[Original Novel] Pressure 2: Dark Corners, Part 2

^{Part 1}

“The field by itself was amazing, but a few nights in I started to pick up on signs of someone else.” Olivia shifted in her seat, as much for comfort as to signify interest. “Lisa?” She was perceptive, he liked that about her but it made it difficult to conceal anything. “I didn’t know until recently. It was coy. I’d see her silhouette through some leaves, or glimpse her running down a hallway but never manage to catch her.”

She jotted something down. He suspected that was a magician’s trick, to keep the patient in a clinical mindset. If he tore the pad from her hands to examine what she’d written it would probably be covered in doodles.

“When you say that it was coy, who do you mean by “it”?” That was unexpected. He’d phrased it that way without a second thought. “I guess....whoever prepared this place for me, and teases me with thoughts of Lisa.” He choked on the end of the sentence, realizing too late that he’d given it all away.

“So it is Lisa in the dream.” It was too late now to recant, but too awkward to continue. “M...maybe. I think so. Listen, don’t assume from this that I still feel anything towards her. I used to have a recurring dream about piloting a robotic eagle. Doesn’t mean I was in love with it.”

She laughed, more for his sake than her own. “I didn’t say anything. I’m not here to editorialize, just to listen. But I’m curious about something. What will you do in the next dream, if I let you catch me?”

James took a moment to absorb the sentence, then froze. He turned to look at Olivia, very slowly, in fear that she’d vanish at the last moment. As he did so the walls crumbled around them, giving way to the familiar field of sunflowers. Still Olivia’s suit....but Lisa’s face. It radiated sunlight, enveloping him in a feeling of warmth and security. “Lisa....” The light intensified. “Shhh. You’re dreaming”.

“There we go. Fuck’s sake, stop prodding him, he’s up.” Rod shifted forward in his seat as James struggled to orient himself. “While you were sleeping on company time, the rest of us were working for a living.”

This sub had more mass to it than the single seaters he was used to, didn’t jostle with the currents as much. No wonder he’d slept through the trip. Cray reached up to toggle a series of switches. “Can it, Rod. We’re on final approach”.

Indeed, the Tartarus detention center filled most of the viewing dome despite still being a considerable distance away. Wonder at the Tartarus’ unusual design competed for James’ attention with still-fresh memories of the dream. There was a certain cruelty to it, always returning him to a cold and confusing reality moments before he could speak to her.

The Tartarus was not a seafloor station like the Belusarius. It hovered motionless in the abyss, neutrally buoyant, neither floating nor sinking. They were at this point far enough above the sea bed that only inky blackness was visible all around the station, and the sub for that matter. Tartarus station was self illuminated by banks of external floodlights and, from their vantage point, hung upon nothing amid a starless sky.

The usual awkward dance of maneuvering into the lockout chamber completed minutes later and all three looked irrationally relieved as the water drained around them. Cray was first out of the hatch after equalization, in part because he was the pilot and had to deliver their itinerary to security, but also because there was a certain unspoken pecking order among the three of them with Cray at the top. It began forming on their first shift together and had only solidified since.

Rodney seemed predisposed to sniff out weak or damaged people and antagonize them, the way that even a single drop of blood in sea water will attract and enrage sharks. It wasn’t deliberate, at least not obviously, and most of the time a stern word from Cray was all it took to set him straight. James long ago gave up on working out the source of Rod’s misanthropy and even understood to some extent why he had become the surly ginger’s favorite target.

“Any particular reason it’s all pink?” Guards and other onlookers gave the four man procession plenty of space as they made their way from the sub terminal towards reception. “It’s psychological. reduces aggression.” James walked behind the prisoner, Rod and Cray to either side. By this point the restraints seemed needless; at no point during his transport had he resisted in any way.

That was actually fairly common. Less so the demented grin he wore. He’d gone into the sub at Belusarius station with the same unsettling expression he’d come out of it with at Tartarus. James imagined him sitting in the dimly lit cargo sphere of the transpo sub, grinning silently for the duration of the trip. The close encounter in his cell was still fresh in James’ mind as the trio passed their charge over to reception.

