***
Nightmares and dreamscapes
The corridors were long and winding, the light sparse, and there was a sense of dread and foreboding hanging in the air so heavy, it was cloying. His footfalls echoed and every breath he took reverberated through the air.
There was a sense of being followed along with the feeling of being all alone; the duality of it confusing. The corridors led to nowhere and no matter how far he walked, he never reached the end, never reached a destination. There were crossroads leading off in unknown directions, and he found himself pondering the expanse of this web of corridors he was wandering through.
Some part of him knew he was dreaming, but he could not make himself wake up. There was a lure here, something enticing him to move forward, to follow this unmarked path until he reached whatever was calling to him subconsciously. He needed to know, needed to find a way to understand what was awaiting him, and all he could do was move on, one foot in front of the other.
The corridor he followed was not straight. It wound and wove its way forward, creating corners and blind angles that could hide unseen horrors. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end and his ingrown sense of self-preservation was banging a big gong in his head, but the lure was too strong. He needed to see, needed to find what was there.
Rationality had taken a backseat to curiosity and he could no more deny this urge than he could the urge to breathe. He rounded another corner and came to a skittering halt. The floor beneath his feet was slick and slippery, coated in some residue which he did not even try to make sense of. The light, what little there was, flickered unsteadily, creating a state of unreality. He squinted into the strobing images, seeing arms, legs, long-fingered hands, long claws, maws full of razor sharp shark teeth, oddly shaped eyes, and a deep dark rumbling voice speaking in a language he did not understand.
The words drummed through him with an urgency he did not understand and could not relate to until a hand suddenly fell heavily on his shoulder ...
... and he sat bolt upright, his breath stuck in his throat. "Easy there, friend," a voice he did not immediately recognize soothed him.
Aware that he had been dragged out of this increasingly odd dream by someone, he turned his head a little, glanced down at the hand on his shoulder, then up at the owner of it. It was Mike. Releasing the breath he had been holding back, he briefly closed his eyes. "Holy crap," he rasped, his voice still raw with sleep.
"I'll say," Mike agreed with a good-natured smile. "That meat can give you some pretty powerful nightmares the first time you have it. But from now on, you'll probably only get drowsy from it."
Kyle drew in a deep breath to steady himself, pulled his legs over the edge of the cot and scrubbed both hands over his face. "You know, I can't help worrying about that meat. It tastes fine, but anything that has that sort of influence on you ... it can't be good. I've had drugs that were less potent than that," he said and dropped his hands to focus on Mike.
"Well, a lot of folks up here have been eating this meat for a long time and none of them have any side-effects that a good night's sleep can't cure," Mike said and glanced out through the open tent flap.
It was curious that the guy had wandered in here while Kyle was dreaming, he mused. "Did you want something?" he asked.
Mike returned his attention to Kyle and smirked. "No, just heard you moaning around in here. I figured you were in the grips of the aftermath of the meat and thought I'd do you a favor and wake you up. Some of the stuff you dream about can be pretty disturbing. It's like it calls up your worst fears and amplifies them."
"I'm not afraid of long corridors," Kyle countered without thinking. Obviously, Mike wouldn't know what his dream had been about.
"Corridors? You dreamed of corridors?" Mike asked and arched an eyebrow. "Doesn't sound like much of a dream to me."
"It wasn't, really," Kyle agreed. "It was just weird. There's no doubt I was here, in LPC. But like dreams have a habit of doing, everything was pulled out of proportion. I saw something. I have no clue what it was, but it looked alien. I think I've been influenced by seeing those moon cows."
"Moon cows?" Mike chuckled. "I guess that's as good a description as any. Personally I've always thought of them as bug cows, but hey. To each his own, right?"
"Yeah," Kyle agreed and raked all ten fingers through his hair before glancing over at the other cot where Daniel slept quietly. "The kid's more affected by this than I am."
