The Black Seas of Infinity (6 page)

The elevator doors opened into a side view of
the ship. It was only a few dozen feet away. I always forgot how
staggeringly big it was. The purpose of its design was way beyond
our science. There was a ramp off to the left, not far from the
elevator, and it led through a hole in the side of the vessel and
into the depths. The stretch between the elevator and the ship was
mostly shaded, the aperture gouged out of the lower echelons of the
craft, presumably by the crash. It was buried beneath the left
wing, mostly hidden in its shade. No one occupied the ramp, but
there were several men not too far away. At least three were
working by the entrance portal above the wing, not the torn orifice
I had meant to enter through. This was going to be tricky. I had to
get the suit inside without alerting those men above. The hard part
would be dragging the suit up the ramp and into the alien craft
without making too much noise. Hitting a brief stretch visible to
the men upstairs, my head started to pound, a desperate anxiety
creeping in. The trek felt impossibly long and slow, but in a few
minutes I was ensconced by the shade of the wing. Now to drag the
suit up that ramp. A thin rubber tread covered the shiny metal
ramp, but this body was immensely heavy. I set it down, panting as
I tried to catch my breath. The lingering smell of chemical vapors
sickened my stomach.

I really didn’t have time for this, but my
back already ached. Ignore the pain. It will all be over, for
better or for worse, very soon.

At the sound, the voices above me got louder,
and I froze. Every nerve ending was raw and screaming. The very air
seemed to gel. Seconds crept by, but no one appeared. I slowly
staggered up the ramp again, the sweat on my brow now a film of
salty water fighting to get into my eyes.

After a few agonizing minutes, I stumbled
over a slight bump and into the shadowy opening of the craft. The
interior swirled around me like a dream, or maybe a nightmare, the
air charged with a strange, ionized sterility.

I was so close. I hoisted the mass and
continued my awkward backward shuffle. The feet bounced along the
floor ridges, the strange material of the craft absorbing the
noise. I rounded a curve and stopped at a porthole…at least I think
it was a porthole. It was a tunnel straight down with curved rungs
that served as handgrips. A pale light wafted up languidly from the
depths below. I dug some parachute-strength nylon cord out of my
leg holster, wrapped it under the arms of the suit, and crossed it
over the chest to make a virtual harness. I encircled it a few
times, tied it off, pulled out a few feet of cord, doubled it over,
and continued wrapping. This gave me a secured upper body, with
several lengths of cord hanging free.

I bent over the porthole, tying the ends of
the cord to the first rung. Circling around, I grabbed the feet and
shoved the suit headfirst into the hole. The loose cord whipped by,
the hulking mass crashing into the row of descending rungs, then it
rebounded and continued its plunge. The rope hit the end of its
slack, bringing the suit to an abrupt stop. The form dangled,
listlessly drifting from side to side. Everything was deathly
silent. All I could hear was the sound of my own panting. I climbed
in, the taut nylon rope running down the center of the rungs and
minimizing the opportunity for a handhold. I scampered down past
the first gap, leaning to the left side to avoid the cord as much
as possible and coming to a stop as the hanging body blocked my
descent to the second. The opening I wanted was just to the right
of the rungs and directly below, a black maw barely penetrated by a
distant light. I managed to squeeze past it by pushing against the
limp body and descended into to the abyss. I gathered my strength,
removing my knife from its sheath, and took a deep breath. With a
jerk, I pressed my shoulder into the form’s back. It swung toward
the hole as I slashed at the cable. Tumbling into the opening, it
landed with a violent crash and crumpled over on its side, where it
lie stiff and contorted. In the dim light it resembled a soldier,
felled in some long forgotten war. My heart beat wildly in my
chest. Almost there. I jumped into the maw, landing just shy of the
suit. My momentum carried me forward, and I tumbled overtop the
form, crashing into the wall. The collision stunned me, blurring my
vision and leaving me disoriented. But I couldn’t pause now. I
glanced over at the tunnel I had descended and realized the alien
suit and I both were casting huge shadows, like something out of a
noir movie. My back was killing me, and my strength was giving out,
but I was so close now. Panting and soaked in cold sweat, I rounded
a corner and staggered up to a familiar door. Beyond the threshold
lie what we assumed was the ship’s lab.

