way.”

Crouched down against the door, he looked around the kitchen. It looked like there was only one way in and out. Of course, he could go back into the vents but the last thing he needed was to get lost anymore than he already was. What he needed was a solid, unmistakable exit. Kade slowly stood up and peeked his head through the window. The sentry bots were making their way over to the kitchen, pulse rifles at the ready. As they passed by the tables and their opulent-looking occupants, many of them jumped and/or made concerned exclamations. Performing their due courtesy, the bots gestured calmly, assuring the patrons that all was under control. A bald man in a vest, polishing a glass from behind the bar (owner maybe?) shot the procession a nasty look. He didn’t seem to agree.

Kade gasped and dropped onto his hands and knees, crawling across the kitchen floor. He scurried up to a metal pass bar and pressed his back against it. He heard the door of the kitchen open as the bots entered the room, their metallic boots clanking against the floor as they took measured steps. At that point, Kade knew they were likely using thermal sensing, though being in a kitchen worked in his favour in that regard; there were a lot of hot things around. Kade’s heart raced as he heard them nearing. What if their guns weren’t set to stun? Kade had never seen anyone get shot with a pulse rifle other than on the Holovision, and it always ended up pretty gruesome. But that was always sensationalised.

Wasn’t it?

Kade looked over his shoulder and saw a small door inset into the wall to his left. A dumbwaiter.

So much for ixnaying cramped spaces.

Kade slowly looked around the counter to his left. He could make out the distorted reflections of the bots in the adjacent steel bar, their glinting forms nearing his position. Kade looked to the other side and saw the same thing: they were approaching from both sides. Kade groaned and realized at that point that he’d had quite enough adventure. He took a deep breath and got up, rushing toward the dumbwaiter. Slamming his fist into the console and striking the down arrow, he rolled gracefully into the trolly and immediately clambered toward the back of the box. A moment later the door closed behind him and the cart began to descend. A flurry of bright flashes pursued him, several of them perforating right through the glass of the door. Kade held up his hand in defense and one of the blasts struck him in the center of his palm. Kade yelped as a jolt of pain wound itself from his hand down his arm, all the muscles on his one side spasming as his body contorted violently, his mouth caught halfway between a silent scream and a rictus snarl. Kade slumped over onto the cool steel of the dumbwaiter and gasped for air as the lift slowly continued downwards.

“Definitely…not set…to stun.” Kade groaned through laboured breaths.

He could hear the plasma bolts continuing to fire off above him. There was a sudden jarring in the dumbwaiter and he heard one final bolt discharge before there was a distinct snapping sound, followed by the feeling of falling through empty space. Kade figured he fell for about three seconds before he struck bottom, the force of impact making his spine momentarily turn to jelly, his teeth chattering like lonely grandmas. A cloud of dust filled the interior and then there was nothing but darkness and silence.

Kade thought that he might be dead but as he entertained the idea, he realized he was entertaining the idea, which meant it wasn’t likely the case. He felt around in the dark with his good hand (his other was still crippled somewhat from the blast) and he came upon what felt like a handle. He pulled up on it and the door opened, if not reluctantly. He managed to pull the door open about halfway–as far as it would allow–letting in a warm light from the outside. He squeezed through the gap and pulled himself out of the dismantled carriage, coming out into a dimly-lit room. He slowly got to his feet, feeling down his legs and arms for any broken bones. He appeared to be in one piece. He looked down at his hand and saw that it was beginning to recover, though the fingers still spasmed reflexively from time to time. He shook it out at his side vigorously, hoping it would help. As he stood there attempting to reconstitute his hand, he looked around the room. There were large barrels stacked one on another around the perimeter of the room–wine by the look of it–and shelves full of various jarred and canned goods. Preserves, jellies, things of that nature. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, except… Kade did a double-take as he realized his eyes weren’t deceiving him. Indeed, near the top of the wall where it met the ceiling, all around the room, was that same strange growth that Kade had seen on the upper level, like some kind of mold. He could make out what looked like tiny filaments interspersed, like a root structure, as if something were growing into the walls. But how could it extend all the way down so many levels? Did Falkner’s have some kind of infestation? Kade shrugged and slowly made his way through the room. It quickly donned on him that he was in the restaurant’s cellar and, judging by the short amount of time it took him to get to that conclusion, security had probably realized the same thing. A doorway revealed itself on the other side of a shelving unit and Kade made a move toward it. He didn’t get two steps before a large rat scurried out from under a shelf in front of him, stopping him in his tracks. He watched the disgusting creature disappear under a nearby cask.

