Vinnie gave him a brief look that Kyle couldn't read. "Why are you scared of this corridor?" he asked, nodding towards it.
Daniel glanced at him and sighed lightly. "I'm not scared of it, Vinnie. I'm just not ... comfortable hanging around here. The gardeners aren't exactly ... sane."
The well-lit corridor looked clean, cleaner than the one leading to dome 1, and it made him wonder if the gardeners kept it clean or if it had something to do with the plant life on the other side. The air coming out of that corridor was definitely fresher than in the rest of this place. "Well, at least it smells fresh," he tried. "How many gardeners are there?"
"I have no idea. I steer clear of them," Daniel said. "They hardly ever come across, but if they do, they mean business. And even the moron twins are scared of them."
Vinnie frowned. "The moron twins?" he asked.
"Those two shitheads in the shower this morning," Kyle explained and took a step back from the corridor's opening. "So, let's go take a look at that storage room you talked about," he added. "Unless it's too early?"
Daniel glanced up at the top of the dome. "It should be open now," he said.
Kyle glanced up there too and saw nothing different. The light was the same. "How do you know? I don't see you wearing a watch."
This drew a light shrug from the younger man. "It's a learned skill," he said, turned and headed away from the corridor.
Kyle and Vinnie followed him, sending each other questioning glances, while Kyle vowed he would find out how Daniel told time in this place. He himself couldn't. He'd only been here about twenty-four hours and had already lost all sense of time.
The storage room - which Kyle had already dubbed 'the mall' - turned out to be a fairly big room with rows and rows of shelves of different types of clothing in different sizes, all wrapped in airtight plastic bags. There were boots as well and lots of other necessities. The rear of the storage room held medical supplies.
Kyle inspected the bottles, which were kept behind a heavy-duty glass door that wouldn't open, and wondered if any of them were drugs. Not that he really needed anything, but it would be nice to know if any of them could be used in a pinch. "What about all of this?" he asked.
Daniel gave the fridge a glance, but seemed fairly uninterested in its contents. "Antibiotics mostly," he said. "The heavy-duty stuff is locked up tight. There's a scanner down at the end. If someone gets injured, they get scanned, stitched back up and the appropriate medication is dispensed in the necessary amounts. There's no way to get to it otherwise."
"I'm surprised nobody hurts others just to get to the heavy-duty stuff," Kyle mused.
For some reason this made Daniel smile vaguely. "The scanner is a closed environment. If two enter, it won't work. It only works on whoever is injured and the medication is injected directly into the patient. You don't get seconds unless the machine decides you need it ... which you usually don't once it's done with you. But if you get hurt bad enough that you can't get there yourself ... you're pretty much screwed. Not many here will help you."
Kyle glanced at Daniel, and then shifted his gaze downward to his right side. "That big scar you got there," he said, nodding toward it while noting the discomfort the mention caused Daniel. "Did you get yourself into the scanner when that happened?"
"No," Daniel admitted, grimaced and looked away. "Garry helped me. If he hadn't, I would have died."
"What happened?" Kyle asked and noted how worried Vinnie looked all of a sudden.
For a moment Daniel just stood there and stared down the last row of shelves, then he turned his head a little to glance at Kyle from the corner of his eyes. "I ... don't really feel comfortable talking about it," he said quietly and started toward the scanner.
"He's had some pretty bad things happen to him here, hasn't he?" Vinnie asked quietly.
Kyle nodded while watching Daniel walk away. "Yeah, and a part of it is still happening," he said just as quietly.
Vinnie's eyes widened. "The moron twins?" he asked and sent a pained look after Daniel.
"Yeah, that's right. The moron twins," Kyle agreed. "Listen, Vin, do me a favor, will you? Look after him. He's just a kid, like you said last night. And he's in a pretty bad place. He can help us out, show us the ropes. In return, we can protect him against these assholes."
Vinnie nodded instantly. "No problem. I feel all sick just thinking about it," he muttered.
"Good man," Kyle said, started to follow Daniel, but then stopped briefly to glance back at Vinnie. "Don't tell him I said so, though. It might embarrass him," he added quietly, to which Vinnie nodded solemnly.