“Ooh, we got a celebrity.” The pleasantly plump uniformed woman pecked at the keys on the terminal before her, eyes bulging as descriptions of the prisoner’s crimes scrolled by. “This is the crazy motherfucker from the news, what shot up those grease monkeys. They figure out where he came from yet?” She turned and for some reason chose James to make eye contact with. It was unwelcome attention. “We just deliver ‘em.” Visibly disappointed, she returned to punching in his vital info.

Just then a familiar face rounded the corner and before any of them could react they were being slapped on the back and led down a corridor bearing a red stripe along the length near the ceiling with “authorized personnel only” repeating at ten foot intervals. “Darcy told me you fellas were swinging by. You’ve probably got all kinds of questions for me, save them for just a minute and follow me.”

Hank Kowalczyk, former warden of the Belusarius Station detention center, was a tall and athletic but tragically balding man of 40 whom the three had put out of their minds some years ago when upon showing up for work they were confronted instead by his replacement, who they grudgingly learned to work with if not respect. The numerous gray hairs at his temples were directly attributable to his years micromanaging the cramped, understaffed excuse for a prison back at the Belusarius.

The need for such facilities was severely underestimated by the team of marine architects responsible for the monstrous habitat, and only after a series of particularly destructive breakouts was the Navy willing to finance a separate, dedicated prison structure. It held not just ex-military malcontents but high profile criminals from upworld deemed too high an escape risk for any facility on land.

“Just stand there. You’re gonna love this, I still get chills.” Hank strode to a small pair of levers below a gargantuan borosilicate dome window, the first of which shut off the lights. When he threw the second switch for a moment nothing happened and James wondered if there’d been some breakdown, but then outside in the distance specks of light began to appear.

They rapidly multiplied until they filled every inch of the black expanse like stars in the night sky. “What are they?” The other two nodded, he’d apparently voiced their thoughts. Hank turned and gestured proudly at the mysterious dots of light, and said “the cells.”

Answers came from Hank as they usually did, over a round of pale ales. As per the Navy norm, food aboard the Belusarius and now apparently the Tartarus as well was so good as to spoil. One of the principle adjustments when returning topside was, reportedly, accepting the dietary downgrade. “Now, out there, we couldn’t enjoy these.” He gestured to their mugs.

“Well, I’d imagine so. Being imprisoned has that effect.” Hank’s expression rapidly cycled from confusion to irritation. “No no no, I mean that because each cell is kept under pressure, it inhibits their ability to metabolize alcohol. It wouldn’t fizz either. Can’t smoke, not enough oxygen in the air to ignite anything. Wounds heal faster, sleep is more restful, in all ways ideal for the purpose.” Rod raised an eyebrow. “....Of keeping people locked up?” Jim understood, but Hank was clearly enjoying himself, so he didn’t interrupt.

“Yes, precisely. Aside from those secondary effects, the main reason prisoners are kept in hyperbaric conditions is to prevent full stop any possibility of escape. They cannot surface, or even return to the one atmosphere portion of Tartarus without the gasses dissolved into their bloodstream violently bubbling out. No doubt some welcome the release of death, but for those with a history of clever escapes, Tartarus is their final destination.”

Much discussion followed on their return to the observation chamber. James picked up bits and pieces; each cell was essentially an inflatable ambient pressure habitat, built for longterm confinement.

The “hull” was a thin transparent membrane kept taut by slight internal overpressure. A weighted cluster of backup batteries and oxygen tanks suspended below from thin cables and the internal illumination gave each cell the appearance of a chinese lantern.

Because of the impossibility of escape, prisoners were given over to their own devices up to and including the freedom to dive out of their habitat and go for brief swims in the ice cold sea water, should they wish to. Rod piped in at that point to ask what prevented them from swimming to one anothers’ cells, and it turned out that they were carefully spaced for precisely this reason.

On top of this, the hookah breathing apparatus offered an airline only twenty feet or so in length, just long enough to permit each prisoner to retrieve and replace an externally mounted wire mesh trap used to catch shrimp, squid, fish and other sea life to supplement their food supply.

