Prototype: The Lost and Forgotten Series

by Robert Gallagher

  So when Frank opens his eyes a few hours later and asks for something to eat and is feeling a little better, we realize that he is one hell of a tough sod.

  It would seem that the lost and found is what it says it is. Items get lost and end up here, including boxes of stores that the system can’t properly place because the markings on the boxes are damaged in transit. Lucky for us, some of the containers hold dried food, but unluckily for us, there’s no water. We could survive awhile without food but not very long without water.

  The room is large, certainly covering a bigger area even than the dining hall, plus it’s tall, at least three times as high as the dining hall, with conveyer belts way above and an automatic grab arm that can pick up or lower items into the room. Occasionally containers pass high above our heads, coming into the room and then going out again on the other side.

  Returning to Jake and his companion called Neil, we eat something that resembles dried peaches or apricots. Frank manages to join us and continues to improve, and then a little bit later, Jessica, still looking a little unsteady, sits down next to me and proceeds to eat everything within easy reach, only uttering the occasional expletive as her arm and side continue to heal at an amazing rate.

  We all try and get some rest, but after a few minutes of trying to sleep, I take my leave of the others and decide to take another look around the room. I surmise that most of the boxes are full, but what they contain will only become apparent by breaking the seals and opening them one by one. Maybe that’s a job for another day; I decide to continue on with my walk.

  Halfway around the room, I spot something way up high shining out of the wall, and after studying it for a few minutes, I realize that it must be a light from somewhere else shining through the wall of darkness. Then from behind I hear Abs say, “Hey, wait up.”

  She catches up with me at a slow jog. “I must’ve dozed off, and when I woke, I noticed you were gone. Frank said you went for a walk,” she says, stopping next to me. She looks remarkably good, considering the wound she received earlier.

  “Ah yes, I was too restless and decided to go for a wander. I dislike puzzles, and this place is one giant one. That’s a clever trick with your arm,” I reply, motioning at her arm.

  “Yeah, long story…but, hey, I wanted to say thank you for earlier and also apologize for almost getting us killed,” Abs says, looking a little embarrassed.

  “Are you kidding me? You did a great job, and I’m not sure anyone could have been prepared for psycho spear-wielding lunatics jumping out of illusionary walls,” I reply and laugh. “And besides, you got us here without breaking into a sweat.”

  “Well, you’re very forgiving, but I sadly can’t forgive myself so easily. My training won’t allow it.” She pauses and then continues, “I also wanted to apologize for the gym earlier. I felt like I was being forced into something. Alistair Brookes asked me a favor when I first arrived here.”

  “Brookes asked you a favor?” I say, interrupting her.

  “Yes, and he seemed to know the truth about me, which is interesting, considering my background, but he seemed to be concerned about you.”

  “Me? What about?” I ask.

  “He asked me if I could keep an eye out for you.”

  “Me?” I ask, interrupting again.

  “Yes, you. He seems to believe that you might be the only one here that might know how to escape from a place like this, which truthfully, realizing where we are, seems rather doubtful,” Jessica replies. “So when we bumped into each other at the gym, I scanned your identification, almost out of habit.” Jessica looks a little sheepish. “I felt annoyed that anyone could ask me for help, considering what I’ve just been through, and I always had issues with my conflict resolution. Admittedly it normally leads to serious violence, so in your case earlier, I’ll mark that one up as an improvement, considering the outcome.” She smiles.

  “You mean you just walked out in a mood rather than caving my skull in?” I ask.

  “Exactly,” she replies with another smile.

  “What do you think of that?” I say, pointing up to the illuminated patch on the wall.

  Abs stares upward in silence for a moment before replying, “It’s some kind of ventilation duct, about four by four, and I can see the temperature differential.”

  To get a closer look, we stack up supply boxes against the wall, eventually building enough to carefully climb them. Looking through the duct, we can see that the ventilation goes for forty yards and stops at a curious-looking viewing panel and an access ladder leading up and down.

  We clamber along this narrow passage to the ladder. Abs looks first and gasps with surprise and then takes the ladder leading down. “You might want to check that out.”

  Waiting until Jessica clears the space as she descends into the darkness, I move up to the panel, noticing that this section of wall is real bulkhead and not the dark void walls the rest of the complex mainly consists of. Then, understanding that the ventilation crawl space is also a part of the main bulkhead of the station, I realize that this whole area must be riddled with these passageways.

  Peering through the panel, I’m also surprised at what I see. This must be the central core of the facility where the pods are unloaded and then sent down via this central tube to the bottom of the station and jettisoned into the black hole. I stare in awe as a semidismantled pod moves down past my viewing panel. I find it hard to not admire the genius in this design. Having seen enough, I take hold of the ladder and descend, following Jessica.