I let go of the suit and took a couple of
deep breaths, gulping the air into my heaving lungs. Pulling out my
Maglite, I looked around. Everything appeared the same as when I
left years ago…an oval room that more closely resembled a beehive
than an earthly cubicle. A large semicircular pedestal, the surface
dotted with holes and studs, rose up in the middle. We had decided
that was the instrument panel. The floors surrounding it were
narrow and roughly textured in a strange ocher pattern that
resembled diamond plate more than anything else. The walls were
grids, smooth expanses of dirty yellow broken up by ridges into
rough squares. Two upright capsule-shaped chambers, immediately in
front of the semi-circular control panel, were half-embedded
in—they looked melted into—the wall. This was it. The room I found
on that fateful first day. A decade of study and three years of
planning, but if it paid off, it was more than worth it.

To open one of the capsules and complete this
procedure, I would have to turn the power on. That would probably
alert staff, so timing was critical. I had studied this backward
and forward. I knew how to open the capsules, what controls started
the procedure, how to hook up the suit in its capsule. Hopefully
the other one was meant for a live body. There was a short delay in
the closing of the capsule I would be stepping into, which I
assumed accounted for entry time. It would take them at least five
minutes, running balls out, to get down here. I had time
enough.

I walked to the middle of the lab and
depressed a button on the floor with my foot. As if it were built
yesterday, the whole place lit up. The light was searing. I
sprinted across the floor and opened the first capsule. The form I
intended to put in there had no openings except the eyes, which
were closed, and the ear holes, but the placement of the connecting
cords and their length suggested they should be attached to the
head. I ran back to the suit, tucked my arms under, and in a
stumbling lunge fell backwards into the capsule. My gasps for air
were now full on grunts. My muscles felt like they were going to
explode. My heart was racing in my chest, my movements loose and
sloppy. I heard something snap, some nerve or tendon that I had
strained past its breaking point. My back felt like it was being
stabbed by a red-hot poker, and pain shot down my leg. Little
matter now, I was so close.

Grunting and panting, and now with a plaguing
pain, I bent over and pushed the body upright, slowly, until its
head smacked against the back of the capsule. My back seemed to
crack and radiate stabs of agony with every upward inch. The hoses
dangling from the top had suction pads at the ends, and I stuck
these to the head. I climbed out, shut the capsule lid, and ran to
the console in the middle of the room. The pain in my leg
alternated between jolts of torment and, even scarier, numbness. I
dug my hands into the central hole, pressed what I assumed were the
right protrusions, and ran to the other capsule. My scalp was
pounding with the rush of blood, my heart hammering violently,
about to explode. This had to work. I climbed inside, pulled off my
cloth army hat, stuck the cable suckers to my shaved head, nestled
into a snug repose, and waited. Time slowed to a crawl, my breath
escaping in shallow bursts of exasperation. A muskiness that
mingled rubber and grease pressed in on me, choking the air.

Nothing seemed to be happening. Deep down, I
had known this wouldn’t work. I’m truly fucked now!

Minutes passed, though it seemed like an
eternity. After a time I could make out sounds, probably from
approaching security. The noises grew louder. They were definitely
manmade. I could hear talking. The capsule door finally started to
close. Slowly. I had no doubt it was a Special Forces squad. They
probably had found the bodies and would shoot first, especially if
they recognized me.

The lid sealed with a slight pop. The chamber
was deathly silent, blocking out all noise, but I was sure the
soldiers were near. The capsule lid was transparent, frosted by a
crusty yellowish stain creeping in on the edges, but still lucent
enough that I could still see. I strained my eyes, my body
peculiarly suppressed, but I could make out no movement. There was
a weird light, and suddenly I was looking at the same room, but
from a slightly different angle. Then I noticed that I no longer
felt the cold wet clothes against my skin. My muscles didn’t ache,
and I couldn’t hear my breathing, or my heartbeat, for that matter.
There was no pain in my leg. I moved my head forward and looked
down. There was no neck tension; it was all one fluid motion. I
felt detached, at the controls of some strange vehicle I was
intrinsically linked to. No smells assaulted my senses. No bite of
angry nerves. No painful drought of saliva in my throat.

It all seemed a hallucination. Weird red
symbols flitted across my field of vision. A sensation rushed over
me, and I suddenly felt invigorated. Everything was optimized.
There was no lactic acid buildup, no stiff musculature. I had done
coke before, in college, and it was sort of like that, but without
the jitteriness or paranoia. I felt awesome. I peered out, my
eyesight crisp and sharp, as if I were looking through the lens of
a camera. I could imagine whirring and clicking noises as my vision
focused on the doorway, my sight obscured by the translucent screen
of the capsule.

