Forever Dark

by Gary Martin

  “I’m scraping out toxic waste in the bowels of this ship and you’re kissing girls. In what universe is that fair? You completely fuck over your last girlfriend and they’re still queuing up for a piece of you. Even Kerry was. You are a complete bastard.”

  “Kerry was with Mark,” I say, bemused.

  “But she wanted you, John. Fuck knows why.”

  “Really? I’m pretty sure that’s not true, I would have noticed.”

  “You were with Ez. I’m sure you didn’t see the signs because you weren’t looking for them.”

  “Ez was the reason I’ve annoyed Flick. She wanted more and I said no.”

  “Ez’s dad would be proud. You really are a fucking idiot,” Robert says and rolls onto his side, facing away from me.

  I stare at the ceiling, happy and sad at the news that Kerry had been into me. If I’d noticed, or was paying any attention, would I have done anything about it? I hope that I wouldn’t have. But three months in space was a long time. The whole trail of thought starts to feel futile. She’s dead. It didn’t happen and it couldn’t happen now, even if I wanted it to. All I have is Flick, and I’ve just pushed her away. A dark cloud is hovering above my thoughts, and I try to clear my mind. Thankfully, I start to feel myself dropping off.

  In what feels like an instant, the room’s alarm goes off. I roll over and see that Robert has already gone. Four hours sleep. That’s a little bit better. I still feel like crap though.

  I open my homemade bag, and pull out my civilian clothes. A black t-shirt, a black shirt, and black trousers. The clothes I wore when I tried to save, then abandoned, Ez so long ago. I haven’t worn them since that night. I put them on and notice something in the shirt’s top pocket, so I pull it out. It’s a little test tube with a tiny mechanical spider in. I’d forgotten all about it. I didn’t use it at the time for fear of fucking up the mission. But maybe today, if Edward’s plan comes to life. I have a lot less to lose, and I could probably use a better version of myself. I put it back into my top pocket and leave the room.

  Edward is waiting at the door for me as I get to the clean room. He looks intense and wide eyed. I notice some fresh scratches on his face, but I decide not to mention it.

  “I think today’s the day, John.”

  “Really? I’ve got some friends that I need to help as well,” I say. My heart starts to speed up and I touch my top pocket.

  “The more the merrier. I’m taking my life back and their lives too. Follow my lead.”

  With butterflies, I follow him into the clean room’s foyer, and a guard is standing at the door.

  “You’re late,” the punchy guard says.

  “We’re not late, you’re watch must be wrong,” Edward says. The guard looks down at his watch. Edward then runs at him, taking him by surprise. He knocks the guard to the ground and takes his weapon. The guard raises his hands.

  “You’re in so much shit! Letting one of us take your gun,” Edward shouts and kicks the guard in the face, knocking him unconscious.

  “What happens now?” I ask sheepishly.

  “Do you realise how bad we have it? Do you really know what’s happening here?” he asks me.

  “I’ve got some idea,” I say.

  “You have no idea. I only found out the truth about an hour ago. While the Skylark crew eat what they want, they’re feeding us the dead. When we die from over work or being beaten to death, they recycle us into that grey paste.”

  “That can’t be true,” I say, stunned.

  “It’s very true. Now, I’m taking my life back”

  “How? You have one gun, and there must be thousands of crew.”

  “Like this.”

  He puts the barrel of the gun in his mouth and before I realise what has happened, before I can stop him, Edward’s brains are splashed all across the white wall.

  His body falls to the deck, and smoke starts rising from where his head used to be. Fuck. I stare at the motionless body. I then look over at the unconscious guard. If he wakes up, I’ll be killed. Any minute now, an Amanda or Keith could come in to be emptied and cleaned, and I’ll be reported. I am a dead man. There’s no way out of this. I’m so fucked, I’m frozen to the spot.

  There’s a quiet knock at the door behind me. This is it. I turn around and Flick walks in smiling.

