“What's on your mind?” he asked as soon as we were away from the Things, who were sparring and tossing each other around with what looked like Judo throws. Gary and Kelly were good people, but other than our usual interaction during my shift, we rarely spoke. Plus, I liked to hit things. They liked to throw them. It made working out together awkward.
“Bad shift,” I admitted. I grabbed my workout bag and tossed my shorts and shirt inside.
“Coworkers?” he prodded some more. I shook my head.
“Just…too much time alone with my thoughts,” I said. I looked up and saw that he looked fairly worried. I tried to set his mind at ease. “You think I might be able to swap to daytime hours for a week or two?”
“Bigfoot's been bugging me to go to nights, so it shouldn't be a problem,” Gerry said, referring to our lone Canadian on the team. I’d gotten to know Bigfoot much better over the past few weeks. He also one of the tallest operators I'd ever run across, which had led to the origin of part of his nickname. Like me, he was trained as a sniper, only the majority of his action had taken place a long time ago on battlefields I'd never heard of. He was nearing mandatory retirement age for the company, which put him in some exclusive company. He also sported one of the most impressive beards I had ever seen and, after seeing him naked in the gym shower more often than I cared to, I came to fully understand how he earned his moniker.
Some mental images never went away, no matter how hard you tried to mentally scrub it with bleach.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Anything else going on?” he pressed.
“No, not really,” I lied. I was a little ashamed of lying to my boss, but what the hell was I supposed to do, admit that I was either going crazy or that I'd actually seen a ghost? I liked my job too much for that much honesty.
“Good,” Gerry grunted. “By the way, Doc Marillac is looking for you. Said you haven't been down in a few days. Go on down and spend some time in the Gallery at least. Let the scientists poke around and ask stupid questions.”
Shit.
“Yeah, fine,” I grumbled. Gerry chuckled softly. I gave him a look.
“I'll come with you, Kraken Whisperer,” he smiled. “At least then I can spend time with, uh, watching the kraken interact with you.”
“Yeah, sure,” I snorted, amused by his lame attempt at hiding his affection for Doctor Marillac. He was an extremely easy person to read. “Kraken.”
ঠ
Watching Gerry try to flirt with the doctor was very similar to observing someone strap a jet rocket onto the ass of a penguin to try and make it fly. He bumbled his way through the start of the conversation, managed to find some footing once he quit trying to impress her and be himself, and finally made her smile a few times. He succeeded, but the bruises to his ego had to hurt. They’d hurt me, and I was a not-so-impartial observer. Fortunately for him, Doctor Marillac seemed just as inept as he was at flirting and reading the signs of interested parties, so they sort of canceled one another out.
Concy would have found it adorably sweet and offered tips for next time. I thought it was funny as hell, and planned on mocking my boss mercilessly once we were in the clear.
For the time being, however, I left him and the doc alone as I wandered through the Gallery. As much as I hated being bugged by the doc and her merry minions, I enjoyed the Gallery and the alien creatures which seemed drawn to it. The kraken were out and about, though not nearly as many as I’d seen a few days before. The six or seven in view were active, flashing their wings in varying colors of red and black. I took a seat on one of the benches which looked out into the lake and watched the aliens swim quickly by, diving, twisting, and turning in dizzying patterns.
After a few minutes of watching them, I realized that there was a pattern to their swimming. I leaned closer and stared, intrigued. I could see the pattern repeating over and over again but I had no idea what it meant.
“Mating ritual?” I muttered under my breath. It was something I would mention to the doc. After, of course, Gerry was done trying to flirt with her. The last thing I wanted to do was to interrupt a potentially good thing.
Watching the kraken dance in the liquid methane lake, my mind began to drift back to my first date with Concy. I hadn’t even realized it was a date until she’d grabbed my hand while we were walking to the movies. I’d gone from cocky and self-assured to drooling idiot in the span of about three seconds, which had to be a record of some sort.
I’d been fortunate. My dad had taught me that it was better to be silent and thought an idiot than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt. If it had been anyone else, I would have seemed to be the strong, silent type. Since Concy had already known me for five years before our accidental date, however, she had known just how nervous I was and didn’t laugh too much.
I had already loved her. I just had not realized it until I saw our fingers intertwined.
I didn’t remember the movie we saw. Nor where we went to dinner afterwards. The only thing I could remember were her eyes, bright and assuring, and her hand held gently in mine. Oh, and the lecture I got from my parents for missing curfew. Granted, they hadn’t grounded me for being late once I told them all about the date. However, that had led to the other lecture about being careful and birth control and things I was really, really uncomfortable hearing about from my mom. My dad had simply watched me squirm under the constant barrage from my mom and smiled. At least I know where I get my sense of humor from.
Nobody at school had understood. They’d known about our friendship, since we had been inseparable before we’d started dating. Their minds hadn’t been able to make the transition, though, and whispered rumors floated around school. Concy just laughed at them, but I was ready to murder everyone when I started hearing the accusations. They were ugly, hurtful, with the barest hints of truth, which were far more than enough to make everyone believe that I was taking advantage of the “poor immigrant.” I’d gotten into more than a few fights over that and would have been expelled had Concy not put a stop to things.
