Kraken Orbital

by James J. Stubbs

  Chapter 18

  Lost

  I’m breathing hard and in pain but I still stand right up and pull the frightened girl to her feet. She doesn’t seem right though. I guess that much is to be expected. She coughs harder than before to the point blood starts rushing from her mouth and nostrils. She wore the same uniform Lucy did. The same one I do. I’m getting some information out of her if she likes it or not. In a ritualistic return to form, in spite of the new man I want to be, I don’t even care if she is near death.

  ‘Why are you here?’ I bark at her insensitively. Almost threateningly.

  ‘You don’t get it do you?’ She asks hauntingly. With pale and wide eyes.

  ‘Are you here for me?’ I shout even louder this time. ‘I’m not going back!’ I reach out an accusatory finger to her and snarl through every word.

  ‘You can’t go back.’ I don’t have an answer this time. I don’t know what she means.

  ‘None of us can.’ She fills in for my absence. ‘Not from here.’ Her words send more shivers racing down my already aching and worn out spine. I still have nothing for her. I had no reply. No answer.

  Water still gushes out from her mouth. Every time she speaks. But she stands relaxed and poised. Like nothing is wrong. Her skin is drenched with water, saturated and wrinkled like the surface of a date. I’m starting to get a sense of her. Of everything. But like Kolt before this, it’s a truth I want to ignore. Something I think I had realized some time ago. But one that I just can’t face yet. Not even now. Not even looking at her pale and dead skin. Her colorless complexion and lost distance in her eyes.

  ‘You just haven’t figured it out yet have you?’ The dead woman persists. I can only hope, even though I know even before the thought crosses my mind that the thought and the hope too was hollow, I could but hope anyway that this was another of the meaningless visions I have seen here. That excuse is starting to wear thin.

  ‘Then tell me?’ My attitude loses it’s edge immediately. I change from aggressive demands to pleas and begs.

  ‘Tell yourself.’ She says, smiles, and walks back through the now open doorway behind us. Back to the hallway I thought I had saved her from. I can see, now that the room had emptied of the water that filled it, the burst pipe atop the ceiling filling it once again. She moves beneath it and casts her eyes, her cold and fearless eyes, back to me for one final time. As the door closes between us I can see the faintest hint of a smile. As the door closes for her to relive her death over and over again. As a ghost, a specter or a poltergeist. Whatever term might best fit. And I still can’t deal with it.

  I still can’t bring my conscious mind to accept what it, and I above it, already know to be true. A vision. It must have been. The concussion or the blood loss. And I ignore it like all the others before it.

  Drenched. Confused and miserable. But I’ve finally made it. The airlock door is behind me. And Lucy will be behind it. I trudge over to the access panel in the centre of the parting doors and hold my access card to it. But for the first time aboard the ship, it has no effect. I’m too confused, impatient and ill to bother trying to figure out what was wrong with it. So I just start hammering on the door with balled fists as hard as I can.

  Lucy must have heard me. Because not long after did the door start to part from the join in the middle. And there she is stood as gorgeous as ever. I can see her through the second door of the airlock. And she looks, I am glad to see, as happy to see me as I am to see her. The old me would have fought the smile back. But the new me doesn’t want to. She waves at me and smiles as I half fall into the airlock and the door closes automatically behind me.

  I start pulling at my dirty and wet apron until it finally comes apart and falls to the ground. My armor is torn and broken beneath it but I can’t stand to wear the cover all any longer. I try so hard to fight the pain back. But I can’t. I hope for the sake of it that there are some pain killers in here somewhere. I really need them right now.

  Lucy comes over to the glass door that still remains locked as the air purifiers and jet sprays start to work. I can see the look of concern wore blankly on her face before I lower my eyes to the floor. I can’t look at her. Not when I look like this. I just about see her hands pressed against the glass as she crouches down to my balled up level. But I still don’t want to see her. Must be that new found bravado kicking in again.

  I’m almost dreading the door opening. Dreading having to explain why I look such a mess to the woman that I curiously love. But I have to deal with it eventually. The incessant droning of the air purifier finally ceases and the water it has sprayed all over me has dried sufficiently. The door opens and I feel her soft, tough and gentle at the same time, hand on my back. I place my hand over hers and through the wincing pain I manage some kind of hello.