A head, encased in a black gasmask, peered
around the corner. I looked at it hard. My eyesight magnified
automatically, and instantly I was viewing it in detail. I could
see the texture of the rubber as it met the olive green metal ring
of the hose. I mentally backed up the magnification. They had
arrived, but it was too late! It had worked! I was in the body! The
capsule opened, and I stumbled out. I knew for a fact this new form
was incredibly heavy, but it felt so light! I could see my former
self, still entombed within the capsule. It appeared I was asleep.
It was then I was distracted by a sudden chain of thoughts. What if
it was taken by government forces for experimentation? What if they
somehow found a way to bring me back? To pull me back into a body
they had done who knows what to? Removed limbs? Torn out body
parts? Imprisoned me in some dark chamber with the intent of
torturing out whatever info I had? Too many thoughts. Too much that
could go wrong! I had no choice. I had to destroy it. Then a
disturbing thought crossed my mind: What if destroying the original
body somehow affected me in this host body? What if that was all it
was, a host, and I really needed the original?

I was paralyzed with indecision, and this was
no time for it. If this was just temporary, I didn’t want to go
back. My old life was shot. I peered back at the soldier. There
were now two gasmask-shrouded faces peering around the corner. They
apparently were at a loss for what to do. I shambled over to my old
self and looked on in bittersweet recollection. I examined the face
I saw every day in the mirror. But it no longer seemed to be me, as
if it were a duplicate, an imperfect copy. I could see my life writ
therein, the scar on my chin from a car accident in college. The
subtle wrinkles forming near my eyes. The jowls that had just begun
to show, unnoticeable to most but readily apparent to me. The two
days worth of stubble, a sandy blond haze across gaunt white
cheeks. The receding hairline, visible as a pale shadow despite the
shaved head. If I thought about it too much I’d get lost in reverie
and lose everything. I jolted forward and punched straight through
the capsule lid. Extracting my hand, covered in gore, I watched as
the soldiers opened fire. It looked as though I had just killed a
human, and I’m sure they were taking no chances.

Bullets were bouncing off of me in all
directions. I turned and advanced on the soldiers. The hail of
incoming bullets was like being caught in a rainstorm on a
motorcycle, minus the unpleasant sting. When I was upon them, they
withdrew, firing away as they walked backwards. I could see now it
was a whole team in the corridor, partially concealed by the
increasing smoke. They posed no threat. I continued my approach.
Out of the lab, the passageway grew much darker, lit only by the
overhead glow, a few small lights marking the wall. My eyes, unlike
the human orbs I was so accustomed to, adjusted immediately. The
low light was being amplified, allowing me to see clearly into the
dark corners. This promised a clear advantage over my would-be
assailants.

I strolled toward the soldiers, six in all,
clustered loosely together in the opaque smog. They maintained a
constant barrage of fire, walking backwards and pausing only to
reload, their teammates continuing to deliver a steady stream
whenever one rapidly changed clips. A few of the bullets ricocheted
off me and back into the soldiers, two of them curling over with
pained animal sounds. One withdrew a Navy Seal SOG fighting knife,
squared up in front of me, and delivered a couple of Philippine
knife-fighting slashes. The blade cut across me with a scraping
noise, like an edge over a sharpening stone, leaving no mark. I
raised my right hand, extended two fingers, and jabbed at his face.
My fingers struck the optical lenses of his mask, shattered them
inwards, and continued halfway through his head. I was stuck and
had to use my other hand as a brace against his throat to withdraw
my fingers, now slick with blood and bits of gore. A sudden
repulsion overtook me as I grew viscerally aware of my own
strength. I wanted to get the blood off my fingers but didn’t have
any clothes to wipe them on. The dead soldier collapsed, the gash
in his face accusing me as his body dropped. I needed to get out of
there. The others were backing away, and I could make out the
porthole I had used for my descent. I was sure there was some
anti-gravity or air-bed utility, something to make the transit
between levels more comfortable, but we never figured that out. I
took a running leap, the soldiers scattering and hugging the walls
on either side, and jumped. Grabbing the rungs, I scampered up. The
frayed nylon cord was still there, drifting listlessly to and fro.
I was near the top when a soldier dared stick his head in. Then
bullets began flying up at me, a few rebounding and striking the
soldier in the head. I could hear his cry, followed by the sound of
his collapse. I didn’t look back.