So Close to Home

by Galen Surlak-Ramsey

  “Why would that be exciting, Daphne? It sounds like a great way to get killed!”

  “True, but the ninth floor has the best exhibits,” she said. “Or the worst? Best of the worst? Or worst of the best? I’m not entirely sure how to translate this part of the records as they’re fragmented. But regardless, I do know that floor is the most popular, so you ought to have a wonderful time seeing things no other human has or ever will. You should want to go more than anything.”

  “Honestly, Daphne, I’d rather not go at all. I only want to leave.”

  “Pffft. You’ll never get any awards and plaques for exploration with that attitude,” she said. “Think of it as more material for your book tour—”

  “Which I’ll never go on if I wind up dead!”

  “In which case, I’ll be sure to see that your awards are given posthumously,” she said. “I’m already keeping a long list of things to do on behalf of your estate. Adding this to that won’t be much more trouble.” Before she could say another word, the ship’s engine thrummed back to life, and the interior lights to the cockpit came back on. “Oh, look! Everything’s coming back on, sort of. I’ll lower the ramp, and you all can get moving.”

  “I’m not thrilled about this either,” Jack said, dropping a hand on my shoulder. “But I’m even less thrilled sitting here in a broken ship. We’ve got to do what we’ve got to do.”

  “Yeah…yeah I know.”

  He then threw a wry grin at me and spoke words that eased some worry in my soul. “Besides, we’re going to have a pair of giant space marine kitties with us. We’ll be fine.”

  I smiled at that. “Yeah. Seems Tolby and Jainon are good to have around when we need a little extra protection.”

  Tolby burst through the door with Jainon right on his heels. On his face he wore a mix of controlled rage and tremendous worry. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “But we’ve got to get a part for the ship.”

  “What are you talking about?” he asked. “What sort of part?”

  “Okay, long story short,” I said, taking in a deep breath. “No, check that. That’s still too long. Short, short version: A bunch of Old Me’s sabotaged the AI, broke the dorsal sub something or other…”

  “—dorsal subatomic charm relay chamber,” Daphne filled in.

  “Yeah, that, and there’s a replacement on the ninth floor past the art gallery.”

  “I take it we need it,” Jainon said.

  “Only if we want to leave,” I replied.

  “And to live,” Daphne added.

  “Then there’s no time to waste,” Tolby said, shaking his head. “We need to go. Now.”

  “I know! I know! I was about to, but…there’s something I need to do first,” I said. I glanced left and right, hoping that Taz was around for a good belly rub so I could really stack the odds in our favor. Sadly, he wasn’t. “Oh, man. Really?”

  “Really what?” asked Jack.

  “Taz is still gone. How am I supposed to rub his belly when he’s off superpositioning all over the galaxy?”

  “I have no idea. We’ll have to do without.”

  “No. We need some super luck.”

  “We need to fix this ship!” Jack said as he grabbed my arm and pulled.

  “Hey! Let go!” I said, shrugging him off. “We’re not fixing anything without some super luck!”

  “Dakota—”

  I silenced him with a glare before turning to Tolby. “Hey, bud. Help me out. Tell him what’s what.”

  Tolby sighed. I know he was pretending to humor me for Jack’s sake, but I still wish he wouldn’t have been like that. “Let her do her thing,” he said. “Sometimes you have to work with what you’ve got.”

  “I find your lack of faith seriously disturbing,” I said, knitting my brow. “I’ll make you all believers soon enough.”

  “You will, will you?” Jack asked, raising an eyebrow. “Because I’m not seeing a Taz or a lucky elephant anywhere you can use.”

  “I know, but I can fix that.” I quickly swabbed the inside of my busted lip with my finger and drew on the floor. Now I know some people might think it’s bad mojo to dip into dark blood magic—and it is—but you have to remember, I was offsetting that bad mojo with the blessings of the tiny pachyderm. In essence, the net was a positive gain. Or so I told myself.

  “What are you doing?” Jack asked.

  “Making a lucky elephant to rub,” I replied.