  “Hey John, sorry about yesterday, I …” She stops dead as she spots Edward and the guard.

  “It wasn’t me,” I say defensively.

  “Shit, John, what happened?”

  “Edward said he had a plan to get out of here. This was it. I really don’t know what to do now. When the guard wakes up, I’m fucked.”

  “The guard’s still alive?”

  “Yeah, just unconscious.”

  Flick walks over to where Edward is lying and picks up the rifle.

  “What are you going to do?” I ask.

  Without a word she points the weapon at the unconscious guard’s head.

  “No, don’t do it,” I say.

  “You’re all out of options, John. You saved me, it’s my turn to save you.”

  The left side of the guard’s head explodes the same way Edward’s did, and his brains spray up the wall. Flick walks up to me and kisses me on the lips.

  “Time to escape I think.”

  “What did you do?” I say in wide eyed shock. “What do you mean what did I do? You just saw what I did. What are you waiting for?” she asks.

  “I can’t just go. I’ve got to take Robert and Tim with me.”

  “Who?”

  “My ship mates. One is already sentenced to death, the other has been put to work scraping radioactive waste out of old missiles, so he’ll be dead soon too.”

  “We need to do something about these bodies first,” Flick says.

  I move to the entrance and lock the door.

  “That should give us some time,” I say, my voice slightly wavering.

  I grab Edward’s arms and drag his headless body through the foyer, and into the main cleaning area, a trail of blood following me. Flick does the same with the guard. I drop Edward’s arms when I get to the cleaning closet, the only place large enough in here to hide two bodies. Even then, it’ll be tight.

  I open the door.

  “In here I reckon,” I say.

  “What about the blood?”

  I pull out the hose pipe from under the sink and attach it to the tap.

  “Both rooms have drains, hose it off.”

  Flick grabs the hose, and I drag the bodies into the closet.

  “Good team work,” I say as Flick comes back in.

  “Are you trying to annoy me?”

  She sprays the blood off of the floor in here, sprays me in the face, then drops the hose.

  “What now?” she asks.

  “You expect me to have some sort of an idea? I want to escape, but I don’t even know how to get off this deck.”

  “How do the guards do it?”

  “Retina scan.”

  “Then I think you’re going to have to take the guard’s eye out.”

  If this situation wasn’t horrible enough. I’ve only managed to keep it together so far by thinking it was him or me. Just kept that going on a loop in my head.

  “There’s no way I can do that,” I say.

  “How do you get the eyes out of the Amanda’s?”

  “There’s a special grappler. Push it into the eye, it pops out,” I say matter of factly.

  “Will that work on a person?” Flick asks.

  “I don’t know. I don’t really want to try.”

  “Do you want to get out of here? We’ve got no choice now. We are way beyond the bad ideas stage. It’s happening whether we like it or not. Pass me the grappler, I’ll do it,” she says and holds out her hand. I open the maintenance cupboard and pull it out.

  “I’ll do it,” I say, and sigh.

  I head back to the cleaning closet and open the door. The guard is where I left him, on top of Edward, facing up. Sid
ling past their piled bodies, I get to the head end and the pool of blood underneath. The left-hand side of the guard’s head is mainly missing, and out of a morbid curiosity I have a closer look. Brains, blood and burned flesh. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it’s enough to make me dry retch. I’ve barely eaten since getting here, so only a small amount of drool and stomach acid comes out. Really hurts though. I should have let Flick do it but, no, I had to try and come across like I’m willing to do anything. Just concentrate on the task at hand. Don’t think about the fact that you’re in a room with two bodies, slowly draining of blood. Focus.

  The guard’s left eye is pretty much gone, but his right eye is still in good condition. It’s blue, with small brown flecks and it’s staring right through me. I open his eyelid as wide as I can with my fingers and push the grappler around his eyeball, all the while my stomach is heaving. I twist the end of the grappler so it’s tightly gripping the eye and then gently pull. The eye comes out of the socket without too much trouble, it then makes a wet popping noise when it’s fully released. I dry retch again.

