by Mathy, Scott
“You need to take a few steps back!” she shouted across the chamber.
They did as instructed, moving back down the ramp several feet toward their somber friend. As soon as they were clear of the area, the scientist typed in several commands to her console, and the warning lights surrounding the top of the platform began spinning. The intense yellow lights rotated completely ten times, before a blaring horn sounded three blasts. Electricity whirred in the coils as they spun up and fired their concentrated bursts of lightning into the tiny tear in space. The portal hung in the air, absorbing the directed energy for several seconds before increasing its silent rotation a hundred fold and expanding. Before long, the portal had grown beyond the dimensions of the platform and bisected the metal frame. It stopped growing just short of consuming the machines powering its growth. Purple wisps of whatever the hole was made of lashed out from its sides, touching and passing through anything in the surrounding area.
“Well, that’s something,” the Doc announced. She casually strolled back up the ramp, stepping through the portal without ceremony or caution.
Dwight stood in awe of the interdimensional portal hanging open before him. Somewhere out there, in a prison built for the worst of the worst, Bernard waited for them. As he took one uncertain step into the unknown, he wondered how many times he was going to punch his former partner when he found him.
Ten
From the limited experience Dwight had with violating the laws of physics, he expected the transition to be much gentler. His trip back to New Haven from the desert was insignificant by comparison. The force his body endured as he tumbled through the portal’s inner workings was astronomical. A piercing screech rang in his ears; his eyes stung from the furious light engulfing him. He felt his skin burning.
He wanted to scream, to cry for the nightmare of cataclysmic noise and heat to stop, but all he could do was try to block out his senses. Dwight rode it out, chanting to himself, “This will end,” over and over.
At the edge of his sanity’s limits, he felt his stomach lurch as something akin to gravity caught him. He fell forward, hitting the ground with a hard thud. Dwight rolled across the floor, stopping against a wooden crate set a dozen feet away from the portal. His head was spinning, and the exposed flesh of his face still felt like it was on fire.
Ellis dragged herself over to Dwight, her bare skin steaming in the cool air. “Take it easy. We don’t know if there are any other side effects of the transition.”
Dwight coughed, struggling to regain his balance, “Too late to ask now, huh?” He crawled to his knees, flipping around and resting against the box.
When they were finally prepared, the doctor helped Dwight to his feet. The portal slammed shut with a receding roar, shrinking back to a minute spot hanging in the open air. Looking around, they found themselves in a sterile room resembling a mess hall, a dozen or so long tables filling it from side to side. Several large monitors hung from the ceiling around the support pillars. The artifacts of whoever had once lived here were scattered around the room: empty trays, books, and even a few sheets of paper with discernable writing.
Dwight picked up several and read them aloud, “Mission Report: Day 724. Construction of orbital facility proceeding as planned. List of delivery contents: consumables, heavy machinery, something called a ‘bilateral accelerator.’ Doc, this isn’t for the prisoners. Someone else was supplying this base.”
The Doc grabbed the paper from him, reading over the text carefully. “Did the portal send us to the wrong place? I can’t imagine that there’s any sort of variable destination if they’ve been using it as a prison.”
Ellis led the way to one of the enormous storm shutters across the room. Dwight reached for the switch without hesitation. The steel screen retracted to reveal a glistening star field and endless blackness.
“We’re in fucking space?” he asked the stunned doctor.
It took the Doc’s impressive intellect some time to evaluate their situation, “Perhaps, but where in space? I don’t recognize any of these constellations. We could be anywhere. The existential questions this raises alone…”
Dwight was far more concerned with immediate dangers, “You can tell all your science friends about it when we get back, Doc. I’m more worried about why we haven’t seen anyone.”
Ellis had already considered this, “Because no one was expecting us. But I’m willing to bet that our arrival hasn’t gone unnoticed.”
“We should move,” he decided. Ellis didn’t argue.
They cautiously crept through the halls of the deserted station, finding no sign of recent activity. It was as if everyone had disappeared, leaving their possessions wherever they lay. Room after room full of abandoned relics sat open and unguarded. He passed each with a casual glance, hoping someone had kept a weapon stowed away for emergencies. Disappointingly, he found nothing of use – just endless knickknacks from the missing occupants.
Eventually, he came to a door with a name too suspicious to pass up. The plaque outside of the doorway read “Capt. Zhu.” He touched the entry pad and found the lavish apartment unlocked. Inside, the captain’s quarters were spacious by the standards he had seen for the rest of the station. The living room, kitchen, and bedroom he eventually found himself in made his apartment back in New Haven look like a squatter’s hovel.
Finding a nightstand lined with framed photographs, he picked up the first one and inspected it. The face of the man in the photo was definitely familiar, but he had no clue about the alien woman. Her skin was a soft red, the color extending to the thick, hair-like tentacles covering her head. They hung over her bare shoulders, the green tank top a stark contrast to the color of her skin. Her beaming smile and the proximity to the young Zhu implied a long history together. Zhu’s warm grin matched hers, but the void energy that occupied only the older Zhu’s eye covered a large portion of this man’s face. Dwight studied the photo for a moment before realizing where it had been taken. A finished version of the Alpha Guard Facility lay just behind them, its grandiose emblem affixed to the wall just over the woman’s shoulder.