Kade sneered. “Gross.”

“You know the funny thing about rats…” A voice came from behind.

Kade spun around to find a shadowy figure emerging out of the darkness of a corner of the room.

“…is that one can always tell where to find them. It’s not the crumbs, no. Contrary to popular belief, rats don’t leave anything behind. They are actually quite fastidious in this respect. One who starves may eat the bones, as the saying goes. No, indeed the trick to tracking them is much more refined. One must follow…the sounds.”

The shape emerged out of the darkness, a man that was not a man, impossibly tall and gaunt. A living skeleton. A dirge in a suit.

Chester.

Kade’s breath caught in his throat. Seeing the man from afar did no justice to the terror that he posed in person. Kade could feel Chester’s presence, as if it were some foul thing caught in the mind–like a piece of food wedged in the throat of his thoughts. Kade found himself unable to think clearly, voices that were not his own filling his head.

“What…what are you? What are you doing to me?” Kade sobbed as he fell to his knees, grabbing the side of his head, wincing in pain.

“Ah, so many questions. I didn’t take you for the ask-first, barge-in-and-destroy-everything-later type, but who am I to judge? After all, we now know each other quite well, yes? But I imagine you are feeling a little…overwhelmed at the moment, no?”

Chester bent down and placed a long, bony finger under Kade’s chin, drawing his gaze upward to meet his own. Kade reviled at the cold sting of Chester’s fingertip though he could do nothing to get away from it. Even squatting, Chester still rivaled the height of an average man. He felt chills wash over him as if he were in the thrall of winter’s bane. Looking into Chester’s face, vacuous cavities with no eyes, it was if there was no face but merely… an impression of one. Nonetheless, the face smiled wickedly at him.

“Do not fret, young one; all will make sense in time. His plan has nearly come to fruition and then I shall be free of this place and that wretched being along with it. And your kind… well, they will not be around to have to worry about it if all goes accordingly. It’s a shame in some ways since I’ve grown quite accustomed to your cuisine. Well, that is to say—you as cuisine.”

Chester leaned back and laughed, placing his hand on his knee.

”It’s ironic, really. I don’t expect you to have heard of my kind, but if you must know, in truth, the closest relative that you would know is actually a common food of you cren. So you see, it is only natural that the prey become the predator, lest they all be eaten.”

Chester stood up. “Nevertheless, there is always something else—someone else—to eat. Though I have to say I’ll perhaps miss you, dear boy; you have caused quite a stir with the locals. A good meal and a good show. A two-for-one deal!”

Chester clapped his hands, mockingly. Kade just knelt there, straining against the forces which retained him.

“Who…who…”

Chester folded his arms in front of him and frowned, looking down at Kade crossly.

“Oh, I think you know my name. Don’t you know it is rude not to introduce yourself when you already know the other party?”

Kade’s eyes opened wide in surprise as he struggled to meet Chester’s gaze above him, his body shaking heavily as he struggled to resist the crushing feeling keeping him at bay.

“Yes, I know you know who I am. So that brings me back to my point: who are you?”

Kade knelt there silently, refusing to answer.

“Kade.” The word slipped off of Chester’s tongue, almost orgasmically.