  “Flick, can you pass me some scissors or something? I’ve got to cut the cord.”

  Hearing some shuffling behind me, I look round and Flick is sidling past the bodies holding out a pair of scissors. I take them off of her and cut the optic nerve as quickly as I can without looking. More dry retching.

  I leave the closet and close the door behind me. Thank fuck for that. That may well be one of the most horrible things I’ve ever had to do. Unfortunately, the list of horrible things is quickly getting longer.

  I undo the eye grappler, take the eyeball out and show it to Flick. She’s looking quite pale and holds her hand over her mouth.

  “This is fucking horrible,” I say.

  Flick agrees with me by bending over and vomiting next to my feet.

  “Thanks for that,” I say.

  “No worries,” she says, while standing up straight, then wiping her mouth with her sleeve. “What now?”

  That is the question isn’t it. With the eye, we can now potentially go to different decks, but I can’t think of a way off the ship.

  “We’re still fucked. But now, if we get caught, I look like a psychopath,” I say.

  “Your ship is being taken apart and being used for scrap you said?” Flick asks.

  “It is.”

  “It’s only been three days; they can’t have got that far dismantling it yet. I think heading to your ship is the best option. At least we have a goal.”

  “A pointless one. We’ll get there, and then what? Wait to get caught?”

  I stare at the wall for a few seconds, feeling despondent, when a thought pops into my head.

  “Escape pods,” I say.

  “What?”

  “Escape pods. Sunspot Two is fucked, but the escape pods still work. They’re small, but well stocked and fast.”

  “Could they take us as far as Jupiter and the Utopia project?”

  “I don’t know. But it’s better than staying here. Flick, I think we have ourselves a plan.”

  30

  There’s a loud banging on the door out to the recreation deck. We both look toward the foyer, eyes wide.

  “Oh fuck, we’re screwed. We need some sort of diversion,” I say.

  Flick looks around the room, then runs over to the only computer terminal in here.

  “The robots, what type are they?” she asks.

  “Gamma fives, I think. What are you up to?”

  “Mischief,” she says with a sly smile. “If they are gamma fives, then we’ve hit the jackpot.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Gamma fives are repurposed cannon fodder, front line military robots. Calluna’s robot army. When they were banned, instead of junking them, they were just re-programmed and had a few extra features added. There should be a way of shutting them all down from here if one of them goes screwy. If they can be shut down from here, there should be a way we can reset their programming. We may be able to cause havoc.”

  “How do you know that?” I ask.

  “Back on Earth, I was part of a group that had its own underground computer network. Hundreds all linked together and sharing information.”

  “But computers aren’t allowed to be linked together for security reasons.”

  “That’s why it was an underground network you idiot.”

  Flick pulls out the chair to the terminal and sits down. She presses a few buttons and it beeps at her.

  “Luckily, there isn’t a password, but there is a retina scan. Gonna need the eye, John.”

  I pick it up from the table with a bit of tissue. It feels like if I were to squeeze only slightly, the liquid centre would explode all over my hand like an egg. The idea makes me feel ill on top of my ill. I quickly put it on the desk next to Flick, dry retching the whole time. She looks down at the eye, which is staring straight at her and does the same.

  “I don’t know how we’re going to do this, if we can’t even pick the thing up and not almost vomit every time,” I say.

  Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.

  “Hold it up to the scanner then,” Flick says, still looking away from it. Reluctantly, I pick it up again, and hold it so the pupil is facing the scanner. For a few seconds there’s nothing, and I start thinking that mutilating the guard’s corpse was probably a step too far. No. Many, many steps too far. But then it beeps.

  Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.

  “I’m in,” she says and her red eyes widen. She scrolls her way through a few screens, menus and sub-menus until she stops. She then looks up at me with a wide grin. “Do you want to do a factory reset on just a few of them, or the whole fucking lot?”

  “You can do that?”