  The ladder leads to a small room with an open doorway leading into a larger section. The sound of machinery and other electronic sounds can be heard as we enter. This room is only around twenty feet square, with two open doorways leading left and right from the ventilation shaft. Littered about it are various open supply boxes, plain evidence that someone has been using this area for some time. Along the far wall are placed several tables, on some of which are partly disassembled components, their purpose unknown at this stage. In other parts of the room are discarded chairs from two delivery pods, and on the other side of the room are two makeshift beds. Seeing this, Abs goes into cautious mode and slinks off toward one of the other doors and vanishes from sight. I continue to search.

  On the other tables I find rough drawings of delivery pods being connected together, technical diagrams of components needed for fuel and thruster conversion, far too advanced for the average joe, so whoever did this knows the fundamentals for lots of various technical knowledge and, judging by the last drawing, astrophysics as well.

  “Hey, Sam, you better come look at this,” Abs calls from the other room.

  Not waiting to be called again, I head into the other room and stop short as the new room opens up even bigger than the lost-and-found room. I’m awestruck at what I see. This is a large semicircular room, several hundred feet in height and set up against the central core of the facility, sections of which are transparent. Special airlocks are placed at various heights long the central core.

  I join Abs at the main viewing window that overlooks the central column of the facility. From this angle we appear to be near the very bottom of the station. Looking up, we can make out where the pods travel down through the entire station. The pod containing a new arrival would stop at the required level, deposit the individual, and then proceed to here, where its remaining fuel is burned away and the pod is dismantled for supplies and spare parts. The rest of the pod is then jettisoned toward the black hole. This entire process is completely automated—or would have been, but for some time now it’s been done manually, and judging from the sight of the room, someone has been busy draining off the remaining fuel and storing it. Not only that, they’ve been building something in the center of the room.

  As I continue to look up at the complexity of the station, a line of monitors springs to life, showing various angles of the central column, and travelling up the core is shown a pod that’s been retrofitted with an additional engine th
ruster assembly.

  “What the hell are they doing?” Abs says, looking at the modified pod as it moves along the core of the station. A camera ahead shows airlock doors opening as it approaches at each level, and a camera behind shows the same doors closing behind until it finally stops.

  “What I had in mind was trying to escape, but the location of this station has some unique issues to overcome, and with what I’ve read in the other room and what I’ve seen here, I’m amazed and impressed with what they have done, whoever they are, but…” I say, staring at another monitor showing a readout of a list of commands being performed.

  “But?” Abs says as she becomes impatient at my pause.

  “But he or they have made a miscalculation. It’s not going to work,” I reply as I run numbers through my head, maximum thrust, average weight for two passengers, the proximity of the black hole, and the gravitational mass effect upon the pod.

  “The small maneuvering thrusters won’t be enough to get them free of the effect, but that’s not the main issue,” I add.

  “But how can you know this quickly? You’ve only just seen the pod,” Abs says with rising skepticism.

  “It’s what I do. I can almost see numbers and equations. Based on the evidence and the rough sketches, unless…” I start to see other possibilities as I consider the core of the tube, the timing of their escape.

  “Unless? Sam, you are damn annoying. Unless?” Abs turns on me, looking annoyed at my second pause midsentence.

  “Oh, sorry. Unless they are going to turn themselves into a bullet,” I reply, trailing off as the monitor confirms my rapidly evolving theory; I scan the room and see what I suddenly suspected and then turn back to the monitor.

  We both stand there transfixed, unable to move or look away, horrified and excited to see the outcome of this escape. It’s insane but also incredibly clever, using the internal structure of the facility as a rudimentary artillery piece and the pod as the projectile. There are really only two possible outcomes to this: the pod will either disintegrate or be ejected at high velocity, but the true danger lies outside and away from the facility. What will happen when the pod leaves the protective influence of the gravitational bubble that is protecting the station from the heavy-mass effect from the black hole?

  “Level eight emergency decompression in five, four, three, two, one…” A sudden force of decompression is released below the pod, and the pod is exploded upward through the facility’s core and erupts from the top of the station like a rocket. Detritus from the level is forced out and up with the pod, and with horrifying reality the level is starting to take on new inmates as several bodies are among the debris.

  “They are going to make it!” Abs says, watching the pod accelerate upward and away.

  The picture starts to experience interference, and there’s an odd stretching effect on the pod itself.

  “I don’t think so, and it’s only one of them,” I reply, watching with interest.

  “Sure there’s more than one. Why bother modifying a pod for two otherwise? And they are going to make it,” she replies, becoming slightly irritated.

  “Because firstly, the modified section isn’t for a second seat; it’s a rocket booster. And secondly, his buddy has outlived his usefulness and is currently over there under a sheet of canvas. I noticed his feet when I looked around when the monitors turned on.”

  The pod starts to shimmer as its image begins to stretch, and its rear end ignites into a brilliant white light as the main booster burns hot and the pod accelerates away at an impressive speed.

  Abs watches with interest as the pod starts to pull away. “He is going to make it. He has the speed to escape the influence of the black hole.”

  “He’s good, maybe very good, but he’s not considered one important point.”

  “And what point is that?”

  “You’ll see,” I reply. “Very soon, I reckon.”