"So, this is the scanner," Daniel said when they reached him and he made a sweeping gesture toward a room that lay behind a heavy glass wall. It wasn't big; it contained a bed and so much machinery that Kyle had no idea what he was looking at.
"Holy crap," he exclaimed. "I haven't even seen tech like this on Earth."
"I've heard about it," Vinnie inserted while eying the room behind the glass with obvious interest.
Kyle arched an eyebrow at him. "You a tech-head?" he asked, which made Vinnie blush a little.
"You should talk to Bark. He's a tech-head too," Daniel said with slight amusement lacing his voice.
It seemed that the kid bounced back fairly quickly; or maybe he was getting used to the idea that he had backup already. Kyle gave him a grin in return. "You can never have too many tech-heads around," he said, "especially not in a place like this."
"You got that right," Daniel agreed. "Anyway, if you get hurt, no matter how minor, this is where you go. It's more than just a scanner. I think it's robotic or something."
"It is," Vinnie said with a nod. "Completely self-sufficient. It even repairs itself."
Daniel smirked. "Good to know. I'd hate to find out it doesn't work anymore. It's the only one," he said.
"For six domes?" Kyle asked, a little stunned.
That made Daniel grin, even though it was a bit on the sour side. "We're lifers, man. They don't care if we die. They have an obligation to keep us alive for whatever reason, but apart from that ... Earth doesn't give a crap. It's a case of out of sight, out of mind. If this thing were to break down and not be able to repair itself ... they wouldn't send anyone up here to fix it. Maybe if there was maintenance work on the outside of the domes, but I doubt they'd send anyone up to deal with just this."
Kyle sighed. "Yeah, I think you're right about that. That fucking moral code we humans live by prevents them from blasting our heads off, but it's okay if we perish from disease and injuries," he mused and shook his head lightly. "It's a fucked-up world we're living in."
"That's putting it mildly," Daniel agreed, then sent a glance along the aisle they'd come through. "We'd better grab what we need and get out of here. The room shuts down soon," he said.
"Why is that?" Kyle asked while they headed back the way they'd come.
"I don't know. That's just the way it is. I guess it's like you said. They're afraid we'll put on a fashion show or something," Daniel said, his tone heavy with sarcasm. "Or maybe it's to prevent the loonies from raiding this place and removing all our clothes."
Kyle grabbed what he needed and finally they headed toward the exit, walking in silence. Whenever Daniel fell silent, Kyle could feel the mounting tension. This guy was in a world of hurt even if he didn't show it. A quick glance at Vinnie, who had also stocked up on a few things he needed, told him without the shadow of a doubt that this guy would now kill anyone who looked at Daniel wrong. It was actually quite a shift when he considered that Vinnie had almost been morose over the fact that they had run into the kid yesterday. All it took was a little background story to get things rolling.
They barely made it outside before the door slid shut behind them. Kyle paused and listened and believed he could hear the air being sucked out of the room. "I think they decompress the room at regular intervals. Probably so the boys from Earth can come in and restock it wh
en they need to," he said.
Daniel gave him a surprised look. "You think so?" he asked and eyed the door somewhat suspiciously. Then he made a face in sheer surprise. "I never thought about that."
"The air's being sucked out. It makes sense," Kyle countered.
"Too bad we don't have any spacesuits. If we did, that might be a way out of here," Daniel said with a lopsided grin that didn't really reach his eyes. It faded almost instantly. "I would do anything to get off this rock," he added quietly.
"Kyle's got a plan," Vinnie said, which caused Kyle to start and stare at him for a second. Vinnie, in turn, looked suddenly a little self-conscious. "You said so yesterday," he tried.
Daniel eyed Kyle with cautious curiosity. "You do?" he asked.
Kyle considered the options for a moment and then grimaced. "I have ideas. Whether they're possible ... that's a different matter. But I don't wanna share until I know more about this place."