  “What can I say? I’m good at computers. I can also give them orders.”

  “Do all of them ... no, do all of them except one. Maybe you could programme one of them to protect us.”

  “That makes sense. I’ll see what I can do. What orders shall we give the rest?”

  “How about anyone fucking them is instantly the enemy and any Skylark personnel are definitely the enemy. We’re not the enemy though. Is there any way you can sort it so we don’t get caught in the crossfire?”

  “Yep, say cheese.”

  “Cheese?”

  There’s a quiet beep.

  “Done. We’ll now be recognised as friends. So, before I press the button and cause a lot of people to get badly hurt or die, what’s the plan again?”

  Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.

  I try to think. I’m not great at thinking on my feet, but I don’t have any choice now. It’s have a plan or die.

  “Okay, once the shit is hitting the fan, we’ll leg it through the pandemonium, meet up with our Keith or Amanda...,”

  “Amanda,” Flick says.

  “... our Amanda, head to an AG shaft, go to the medical level, rescue Tim ...”

  “Who’s Tim?”

  “He’s basically a mad scientist.”

  “Why do we need to rescue him?”

  “I have a flimsy but quite good reason. Then, we head to the weapons reclamation level and rescue Robert.”

  “And why do we need to rescue him? This would be much simpler if we just went to the escape pods of your ship and left. Just us.”

  “It would, but I owe him my life.”

  “I guess that’s okay then. We gonna do this?”

  I nod, and she presses the enter key.

  “This is going to be fucked up. Be prepared,” she says and picks up the rifle, unclipping the pistol from the side of it.

  “This should make running through the havoc easier.”

  Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.

  I pick up the eye without looking at it, wrap it in the tissue and put it in my top pocket. We head out of the door into the foyer, and I see that there are still blood stains on the walls.

  “I thought you sprayed this room.”

  “I didn’t see that,
oops,” she says.

  I stand to the left side of the door leading into the recreation deck, and Flick stands to the right. I peer through the small round window, and two guards are attempting to kick the door in. I stand back against the wall and see that the door is starting to give.

  “They’ll be in any moment, when’s this havoc going to happen then?” I ask.

  “Should be any time now.”

  The banging stops, and there is a lot of muffled shouting. I chance another look through the small round window and am confronted with something I’ve never seen before and doubt I ever will again.

  Every Amanda and Keith on the recreation deck has stopped moving. Some of the guards and off-duty soldiers are staring at them, and a few have decided to try and push them over, laughing. The Amanda’s and Keith’s start saying something in unison, which starts to sound like a chant.

  “Foreign object detected ... foreign object detected ...”

  After about a dozen repeats, they all push their hands through their stomachs and, with a violent twist, pull out their waste sumps which instantly start leaking. Seconds later, the doors to the side rooms start flying off their hinges, followed by the limp, rag doll like bodies of whoever was having sex with the robots at the time. Four or five guards run over to the quite probable corpses to check on them, only to be attacked by the Amanda’s and Keith’s now emerging from the side rooms, using their waste sumps as weapons. Each time someone is hit, an awful concoction of blood and semen explodes into the air. The on-duty guards now start firing their rifles and pistols at the rampaging robots, barely having any effect. It is now a full-scale war.

  I’m suddenly appalled by what we’ve done. A lot of these people were innocent, just doing their jobs under the absolute worst of circumstances. I wanted to escape. Now, if we do get out, my conscience will be filled to the brim with awful guilt. Still, the ball is now rolling, so if escape is still what I want, I best be ready to go with it.

  “Ready?” I ask.

  “As I’ll ever be.”

  I unlock the door.

  “Keep your head down, and we’ll try to get to the main entrance on the other side,” I say.

  I push the door open and we run hunched over into the battle zone. The weapons fire is deafeningly loud, and the room is full of smoke. The fear suddenly grabs me. I run to a table on its side and sit down with my back against it. I look at my hands, and they’re shaking uncontrollably. Flick sits next to me.