by James Axler
* * *
MEANWHILE, IN THE room across the hall, Ricky couldn’t sleep.
He was just as concerned about all of them escaping this place, and even more concerned about Ryan trying out the suit the next day. During their search of the maintenance room, Jak and he had found a row of thick binders on one of the workbenches. Locating the one containing the suit’s operating manual and maintenance and repair schematics, he’d taken it back to his quarters and had been reading it until his eyes crossed. He was pretty sure that he had the basics of it down, but it was much more intricate than anything he’d ever seen or worked on before.
While Ricky had grown up on the water, he hadn’t had much experience below the surface. However, he’d done his share of swimming back home, and knew how the pressure of water increased the deeper a person went. At this depth, any breach or malfunction would crush Ryan into pulp, even while breathing liquid oxygen.
He’d figured he was tired enough to get some rest after that and everything else that had happened during the day, but sleep still eluded him. He tossed and turned on the thin mattress, sighing with frustration. Finally he got up and ordered the lights on. He took a few minutes to field-strip and clean his Webley revolver and the De Lisle carbine, getting as much of the salt water out of both weapons as he could, then oiling them until their actions were smooth again.
That helped a little bit, but he still didn’t feel like sleeping. Finally, he decided to get up and take a walk. Going out into the corridor, he heard faint noises coming from Jak’s room—what sounded like several people shouting at once, along with the cries of someone else in mortal agony. About to knock on the door, Ricky looked around with his hand raised. “AIDAN?”
“Yes, Mr. Morales?” the computer answered.
“Tell me, what is going on in Jak’s room, por favor?”
“Mr. Lauren is watching a science-fiction film.”
“Ah.” Ricky had heard him talk about these films, or “vids” as he called them, to the continuing consternation of Doc, who referred to them as movies. Jak’s favorite so far had been one he’d seen in a city near a place called Denver. It had been set in space, with flying ships, an artificial space station as large as a planet, and men who fought each other with glowing swords of light. He’d tried to explain the plot to Ricky, who’d become hopelessly confused about what was going on.
Although part of him wanted to join Jak and find out what all the excitement was about, Ricky knew he’d be poor company right now. When he felt like this, he had a real hard time sitting still or concentrating on anything. The best thing he could do right now was find something to tinker with. Going back into his room, he grabbed the thick binder and headed back to the maintenance section, where he could work to his heart’s content without bothering anyone else.
A few minutes later, he arrived at the door and went inside. The odors of oil and grease, metal and plastic calmed him the moment he smelled them. Glancing up at the flickering lights, Ricky frowned at the burned-out fluorescent bulbs scattered throughout the room.
A quick search uncovered several boxes of them in a storage locker on the side of the room. Ricky also pulled out a ladder and spent the next twenty minutes replacing lights everywhere. When he was finished, the entire room was as bright as day.
“Much better,” he said as he turned to the diving suit, which dangled still and empty on the hoist. “Now I can do some real work.”
Within minutes, he was completely absorbed in the intricacies of the diving suit, humming a little tune that his uncle had hummed while he worked, even though Ricky had never found out where this fabled lost city of Margaritaville was, or even if it had ever existed at all.
Chapter Fourteen
Tipsy from the flavored vodka, and more upset by the vid he’d watched with Ryan and J.B. than he’d let on, an exhausted Doc had tottered off to his room. Once inside, he’d nearly collapsed onto his bed and immediately fallen into a deep sleep.
He opened his eyes to find himself dressed in one of his finest suits, fashioned from comfortable English herringbone twill that draped his tall frame with sartorial elegance. Blinking, he looked around. He was sitting in a soft, wingback chair in the corner of a luxurious hotel bedroom. A large, canopied four-poster dominated the space. It was neatly made, covered with a thick, feather-stuffed quilt trimmed with lace. A plush oriental rug covered the hardwood floor, and a nearby oak dresser with an attached mirror held a pitcher and washbasin.