Kade’s heart began to race. “How…”

“Who, what, when, where, why, how… Agh!” Chester snapped.  “You are insufferable. Is that all you can say? Is this to be a game of trivia then, Kade? Is that how you would entertain your guest, were they in your home? I should hope not. Besides, no one likes a soggy appetizer before the main course. You better shape up your game or I may just spare the Tyrakk the gut ache and do away with you now.”

Chester glanced around the room nonchalantly.

Tyrakk?

“I’m sure you would fit just fine in one of these jars. No one would even notice you were gone, I’m sure of it. Can you imagine the look on their bloated, pompous faces when they go to shove pickled duckling in their fat faces and find one of their own little chicks on their platinum-rimmed plates? Ha!”

Chester looked down at Kade. “So, what will it be, Kade: guts or glory?”

“G…gl…gl…” Kade stuttered as he struggled against the unseen grasp holding onto him.

Chester’s face drooped. He looked at Kade for a long time then sighed loudly.

“I can see that you aren’t one for a climactic ending. Very well.”

Chester raised a hand in front of him and his fingernails began to grow before Kade’s eyes, extending out until they had become veritable talons. Kade gasped and fumbled with the Holomate in his hand, his seizing thumb struggling to find a button on its side. Through great effort, Kade raised the device up to Chester and managed to push the button, extending a small retractable blade out of its far end, holding it up at Chester.

Chester raised an eyebrow at the pathetic act of defiance.

“I would say never bring a knife to a knife fight, but clearly that is not a fair analogy here. I think it’s a little inappropriate to phone a friend at this point, don’t you?”

Chester raised his claw into the air to strike Kade and Kade began mashing buttons on the Holomate, desperately, as he made stifled screaming sounds. Kade struck a switch on the bottom and a flashlight lit up in Chester’s face.

Chester howled wildly, rearing back as his entire upper body exploded into a cloud of dust-like particles. Kade felt the spell release on him, but not before a thousand voices screamed at once in his head, fading away into shrieking oblivion. He grabbed his head and gasped loudly, taking in a huge breath as he fell on to his back. He dropped his Holomate, the light flickering as the device skidded away from him. Kade rolled over on to his stomach, panting as images of the ground span around in his vision. He blinked once, twice, and everything slowly came back into focus as his senses readjusted. He looked back over his shoulder and saw Chester’s legs stumbling around amidst a quickly coalescing cloud of some kind of brownish haze, his chest and arms beginning to reform. Kade felt something go up his nose and he sneezed on the back of his hand. Looking down, he saw that he had inhaled some of the floating pieces of Chester. He frowned as he looked closer at the spatter of sputum on the back of his hand. Was that…pollen? He held it up to the light above to look at it in more detail but, seeing the light, a runaway thought suddenly hijacked his line of thinking:

Whatever Chester was, he couldn’t stand the light. He had a weakness after all!

Kade stumbled over to the Holomate and scooped it up into his hands. He turned toward Chester, his body having just completed its reconstruction. Chester hunkered over, snarling at Kade like a savage animal and Kade swung the light at him. Before it could strike its target, Chester ran at the wall and disappeared right through it, as if he were a shadow. Kade got to his feet and began arcing the flashlight around him frantically, jumping at any little motion in the darkness.

“Your little toy won’t save you, Kade! Like you, it too has an expiration that is quickly approaching.” 

The voice seemed to be coming from the room itself, in no particular direction.

Kade glanced down at his device to find Chester’s words true: only 5% power remaining. The service drone hadn’t contributed much during its short connection. He swallowed a lump in his throat and, taking several careful steps backward away from the wall, he turned and ran for the door at the far end, Chester’s laughter emanating from all around him.

