[Original Novel] Pressure 2: Dark Corners, Part 3

^{Part 1
Part 2}

Sabotage? But there wasn’t any clear way to reconfigure the machine that would make it do anything useful. No sign of damage either. Whoever designed it arranged the components this way deliberately, and either never intended for this machine to function or didn’t understand how to design one that would. “Engineered by idiots”, James muttered, and set off searching for tools.

The first tool he spotted had a recognizable handle, but the business end resembled no tool he was familiar with and it was impossible to guess what it might be used for. As much an exercise in abstract absurdism as the machine he’d just studied.

Still, if nothing else it made for a decent improvised hammer. As he turned back towards the machinist’s hall, a pile of papers caught his eye. Each step he took towards the pile of paper refuse caused the ink figures on them, presumably writing, to change.

Examining them up close confirmed this; When looked at directly they held almost completely still, but shifting the viewing angle caused the lines to swim around and rearrange, shifting back to a particular angle restored their original positions. It didn’t seem to matter, no matter how they were viewed the ink scribblings were gibberish. If it was a coherent language, James had never been exposed to it.

It was when he returned the paper to the pile that he felt a rigid form beneath it. Sure enough, a second tool, this one vaguely resembling a wrench but with ‘teeth’ like those on a worm gear. Neither the fixed nor moving portion of the gripping implement seemed to rotate, so why they should have this feature was a mystery.

James returned to the machinist’s hall, remembering the incompetently configured gears and envisioning different configurations that might at least freely rotate rather than working against one another. The first tool proved more useful than expected, none of the gears were permanently affixed but corrosion made them difficult to pry loose and only by using the larger of the two tools for leverage was James able to dislodge one.

Repositioning it on an empty rod, he reassessed the chain of gears and concluded that it ought to properly rotate if provided with power. Of course, that was a separate problem entirely.

James diverted his focus to the wires. There were small printed labels at two points that he intuited were the source of power and the point at which a switch was intended to connect. A bit of grunting and prying loosed the pin which fastened one end of the wire to its terminal, and soon he had the crude circuit set up such that bridging the two ‘switch terminals’ would restore power to the machine, if indeed there was a working power source somewhere in the building.

Gripping the smaller of the two tools by the rubber handle, he prayed it was sufficient insulation and used it to short the gap. The immediacy of the machine’s reaction gave him a start.

Somewhere deep within the casing a large electric motor whined, sounding very much like a jet engine being throttled up. The gears above him spun merrily, each turning the next, and looking around he took notice of electric lights flickering to life.

All emitted the same color, a dull orange yellow James assumed was typical of very old bulbs and only coincidentally the exact same color of the sunlight streaming in through the windows. Restoring power to the strange machine illuminated bulbs throughout various rooms that were dark when he first explored them. Only after an hour or so of exploring these rooms did James begin to feel disturbed by the discovery that no light, anywhere in the building, was any other color.

James returned to the stairwell. He’d decided against descending it earlier because everything below twenty feet was shrouded in darkness, but since restoring power the full length of the vertical shaft was now illuminated in the distinctive shade of sickly yellow emitted by every bulb and window seen so far.

After a moment of mental preparation he began to descend. Sudden panic took him, then immediately faded. Was there some significance to the first step? Some unseen threshold he’d just crossed?

A quick glance around the stairwell for reassurance, then James continued his descent. Thirty or so feet down he encountered the first of many ‘decks’. Not full floors, but places at which the shaft abruptly widened to accommodate an iron mesh walkway encircling the stairs with odd cages lining the outer wall.

Not jail cells, at least not obviously, as there were no bars. Rather the doors to each cell were chain link fence, and all fastened shut with identical rusted padlocks. All except for one, which hung open.

“I didn’t hit him that hard. Some just go down easy”. The conversation outside James’ cell was the first stimuli his conscious mind registered and he continued to focus on it as the rest of his senses were gradually restored.