“I’m surprised. Save for the depth this is a lot like some shallow water tropical resorts I’ve been to.” Hank beamed. “I had considerable input in designing this new model. It is based on the success of prisons in the various Scandinavian countries, which focus on rehabilitation. Of course if you’re sent here, there is no chance of release, so for us the reason is more to placate. Comfortable prisoners do not create trouble.”

“What amused me, in the design phase, was that the usual opponents of such a model for prisons on land were strong supporters of the same thing undersea. To those who have never left topside in their lives, the deep ocean can seem like such a terrible place that simply living here for the rest of one’s days is punishment enough.” Rod, Cray and James glanced at one another. There was some truth to that.

On the way back to the sub terminal James finally pinned down what was bothering him up to that point. The hallways were barren, the few personnel they spotted either retreated quickly behind bulkheads or had a detectable air of concern about them. Jim nudged Cray, who nodded subtly in confirmation. He’d picked up on it too, whatever it was. Everything fell into place the moment the sub terminal came into view.

“James Rustler?” The obvious alpha silverback of the gorilla troupe before him held up a slate bearing his employee portrait. Rod nudged him forward. “That’s my picture. What do you need? We were just on our way out.”

The hulking meat mountain moved to bar the hatch. “Were. Past tense. Nobody’s leaving, as of this moment this entire facility is sealed.” Veins in his neck were visibly pulsating, seen up close. “You have a prisoner with you. Was he delivered?” James nodded. “Cell block six. No idea which specific-”

The radiant Summer sun shone a dull red through James’ eyelids. The feeling was more vivid than usual. The first realization he managed was that he’d been knocked out cold by the unidentified bruiser from the sub terminal. James cracked his eyes open and reflexively shielded them from the sun, to discover moments later that there wasn’t one.

He blinked. As is often the case when one’s most basic expectations are violated, it took him a minute of simply sitting and taking in his surroundings to recover. Once the mental restructuring was complete, it occurred to him that he should take inventory of himself. Same clothing, unusual only in that the normal recurring dream saw him wearing garments he didn’t actually own but which better suited the pastoral landscape.

There were no sunflowers. No Summer sun, no cottage. He sat, still dazed, on a cold concrete floor inside of what he initially figured for a factory of some kind. Rusted pipes ran overhead and snaked down walls.

Long stains, likely water damage, ran down those walls and into a corroded central drainage grate. The room was of moderate size and shaped like a large capital U, with a door inset in the convex wall behind him and tall windows inset in each of the 16 facets of the larger concave wall opposite it.

A cautious stroll to either end of the curved room revealed doorways at both ends, but no doors. He examined the frame more closely. There weren’t even hinges, no sign whatsoever that anything had ever been attached.

Through the doorway was some type of machine hall, grand in scope but ugly in a utilitarian, industrial way. Long rows of work stations with various tools, some of which he recognized, repeated down the length of the hall and by the end he thought he had a pretty good handle on what the building was for.

That comfort gave way to renewed confusion when he opened the doorway to the spiral stairwell. It was abnormally wide, with a diameter of at least twenty feet and needlessly large steps descending into darkness.

Some part of him couldn’t accept the break in routine and with each new room he explored, it seemed at least plausible that this door would open onto the familiar field of sunflowers he’d visited every night without fail....until now. And if not this door, then the next.

This was not his dream. It was alien. Someone else’s dream. Something entirely unfamiliar. As he returned to the machinist’s hall, James struggled to recall whether he’d ever toured an industrial building. Where was this imagery coming from? It became all the stranger when, upon scrutinizing one of the machines, he discovered it wasn’t designed to do anything.

Not that he imagined himself an expert on industrial machinery, but it was plain for anyone to see that the machine’s assortment of gears worked against each other, that the thick exposed red and black wiring deliberately shorted in several places. He stood back and internally fielded possible explanations, throwing ideas at the wall to see what stuck.

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^{Stay Tuned for Part 3!}