Dwight slipped the photo from its frame and pocketed it as Ellis rounded the corner into the room, her own searches turning up nothing important by her rigid definition, “There’s no one here. Find something?”
The hitman put the empty frame back on the table, “Just more questions.”
They left the captain’s suite without disturbing anything else. Dwight sealed the door before they went, wondering what it all meant. Finally, they came to a cargo hold. Stacks of shipping containers three-high filled the cavernous room. Robotic movers, enormous in their own right, sat unattended at their charging stations. The pair stepped cautiously between the metallic crates. Behind them, the doorway they had passed through slammed shut, red lights blinking rapidly. On the far side of the chamber, they heard a warning siren.
“Bet you $20 we’re about to get spaced,” the Doc said, hurrying to the source of the noise.
Dwight raced to keep up, “Then why are you running toward it?” Despite his unease, he knew that the doctor was a woman of rational intellect and not the least bit suicidal. Out of his peripheral vision, he saw the figment of Bernard dashing between the rows of cargo containers, playing a nerve-wracking game of cat-and-mouse with the paranoid hitman’s mind.
At the rear of the hold, they came to the source: colossal windows faced down to the surface of a gleaming white moon. Ascending a set of immense cables, an elevator had nearly completed its lengthy journey from the surface to their orbiting base. Dwight stared in quiet contemplation of the beauty below them. Even the well-traveled scientist held a hand to her mouth as she took in the spectacle.
Ellis broke the silence, “Do all your adventures end up so…spectacular?” she asked.
Dwight answered with a grin, “Not really. Usually there’s just a lot of blood before some crappy diner food.”
At the sides of the elevator, small jets fired, slowing it
s rapid ascent. By the time it reached the docking mechanisms of the station, it was barely moving at a crawl. As it came to a stop, Dwight pulled the doctor down behind the nearest crate, ducking low and hoping the material was thick enough to stop the bullets he feared would be heading their way. He found himself suddenly interested in the density of the station’s walls. Heavy clamps dropped into place, securing the lift to the building. There was a short delay as the chamber sealed before the airlock opened with a gust of pressurized air. Dwight peeked around the side of their cover, trying to assess how screwed they were. The doors parted, and three passengers stepped from the interior of the cabin.
Dwight thought he saw another phantom as the first occupant exited the elevator: the hulking creature was covered in scales. Its claws looked sharp enough to tear through steel. Jagged, monstrous teeth hung from its open jaws. It wore a blue jumpsuit, the material barely managing to keep the huge creature’s muscles contained.
Next to the lizard, an older man walked forward with a gentle tapping of his cane. His white hair stuck out in every direction from his wrinkled head. Aged eyes peered out from behind thick glasses, studying every detail of the cargo bay as he walked. Over his similar jumpsuit, the man had a worn lab coat with a multitude of polished tools sticking out of every pocket.
At the back, a stern woman followed, looking like a cross between a bodybuilder and a piece of industrial equipment. For every few inches of skin visible under her sleeveless matching uniform, there was an equal amount of metallic plating. The upper half of her face was completely mechanical, her eyes replaced with two lenses. There was a whirring from the apertures as she studied the interior of the warehouse. Her hair was also synthetic; a length of black wiring extended from the top of her scalp, covering half of her face. The cybernetic replacements of her lower arms reminded Dwight of the prototype he’d used briefly after his accident. Unlike his more refined versions, their jagged surfaces and exposed wiring would have made everyday life difficult.
She took a few steps out of the elevator before stopping ahead of her party, “You can come out. We’re not here to hurt you – we need to explain the rules before we bring you down.” Her voice was firm, authoritative. Dwight guessed this was the Warden.
“Alright, we’re coming out,” he shouted, taking a cautious step out from behind his cover. He raised his hands above his head. “There’s two of us; we’re unarmed.”
Ellis stood as well, leaving the duffle bag on the floor beside her. She stepped around Dwight, heading toward the three with no sign of caution. “Dr. Geller, I wondered what ever happened to you.”
The old man adjusted his glasses, shifting his hunched weight from the cane. “Elizabeth? Is that you? What are you doing in a place like this?”
“Oh, you know, just taking a vacation. Europe is just so crowded this time of year,” her jovial sarcasm cut through the tension.
The scientist took a moment to process the joke, “I always knew they’d come for you eventually. You were always far too brilliant to escape their attention forever. My dear, welcome to the Afterlife.”
Dwight approached the other two, allowing the Doc her reunion. He held out a hand to the Warden, who was watching the exchange between the two scientists. “Dwight Knolls – they call me the Referee.”
She took his synthetic hand, shaking it with her primitive replacement, “You can call me Warden, though I used to be Cyberex.”
Dwight had heard of her even before he was a part of the Powers’ game. Ridiculous as her chosen alter-ego was, the woman was a legend. During his service, she’d been the leader of her own transitional government in the developing world. After her paramilitary unit assassinated the ruler of the old party, she took charge. From what he remembered, her reign had been moderately successful in organizing the chaos of that country into a functional authoritarian dictatorship. Then, just as suddenly as she had come to power, she disappeared, leaving a vacuum that plunged the region into another devastating civil war.