From the next room, he heard what sounded like someone taking a bath. Doc rose to his feet, noticing with surprise that his knees didn’t hurt anymore. Bringing his hands to his face, he touched smooth, unwrinkled skin and a neatly trimmed mustache and goatee.
Could it be...? Taking a hesitant step forward, he approached the mirror, simultaneously anticipating and dreading what he might see. When his face came into view, Doc nearly wept with joy.
It’s...me! he thought, marveling at the unlined skin around his mouth and eyes, his thick brown hair combed back from his forehead in the style of the day, and his piercing blue eyes, capable of silencing the most impertinent student or faculty member with merely a glance. And if this is me, he thought, then that means—
Running to the window, he pushed the red-and-gold brocade curtains aside to see the streets of downtown Omaha, Nebraska. Horses and buggies clip-clopped past on the avenue outside, and men in greatcoats and tall hats tipped them to other well-dressed couples or single gentlemen strolling down the sidewalk.
“I’m...back. I’m back!” he said, scarcely able to believe it.
“What’s that, my love?” someone asked from the other room. His jaw dropping, Doc turned at the sound of that honeyed voice, one he never thought he would hear again.
“Emily?” He walked to the closed door and paused just as he was about to open it. For a moment, his courage failed him, for he had been here before and every time it had been nothing more than a cruel illusion. He looked around the bedroom again, looked at himself in the mirror. No, it was real this time—it had to be.
Reaching for the doorknob again, he pushed it open and walked in. “Emily—is it—is it really you?”
“Of course, my dear, who else would it be? Did you have a good nap?” Doc’s wife sat at the vanity, lit by the newest in electric lights, as she applied her makeup. She was in her dressing gown, which made him turn away for propriety’s sake before he could get a good look at her face. Strangely, her lush hair was down, instead of pinned up as it normally would have been, but he was too excited to care at the moment.
“Yes, but I had the most unusual dream.” He took a step closer to her. “I hardly know where to begin, it was so strange—”
“I do not wish to interrupt, but perhaps you can tell it to me a bit later, for if we do not leave now, we shall be late for dinner. Have you changed?”
“I—” Doc looked down to find himself wearing an immaculate tuxedo, with starched white shirt and stiff collar, neatly knotted bow tie, and a cutaway black silk jacket. “I...seem to have done so, although I cannot remember actually doing it.”
“Well, come along then, we still have to collect the children before we can be seated in the dining room,” his wife said as she pushed the chair back and stood. Her dressing gown was gone, as well, replaced by a tasteful, dark blue evening dress that covered her from ankles to neck with long sleeves and a high collar.
“Rachel and Jolyon are here?”
“Of course, my dear, where did you think they would be?” she asked as she walked to the door. “Are you sure you’re all right, Theo?”
“Yes...of course they would be here with us...so foolish of me to think otherwise,” Doc replied. “Don’t mind me, my dear. That dream I suffered has me a bit discombobulated.”
He hurried to catch up with her, hoping to get a glimpse of her face, to prove to him that he truly was back in his own time. However, she continued to walk ahead of him, staying just far enough away that he could only see her h
air.
“Emily, wait...” Doc tried to catch up to her as they approached the elevator, but he couldn’t reach her as the doors opened and the uniformed attendant asked her what floor she wanted. “Main floor, please,” she replied.
Doc barely got on before the doors closed. About to step up and take his place alongside his wife, he stopped and stared at the attendant, who was standing in the corner near the door and staring straight ahead. His profile looked normal enough, but Doc could see the other side of the man’s face reflected in the burnished brass of the elevator wall. That was what he was staring at. It looked like—the image was distorted and had a coppery tint to it, given the surface reflecting it, but he swore he could see something—something metal on or in the man’s ear.
“Main floor. Front desk, dining room, saloon, cigar room,” the attendant recited as he opened the hinged iron gate and the outer doors.
“Thank you, young man.” Emily swept out in a swirl of her skirt. “Oh, do hurry along, Theo. We do not wish to keep our guests waiting.”