***

The next sequence of events was blurry to Kade, as if he were running in a dream. He could make out general shapes–people here, furniture there–but no particulars stuck with him. He recalled passing through what seemed like a lobby, remembered being relieved that he hadn’t had to exit through the restaurant, but after that, it was all broad strokes. There were lots of people, lots of shouting after him. He didn’t know why he went the ways he did but every time he made his way toward an exit, Chester would be there. Or at least a likeness of him. Whether it was his face on another passerby, an ornamental sculpture, in a mirror…he was everywhere. And he drove Kade onward and onward, all the while that cackling, conniving voice playing in his head, pulling on his mind-strings like a psychic puppeteer. And if it wasn’t Chester then it would be security personnel in hot pursuit, and he’d find himself backtracking once more. It felt like the entire world was after him.

But amidst the chaos an odd pattern began to occur: every time Kade thought he would never escape, he’d find a door or a stairway that took him in a direction that quieted the internal commotion and/or evaded his pursuers. It was as if an invisible hand were guiding him. Or perhaps that’s what he wanted him to think. Either way, Kade followed the paths of least resistance, paths that allowed him peace of mind.

And that path continued to take him inexorably downward.

And so it came as a sudden surprise–as if being jarred awake from a bout of restless sleepwalking–when Kade found himself standing in the entryway of the maintenance level again. He wondered if he had ever even left. Memories began to trickle back in and Kade held his head, shaking off the veil of doubt that had been draped over him.

“What in Endabarron is happening to me? I…I know I got out of here. I just…it was…there were those bots…the incinerator. No, I know that was all real. I…”

There was a howling sound which echoed down the corridor, like a wounded beast. Or a very angry one. It sounded again, closer this time, and Kade looked around, trying to figure out where it was coming from.

Then all the lights went out.

Kade stood in silence with nought but his racing heart to keep him company. Then he saw a light coming from around a corner, blue and faint like a watchman’s beacon on a distant lighthouse. The light grew and grew and then suddenly a monstrous head emerged, rushing through the air toward him. It was Chester’s.

Sort of.

Rather, an apparition of his likeness, blue and on fire, mouth impossibly wide, agape and ready to devour him. It screamed and howled in agony as it flew at Kade, a massive, detached, flaming head. Kade turned and ran down the only hall that he could see in the dim light emanating off of the terror coming at him. Suddenly, the light around him began to flicker rapidly, as if set to a strobe. Looking back over his shoulder as he ran, he could see that the head was gaining, though it was hard to tell by how much given the fragmented pictures created by the strobe. Kade rounded a corner and found himself returning to a familiar sight: it was the hall with the elevator shaft at the end. Having no time to think, Kade bolted toward the elevator shaft, the flaming ghost of a head wailing in his wake. Kade came up to the edge of the shaft and looked down into the darkness. The fall–wherever it led to–would surely kill him. So it was death either way. Kade took a breath and turned to face the oncoming apparition. He held out his Holomate at it but the light flickered and died. Kade gasped and began smacking the side to try and get it to work but it refused to turn on. The flaming head came at him, growing larger with each momentary snapshot of flashing light.

“I will end you!” It shouted as it bore down on him.

Kade yelled and, closing his eyes, he hunkered over, holding his head as the open mouth of the sinister skull enveloped him. To Kade’s surprise, the head vanished around him in a flash of blue haze, the screaming rippling away as fading echoes. Kade slowly opened his eyes to see the evanescing haze  around him, the lights returning to their normal incandescence. He looked around, confused, wondering how he was still alive. All was silent in the hall.

Kade turned and looked at the elevator shaft and promptly stepped away from it, the hair on the back of his neck standing on end from being around the thing. Chester was toying with him. That had to be it. Like a cat with a mouse, he enjoyed every minute of it. Maybe it made him…taste better? Not wanting to find out the answer to that question, Kade made his way back the way he had come. It wasn’t ten steps in that things began to get strange again: he was moving but he wasn’t getting anywhere. He looked down to find that his feet were sliding against the floor as he walked as if they were being drawn backwards. That was when he noticed that the whole room was tilting. Kade gasped as he suddenly found himself sliding back down the hall toward the elevator shaft. He tumbled past the doorway and grabbed a hold of the edge of the frame as the hall continued to tilt upward. Soon, the whole room was perpendicular to its original position and Kade found himself dangling from the edge of the frame, grunting as he attempted to pull himself back up into the hall, or what had once been a hall at least. Suddenly, Chester appeared on the floor/wall, standing mere hands away from him.

