FALLING INSIDE THE BLACK
The darkness inside the dome-shaped residential HabCell enveloped me as I lay motionless in my bunk, the memory foam of the mattress caressing my form like a comforting cocoon. I stared upwards towards the apparently endless ceiling, which seemed to fade outwards into dark nothingness. The only minimal glow came from my holographic computer display, which washed the cramped room in an eerie radioactive tinge. The absence of my focal glasses hazed out everything, even the seams of the hexagonal metallo-ceramic panels that constituted the HabCell structure. Yet I stared intently upwards, squinting, with a faint hope that somewhere something would break the monotony of the passive surface.
My thoughts drifted as the pain started to seep through my legs, the residue of a day of immense translocation. Being the chief engineer of a state-of-the-art android research facility was enough of a toll on 25-year-old with a lanky figure like mine. My pleas to the board of directors to implement an internal transportation system had fallen on deaf ears.
Not enough budget, they said.
I scoffed. Yeah right. Shipments of corporate money to build weaponized robot tech, but not enough to care for the humans who make them. Impudent bastards, I fumed every day at least once.
Thankfully, the bed was soft, I sighed to myself as I lay there, nestled like a bird in a nest. My left hand caressed the transparent communicator lying on my stomach, tracing its outline, 20 square inches of clear hard plastic. My fingers traced subconsciously, and after what seemed like an eternity rested on the stub protruding from the head end of the device, a cylindrical protrusion emanating a thin flat cable. After tracing the wire for a length of 20 centimeters, the left hand gave up, retiring beside my body on the bed. My mind’s eye took over the relay, covering the rest of the 2 meters of cable that connected to the HUD cradling my cranium. The link thus completed, my mind wandered to the tune emanating from the earpieces, the electrical pulses generating from my communicator that blasted the noise to my eardrums, while the AR display curving in an arc in front of my eyes, the neon glow illuminating my shrunken face.
Noise, I smirked in the darkness. People would call it noise, the blasted stuff that was pounding down on my ears. I would call it otherwise some other time, but now I didn’t care. Now I needed a sedative, something to lull me to sleep. A tried and tested method that worked for me, I had given no second glance to the playlist.
The HUD was one of the vintage Axiom AX41 models, not sleek but bulky, yet robust. A hand me down from my mentor. The songs playing were by one of my favorite band Groundswell, also a vintage album.
Now that the thoughts on music were settled, my unbridled mind wandered off into the all familiar parallel universe of thoughts that I tend to seek refuge in. I raised my right hand vertically upwards towards the ceiling, fingers outstretched. My computer display had already gone to sleep, tired of waiting for me to hum a lullaby. Now the only light came from my communicator, and the power button of the computer blinking a slow white glow.
“Fascinating,” I remarked to myself as I gazed at my hand. My outstretched right arm was being alternately lit by the two light sources from two sides, predominated by the blinker. An ethereal feeling overcame me, and I stared, like a little kid who has just seen a firefly. When I had my fill of amazement, I let my hand drop, a gravity-assisted free fall bang on my forehead. The arm thumped hard on my forehead, I winced at the impact. The AR display fizzled at the physical obstruction, and the AI logic dictated it to blink out. Then I casually adjusted to cover my eyes. I prefer something over my eyes as I sleep; it helped my doze off faster. I chuckled to myself. Yeah, me and my rules.
My legs still tingling with pain, I closed my eyes, and before long drifted off to the realm of dreams, oblivious to my surroundings. The weight of my arm on my eyes accelerated the process, a tried and tested routine that never failed.
When I became obvious of my consciousness again, I realized I had woken up. The tingling pain that lulled me to sleep was the same thing that broke my slumber.
How long has it been? Ten minutes? Twenty?
I sighed as I thought. This “ghost sleep”, as I fondly called it, never lasted for more than twenty minutes, no matter how tired I was. Slowly I began to open my eyelids as my mind began to register the music still faintly pounding down on my eardrums, the volume lessened by the AI recognizing my inactivity during sleeping. I smirked.
My eyes fully open, the light of the room seeped through the gaps between my arm and face. I frowned. It was off before I dozed off. Maybe he was back. My roommate. Damn him. Even after 7 months, I had failed to inculcate in him some manly manners.
Through the music, I strained my ears for signs of activity from his side. There were none. That stubborn idiot went out somewhere again without turning off the lights. I sighed again, silently laughing at my predicament in being stuck with such an immature partner.
My mind wandered off in these thoughts again. In the midst of the noisy thought processes, I heard the door lock fizzle and the door slide open, letting someone inside the confines of the illuminated HabCell.
The bastard’s finally back, my inner voice spoke out, time for some reprimand.
Little did I know I would regret this thought afterward, for it would be the sole origin of my untimely demise.
“Can’t you knock,” I said out loud, my eyes now closed, right arm pressing the eyelids shut.
No answer. Not even the sarcastic snort, let alone his witty back talk. I heard the door slide close.
Someone giggled. High pitched and evil.