  “With blood. You’re literally finger-painting with your blood to draw an elephant.”

  “I’m not going to argue with you about it,” I said, finishing my painting. “My old lucky elephant saved my life more times than I can count. Don’t disrespect the pachyderm.”

  “Looks more like a mutant pig by Picasso.”

  “Mister Oinker is going to save our bacon,” I replied. “And he’s an elephant.”

  “Says the girl calling him Mister Oinker.”

  “I do.” With that, I vigorously rubbed my drawing five times before patting his head and tummy, and then pretending to grab his arms while doing a little mini dance. With the ultra-super-lucky ritual complete, I turned to Tolby. “All right, let’s do it.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The Ninth Floor

  The four of us darted out of the ship and sped across the hangar at Daphne’s direction. We ducked into an adjoining cargo bay. On one side were a handful of pods, yellow and egg-shaped. Most floated in neat rows and inside a giant shelving system. A few, however, rested near a half dozen transit tubes maybe a half meter in diameter that sped off into different directions. On the other side were more tubes, considerably smaller, which ran vertically, as well as a set of double doors leading to a turbolift.

  I immediately ran to said lift and worked a nearby console mounted into the wall. “Come on. Come on,” I said, trying to bring it to life, but to no avail. “Why isn’t this working?”

  “Have you tried kicking it?” Jack asked, the corner of his mouth drawing back.

  I drove the ball of my foot into the bottom of the wall. Nothing. “Yeah. I have,” I said. “Now what?”

  “So much for Mister Oinker.”

  I narrowed my eyes and pursed my lips. “Keep it up, and he’s not going to save you at all.”

  “There must be another way to the ninth floor,” Tolby said. “I suggest we find it.”

  “There are many,” Daphne chimed in. “However, they all involve leaving the way we first came in. Due to the relatively high density of Nodari lifeforms occupying the space beyond the blast door, I would advise against such course of action.”

  “I’m going to go ahead and veto any ideas that suggest we should,” I said.

  “Seconded,” Tolby said.

  Jainon nudged me with a paw before flicking her claw over my shoulder. “What about those vertical tubes? Perhaps we can use them?”

  “Jack and I would barely fit,” I said. “There’s no way either of you could.”

  “Two looking for a part is better than none,” she replied.

  Off in the distance, the muted sound of a Nodari captain roaring lit a fire in my pants and accentuated her point. “Well, Daphne? Can we use these tubes? I’m assuming they’re for cargo transport, too.”

  “Let me check the schematics on hand,” she said. Thankfully, she continued to live up to being the speed reader of the group, and we didn’t have to wait but a heartbeat. “Well will you look at that. They do eventually get to the ninth floor. After you use them, you should be able to follow the signs to exhibit IL-965, which is connected to the CDL. That’s the lab where you’ll find the part we need.”

  “Do they work?” I asked, ever hopeful.

  “The signs? I would expect so,” Daphne said. “Takes a lot to break them, you know?”

  “Wait, what? No, I mean the cargo pods, Daphne! Why on Mars would I ever ask about the signs?”

  “Seems like a good question to me,” she replied. “What if they didn’t work? Then w
hat would you do?”

  I groaned. “That’s the dumbest—okay, fine. Whatever. Yes, the signs were a good question, too. Now what about the cargo pods. Do they work? Or rather, do the transport tubes work?”

  “They should,” she said. “Check the other console. It’s on the opposite side of the room from the elevator.”

  I dashed over, ignoring the Yet Another™ roar by a Nodari captain as best I could. It sounded as if it were a little bit farther away, so that was good. Or at least, I convinced myself that was the case.

  “All right, Mister Oinker, do your stuff,” I said once I reached the console and tried to connect with it. Unlike the first console, this one sprang to life. When it did, I cheered with delight. A broken, pixelated menu popped up, but despite its malfunction, it was both readable and useable. And that was all that mattered. After a few pushes of some buttons, a pair of slender cargo pods raced down the tubes and stopped at their loading stations. Once there, they each opened, revealing enough space for me and Jack to climb in.