“Guests?” Doc frowned. “But dear, I had thought this would be a quiet dinner, just you and me and the children.”
Still walking, she half turned to him as they approached the double doors of the dining room. “Sweetheart, I wouldn’t dream of putting our guests off. After all, they are your friends.”
Still puzzled, Doc decided to just go along with it. “Very well, if you are comfortable with it, then let us entertain them, by all means.”
At the entrance to the dining room, the maître d’ greeted them. “Your private room is ready, and several of your guests have already arrived,” he said as he turned to escort them. As he did, Doc could have sworn he caught a bright red light flash out of the man’s right eye, but when he looked again it was gone.
The maître d’ led them through the busy main hall, every table filled with men and women eating, drinking and talking. Another set of double doors were at the rear of the large room. The maître d’ turned the handles of both and pushed them open, then stepped aside and gestured for the couple to enter. “Enjoy your meal, sir, madam.”
“I am still a bit confused as to what...is...going...on...here...” Doc’s speech slowed to a complete halt as he walked into the room and saw whom he was to be dining with.
“It’s about time you got here, Doc.” The black-haired man at the other end of the long table swung his combat boot off the tabletop as he poured himself a glass of bloodred wine. He emptied the bottle, dropping it upside down into a silver carafe with a rattle. He had only one eye, an ice-blue one that glowed with its own inner light. When he grinned, he revealed a mouth filled with shiny, metal teeth. “Long past time to eat.” Grabbing the thick, raw steak off the plate in front of him, he took a large bite, the blood dribbling down his chin as he chewed.
“Yes, we were starting to think that you were never going to arrive,” the flame-haired woman sitting at his right side said. Her hair was wild, radiating in all directions. As Doc took an involuntary step closer, he saw that it was made up of thousands of tiny, copper wires that moved of their own accord. One braided tendril of wire curled around her crystal wineglass and brought it to her lips, letting her sip delicately from it.
“Yeah—hungry. Sit and now eat,” said the slender, fox-faced teen sitting on Krysty’s other side. He looked like the offspring of a snowstorm and a cloud, with paper-white skin and hair that stuck up in all directions. The ends of his hair winked with light, and Doc realized that his hair was actually thousands of strands of fiber-optic cable. His eyes, however, were solid, red, glowing orbs that chilled Doc’s spine when the boy’s gaze fell on him.
“Well, come on, sit, sit—we’re all friends here, right?” The man sitting on Ryan’s left, across from the red wire-haired woman, wore spectacles of a kind Doc had never seen before. The frames were standard wire, but the lenses kept changing color, flowing from red to blue to green to yellow to black to white in no discernible pattern. He was wearing a battered fedora, which the black-skinned woman sitting next to him chided him for.
“Take your hat off at the dinner table, dear.”
“Of course, my apologies.” The man did so, and Doc now saw that his skull was made of some sort of transparent resin. What’s more, he could see the man’s brain, a complex machine of some kind, composed of lights and switches that clicked and flashed and blinked on and off.
The black woman who had admonished the man now turned to Doc with a bright smile. “Isn’t that better? I was just about to begin carving.” She nodded at the gigantic crown roast of pork as she brought up her other hand. It, along with the entire arm, was completely artificial, made of gleaming metal, complete with an elbow joint and articulated wrist. Her fingers and thumb each ended in a different medical operating implement. As Doc watched, she extended her index finger and sliced through the roast pork with a razor-sharp scalpel.
“Sí, señor, come and break bread with us,” the last member of the table said as he waved him forward. He was another teenager, younger than the pale one, with brown skin and teeth that looked as though they were carved from wood. His arms and hands had been replaced by mechanical devices, as well, but his fingers all ended in various construction tools. He seemed to be building something out of his dinner plate and silverware, but Doc couldn’t tell what it was for the life of him.
“Emily, my dear,” he said as he turned to her, trying with every fiber of his being to keep his voice calm. “I think we had better go—”
“Go? Why, whatever for? We’ve only just arrived.” She turned to him, as well, and Doc saw his world crumble and collapse in the gleam of her silvered forehead, in the shine of her lifeless red eyes, and in the waxy pallor of her plastic lips over bright, perfect, porcelain teeth.