She gestured to the looming lizard standing behind her, “This is Grenn; he doesn’t talk much.” The creature whipped his tail once against the hard floor, making a horrible cracking noise. “We’re the executive committee here in Afterlife. I’m sure you have questions we can answer while we head down to the surface. We’re not allowed to stay here for more than a few minutes if we want supplies next month. Come on.”
Dwight and Ellis followed the woman back into the waiting elevator. He watched as their escorts strapped themselves into the harnesses.
A second later, he understood why: their pod jerked forward as the docking fixtures separated. The boosters propelled them along the lines connecting the station with the moon base. Thrown by the sudden motion, Dwight slid along the floor before colliding with the rear of the shuttle.
The Doc regarded her companion with a brief sigh before turning to the Warden, “First question, then,” she began, “Where are we?”
Geller answered instead, “We are in a parallel dimension, one completely deserted by whatever population lived here.”
“How is that possib-” Her response was cut off by the view from the rear window of the shuttle. The edge of the floating station finally came into sight, and with it, the planet beyond. A sickly greenish-brown atmosphere covered the stricken planet. Colossal storms tore at its surface. Dwight wondered what hostile alien world they were orbiting.
Ellis gasped, “Earth – what happened to it?”
Dwight looked closer, following the coastlines of what he realized was a vast, polluted ocean. Disfigured as it was, the continents distinctly matched those of their world.
Geller removed the glasses from his face and began cleaning them with a small rag, “We don’t know. I have been monitoring for signals of any kind for close to five years now, and I can confidently say that there is no life down there. In fact, there doesn’t seem to be life anywhere. Nothing from down there or out here,” he pointed to the station and the open space beyond, “This universe is dead.”
The elevator coasted smoothly down the lines toward its destination, the boosters cutting off as soon as they finished accelerating. Ellis was struggling to take in the information, “You must have found records, something to indicate how an entire interplanetary population dies out.”
The old man laughed, “Not a single thing. You saw it yourself: everything abandoned, left in an instant and forgotten. Like a timer went off, and everyone went with it.”
“The surface?” she asked, desperate to find any reason.
“The lunar surface is very much the same as Acheron: heaps of personal junk. I’m guessing the people who set up this little experiment took anything even remotely resembling a weapon before creating the prison. If you’re asking about Earth, we have tried on two occasions to send someone down there. The first craft didn’t make it through the clouds before losing power and crashing. The second – well, it survived the trip.”
Through the window, Dwight watched an enormous bolt of lightning tear across the atmosphere.
“We received a few readings that could be expected: toxic air, hazardous radiation, hurricane-level winds, and continent-spanning supercells. We couldn’t get a direct video feed due to the interference, only burst transmissions and vital signs. Our exploration crew lasted a total of six minutes before dying one by one.”
“So something is alive down there,” Ellis said quietly.
“I didn’t say that,” the older doctor corrected. “I have been monitoring for heat signatures as well as radio signals, and have never detected anything from the surface. For all we know, some natural phenomenon caused their deaths. I haven’t had any volunteers since. On the rare clear day, I can make out the landing craft through my telescope.”
The elevator jerked again, the reverse thrusters igniting to slow their descent to the moon. “This place really isn’t so bad, as far as otherworldly prisons go. At least they occasionally bring me a research project to pass the time.”
; “You keep saying ‘they’, but I’m still not sure who ‘they’ are.” Dwight figured it would be useless to play coy with their ignorance. At least none of them were armed, unlike last time he’d been inquisitive.
“The Council,” the Warden answered, “The ones who run our old world. If you’re not here because you pissed off someone important, why are you here?”
Time to come clean, Dwight thought, “We’re here to see someone who did. Bernard Fuller – he’s got something I need.”
“Yes, we’re very aware of Mr. Fuller. ‘Goliath,’ he called himself.”
“Called?” Dwight could see where this was going.
She flexed her mechanical knuckles, “I’m afraid your friend caused so many problems during his first few days that he needed to be put in solitary confinement. Seeing him isn’t going to be possible in the foreseeable future.”
Dwight couldn’t say he was surprised that the oaf had been such a pain to his captors, “I don’t care where he is, I need to get to him in the next day or I’m dead.”
The Warden sighed, her lenses making their subtle noises, “I’ll see what I can do. Give me some time. Until then, I’ll ask that you do what you can not to disrupt the relative stability that I have built here. I assure you that – regardless of what you might see – when I arrived, things were much worse. I have worked tirelessly to bring the factions under control and make this very literal hell a place we can tolerate, if not enjoy.”
Dwight felt his heart sink, his mortality ticking down every moment. “I understand. We don’t want to cause you any problems.”
Their transport completed its journey, sliding into the housing of the lunar airlock. The docking clamps locked into position. There was a brief delay again while the atmosphere inside the tiny chamber cycled to match the base’s. Finally, the doors parted with a hiss, opening to a graffiti-covered entry hall. A gallery of street tags, vague threats, and lewd images filled every flat surface of the room.