“Boo!” He said.

Kade yelped and let go of the frame, falling back into the shaft. His back struck the concrete wall, causing a dull pain to shoot up his neck. He wasted no time pulling out his Holomate and he attempted the flashlight once more. This time it worked and Kade whipped the channel of light at his adversary but Chester disappeared as soon as the light was in place. Kade got to his feet and looked down at the limp elevator cable at his feet, a dead metal snake. The entire shaft appeared to have been turned on its side. He shone the light down both ends of the shaft but it didn’t reach far enough to give him any special insight into what lay beyond; only his meagre beam of light and the cable trailing off in either direction. He heard a light clicking sound from somewhere in the distance, like the settling of a building at night, only noticed when all else is quiet. He shone the Holomate back up through the shaft entrance but he remained alone. Kade looked back down the shaft and swallowed nervously, slowly making his way down the overturned structure.

A million questions raced through his mind: how was any of this possible? Was this some kind of spell? Or was it all a dream? A hallucination maybe? Had he eaten something off the day before? Maybe he hadn’t woken up yet after he fell from that mountain. Or maybe he was still asleep back on the pass. It was all a jumbled mix in his head–an impossible whirlpool of interchanging fantasies and facts. He realized how ridiculous it all sounded in his head; no one fell from a mountain and lived to tell about it. The sheer thought of it was proof that he must have been dreaming. As if that wasn’t enough in itself, now he was walking through an elevator shaft somehow turned on its side. By a flaming ghost head nonetheless.

Had to have been a dream.

Somehow, knowing that he was then dreaming took a huge edge off the terror that he had been stricken with. Kade felt like a weight had been lifted off of him. If it were truly a dream then it didn’t matter what happened since he would wake up from it. He was impervious to whatever kind of madness or magic Chester could throw at him.

“You think you are DREAMING boy?”

Chester’s laughter echoed down the shaft.

“If that is what you need to tell yourself to persist then I won’t judge. Though I think you will not find any white lights at the end of this tunnel. No sir.” 

More laughter.

“That’s exactly what I’d expect a nightmare to say!” Kade yelled at the voice.

“I’ll wake up, then I’ll be free of you forever!”

Then silence.

But it was not a normal silence. It was the kind with a capital ‘S’, as if it were properly a title rather than just a word. For it was true Silence–Silence itself. What one normally thought of silence always had some kind of extraneous ambiance, dressing up the actual form underneath. No, the difference with Silence was that it was so barren, so bereft of anything that it created a void in the mind–that ‘ringing’ sensation that one only experienced when Silence stripped their senses of all things auditory.

And so Kade stood in the upturned shaft, his ears ringing with the terrifying voice of Silence as he jerked side to side, shining his Holomate light down either side. He expected some ghoul or fiend to jump out of the darkness at any moment but none ever came. He knew it was Chester’s way of continually tormenting him. It was working. Despite his newfound awareness of his somnolent condition, Kade was still terrified. But until he woke up, there was only one thing Kade could do: keep on going, wherever the nightmare took him.

He chose a direction and began walking down the shaft, all the while making sure to keep a constant three-hundred-and-sixty-degree flashlight check around him, lest something try and take him out from a blind spot. And there were many blind spots. The whole shaft was one. But it was not a form that stopped him this time, it was a sound. Kade was sure that he would be relieved to have a moment’s respite from the maddening ring in his head, but what came next made him instantly miss the Silence he had been cast into.

