Dazzle Ships

by E. E. Isherwood

  “Did you have a thing with her?”

  What the hell, girl?

  It just tumbled out. The look on my face had to be shock because that’s what I felt inside.

  Alex only paused for a second, then replied with his crooked smile, “I don’t kiss and tell.”

  “Let the jerk finish,” Wen interjected.

  Alex looked hurt, but he thought better than to respond to Wen because she was still on her knees holding her head in apparent pain.

  “She was a voracious reader—or had been before she came inside. I listened to her tell stories she remembered from all the books she read. It helped pass the time in those boring first years. But after the first memory wipe, she became a different person. Obviously, she couldn’t remember her stories, but she didn’t even enjoy making up new ones, which I tried to get her to do. Since I knew her.”

  He smiled at me, but not to be mean.

  “One day, though, she started telling a story just like the old Penelope. Hours later she’d forgotten about it. Forgot it even happened. For a few days, it went on. Sometimes she was the old Penelope: storyteller. Other times she was a shut-in who hated people. She was split into two different girls,” he said with sorrow.

  “And you think I’m splitting in two,” Wen asked, not believing it.

  Alex looked at me with a worried face, then down to Wen. “I don’t know. This could be something different. Penelope was one of the first to disappear. I think, knowing what I know about the Commander, she was a useful test subject for refining the next batches of mist.”

  I imagined one of the teen zombies in the cemetery had been named Penelope.

  “Alex?”

  “Yeah, Wen?”

  “Will you stay with me while she goes inside? I don’t want to turn into someone else and forget who I’m supposed to be.”

  As I waited to hear his response, I was disappointed in myself for the jealous rage that came bubbling out of my hidden reserve of personality. I’d been ready to leave Wen outside and go into the tunnels with Alex. Now I’d have to go in alone, and Wen would get to hang out with Alex.

  I knew it was silly. Totally illogical. Childish.

  But that nasty word flashed across my eyes as I glared at Wen’s kneeling form. And though my emotions were an inferno, I saved most of my rage for myself. Just for thinking it.

  Rival.

  2

  I’d like to say I held my tongue and kept my dignity, but what I did was storm into the pipe looking back only once to confirm Alex followed me.

  I waited at the open covering until he’d gotten close.

  “I don’t trust her,” I hissed.

  He sat down near the top of the bank of bags.

  “What?” I said when it was clear he wasn’t going to answer.

  “I’m thinking,” he replied.

  I couldn’t help notice as he slid down the bags until he was next to me, just outside the swing of the grate.

  I sighed heavily, making it clear I wasn’t in the mood for his games.

  “Fine. I was just attempting to recall if I’d ever seen you this angry.”

  “What about the time you let me pin you in wrestling? I was pretty angry. Or that time you and Tom convinced me spirits moved the Mules?”

  “Yeah,” he agreed, though not with much enthusiasm.

  “Okay, what about the time you cut a swath of my hair on a dare? That’s a fresh one.”

  “Yeah, those were all correct. You were angry. But always at me. You’ve hardly ever been mad at other people. And never your friends. You’re just so agreeable,” he said, smiling.

  I scoffed at him, but on reflection it made sense. The closest I’d come to being upset or angry at my friends was seeing Reba and Alex kissing in the sun room. Even that didn’t make me good and proper mad, as I now realized I should have been.

  “How about I just be mad at you both? Happy now?” I shuffled into the pipe on my belly, intent to leave without another word, but he jumped in and grabbed my ankle.

  “What?” I yelled.

  “Elle,” he said in a reassuring voice. “It’s okay to be mad. But also be careful, all right?”

  My neck drooped as my head hung down. I touched the concrete with my forehead.

  “I’m sorry. And I will,” I replied, attempting to make peace.

  “Good luck. I’m going to go give Wen a big smooch while I wait for you.”

  Despite the tight space, I turned so I could see him backlit by the light of day. He was smiling.