  As the pod reaches the extreme end of the camera’s range, the booster detaches, and the pod maneuvering thrusters take over. Then the pod decelerates suddenly, as if it’s just passed through an invisible barrier. Leaving the protection of the gravitational bubble then, the pod hits the full force of the mass from the black hole and crumples and implodes. We both stand there for a moment watching.

  “How did you know?” Abs asks, turning to me.

  “The reason why the station has no guards is because they don’t need to be here. The station is the cell, and the proximity of the black hole is the walls as well as the security system. The guards are out there somewhere waiting in case someone does make it past the first two obstacles.

  “But to the point of how did I know it was going to fail, to be honest it was a guess, but a calculated one. We are very close to a black hole, and the mass it must be exerting on the station should be immense, but we are able to stand and walk about, so from what I’ve seen and surmise, there must be something out there that is protecting us, some kind of gravitational field, but I guess it must have limited range. As the pod accelerated away from the station, it left the protection of the station and was hit with the full force of the black hole’s gravitational mass.”

  “Do you think it’s impossible to escape from here?” Abs says, now looking rather glum.

  “Well, this station has been designed to be inescapable, but I never believed a place could be like that. Every system has its flaws,” I answer, feeling her eyes boring into me, feeling the desperation for her own escape almost palpable. “But with this place, I’m uncertain of my previous beliefs. Maybe Brookes can tell us about a flaw or two, and maybe we can get outside help, but I know one thing is for certain: unless I can get all the answers, this place is inescapable or might as well be.”

  Turning away from Abs, I look over the other equipment in this room, all geared toward dismantling the pods for spares, but some of the machinery has been modified to help with the construction of the booster pod.

  I realized from the start that escape from here will be reliant on surviving the journey, not just working out how to leave the facility itself, and now I’m faced with the added complication of having to escape with more than just myself, not to mention I’ve almost always had help escaping before. Brookes deserves to know my secret.

  Abs continues to stare at the monitors after the pod implodes, only turning away once the monitors go blank. She’s realizing that escape from here is looking more unlikely or impossible, and if they aren’t able to contact the outside, what plan could possibly work? But trying to escape is far better than doing nothing, so many questions run through her mind, like how can the bastard that put me here get away with it? And in that moment, Abs’s resolve to escape is set.

  Several hours later we arrive back at the lost and found, where most of the others give us the “where the hell have you been?” stares, except for Frank, who just grins. After we apologize and give the whole story of what happened, we all sit staring at the discarded packets of food plundered from another unmarked or damaged supply crate.

  Frank is the first to break another long period of silence. “So what now? We can’t stay here indefinitely. Was there any way of getting back on the system from the engineering room?”

  This question is mainly aimed at me, so I answer, “Not that I have seen, but the guy that was murdered and left in engineering I think was one of the two that escaped from the laundry last week, and considering the work they did together, it must have been going on for weeks, if not months. I’m thinking that somehow they knew how to get on and off of the system. Brookes had told me that the system identifies people in two ways, retinal and voice. We know that the system won’t take our commands, but if we can force it to read our retinas, it might trick the computer to put us back on the system. But how we get the system to do that, I’m not sure.”

  Just as everyone is looking a little more hopeful that something might be possible, the lights start buzzing and blinking, which shatters everyone’s hopes back to fears.

>   “Ah shite, frickin’ freakers again,” Frank shouts. The others look around at the walls. Abs grabs her crude knife and starts to stack boxes in a defensive barricade, moving them with ease. The others, catching on quick, begin to help. I pick up my club and stare at the lights blinking and then the walls. They seem to shimmer in time with the lights, but it’s hardly perceptible.

  Then from the walls, we hear the sounds of laughter and taunts. Abs stands in front closest to the nearest wall, the others stand slightly behind, and I move up beside her just as objects are thrown into the room in a high arc, hitting the floor just outside our makeshift barricade, each landing with a wet thud.

  Looking down at the floor at the first of the objects thrown, I recognize it as the severed head of one of the good-time boys. As I stare, more are thrown into the room. One hits a crate and splatters Neil with blood. What’s left of the good-time boys is now staring up at us with bulging eyes and swollen tongues, all wearing agonized expressions.

  The laughter from outside the walls increases as Jake throws up. Then it drops to silence as someone steps into the room. The leader of the freakers. His face is covered in fresh blood, and his new hand seems to have healed, making it look like it’s been there for months. He points at me and motions me to leave and then points at the others, grinning and drawing his finger across his throat. He then holds up five blood-stained fingers, smiles a pointy-toothed smile, turns, and leaves the room.

  “Well, that’s considerate of him,” I say. “At least I can leave.”

  Jake and Neil stare in disbelief at me, while Frank, for the first time since the reappearance of the freakers, is calm enough to give me a grin.

  Abs looks at me with a straight face and says, “I’d like to see you try and walk out of here with both your ankles broken.”

  I grin back at her. “Okay, guys, this place is not safe. We can’t trust the walls, but in engineering the walls are mainly bulkheads with only one other way in and maybe one void wall to watch against. I say we get out of here and take advantage of the five minutes’ head start.”