At first, it came as a distant groan–like heavy metal grating against itself, perhaps just the sound of the elevator shaft shifting with the building again. But then a series of inexplicable sounds followed; pounding, as if a hammer on an anvil, then the sound of power tools–drills, saws, jackhammers…Then the voices began. Chatter at first, then full blown conversations–millions of them–as if Kade were standing in the Satin Starre Starport central hub on one of its busiest days. The pandemonium grew in volume until it became like a single voice screaming at the top of its lungs, then it became a pure sine tone, that naked, mathematical voice of the universe. Kade fell to his knees, covering his ears as he grabbed the side of his head, his head pounding, tears rolling down his cheeks.

“Make…it…stop!” He cried.

And then it did.

Suddenly, all at once. As if it had never happened. It defied all properties of sound, but that was what happened. There was no echoing, no residual effect, and Kade’s head was clear, as if it too had never happened inside of him. Causality out the door.

Kade released his grip on his head and stood up slowly. He looked down to see his Holomate on the ground, flickering intermittently as it shone off in the distance. He saw the shadow of the shape of a man in the intermittent circle of light that it cast against the shaft and he snapped up the device, smacking it on the side, shining the light to where he had seen the anomaly. There was nothing there.

“What the hell was…”

A roar, unlike anything Kade had ever heard, emanated down the shaft. The shaft shook as the sound continued and he covered his ears to shield himself from the deafening blast. It went on for several seconds before it stopped, reverberations dying away throughout the metal walls of the shaft.

“Fa’el this!” Kade screamed and took off running in the direction opposite to which he thought the sound had come from.

His footsteps echoed around him, the metal clanging against his shoes. He felt something shift beneath him and he looked down to see the cable rising up beneath him, its snakelike curves straightening out as it began to bear tension. The shaft was re-righting itself and Kade felt himself starting to slide backward again. He pivoted back the other way and grabbed a hold of the cable as it rose up to meet him but the momentum he had built up made it hard to keep a grip and he found his hands burning against the friction of the metal.  As he continued to slide down, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his Holomate once more. He activated it and deployed a circular crimper, dilating it as much as it would allow. He reached out and fastened the adapter around the elevator cable, jerking his head away as sparks sizzled between the Holomate and the cable, fireworks going off in his face.  Gradually, he came to a stop as the shaft completed its rotation back into place and he found himself hanging in nearly empty space by his device. He could feel his heart pounding against his rib cage as if it were demanding to be let out. For being in a dream, his fear was uncannily life-like.

For a long while, he hung there in complete darkness, his heavy panting the only sound puncturing the stagnant silence. The ball-and-joint sockets of his arms screamed, raging against the compromised position he had gotten himself into. Kade could feel that his arms wouldn’t be able to bear his weight much longer and he frantically searched for a ledge or anything else that he could use. As if in answer to his prayer, a light suddenly appeared just beneath him, emanating out of the wall of the shaft.

It was…a doorway?

Kade knew it was too good to be true, likely Chester messing with him again, but his aching joints reminded him that beggars could not be choosers.

And it was only a dream, after all.

He judged the distance to be about three blades or so, and there was no give from the cable which meant he wasn’t going to be able to swing over to it. Which, in turn, meant that he would have to drop toward the ledge and hope he could get a hold. Kade began to feel like he was using up his acrobatic nine lives. Hopefully, this wasn’t the last.

“Here goes nothing.”

Kade released the Holomate and kicked himself off the cable, dropping toward the ledge. Luckily, Kade managed to get enough clearance to land inside the entrance, rolling along a floor as the inertia carried him forward. After several seconds of rolling, he came to a stop and sat up, looking around to see where he had ended up. Oddly enough, Kade was back in the hallway of the maintenance level, just outside of the construction area that he had seen previously. Or at least a perfect facsimile of it. Kade racked his brain as he tried to figure out which level he was on but, try as he may, none of it made any sense to him. Dream logic, it appeared, wasn’t quite logical at all. Or, if it was, physics certainly wasn’t. Perhaps that explained how he had so coincidentally defied death multiple times that day already. Maybe no one really died in a dream for that reason. Or if they did, they wouldn’t be around afterwards to explain how they had blundered. Conundrums in all directions.