  ‘I’ll be alright in just a minute.’ I can hear the decibels in my voice lower as I cringe through the pain.

  ‘Honey, what’s wrong?’ That sweet voice. It almost fills me with energy just on it’s own. It’s nice to be called by a pet name. Even though that might just be in her nature. She might call everyone “honey”. How would I know? I still, to be perfectly honest, know very little about her. I could lie to her. I want to. But I don’t.

  ‘It’s my back.’ I admit. I didn’t know that I had it in me. I wanted to just lie so much. I trust her a lot and I don’t know why. It’s just not like me to fall for someone head over heels. Not that I had the chance deep down in all the God-forsaken mines that company had us drill in.

  She, without asking or checking if it was ok with me, starts rubbing her hands all over around my spine. It seems to do the trick. Either that or I’m so besotted with her that I just feel better to have her touch me.

  ‘What happened to it?’ She asks as I suck it up all over again and stand to my feet. There are more important things for us to be seeing to than my silly little back ache.

  ‘I’ve been slapped around so much I can’t even remember.’ She sees the humor behind my thinly veiled brave face. She stops rubbing my back and takes hold of me by both hands.

  ‘Seriously. What happened?’ She smiles so sweetly to me. I can at least look at her now. I still feel funny when I do but at least I can hold her stare.

  ‘First I crashed a damn space ship, then I swam an ocean, fell down a gorge or something. Got chased by a dinosaur. Then I ripped my head open on a sharp bit of ice.’ I tried to hard to make it sound like a joke. Even though both of us knew it wasn’t and far from it.

  I manage to part from her tantalizing glare and take a look around at the lab we were stuck in. There are all kinds of machines littered around the place but it’s unkempt and disturbed. The fire hadn’t spread this far through the ship. I know that by the volume of papers strewn across the floor. I don’t need to bend down to take a look at any of them because I can see they’re all in Russian. No point looking unless it was a picture book. I don’t know what any of the machines are so there is no point in examining any of those either. It hits me that I selfishly hadn’t asked Lucy if she was ok.

  ‘Everything okay with you?’ I was nervous to ask but it seemed only polite.

  ‘Shut up.’ She playfully shoved me and took a tight hold of my hands again. I press her further.

  ‘Any memory coming back yet?’ As soon as the first word left my mind I could tell that I shouldn’t have asked. She started to sob with tears forming in both eyes straight away. Whatever has come back to her is clearly nothing good.

  ‘What is it?’ I soften my tone as much as I can and look her right in the eye.

  ‘A memory that can’t be a memory.’ She’s talking in riddles. I don’t like it. It makes me shiver in fear. I just want to get to the bottom of this place.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Back to my usual, and unforgiving aggressive tone. It clearly shook her but she says nothing about it.

  ‘Imagine… a nightmare.’ She starts opening up to me. ‘But not during it, after it.’ More damn riddles.
/>
  ‘Yeah.’ I spit impatiently.

  ‘Well, think about remembering a day or something that happened to you in just a regular day.’ My malicious old mind imagines a beating from one of the guards. My unforgiving imagination casts her in my mind’s eye as the guard. ‘And then think about remembering a nightmare?’ I don’t dream much. But I get what she’s saying.

  ‘Okay.’ I humor her one last time.

  ‘Now swap them.’

  What the Hell is she talking about? She’s just like Kolt. Doesn’t know if she is coming or going. She is just so confused. I don’t want to think what my mind demands me to think. That she is the same as he was. That will kill me. I just need to change the conversation or something. I hope so much that she just has memory loss or amnesia or something. Instinct tells me not to press her for more details about her nightmare memory. Even though I want to so much. It must be some kind of denial.

  I’m just about to say something to her about the others that I have encountered on my journey around the ship but she gives me no time. She pulls me close and kisses. But more passionately than she had done before. I don’t fight it. I don’t want to. She’s playful and more cheerful. She parts with a smile and lets go of my hands.

  I don’t know what drives me to ask. I guess I like her too much not to. I have to tell her the truth and see what memories it might reignite in her.

  ‘Don’t you remember what you used to be?’ I hated myself the second I started speaking.

  ‘No… I told you.’ I know she doesn’t like my tone and I know I have her on the back foot too. I’m going to tell her if she likes it or not.

  ‘Well you were a guard at the mine we both used to work at.’ I glare at her. Accusingly and unforgiving.