  At that point, I folded my arms and shot Jack a look of pure smug. “You were saying about Mister Oinker?”

  “Lucky,” he replied with a huff.

  “Duh,” I said, hurrying over to the pods. I climbed in the one on the left, and once inside, I looked to Jainon. “They’re all set. Can you hit the launch key?”

  “Of course,” she replied, going to the controls. “Though I hope for your sake they don’t launch you too quickly. It would be a shame for you to have come this far only to be pulverized by a transport mishap.”

  “I set it to fragile,” I said. “At least I think I did.”

  The high priestess drew back her lips into one of her characteristic smiles that was both amused and fierce. “Only one way to find out,” she said. “Good luck.”

  Before the conversation had a chance to go any further, she planted her left paw on the console. The lids to our pods snapped shut with a click and hiss and then rocketed upward with such force I’m pretty sure my skull touched my ankles.

  The pods raced through what had to be kilometers of twisting, looping tunnels, or maybe it just felt like that since my heart was pounding a million beats a minute. I love rollercoasters, don’t get me wrong, and had this actually been a proper one, I guarantee it would’ve earned at a solid four Super Vortexes (minus one vortex for the cramped space), but since I couldn’t see a damn thing, it was a pretty awful ride.

  I guess I should be glad I don’t get motion sick all that easy, swimming through wormholes aside.

  At least the stop was halfway decent. When we got to the ninth-floor exhibition area, the pod slowed drastically and came to a cushiony stop. Getting out was relatively simple, as the lid popped open with a gentle push. When I stepped out, however, the room I was in kept spinning and I ended up crashing against the pod to avoid falling altogether.

  “I vote we get the elevator working for the trip back,” Jack said. With one hand, he leaned against a nearby blue wall, and with the other, he rubbed both temples. “Either that, or we need to find the stairs.”

  “Sign me up for either because I’d rather not do that again.” I sucked in a breath, steadied myself, and then made a quick check of the area to ensure no Nodari were lurking about. It was at that point I realized the room we were in was decorated in six parts dark, three parts gloom, and two parts creepy vibe. Thanks to the single overhead light, the only things I could really see were myself, Jack, and a few nearby cargo pods other than our own.

  “Well this could get ugly, fast,” Jack said, sharing my thoughts. “Hey, Daphne, any chance you know where the lights are in this place?”

  Silence.

  “Daphne?” he repeated.

  We exchanged nervous glances. Then I gave it a try. “Daphne?” Lumps of fear grew in my throat as I tried the others. “Tolby? Jainon?”

  Still nothing.

  I fidgeted with my gun. “They’re okay. Right? I mean, they’re probably just not answering so we aren’t distracted by their upbeat conversations or something.”

  “That’s one theory,” Jack said warily.

  “You know, there are plenty of studies that show a strong correlation with being a Gloomy Gus and an increase in bad luck,” I said.

  Jack laughed. “Oh there are, are there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Name one.”

  “Well…there’s…um…” I stammered as I counted on my fingers, hoping the act would spark my memory. “Or was it the…? Or maybe…?”

  Jack raised an eyebrow.

  “Look! We’re way too busy for me to properly cite all my sources,” I said, throwing up my hands. “We’re supposed to be getting a dorsal sub thingy.”

  “Dorsal subatomic charm relay chamber.”

  “Yep. That’s the one,” I said. “Now quit arguing and help me light up the place.”

  At that point, I turned my attention to my gun and looked for the button that turned on the under-barrel flashlight. It only took a second to find the little bugger, and Jack found his as well. The beams shone like the sun, a surprising and welcomed trait. I quickly put the extra light to good use and swept the area.

  I almost wish I hadn’t.

  At first, my light only revealed more cargo pods neatly arranged against the walls of a mini-warehouse with the occasional support column thrown in for good measure and one fork-lift-looking thing toward the far end. However, off to our left, hanging upside down from a ceiling conduit was this nightmare amalgam of flesh and tech—and I don’t mean in the Nodari sense. More like the Frankenstein sense.