"He's younger," Mike said with a glance at Daniel. "And he's probably had little to no experience with drugs or alcohol before. That makes it tougher when you have this stuff the first time."
"Oh, he's been drunk before. But I don't think he's ever tried anything worse than that," Kyle said and shifted his attention to Mike. "There are no lasting side-effects?" Kyle asked and eyed the other man closely. Mike did not immediately display any signs of hiding something.
"Not that I know of," he said. "We don't eat it every day, by the way. Once a month we grab one. We do it when we let them out to roam the dome. I don't know if they have any real sense of each other, but we consider it kinder to do it while they're not in a pen together."
"So ... you don't think they could be tamed? Turned into pets?" Kyle wanted to know. The former fatigue and unsteadiness was gone.
Mike's expression was a study in emotions. He went from surprise to thoughtfulness to brief concern and then he shrugged. "I have no clue. Nobody's tried from what I know. But I doubt it. They don't pay us any attention at all. It's not like they come over to say hi when you go up to the pen. They just keep on eating. And they don't seem to pay much attention to each other either." He scratched the back of his head. "Come to think of it, I've never seen them take notice of anything or anyone. I don't even think they sleep."
"But ... they must reproduce somehow. I mean ... if you grab one once a month and this has been going on for something like twenty-five years, it makes it ... what? ... about three hundred you guys have eaten over the years?" he asked. "Stella mentioned that their numbers remain constant, which means they must reproduce."
"They do. We've just never seen it. When we grab one, it takes a day or two and suddenly there's a little one among them. It grows up to full size in about a week and that's it," Mike said.
"Right," Kyle muttered. "Is there anything other than this meat to eat here? Or just synth-food?"
"There's plenty of fresh produce. Fruit and vegetables," Mike said and nodded toward the tent opening. "Let me show you."
Together they walked back to the main clearing, where a dust-gray container Kyle hadn't noticed before revealed itself to be some sort of fridge. It contained a wide array of recognizable fruits and vegetables.
"The geeks who built this place planned for everything," Mike said. "This fridge can keep fruit and veggies fresh for weeks. And we've got enough plant growth here to maintain a steady supply. Problem is there's not enough for everybody out there. We hand out what we can spare, but ..." He shrugged. "It's a dog-eat-dog world up here. And it's not like they're starving or missing nutrition in any way."
"Just taste," Kyle mused and picked up a fresh green apple. "It's amazing, really," he added. "We eat better than some people on Earth."
"The system is fucked up. That's just the way it is," Mike said and closed the lid of the fridge again. "Take what you need, but be economic about it."
"Got it," Kyle agreed. "Thanks."
"No problem." A sudden commotion at the other end of the clearing drew Mike's attention. "Gotta go check it out," he excused himself and hurried away.
Kyle, curious by nature, followed him.
A younger woman was surrounded by others and she sounded a bit upset. "I saw three of them. They were trying to get through the tunnel," she said, looking around at her fellow gardeners.
"Did they?" Mike asked. His presence seemed to have a calming effect on the others.
"No, of course not. The lights are on. They
would never come through. But if they're at the tunnel, they must either be hungry or out of something else. Why else would they try to get through?" the woman asked.
"Moira, calm down," Mike suggested even though she didn't sound very agitated; a bit, yes, but not enough to warrant those words. "You're talking about the tunnel from Purgatory, right?"
Moira gave him an almost exasperated look. "Yes, of course I'm talking about the tunnel from Purgatory, Mike," she said. "You think I would be this calm if I'd seen them at our end?"
"Fair enough," Mike said and raised both hands in surrender. "No need to get worked up about it."
"I am not getting worked up," Moira snapped, now clearly worked up. "We need to take precautions," she insisted.
"What's going on?" Kyle asked and bit into his apple.
Moira gave him a look that would probably have made other men shrink. He wasn't that easy to impress, though. "Who are you?"