“Emily...my d-darlin— M-my love,” Doc stammered as he slowly retreated from her. “What...what has happened to you? What have they done to you?”
“Theo? What is the matter? I have simply been improved, much like your friends. Do you not wish to greet your children? Step forward, Rachel, Jolyon, and say hello to your father.”
Two little figures stirred in a shadowed alcove. They began walking into the light, but as they did, the taller one looked up. Doc caught the glow of a red eye in the darkness.
“Nooooo!” he screamed, knowing that if his gaze fell upon whatever his own children had been transformed into, the last of his sanity would shatter and the fragments fall away into the eternal abyss he was currently teetering on the edge of.
Turning, he ran back into the main hall, only to find himself surrounded by more man-and woman-machine monstrosities. Everyone in the room—the diners, the waitstaff, even the maître d’, were all dreadful combinations of flesh, metal and plastic now.
“Sir, please return to your table,” the maître d’ said, his steel jaw clicking as it moved. His eyes had also been transformed into wide, staring plastic versions of themselves. He left his station and strode toward Doc along with the rest of the waiters and patrons, encircling him and cutting off any avenue of escape.
“No...no...I won’t stay here any longer!” Doc said, patting his pockets for some kind of weapon as he retreated. Before he knew it, he was back in the private dining room, where he felt cool, inflexible hands grab him.
“That’s right, you won’t,” one of the cyborgs said. “At least, not without some improvements...” The hands gripped his arms and legs and lifted him into the air. Doc felt himself being set down on a table under blinding, white lights.
“Just a few improvements, and you’ll be better than ever.” The black woman leaned over him, her tool-filled hand coming down toward his skull. “I think we’ll start with the brain.”
Struggling with all his might against the hands holding him captive, Doc could only watch the gleaming blade as it descended closer and closer to his temple. A scream grew in his chest, expanded up his throat and burst out through his open mouth as the tip of the blade pierced his skin.
&n
bsp; Doc lurched up in his bed, the scream bursting from his raw throat into the darkness. The lights turned on automatically as his tortured cry dissolved into anguished sobs.
“You appear to be unwell, Dr. Tanner,” AIDAN said. “Is there anything I can do to assist you?” The computer repeated its question twice more to the sobbing man, who had turned on his side and brought his legs up to his chest. He gently rocked back and forth, his burbling cries turning to laughter, then back to sobs again before he finally fell into a fitful slumber.
Chapter Fifteen
Several hours later, Ryan, Krysty, and the others were in the mess hall again, dining on more courses of unusual, ocean-derived foods.
“You know, this isn’t really bad, all things considered,” Mildred said between bites of a piece of wafer-thin dried seaweed. “But it’ll never replace eggs, bacon and buttered grits with a side of sourdough toast.”
“Got that right in one,” Ryan said, trying to muster up the enthusiasm to finish his grilled swordfish steak and seaweed-and-kelp salad. “Can’t wait to get back on the surface and go hunt up some real meat.”
“Ricky joining us this morning?” J.B. asked between bites of his soft-shelled crab.
“Found him in maintenance,” Jak grunted. “Fell asleep there working on suit.”
“Didn’t you wake him up?” Krysty asked.
The albino shrugged. “Tried.”
The Armorer allowed himself a small smile. “Figures. I’ll go roust him after breakfast.”
“Anyone see Doc this morning?” Ryan asked. “AIDAN, where’s Dr. Tanner?”
“He is still in his quarters,” the computer replied. “He seemed to have suffered a fit brought on by bad dreams during the night and woke up screaming. I offered my assistance, but he was unresponsive to my queries.”
“Is he all right?” Krysty asked, beginning to rise from her chair.
“Yes, he fell asleep again at 0458 hours, and has been resting ever since. In fact, my sensors indicate that he is awake now and coming to join you.”