  The creature immediately dropped from its perch and landed on the floor. It stood—barely—on a pair of twisted legs and dragged a rat-like cybernetic tail behind it. One set of metallic arms came out of its hips, and one of the hands attached to said arms cradled its bloated belly. Its torso looked emaciated from the ribs up, and two fleshy arms hung limply from the shoulders by its neck. A pair of misshapen heads sprouted from the neck, but they were not separate. They were fused together, one looking mostly to the front with a set of hollowed, glowing red eyes, while the other was turned to the side and had its jaw hanging open.

  “What the hell is that?” Jack asked, weapon up, eyes as wide as mine.

  “I have no idea,” I said, readying my blaster. “Do we shoot it?”

  The monster took an unsteady step toward us before bursting into a full head-on charge, screeching like a banshee as it came.

  Jack and I fired without hesitation. If there was ever a sport for inflicting the most collateral damage, I’d be an Olympic champion. Hell, I’d hold the record for the next thousand years, easy. Wonder what sort of endorsement deals I could get for that?

  Anywho, I blew apart cargo pods, tore chunks out of the floor and walls, and even exploded a power junction box I didn’t know existed until it the fireworks started.

  Jack’s shots were a little more disciplined—okay, a lot more—but despite the fact that his plasma bolts flew directly at the thing’s head and chest, not a one hit home. Before any could strike, the creature seemed to freeze in place, as if hit by the pause button on a universal remote, before disappearing altogether.

  “Where’d it go?” I said, stepping back. Though I was unsure what had happened, I had the presence of mind not to stand there like a complete idiot and do nothing. I’ve seen enough horror movies to know that if some terrifying monster wants to use you as a refresher course in human dissection, you never assume it’s gone, let alone dead, until you’ve personally strapped it to a fifty-megaton nuke and hurled it into the sun.

  I spun to the right and spotted the thing a couple dozen meters away. Again it screeched and ran toward us, and again I fired madly, only to have it disappear once more.

  “Again?” Jack whispered as he pushed his back against mine. “How the hell do we kill it?”

  “I have no idea, but I’m thinking standing here is a really, really bad idea.”

  “Agreed. On my lead then. We’ll
shuffle for the exit.”

  I swallowed, nodded, and followed. My eyes scanned the area over and over, desperate to find any sign of the monster before it got up close and personal with us. I nearly jumped through the roof when Jack yelled a string of curses as he fired a half dozen shots. I twisted my head over my shoulder to steal a glance at what was going on when he turned and grabbed my forearm.

  “Come on, let’s go,” he said, giving me a solid tug.

  I spun on the balls of my feet and took off running, Jack a half step ahead. We bolted through the warehouse, his light shining on the exit, while mine swept our flanks. It felt like cotton balls filled my mouth, and my ears filled with the sounds of frantic flight.

  Ten paces away from the exit, the damn thing materialized right in front of us, lunging forward with all four arms.

  Instinctively, I shot out my hand and knocked the thing in the head with a telekinetic punch. It staggered backward, and that apparently was enough to hamper whatever defenses it had, because when Jack opened fire once more, he chewed it to pieces. Plasma bolts ripped through its two heads and chest, leaving smoldering holes in their wake.

  It dropped to the floor and twitched a few times before going still, at which point, Jack popped a few more shots into it. “If that doesn’t do it, I’m calling shenanigans on life,” he said with a nervous chuckle.

  I forced a weary smile. “You and me both.”

  “What do you think that was?”

  I shook my head and started for the exit. “Trying not to.”

  “Trying, but not succeeding?”

  “Yeah,” I replied with a heavy sigh. My imagination raced with all the possibilities. Was it another type of Nodari? Possibly. Probably. That, of course, meant bad news because if one was here, more undoubtedly were as well—or would be soon. The idea it was something else, however, wasn’t too appealing either, as the warnings Tolby gave when we first got here about how the Kibnali settled on worlds were everything tried to kill you came crashing to the forefront of my mind. “I really wish Tolby were here.”

  “You’ve got me at least,” he said as we eased through the doorway and a dark hall. “Seems like we make a half-decent team.”