I never figured out exactly what she had done, but one day the rumors suddenly stopped.
My mind drifted back to the present. The kraken weren’t swimming around as frantically as they had been before. They were drifting through the lake now, occasionally spinning their bodies to reposition themselves within the loop. Instead of hues of black and red, their wings were more demure pinks and soft blues. Melancholy, I supposed. It fit my own mood.
I leaned forward. The kraken were mimicking my mood. I’d seen it before but I hadn’t really put two and two together. How could they know…unless the doctor was right and the aliens could sense human emotion? I grew excited as the implications of it all began to set in. That meant that the doctor’s theories were correct and the aliens were intelligent.
The prospect of it all was exciting. Here was the proof that the doc, hell, the entire human race, needed. Proof that aliens could communicate beyond our level, that they could be more than we were. A terrifying thought, but a slap in the face to the idea that humanity ruled the known galaxy uncontested.
I paused. What they were doing was direct evidence that they had empathic abilities, at a minimum. If they could sense my mood and mimic it, could they sense others moods as well? Evidence suggested just that. But if that were the case, just whose emotions had they been repeating when we had first arrived? Who on the station was in a mood that would cause the kraken to be black and red, colors we traditionally associated with anger and despair?
The question and subsequent internal debate was enough to make me keep silent when Gerry reappeared thirty minutes later, Doctor Marillac in tow. His grin alone led me to believe that more than just some harmless flirting had occurred. Maybe he had managed to get to second base? I thought. That would have been a surprise.
I winced as a headache began to form near the back of my skull. I rubbed the sinus cavities on both sides of my face, hoping to relieve the pressure before it could
really hit. I’d had a few migraines in the past couple of weeks and recognized the early signs of an impending one. Other than popping a prescription pain pill or a nasal stimulant, there was little which seemed to counter them.
This is going to be a bad one, I thought as closed my eyes. The throbbing pain grew, pushing at the very edge of my tolerance threshold. The gray was closing in on my mind. A wave of nausea washed over me. It threatened to toss my lunch all over the polished floor.
Just as quickly as the migraine appeared, it was gone. I rubbed the back of my neck and slowly opened my eyes. The lights were bright but not painfully so. I was thankful for that, at least. Still, the random migraines were starting to become a nuisance. I shook my head. Migraines sucked.
“Soooo…?” I let the question hang in the air as the duo stopped a few feet before me. Gerry’s grin never faltered.
“She agreed to let me take her out to dinner once we’re back on Earth,” Gerry proclaimed triumphantly. Doctor Marillac squirmed uncomfortably and frowned at him.
“There were some stipulations,” she reminded him. She looked at me oddly. “You looked as though you had something to say when we walked in. What was it?”
I opened my mouth to say something but paused. Did I? I couldn’t remember. The migraine had taken a lot out of me, and all I wanted to do right then was go take a nap, workout be damned. I thought about it as I stared at the kraken outside, who all seemed to be watching the duo with no small amount of interest.
“Nope, nothing I can think of,” I said. Doctor Marillac gave me another strange look.
“Well, just because I agreed to one date with you, Gerry, doesn’t mean we’re a serious couple now,” she reminded my boss. The admonition didn’t even begin to faze the grin still on his face.
I chuckled. Whatever it was that I had forgotten, it couldn’t have been too important.
Chapter Eight
The secret of your future is hidden in your daily routine.
-- Mike Murdock
Routine. It was the standard for any military personnel, it’s what helped drill the basics into any soldier or sailor. Routine is what kept a lot of us sane when we were off-world somewhere with nothing to do.
All branches of the military had a routine of some sort. Wake up, exercise, shower and shave, formation, then daily tasks until lunch…all were part of the routine. It kept the mindset of the soldier focused, even if it had been years since that individual had finished basic training.
Routine on the station was the same thing, though on a much different level.
The next few weeks were much of the same for me. Transport a prisoner down to Research, stand outside while he is poked and prodded, then escort him back up. It was mind-numbing, dull, repetitive, and did much to take my mind off of what had happened to me in the hallway.
What had happened to me in that hallway, exactly? The more I thought about it, the more firmly I become convinced that I had suffered from some sort of PTSD break. Nothing else made any sense to me. Ghosts aren’t real, science had proven that conclusively. Of course, that brought up another potential problem. If I actually was suffering from an episode, would that hamper my job performance?
I thought about talking with Gerry and explaining the situation but dismissed the idea as quickly as it had appeared. I was sure he was already concerned about my mental state. The last thing I needed to do was to give him a reason to get me off-station, and a crazy guard in a place where there was no escape was most definitely a Bad Thing.
I was still convinced that time and more punching bags would help me out more than a shrink armed with prescription pills and a strait jacket. I just needed to keep my head on straight. The best way to do that was to keep working, keep doing my job. Focus on something that would keep my mind off of the past. The doctors would have said I was avoiding the situation. I wouldn’t have said that they were wrong.
Besides, everything I’d ever heard or read about said that ghosts only haunted the locations where they died.
“Hey, Doctor Isaac!” I spotted the young scientist walking as I exited the chow hall. I had spoken to him in passing a few times down in Research but other than that I had little interaction with the kid.