  ‘So we used to work together?’ I think she’s just trying to calm me down and lower the intensity of the conversation.

  ‘No. I was a miner.’ She still looks just as confused so that tells me she obviously doesn’t remember how the miners like me were treat by the guards like her.

  ‘We were like prisoners. Like slaves. And the guards like you were the ones holding the keys and the whips.’ I know she doesn’t get how serious it was. I know she has no idea.

  ‘I’m sorry… I’m sorry you felt like that.’ Another retraction. Hollow. Just like the lack of memories bouncing around in her mind.

  ‘No. It isn’t like that!’ I start to shout at her but I don’t mean to. ‘You beat us. Savagely and to within an inch of our lives at times! I saw guys get dragged off by the likes of you and never come back!’ I hadn’t noticed my raised hand and pointed finger. But she starts to cry and shiver. Maybe I had hit a nerve or a buried memory. Hopefully. Time to dig deeper. See what makes her tick.

  ‘And as soon as you remember what hole you fell down and what rock you hit your head on, you’re going to remember why you came here! Because I killed those guards, friends of yours no doubt, because I stole from the company and you want me to pay for it!’ I thrash my arms around and can no longer contain my rage.

  ‘No… I don’t want that.’ She cries and sobs in front of me. And like any guy, it made me feel like Hell. I hate he fact I have made her cry but I want it over. I don’t want to follow her through this maze of a ship to see her turn on me or worse turn into Kolt. I want it over. I care for her. I think I even love her. That’s why I shout at her. That’s why I confront her. Because I’m hurting for her.

  ‘And what makes it worse is a whole bunch of your buddies are aboard this ship looking everywhere for me!’ That’s it. That’s all I have. Time to let it sink in. Let the dirt settle and see what she had to say for herself. See what I might have unearthed.

  ‘I…I remember. The mine. Coming after you. Being sent here to kill you. With a small squad of the tougher guards. And yeah, they were my friends. Were.’ She slowly paces back over to me. I hadn’t realized that my animated rage had taken me to virtually the opposite side of the upturned lab. She’s calm. The direct counter to my flaring nostrils and persistent rage.

  ‘They, the company, had us on a short leash too you know.’ Right now is as defensive as I have ever seen her. But I haven’t seen that level to the story before. I had been naïve. Childish and had not thought about it. I just saw them as the enemy. And her too.

  ‘For every beating we gave to you, we got twice the same back from them.’ She’s still crying. And I’m starting to feel worse. What a jerk I had been to her. And for what?

  ‘I was sent here to kill you. I remember that in detail. Vivid. But everything else is hazy and I can’t grasp at anything. Just floating, meaningless memory with no order… But that’s not why I came here.’ I start pacing back to her. I wrap my arms tight around her so she can cry into my chest. I hug her tight to tell her I was sorry.

  ‘I came here to leave there.’ Just like I had. ‘So I separated from my group and that’s when…’ She trails off and I don’t push her for more.

  ‘Shhhh.’ I start stroking the back of her hair and she slowly stops crying.

  ‘That’s when something went wrong. I can’t see in my mind what happened. I must have fallen or hit my head. I don’t know.’ She pulls away and dries her arms with her fingers. ‘That’s when I found you. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything that we did at the mine. I hope you don’t hate me?’ I manage a smile and kiss her on the forehead.

  ‘No. Of course not.’ No point in holding a grudge after all. And it didn’t matter a whole lot any more. Those days are over and that me is dead. I’ve moved on. I’m sure of it. And it’s comforting to know that she came her to get away from her boss, the same way I came here to get away from mine.

  We just stand there a while in a soft embrace. I was hard on her. I hate myself for it but I guess I’m also a little relieved that I finally got a little of the truth from her. And I also feel better knowing there is depth to her mind. Not like Kolt. He was a lost soul. I’m just glad she isn’t the same. Or at least I’m pretty sure she isn’t. And that makes me feel a little better. But none of it explains what the drowning girl had said. Or the falling man. And the burning man too. I didn’t want to burden her with it. I’d deal with it on my own. It was all in my head. It must have been.

  ‘Any closer to finding a way off this planet?’ I whisper in her ear. ‘Is the ship you came in serviceable?’ I can feel her shaking her head against my chest.

  ‘Crashed.’ Time to keep moving through the Kraken then.