And it wasn’t him.
The realization of the owner of the voice caused my stomach to clench and my blood run cold. My body sat upright, all other thoughts exiled from existence.
I stared at her, eyes wide open, mouth open wide.
Her chiseled yet scarred face.
Her body.
Then her hands. Right fist to be exact. I stared slack-jawed at her fist till I recognized the device she held in it.
Time slowed down.
I became aware of the milliseconds ticking by as she raised her hand in front, right in the level of my face.
Cold sweat emanated from my forehead.
Breathing became shallow.
Pupils dilated.
Everything seemed to run in slow motion, as my hands raced to my head.
I had to wrench off the HUD off before she flipped the kill switch.
But I was too late.
“Stop. No. Please.” I screamed in horror as she pressed the switch just as my fingertips made contact with the earpieces.
Then it began. The electrical pulses of the much dreaded and feared Brain Splatter Device, or BSD as it is called.
The BSD was developed by my company as a prototype death sentence weapon. It combines the working principle of an electric chair and high-frequency noise to fry the victim’s brain by fatal bursts of high voltage discharges. The whole setup comprised of a wearable headset that was strapped to the victim’s head and a kill switch fitted to a custom-made glove that the executioner controlled, both connected to a central control unit. Originally a device designed for giving convicted criminals the death sentence, it was banned within six months on humanitarian grounds as it sometimes failed to deliver the quick and painful death that was advertised in the official brochure. Several victims survived, mindless shells of human existence, which became a burden to our company itself.
Of course, it was until the device was stolen from the top security storage facility by the Syndicate. Well hidden from military radar, they reformed the device into a murder weapon, altering its very principles of operation. With the alteration, they disconnected the kill switch from the central control unit, enabling the executioner to transform even ordinary civilian headsets to become a receptacle for murder weapons.
I was on the prototype development team for the original BSD. And now its twin evil brother was giving a death stare right into my face. Such an irony that I had fallen victim to my very own brainchild.
I had no time to think further as the splatter began. I felt myself scream in agony as sparks engulfed my head, coursing through my ears and brain. Bright lights flashed inside my eyeballs as they neared the point of exploding. I was paralyzed, unable to even think, let alone do anything to cut short my suffering. My body stiffened and spasmed violently owing to the megavolts frying my brain. My jaws locked in an open position, my throat choked, unable to scream anymore.
Just stop it, please, my thoughts screamed, just kill me already, as tears streamed down my face.
She seemed to sense my thoughts and laughed, before I felt two loud ruptures inside my head. My eardrums had burst and I faintly felt the flow of warm cerebrospinal fluid gushing out, as my consciousness began to ebb away.
The fluid began to accumulate in my ear canals, dammed by the earpieces. I was drowning, in the ocean of my own helplessness. I had no way of telling whether the discharges have stopped or not. Vision darkened as my eyeballs sunk inside their sockets. My hands fell down as my head snapped back and my body became rigid as a board, unable to even spasm. I vaguely felt a silhouette cross my field of vision, as I felt my body hit the bed.
The impact threw away my headset, and the accumulated fluid, now mixed with blood and unhindered, flew freely, staining my head and the bed. I lay there twitching involuntarily as my breaths became shallower with every passing moment.
So this is how I’m going to die, I thought, feeling neither fear nor pain. I just wanted to fade away. End it all. The bodily senses seemed to cease their functions, everything blurring away. My eyes grew heavy. I was falling, drowning in the endless abyss of black. It was bliss. I closed my eyes, welcoming the imminent end.
Then I felt it. My heartbeat. The flicker of my existence. Faint but still beating. I groped around in the darkness, clinging onto the dying flame of life that still hadn’t given up on me. My eyes opened painstakingly slowly, the eyelids rubbing painfully against the sunken eyeballs. My sight was blurred and darkened, but I could faintly see.
The loud static in my ears was deafening. The burst eardrums have impaired both my sense of hearing and balance. My attempts to get up slammed me down hard on the bed.
Not yet, I muttered, it’s not over yet. I remembered her face and grit my teeth, the flicker steadying inside steadying my heartbeat, determined in exacting revenge.
I pulled my body across the bed, pain wracking every joint and muscle. I fell on the floor, slamming hard, and somehow made the agonizing crawl to the door.
My right hand latched onto the door panel, my bloody hand trying to contact the biometric pad to release the lock and sound the alarm. The door whooshed opened. I felt the light outside streaming down on me. Desperately I pulled my body outside onto the corridor, my lower body paralyzed. The exertion was too much for my near dead existence to bear. I lay there spread-eagled. Staring at the metallic corridor ceiling, head spinning, my life flashing before my eyes.
The apparently overwhelming feeling of high gravity wasn’t helping with the heaviness either. I turned my darkened vision towards the HabCell door, which was still open, displaying the illuminated innards.
Ironic, I laughed to myself, predator becomes prey. But not today, I whispered as I closed my eyes, as I felt the heavy thudding of military boots approaching.