As Kade sat on the floor of the hall contemplating his condition, a sound from behind jarred him out of his reverie. He turned back to the elevator and listened as the familiar clicking sound began to reverberate upward through the shaft, coming from a lower level. He got to his feet and tiptoed reluctantly back toward the opening. He leaned his head over and stared down into the darkness, the clicking growing ever so louder as it moved along at a leisurely pace. Kade felt a warm trickle run down his palm as he held onto the frame and he looked over to see blood smeared along the wall, a trail leading up to the frame which he now grasped. His blood. He examined his hands to find large gashes across both palms. The elevator cable must have abraded away the flesh when he grabbed onto it. With all of the adrenaline pumping through his veins, Kade hand’t noticed the pain until it was staring back at him. He watched a globule of blood pinch off and splatter against the tile at his feet, a small amount spilling over into the shaft.

“Mmm…Ah, the vital force. Amazing isn’t it–that that is what keeps us going.” came a voice from somewhere down in the murky depths of the elevator shaft.

“The Kaldans used to believe that our spirit resided in that very liquid, as if the soul is distributed throughout the body. A much more mature ideology than the banal belief of those Hexaddai fools. A singular entity, unmeasurable except in death. Bah! But the Kaldans, they knew better. They knew many things beyond their time. They knew to be wary of an open wound in the wild–because they believed the Gods, in all their spite and conniving, could smell their spirits and inform local predators. And every predator had its own god in their pantheon.”

A pause and then a chuckle sounded, closer still.

“But the Kaldans knew that wasn’t the real threat, for wounds could be stanched. No, no, those mighty Gods–those unforgiving Gods–they cared not truly for our mortal flaws, but rather they preyed on something much more delightful. Do you know what that was, Kade?”

Kade backed away from the shaft and the clicking picked up in pace until it was a full-out gallop. A large, orb-shaped creature emerged out of the blackness, propped up on several long, black appendages. It was Chester’s head again, but it had grown legs this time. Chester had transformed, somehow, into a massive spider, it’s entire thorax his oversized skull. He crawled out of the shaft, an insidious smile on his face,  black tongue flickering in and out of a mouth filled with jagged teeth, purple saliva spilling onto the tiles where they evaporated into motes of gas. Some kind of acid by the look of it.

“FEAR!” Chester screamed.

Kade gasped and stumbled backwards, nearly tripping on his own feet before he broke into a run. Chester pursued him, his multiple legs clacking on the tile as he snarled hungrily. The hall gave way to an unfinished construction area, the walls and ceiling narrowing as the room tapered down into rough-hewn bedrock. Kade found himself having to duck to avoid striking his head and, just as he could feel Chester’s disgusting spider breath on his neck, he saw that the tunnel attenuated down into an opening barely large enough for a grown man, let alone a spider the size of a car. Kade squeezed through the crevice at the end and Chester slammed against the other side, growling and hissing as he clawed at Kade frantically, reaching through the slit with one of his insectoid legs. Kade backed away, staring at the beast wide-eyed as it attempted to get through to him. After several more moments of failed attempts, the thing howled in frustration and backed off into the darkness, disappearing from sight. Kade fumbled for his device and pointed it at the opening. The light flickered and Kade swore, smacking it on the side to try and get it working again. The light blinked several times then a steady stream of light shone onto the bedrock face. Kade couldn’t make out anything beyond so he turned his attention into the room that he was in. Oddly enough, even though his Holomate had enough power to cast quite a far-reaching illumination, all Kade could see was darkness. It appeared he had emerged into some kind of…cavern. He shone the light down and saw that he was standing on bare earth. Clay perhaps? He began to walk forward slowly, watching ahead of him so he didn’t trip on anything. Suddenly, the ground gave out just in front of him–a steep precipice that seemed to shelf off down a long grade. He stopped just at the lip of the shelf and shone his light down into the darkness, watching clumps of dirt sifting down the grade, disappearing into blackness. It must have been a long drop because he couldn’t see an end anywhere in sight.