The disappointment in both men was almost palpable, but Kyle wasn't about to start making promises he knew up front he would not be able to keep. He wasn't the type of man who liked to gamble. That thought almost made him smirk. He had gambled on the fact that his father would bail him out of this mess and he had lost badly. "You're disgustingly optimistic sometimes. I do not know where you get that from," his father's voice rang in his head and he pursed his lips to keep from growling a response that would make no sense to his fellow prisoners. "Look, guys, I don't know enough about this place to make any snap judgments, but I'm as upbeat as I can be under the circumstances. Where there's a will there's a way."
"Says you," Daniel said and smiled a little to take the edge of his words. "I guess any plan is better than none, but I really don't wanna hear about it unless you've got something set in stone. I don't deal well with disappointments."
"Duly noted," Kyle said and committed that to memory; not that he was the type of man who thrived on making others believe every word he said. But, as his father had so derisively pointed out on several occasions, he was an optimist and he liked to do what he could to remain one. "Say, is there any contact between prisoners and Earth?" he asked on a sudden whim.
Daniel kept walking and didn't look at him. "I don't know. I guess so," he said and there was an odd note in his tone that made Kyle frown.
"I know you said your dad died before you finished your education, but what about your mom?" he asked. "Wouldn't she try to call?"
The expression that slipped over the younger man's face actually gave Kyle the creeps. "No, she wouldn't," Daniel said and left it at that.
"I'm not expecting any calls from Leigh either," Vinnie said a little sadly. "Not that she'd ever be able to afford a call like that anyway. It must cost a fortune."
"I don't think long distance calls are really that expensive, Vin," Kyle said, even though he wouldn't know. He had never exactly worried about the money-side of things back home. "And even if they were, I'd bet that any mother worthwhile would care about her kid enough to call at least once."
Daniel smiled cynically at that suggestion. "You've never met my mother," he said. "From what you've told me so far, she's a bit like your dad. And I'm not the only kid they have. I have a twin sister." He grimaced. "Not that she gives a crap about me now. She's like my mom. Dishonor the family name and you're out. My mother told me - right before they took me away - that my father would have died in shame if he wasn't dead already, that I would have broken his heart." He stopped talking, pressing his lips together into a thin line.
It appeared that Daniel felt about his dead father the same way Kyle felt about his dead mother then. "I doubt that. I'm sure if your dad had still been around, he would have done anything he could have to get you off the hook. That's what real dads do, after all," Kyle said, falling back on the dreams of his childhood about a father who gave a crap and a mother who was alive and loving him.
"Yeah, maybe," Daniel muttered quietly and slowed down when they neared their neighborhood. He came to a full stop, his eyes on some of the other men hanging around one of the doorways, chatting. "Listen," he said and glanced in Kyle's direction without actually making eye contact. "What happened in the shower ..."
"What do you mean?" Kyle asked and gave him a smile when Daniel gave him a surprised look.
For a moment the younger man just eyed him, but then he smiled vaguely. "Thanks," he said, straightened himself up a little and started walking again. Appearances in this group were obviously important. Admitting that you were afraid of getting gang-raped in the shower would obviously not raise any sympathy with these guys; or so Daniel seemed to think.
Kyle turned his attention toward the other men and studied them. One of them let out a loud bray of laughter that sounded almost like a bark and Kyle immediately pinpointed the guy as the Bark Daniel had briefly mentioned; the other tech-head.
One of the older guys - Kyle guessed he was around forty - caught sight of them and nodded in recognition. "Danny," he said and waved the younger man over. "Are you showing the new guys around?"
"That's right," Daniel agreed with an easy smile that completely managed to hide how affected he was by the earlier near miss. "These are Kyle and Vinnie," he introduced them. "That's Bark," he added, nodding at the guy who had laughed loudly. Bark tipped two fingers to his brow and Kyle figured the man had probably been a pilot or in the military at some point in his life. Or maybe he just liked to greet others by tipping his fingers to his brow. "That's Jack," Daniel added, indicating the man who had spoken to him. "Billy." This was one of the younger guys with a skittish look in his eyes. Kyle figured Billy was at the receiving end of the moron twins as well, judging by the way his eyes kept skipping all over the place without ever meeting anyone's gaze. This kid was all nerves. "Stan the Man." Daniel smirked at the other guy, who nodded once with a smile of his own. Stan instantly hit Kyle as an enigma. He could be anywhere between twenty and late forties; his wiry frame might not speak of bulk, but there was no doubt this guy was made of muscle. At the same time Kyle suspected he was gay. "And that's Andy," Daniel finished the introduction. What Kyle saw when he met Andy's eyes was his father. The cold, calculating expression, the stiff way with which he held himself, the hair combed carefully back. Definitely someone you couldn't count on, he decided instantly.