He felt numb but found to his relief that all of his limbs responded. Intense pins and needles followed. More than likely they’d dumped him into this cell in a position that restricted circulation.

Cell? He waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness then began sizing up the cell interior, wondering if he was now truly conscious or if this was a dream within the dream. “Wait. Hear that?” A guard’s face, recognizable as the charming fuckhead who’d knocked him out, appeared at the cell door’s single small window. “See? There you go. He’s up and moving, no permanent damage. Let’s decouple and get back to the station.”

Decouple? As James wondered what that could mean in context the whole room violently swayed. The membrane depolarized and became transparent, revealing open ocean surrounding him. His mouth went dry. There before him in the distance was Tartarus station, hanging motionless in the black infinity.

On every side other identical cells hovered, silent and stationary save for slight swaying caused by vibrations traveling along their respective umbilicals. His gaze shifted to the minisub carrying those two guards as it pulled away silently, pivoting pumpjets adjusting its trajectory towards the same airlock James, Rod and Cray had entered the station through. Hours ago...had it been hours?

He’d been on his way to that terminal and, he thought, back to the Belusarius. Job well done, high profile prisoner successfully delivered. Yet he now found himself imprisoned without explanation in a ten foot diameter vinyl bubble from which he could imagine no possible escape. Distressing enough without his sudden awareness of a second presence in the cell.

“Lisa?” He meant to catch himself but by the time it occurred to him he’d already let it slip out. Despite the circumstances, he felt shame. It mixed well with the fear and nausea. The opposite side of the membrane was now shrouded in shadow, where before it had been dim but definitely not pitch black. From the darkness a pale slender arm emerged, the hand slowly beckoning.

James, while observing this, was wedged as far away from it as space would allow. He heaved. The familiar taste of vomit visited his mouth. James sputtered, his throat on fire, and doubled over. None of this could be happening. He struck his head against the floor a few times as if to clear his vision, then looked up.

The fully nude figure of a woman stood before him, and when he caught sight of her face his stomach finally capitulated and emptied itself all over the chamber floor. A moment later the cell shuddered and swung violently in the water. James was thrown against the bed and just before losing consciousness he witnessed the arm withdraw, and the shadow vanish.

“The fuck was that! Someone had better start talking. That’s the second time-” Cray was silenced bluntly by Frank Remer’s fist. Not in his jaw, but by the fractures it left in the table he understood the message that it would be the next time he spoke out of turn. For such a large and ostensibly hostile man, Remer spoke in a soft tone. Deceptively so, like an unexploded land mine.

“Mister...Martin, is it? I’m no happier to be here than you are to have me, but for the sake of simplicity let’s get a few things clear. You’ll know as much as I tell you, if I choose to tell you. What we can pull up on you from here says you’re king shit in the Belusarius county jail, but if you saw what sort of subs we docked in you’ll know why that means precisely nothing to me. What I see in front of me is a five foot nine balding naval warden, maybe a hundred and fifty pounds soaking wet, barking orders at a decorated supercav squadron leader who recently lost one of the finest pilots this ocean’s ever seen. I’m in a bit of a state right now, please don’t provoke me.”

Cray deflated. As a final act of defiance, he muttered “Are we in danger?” Remer looked lost in thought. Either weighing potential answers, or whether to make good on his threats. His better nature prevailed. “No, mister Martin. On the contrary, so long as the shockwaves continue, we’re in good shape. It’s when they stop that we should begin to worry.”

He’d soon learn that this frustrating, cryptic behavior was typical of Frank Remer and only a fool or someone not yet acquainted with his distinctive charms should expect anything different. When evening came, Cray and Rod found themselves transferred to neighboring cells separated by twin membranes and fifty feet of seawater. What threat they could possibly pose to Remer and his men wasn’t clear.

More likely, Cray thought, that they simply fell into authoritarian habits whenever cut off from their superiors. And they were cut off, he knew that much as he’d thought quickly and slid a smartpad and a plastic sleeve of small tools under his belt before being placed in “protective custody”.