  “Got ya!” He laughed, then started back out of the hole of bags.

  I growled, but faced ahead and started my journey. I clicked on my gauntlet so I could see into the darkness. My staff seemed to know it wasn’t needed, so the blue glow diminished to almost nothing. It remained lashed to my back, along with the shotgun.

  The tunnel was square, and I could move through on my knees if I allowed the junk on my back to scrape the ceiling. I chose to drag myself on my front side to avoid the noisy rubbing sounds. I’d begun to think it couldn’t possibly be the Complex because it was bone dry. Back home water seeped through everywhere, or so it seemed.

  My knees and shoes took a beating as I slithered through, but the payoff was arriving in a large, boxy, intersecting room. I stuck my head out of my little pipeline and shined my light into the dark space. Dozens of other tunnel entrances dotted the walls in front of me and to my sides.

  I whistled quietly to myself.

  I hustled out of the cramped space and into the larger chamber. As I searched I came to the conclusion there was only one link to the outside—where I'd just come through. The rest of that wall was empty. If I could remember this room, getting back to Alex and Wen would be easy. However, there were twenty or so paths to take going deeper into the place. I had to pick one.

  For some reason I thought of a memory of Alex and some of his buddies playing a game when they needed to choose something. The details were vague but it involved animals called piggies.

  I chuckled at the thought and walked directly across the chamber to the hole most in line with the one I'd exited. If I was going to ever find my way back it made sense to take the most direct route possible.

  Moments from crouching to get in, I noticed a faint light blinking on the wall next to the opening. It was absolutely covered in disgusting grime and muck. I swiped at it with the end of my staff—something I knew had touched much worse. It revealed a much brighter red light alternating on and off.

  Security systems were not foreign to me. We had to be aware of them all over the Complex. Places to avoid. Rooms off limit by decree of the Commander. Boundaries to prevent us from finding the Outside. That sort of thing. But here I'd stumbled into new territory and didn't think about tripping alarms coming in from the other direction.

  The question was whether someone was watching that light blink on the other end.

  As if reading my mind a sound buzzed inside one of the many tunnel exits near me. It would be impossible to pick the source without careful listening.

  I jumped into my chosen tunnel. I figured the sound would soon find me, rather than the other way around.

  3

  I made it many yards into the tunnel before I heard the sound again. The whirring of a motor was accompanied by an ear-piercing alarm followed by an electronic voice.

  I froze to be silent. I didn't even look back.

  “Proximity Danger. DNA sniffer mode active. Security sweep in progress.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. The machine buzzed and chimed as it did something back there. It went on for almost a minute before I decided to risk moving forward some more. There had to be a turn or kink in the passage. I wanted to be out of the direct line of sight as soon as possible.

  I'd like to say I had a super skill at creeping silently in there, but I'd got three feet when my staff tapped the ceiling above and the ping echoed in a comically tragic way. I closed my eyes for a second, hoping that would help make me
disappear, but opened them right away after acknowledging that wouldn't be of any help.

  An eerie green beam swept all around me. The machine behind me had no problem following the sound.

  “I’ll just see myself to the door,” I shouted.

  I didn’t care how much noise I made; I let the junk on my back scrape and rattle.

  A super annoying repetitive beeping came from the mechanical pursuit.

  “Target acquired. Human. DNA referencing in progress. Awaiting orders.”

  I shuffled farther into the tunnel on my hands and knees, making excellent time. The echoes of the alarms soon decreased enough that I noticed it. I began to relax. When I reached a series of turns I felt even better about my odds.

  For a brief few minutes I felt things were looking up. But a humming sound soon caught my attention, so I scrambled in the tight space until I could look behind me. The volume increased; it was headed my way. Within seconds I saw my light reflect off a metal shape in the tunnel with me.