"Gentlemen," he said and nodded once without taking his eyes off Andy.
"Ooh, a rich kid," Andy countered and his tone was just as cold as his eyes. "What'd you do? Crash dad's expensive car into a wall?"
Kyle eyed the other man for a moment longer and then shrugged. If there was one thing men like Andy hated, it was to be ignored when they were trying to be mean. There was nothing on Earth that could rile his father up more than if he was being ignored when he was being an ass. "No, I was stupid enough to take the blame for something I didn't do to protect who I thought was a friend. But I guess everybody here is innocent. Isn't that how it goes in prison?" he countered evenly.
Jack smirked. "Looks like you've met your match on the sarcasm-front, Andy," he said and chuckled lightly. "Welcome to the Lost Boys. Billy named us and ... well, it kinda stuck."
"The Lost Boys?" Vinnie asked, looking a little befuddled.
"Yeah. Like that ancient vampire flick," Billy said and snickered nervously while sending an uneasy look around. He struck Kyle as being much younger than Daniel while the world-weary look in his eyes suggested otherwise.
Dismissing his analysis of Billy, Kyle glanced at Vinnie instead, noting the lingering confusion in the man. He had the impression that Vinnie had never wasted much time on movies. This was the second movie reference Vinnie had completely missed. "Very appropriate, I guess. As long as you guys don't expect me to drink blood, that is," he said and winked at no one in particular.
Stan smiled indulgently. "Nobody here really expects you to do anything," he said, the lilt of his voice sophisticated, and there was just a little too much lisp in it to hide his sexual orientation. He held a h
and out to Kyle. "And aren't you just a handsome devil," he added and winked at him.
Kyle smirked, grabbed Stan's hand and gave it a light squeeze. "I don't swing that way," he said good-naturedly.
Stan rolled his eyes, withdrew his hand and bopped his head from side to side in a comical manner. "Nobody ever does, do they?"
There was no denying it. He liked Stan. He had always gotten along famously with the gay community. Vinnie however didn't look too thrilled and took a step back when Stan held out his hand again.
"Oh, dear me," Stan said, putting it on thick, "looks like the big guy doesn't like little old me." He finished the sentence by flicking his right wrist and huffing theatrically.
Andy glared at Stan while Jack chuckled. "Dial it down, Stan. You're freaking out the new guys," Jack said and grasped Stan's shoulder. "Quite the actor, isn't he?"
This caught Kyle a little by surprise. He was very good at reading others and Jack's words indicated that he might have misread Stan. "He's not gay?" he asked. He had never been one to hold back on his opinions; another little thing that could get him in trouble very quickly.
Jack eyed Stan for a moment, who watched Kyle with an arched eyebrow in turn. "He's as queer as a three dollar bill alright," Jack said. "But he's not usually this obvious about it, are you pal?"
Stan snorted. "No, obviously not. That's a death sentence on top of a death sentence in a place like this," he said, his voice now totally normal and even a little butch.
"You know, that kinda makes me wonder why you lay it on so thick in front of new guys," Kyle said and tried for a disarming smile in case anyone took offense.
Stan smirked. "This isn't the sort of scenario where I get jumped by a horny closet-freak," he said and shrugged. "Normally I just try to avoid places and situations where that sort of thing might happen." He eyed Kyle for a second, gave Vinnie a smile that wasn't reciprocated, and then shrugged again. "You guys don't strike me as the stupid horny closet-freaks anyway. I'm pretty good at reading others. It's a skill that's good to have in a place like this."
Dark Side of the Moon Page 6