The foundry was exactly as James left it. What little he knew of industrial machinery inclined him to believe it was a foundry. Fixing a name to it restored somewhat his feeling that it was his dream, and that he controlled it. But everything was exactly where he’d set it down the last time, and that by itself made a powerful statement: “I am not a dream, I am a place”.

Eager to make good use of the opportunity, James settled for suspending disbelief and exploring with a view to finding some escape route. It was then that he noticed the odor. His work jacket and shirt were soiled with puke. With both removed and dropped in the closest thing he could find to a wastebasket, James set off for the spiral staircase.

As expected it remained lit, in that discomfortingly dirty shade of yellow light that seemed to come from every bulb and window in the complex. This time, he resolved, he’d reach the bottom. Step by rusty step he descended, until partway down he took notice of the open cage from before.

This time, the cage next to it was open as well. It gave him pause, but as he could see no movement in either cage and the rest were as impenetrably dark as before there was little else to do but continue to descend.

Finally, with sore calves and after repeatedly fighting back the temptation to go back the way he came, James arrived at the bottom of the stairwell. It didn’t make sense at first. The round concrete shaft terminated 20 feet or so below what looked like the naturally occurring ceiling of a cavern. Except that it stretched out all around them, extending into a distant fog, with no walls or floor to be seen.

From the cavern ceiling there hung by chains a series of wooden platforms. Planks laid between them seemed to indicate someone had been this way before, and set up a safe path for others to follow. Beyond the platform hung a cluster of three concrete buildings, suspended as the platforms were by chains, all of them so old as to appear on the verge of crumbling.

Before he could resolve whether to hazard the plank bridges or go back up the stairwell, everything began to fade. No, it wasn’t fair he thought. I’ve only just reached the bottom. But, a man can only sleep for so long.

As he felt himself returning, in his final moments of clarity James was certain he saw someone climbing atop a distant concrete building. Whoever had been in that cell, surely? But there were two this time. Both cage doors hung ajar, making silent implications.

James’ cell reeked of vomit. His first conscious act was to pull off his soiled shirt, as in the dream, and cram it into the toilet. Thinking better of it he fished it out and tried to mop up more vomit from the floor, but the now soaking shirt only served to spread it around. He surrendered, and flushed it. Where it went was a mystery, either jettisoned into the open sea or sent back up the umbilical.

It took a minute or two of simply sitting calmly and indexing his thoughts to recall the events just prior to his blackout. Even in retrospect, impossible to accept. A sharp crackle drew his attention, and before he had a chance to clean up or cover himself the familiar face of his therapist appeared onscreen.

“James? Jesus Christ James, what did they do to you? Can you stand?” He obliged, and after crossing the small room to the video terminal he turned his feed off. “James? I can’t see you, is the link still active?”

The image of the woman emerging from the shadows still leapt to the front of his mind unless he actively suppressed it, and that was becoming exhausting. “Olivia, where are you?” He could tell from her surroundings that she wasn’t in her office. An empty seat next to hers and two behind her implied some sort of vehicle.

“I’m in a transpo sub. When you didn’t show up for your appointment, I contacted Tartarus reception. Hank told me what happened with the marines, that you were confined to an external cell. This is probably outside of my duties as your therapist but we work for the same company. We’re co-workers at least, and over the course of our sessions, I feel like we’ve-”

His response was explosive, and her reaction confirmed that it was hurtful although that wasn’t his intent. “Olivia, that was the stupidest thing you could’ve done. Turn back. First off, those jarheads tossed me in this cell and odds are they’ll do the same to you. Second, there’s something really fucking weird going on here. The station looks empty. It’s not, I caught people darting between rooms earlier, they’re holed up and avoiding the corridors. I think they’re being kept here. If you dock with Tartarus you might never leave.”

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^{Stay Tuned for Part 4!}