Where in Endabarron was he? Maybe he was in Endabarron. If not, what were they building beneath Falkner’s? 

The ‘dream’ was beginning to feel more and more like a nightmare.

“So many questions.” Came Chester’s voice from behind him.

Kade span around to find Chester–in typical three-piece form—standing an arm’s length away from him, smiling.

“If you want answers, and people just won’t give them to you, sometimes you just have to…push.”

Chester reached out and smacked Kade in the chest, knocking him askew. Kade screamed as he tumbled over the edge, striking the grade and rolling downward. He wasn’t sure how long it lasted but when Kade finally struck bottom, he was fairly certain that, if hadn’t been there before, he was definitely in the underworld now, Aeros hiding in nearby shadows with baited breath, waiting to snatch him up in the world of night that he had been cast into.  Either that or at the core of Rynn, though it was surprisingly cold for being at the center of the planet.

Kade coughed as he spat out a mouthful of smut, pulling himself out of the dirt that had cascaded down on to him. As he freed his last leg, he flopped over onto his rear, staring up the massive hill from whence he had come. He could make out the tiny silhouette of a man, an orb of light emanating from his hand, standing impossibly far away at the apex of the grade. It was Chester, Kade knew it. He could practically feel his smug grin burning into his mind. The figure turned away and the light blinked out, leaving Kade in total darkness. Kade scrambled for his Holomate but it was nowhere to be found on his person. Frantically, he began feeling around in the dirt for his device but, blinded and having no reference point to go on, Kade found himself fumbling through handfuls of nothing but dirt. Distraught, Kade slumped onto his rear, staring around him in darkness, completely dejected. If only there were a way he could signal his device so that he knew where it had ended up. Otherwise, he was looking for a needle in a haystack.

A needle.

Then it came to him–he already had a needle. A magnetic one, like in a compass. And it could lead him right to his Holomate.

Kade pressed a button on his wristwatch and a digital display in the form of a hologram floating just above it presented a menu. Kade selected GPS and activated a settings option. From there, he began to fiddle with the ‘calibration’ option, fine-tuning the watch’s internal sensor so that it generated a stronger signal. The thing with the Holomate was that it had a very sensitive magnetic field. As tiny as it was, it would often pick up the most minute fluctuations in background noise, which was one of its major setbacks on the marketing side and, very likely, why no one bought them anymore. Ironically enough, it was this flaw which could help Kade get out of his predicament; any disturbance in the Holomate’s magnetic field caused a slight static response in the form of an annoying hissing. But for all Kade was concerned, it served as a beacon. 

Kade dialled up the sensor and listened. Sure enough, after several seconds he could make out the static ringing of the Holomate, though it sounded quite stifled. Buried probably. Kade followed the sound until it was coming from right beneath him. He got onto his knees and began digging through the dirt. His fingers touched on something hard and he pulled out his device, the light still shining brightly. Kade smiled and dialled his watch back to ambient sensitivity, laughing out loud at his own ingenuity. His mirth was short-lived when he looked at the screen on his device.

POWER SUPPLIES DANGEROUSLY LOW. TWO PERCENT REMAINING. PLEASE FIND NEAREST GLO RECEPTACLE.

Kade’s heart sank. He watched as the letters on the screen changed into a bar display, showing him a graphic representation of the amount of power left in the Holomate. Kade felt like he was looking at a meter counting down his last breathing moments. If he didn’t find a way out fast, he would soon be lost to darkness forever. Or worse–whatever lay in wait within it.

There truly was no light at the end of the tunnel. Just more tunnel.

Kade glanced around the cavern, nothing but black as far as the eye could see.

“Well, shit.”