  At first, I thought it was living creature only a little smaller than Alex’s dog. It had wings that were almost invisible as they flapped. When it arrived, I could feel the wash of air come off those wings until it landed and they seemed to freeze. They glistened with what could have been metal, but I wasn’t sure.

  It had numerous black orbs on the front, which could have been eyes. The body was metallic and silver, with several thin legs attached to its sides. With the wings, it was almost as wide as the small tunnel.

  "I mean you no harm,” I said in the happiest voice I could manage. “I’m, uh, lost.”

  It wasn’t a lie. I didn’t know where I was, or where I was going. But I still knew how to get back to Alex.

  The wings vibrated, and it took a few steps in my direction.

  A door opened on its back, and a thin tube appeared. It was not unlike the tubes on the spider, or on the sentry machines up on the bridge, or my shotgun.

  I was frantic as I clasped the strap of my shotgun. I tried to rip it off my back so I could blast the mechanical creature, but I’d barely gotten it off my shoulder when I heard the snap of the small gun.

  “Oww!”

  Unable to get my gun, I tried kicking at the creature, but it scurried away on its little legs, then began to fly away from me with a burst of air in my face as its goodbye. Its job, it seemed, was to shoot me and run.

  Intense pain radiated from the top of my shoulder. I placed my hand on the wound and discovered a little piece of metal sticking from my skin. I got my fingers around it and yanked it out. There was a flash of pain, but it came up easily. I chucked it onto the concrete and went through the whole process of turning around again. I wanted to be away from that thing.

  “Please ignore me,” I said with renewed panic. The two machines were working together. But I thought of the gathering of machines back above the spider room. There’d been many of the metal boxes working together to complete their task. Were they going to clean me up like so much blood on the wall?

  I slid down the tunnel on my knees, pretending my knees weren’t complaining louder than Fortuna on shower duty. Or Mr. B when Alex gave him one of his stupid answers.

  I smiled, but it faded as I thought of Mr. Bracken.

  “Forget him,” I told myself. “You didn’t love him. He didn’t love you. It’s a schoolgirl fantasy. Not reality.”

  My light glistened on water. The tunnel was angled down just enough that the water ahead was unable to drain out through the line behind me.

  I wasn’t very happy. “Maybe this is the Complex. It has water, after all.”

  I shined the light ahead. The water went off for a long ways, but it definitely got higher on the walls. Which meant the airspace got smaller in that direction.

  The alarm had never gone away, but it was just an annoyance rather than a distraction. I was far enough from the central tunnel it was muted.

  I sat there for half a minute, wondering if I should push on into the water or take my chances getting to a different cross tunnel. I’d have to deal with the round ship in the middle, but it didn’t seem to care that I’d used it as a step.

  I giggled at the fact I’d gotten away with it. Alex would have loved to see me do that.

  A green beam broke my concentration. It was scattered when I first noticed it, like it was far down the tunnel behind me and unable to focus. However, once it did find me, it was solid and steady on my pants.

  I panicked. The color was the same as the weapons I’d seen the night before, and I wasn’t going to die like that.

  I sprang forward on my hands and toes, pushing myself into the water and whatever was beyond.

  I sensed the green light followed me as I clumsily struggled deeper into the water. I didn’t look back. I thought about the screams of weaponry in the air and the crumps of impacts on the far side of the river last night and shivered

  I heard the whir of a motor grow louder behind me, over the distant alarms.

  I’d never moved so fast in that mode of travel.

  My weapons jangled as they repeatedly scraped the ceiling just above my back. I felt the pain of scrapes on my hands. The chill of the water was just cold enough to be annoying.

  Suddenly there was nothing solid under my hands. The water abruptly went from a few inches deep to god-only-knows.

  Unable to stop my forward momentum I fell forward and tumbled headfirst underwater.

  4

  The cold water reminded me of the slippery mess next to the freezer units I'd found above the Standing Quarter back in the Complex. If I’d known then that the Commander was filming my performance for his sick version of entertainment maybe I would have been more careful back there. I wondered if someone was filming me now.