"It's okay, Moira. He's one of us now. This is Kyle," Mike said and turned his attention to Kyle. "The loonies are on the move. Whenever they turn up at the tunnel entrance from Purgatory - that's dome 5 - there's something going on. They're most likely on the prowl for food, which is not good news for the people in dome 4," he explained.
Kyle sent a look around at these people and wondered if he had missed something or if they had. "Uh ... if they're such a problem, why don't you just block off the tunnel to dome 5? Would that be so hard to do?"
Mike arched an eyebrow and glanced at Moira who looked like Kyle had just suggested they throw rocks at the moon. "What do you take us for?" she asked, her tone stern. "We've tried that; several times. But this fucked-up system won't allow that. First and foremost, we don't have anything that'll hold. And secondly ... whenever we've done it in the past, the second no one's watching, it gets removed. Whether it's a built-in routine or if the loonies know how to do it I don't know. All I know is ... we can't block it off. And that's as far as it goes."
Kyle raised his hands in surrender. "I was just asking," he said evenly, not intending to upset her any more than she clearly was. "I didn't mean anything by it."
She gave him an annoyed look, then turned her attention back to Mike. "We need to double our efforts at keeping them out of here," she insisted. "I for one do not want to end up on their menu."
"Don't scare the others with that crap," Mike warned. "We have never been able to prove they do that." He glanced around at the others. "Man up, people. We need to go take a look."
"Need a hand?" Kyle offered. Despite the stories he'd heard so far, he wasn't so much afraid as intrigued by this. Especially since Stella had let slip that she thought there was something not human in dome 6.
Mike eyed him up and down for a moment and then shrugged. "Just stay with the group and don't get in the way. You've never been up against them before. They're tricky bastards," he said.
"I've had my share of fights," Kyle stated.
"I bet you've never been up against someone who wants to literally eat you, though," Moira interjected while giving Mike an almost murderous glare. "You keep an eye on the newbie. I'm not getting snuffed over this." With that, she turned and strode away, disappearing among the green.
Mike sighed deeply. "Don't mind her. She's in a shitty mood every time the loonies are on the move. Not that I blame her. She had a very close call with one of them once," he said and grabbed Kyle's shoulder. "That said, I hear her and I think she's right. Stay out of the way. You're free to come along, but stay out of trouble."
Kyle nodded. There was really nothing more to say to that and he had no intention of subjecting himself to unnecessary danger. He just wanted to see what these loonies were all about.
***
Dome 4
The fourth dome in this deadly string of pearls didn't seem much different from the second dome with the exception of the population. All of the rooms were occupied and there were a lot of people around. It would seem that those who could have lived in the second dome were all living in the fourth and it made Kyle wonder why. Not many of the inhabitants paid them much attention, but he did note the furtive glances the group as a whole received and he couldn't help wondering what exactly had happened to create this rather fierce reputation of the gardeners.
But by the time they reached the opposite side of the dome, Kyle found himself losing interest. There was nothing particularly tough about the inhabitants of the fourth dome and he had expected there to be something. In his imagination, they would have to be savages, one stage above animals, still with enough integrity to not attack outright. He had expected suspicion, maybe stealth, but not this. These were just normal people trying to live their lives on the edge of oblivion.
When they reached the tunnel leading into the fifth dome, the group stopped and started discussing how to block the passage off. Kyle drifted closer to the opening and took a look inside. This tunnel, unlike both the tunnels leading to and from dome 3, was filthy, in disrepair and halfway down, the lights were out and there was nothing but darkness beyond. He squinted, trying to see if there might be movement down there, but he could see nothing.
Once more a little intrigued, he sidestepped the tunnel opening and eyed the glass wall. It was filthy too, preventing him from seeing anything on the outside. With a sigh, he wiped a clean spot on the glass with his sleeve and peered outside. He could make out the dome across the way and it was completely blacked out. There was no sign of light anywhere, which struck him as odd. He had been told as much, of course, but that still didn't mean it had to be completely dark.