He was the youngest scientist on the station by far and he seemed to be the most comfortable with interacting with us fellow human beings. I guessed his age to be in his mid-twenties, maybe. His haircut and styling made me think younger though. His body language and general attitude suggested a maturity that was hidden behind layers of carefully applied personal appearance masks. Still, he was easy for me to deal with, most of the time. Compared to the other scientists, at least. He still gave off the vibe of an extremely awkward college student once in a while.
“Oh, hi John,” he said as he turned and saw me. “How’re you doing?”
“Good, Doc,” I replied. “Where you headed?”
“To the Gallery, then on down to Research,” he said as I caught up to him. He carried multiple PDA’s in his hands. He saw my questioning look and grinned. “Doctor Marillac. She likes to keep each patient’s information on a separate PDA.”
“That’s weird,” I muttered. He chuckled.
“That’s nothing,” he said, “You should see how Doctor Furter dictates to his PDA. He looks like he either needs to use the bathroom or he’s dancing…”
“First a jump to the left…” I said in a sing-song tone. The young scientist shot me a confused look.
“I’d heard you were weird, but I just figured that was the guards giving the new guy a hard time.”
I inwardly sighed. Nobody respected the classics anymore. Tim Curry would have wept manly, transvestite tears.
“So what’s new down in the dungeon?” I changed the subject as we walked up to the Gallery. It was located on the floor above the mess hall, and a lot of the guards and scientists both took the stairs instead of the elevator. I found it a good way to help burn off that extra dessert I always seemed to stuff my hole with. I was blessed with a fantastic metabolism, but I didn’t see why I couldn’t help it out as often as I could.
“Dungeon? Oh, down in Research,” he shrugged his shoulders. “Mass transference.”
“Huh? What’s that mean, Doc?”
“Jelly,” he tried to explain, “and please, call me Isaac. The doc is Doctor Marillac.”
“Ah, like the Corps,” I grinned. “Last names make it easier.”
“What? No,” the scientist gave me a strange look, “Isaac’s my first name.”
“Why do they call you Doctor Isaac then? Wouldn’t it be Doctor…what’s your last name?”
“Szymaniewski,” he answered, “but since nobody seems to be able to pronounce it correctly, I’ve gone by Isaac since I was an undergrad student.”
“Chi—” I stopped myself and grinned, “yeah, I could see how that could be a problem. Isaac it is.”
“See? Easy.”
“So what did you mean, jelly?” I asked, bringing the topic back to what he had mentioned earlier.
“Jelly?” he asked, confused.
“Mass transference and jelly?” I reminded him.
“Oh, right!” he said. “I’m testing a theory about mass transference right now—well, when I get back down the Research, at least—and the best way to think about it is something pliable and filled with jelly. So I figured the cafeteria would have some jelly, but not tonight. So I need to work on my theory with artificial gel, like ballistic gelatin. I’m gonna check the armory tomorrow and see if I can borrow some to see if mass transference and modifications are possible in a controlled test.”
“Uh…” I was lost. Fortunately, he was one of the few scientists on the station who spoke mortal.
“Think of a baby teething ring,” he explained, “you know, the ones with the jelly inside?”
“Yeah, okay.”
“Now take that ring and squeeze it,” he continued, “and the jelly leaves the part where you just squeezed. On the other side of the ring, mo
re jelly has appeared. In layman terms, you just caused mass transference.”
“Uh…okay?” I was confused a bit. “All I did was move the jelly to one side.”
“Yeah, well, you can’t just get rid of the mass.” His brow furrowed. “I mean, it has to go somewhere.”
“Aha!” I exclaimed, pleased that I finally understood. “I transferred the jelly to the other side! Mass transference! Very clever, Doc.”
“Who said Marines were as dumb as a box of rocks?” he laughed. I scowled at him.
“Me use rock, crush puny big egghead,” I growled in mock-seriousness. In truth, that was one of the funnier things any of the scientists had managed to say since I’d arrived. The kid may not appreciate the classic movies, but at least he had some semblance of humor. The others seemed to have had any shred of humor beaten out of them.
We arrived in the Gallery and I spotted Gerry and Doctor Marillac talking near one of the larger plasteel windows which looked out into the lake. A few of the kraken were swimming just within range of the lit area outside the station, but surprisingly there weren’t any within the interior tubes at the moment. The ones outside were watching Gerry and the doctor, but I could see in their color schemes that they weren’t exactly happy about something.
“Doctor Marillac, ma’am,” Isaac bowed his head slightly in greeting. I waved awkwardly. There was no way I would bow my head to anyone, Pope included. Okay, maybe the Pope.
“Yes, Doctor Isaac?” the scientist’s tone was crisp and formal, precisely what I had grown to expect from her. It seemed that while she was in the presence of the other scientists she was in full boss mode.
“The PDA’s for this evening’s patients, ma’am,” he said and handed her the five tablets.
“Thank you, Doctor,” she said as she tucked them under her arm. She looked at Isaac, whose gaze was shifting back and forth between the doctor and Gerry. He slowly began to grin. She frowned. “Is that all?”
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