  That’s the kind of junk that blasted my mind when I hit the water.

  It wasn’t as deep as I feared. That was the good part. It was only a couple feet deep where I went in. My front was drenched, but I was able to get back on my feet—with a shiver and a wobble. A dumb lesson of Mr. B’s bubbled up with me: “Lots of people drown in panic rather than stand up in shallow water.”

  I swept my light in a quick arc around the new area. The water went away into the darkness, and my light was only able to pick up a hint of the far side.

  The green light continued to follow me, even as I stood there dripping with water. When I realized the room was larger than the tunnel, I moved to the wall on the left side of the hole so the beam could no longer touch me. From that vantage point, I watched as it swept from side to side, presumably looking for me. It reflected off the water, which caused it to deflect at strange angles throughout the large open space. After a few seconds, it turned around and disappeared.

  I waited a suitable time before risking turning on my gauntlet again so I could get a better look in the new chamber. I knew it was asking for trouble, but I had to know if something was sitting in there waiting for me to move.

  I reached for the shotgun, but a flash of memory warned me about getting a gun wet. Would it work when I needed it? I was pretty sure it would, but I wasn’t positive.

  “Best to be both lucky and good,” Mr. Bracken had taught us.

  I pulled out my staff. It wasn’t glowing blue, which was unusual.

  You can’t get it wet, a voice in my brain warned. The voice sounded familiar, but I couldn't recognize who was speaking. Was it from my pre-Complex past, warning me not to get something I carried then wet—the word "phone" flashed through my mind, then left without explaining itself—or did it mean that the staff I carried in the present had to stay dry? The water had shocked my brain. I was sure of that. Maybe I had whatever Wen had.

  “That would serve me right for being so mean to her,” I whispered.

  I again used my gauntlet flashlight to study the rocky wall above and next to the square outlet tunnel. The room was both large and tall. It had a lot of the same dimensions as Saint Lodestone’s Cemetery back home. But it most definitely wasn’t the same chamb
er.

  No doors were visible.

  The floor was solid. Not sand.

  And no dead bodies walked around.

  Yeah, I convinced myself. Almost all the way. I just couldn’t shake the sensation it was the same.

  I heard a door creak, followed by several voices. The echoes made it next to impossible to determine where they originated, but they seemed to come from inside the tunnel as well as from across the watery cavern, which left me no clear escape route.

  I shut off my light, thinking I’d waited a second too long.

  “It’s just over there,” a woman said in a confident voice. “The boundary androids indicated an animal inside the ventilation system.”

  Someone turned on a searchlight. It was handheld—unsteady and pointing to a different section of the chamber. It lit up the far side of the vaulted room. The room was indeed very similar to the cemetery, except it didn’t have the huge swinging door. It did have smaller doors, which undoubtedly led to more people.

  Run, girl.

  I walked as fast as I could along the wall away from the tunnel entrance. I dared not run, or I’d make splashing noises.

  I giggled softly, remarking to myself how the chattering of my teeth would give me away before the splashing ever would.

  “There!” the voice shouted. “I’ve got it on the thermals. Holy crap!”

  The spotlight made its way to my part of the cavern chamber, and I made it a few more steps before the bright beam captured me. The reflected light on the water seemed to make everything twice as bright.

  “It’s a person,” someone yelled from the far side.

  “She’s mine,” said a gravelly woman’s voice. Then, almost as an afterthought she added something about a skirt I couldn't quite make out. That confused me, as I wasn't wearing a skirt. Almost no one did back home.

  A splash followed.

  I thought of Wen and Alex and what getting caught inside would mean for them. If I were back in the Complex, they’d never let me out again. That drove me to run as fast as the water around my lower legs would let me.

  The spotlight helped me visualize the vast space once hidden in the dark. I became more convinced I’d somehow doubled back to my home when I saw two doors near the corner. They were both up on a raised platform.