"Any suggestions, wise guy?"
Moira's tone of voice made him glance back at her with a frown. "Excuse me?" he asked. He had completely tuned them all out in favor of the outside inspection of dome 5.
"You seemed so surprised that we didn't just close off the corridor. So? Any suggestions?" she elaborated in a sour tone of voice.
Kyle arched an eyebrow at her, then stepped back in front of the tunnel and looked inside. "I don't know. Fill it up with crap. Soil, old furniture, old machine parts that don't work anymore." He glanced back at her. "There's enough crap in the junk pile in the second dome to fill up the entire tunnel."
All of them stared at him as if he'd just revealed the secrets of the universe. Then Mike took a step forward to inspect the tunnel too. "That's actually not a bad idea," he said, then turned around to face his group.
Even Moira seemed capable of appreciating the suggestion, though her appreciation was definitely limited. "That's all fine and good," she said a little hesitantly. "But all they have to do is pull it out at the other end and then it's all for nothing again."
Kyle thought about it for a moment and then glanced up at the inside of dome 4. "What about electricity? The lights must get their power from somewhere. Can't you reroute some of the cables and electrify the contents of the tunnel? If you use only metal junk, it should be a no-brainer."
"You really do have all the answers, don't you?" Moira asked and propped her hands on her hips. She was angry and a little flustered and she looked very pretty with her red hair and sparking green eyes.
Kyle had always been a sucker for feisty women and Moira was that and more. "I never said I did," he disagreed. "You asked my opinion and I gave it willingly. What you do with it is your business."
She snorted, but had nothing further to say to that. Instead she turned her attention to Mike, who was watching Kyle thoughtfully. "What are you? A tech-head?" he asked.
Kyle smirked. "Nah, just thinking outside the box," he countered and waved a hand at the opening. "I must admit that I have a hard time believing the loonies are all that dangerous. Daniel suggested they don't like the light. So why would they come through?"
"Who the hell is Daniel?" Moira demanded angrily.
Feisty she might be, but she was starting to get on his nerves with her constant anger and huffiness. "Never mind who Daniel is. Is it true? Are the loonies afraid of light?" he
asked, keeping his tone calm.
Moira narrowed her eyes and briefly glanced into the tunnel. "I don't know," she confessed. "They might not be happy with light, considering that they live in complete darkness over there. But that doesn't make them any less dangerous."
"It does if they're people," Kyle disagreed.
Everybody focused on him. "What are you suggesting?" Mike asked quietly.
"I'm suggesting that maybe they can't see squat either. Or, and this is a seriously far-fetched idea, maybe they're not human," Kyle countered and spread out his arms. "I've heard suggestions in that direction. And ... we are on a different planet. Granted, it's a rock and it should be obvious that the dickheads on Earth might not have considered putting any kind of habitation up here if they knew there was life on this dust ball. But ... as far as I know, the original plan for LPC was as a prison for lifers they wanted to get out of their hair. So maybe they were kinda hoping that if they sent prisoners up here, the locals would eat them and take the responsibility for them off their hands."
Mike pursed his lips. "That's not entirely true. Before this place was turned into a prison ..." he began, but Moira cut him off.
"Aliens?" she asked, to which Kyle could only nod. She blinked, glanced at Mike, then back at Kyle. "Are you nuts? There aren't any aliens up here. There are just people; deranged, cannibalistic people, but still people."
Kyle held her gaze. "Are you sure?" he asked, keeping his tone both quiet and mellow.
Moira's expression alone should have made him back down, but Kyle wasn't into subtlety and even though he completely got the meaning of her expression, he didn't feel like backing down. "Do you know how long I've been in this place?" she asked, her tone cold and a little deadly. Before he could answer, she plowed on. "Six years. You got here what? Yesterday? So fuck you and the shuttle you rode in on. You don't know anything. You're just a fucking newbie."
Dark Side of the Moon Page 13