Voices of the Void

by David V. Stewart

  “Then what are they doing in the mine, eh?” he said to himself. He called up the car from sector 4, thinking he would check there before proceeding further in. Once again he had a tickle, but this time it was a mixture of feelings. Dread still hung in the future, but there was also something else, like a quiet anticipation. He wondered which part of him felt that, and as he rolled between his minds, he was reminded of his “old” self – was there something in there calling out?

  He watched the lift car approach, hanging from a steel rail, arriving much sooner than Andrew anticipated. Had it really come so far in just a few minutes? He worked against an urge to check his computer, which he knew was not functioning properly, to confirm the time.

  The car moved past the windows and arrived at the steel double doors. After a few seconds of buzzing, the car opened. It was empty. Of the four lights in the ceiling, three remained lit. Andrew stepped in and told the computer to head to sector four. The motor overhead jumped to life, the doors closed, and the car lurched, heading out and down.

  Through two small windows in the doors, Andrew watched the colony’s headquarters shrink, cut into living rock and lined with multiple stories of lit, empty windows. Below the car was a black abyss spanned by steel and old scaffolds – the first mining site of the colony, now abandoned and depleted. Eventually, the lights shrank to dots, and he turned to the windows on the opposite side. He was hovering in the dark, the running lights on the track the only thing to remind him he was moving forward. Seconds passed, then long minutes.

  The track turned and slowed. The descent leveled off as he approached sector one. It was black save for a few scattered lights. Nothing moved except for some clouds of dust as the car moved past the open landing cut into the rock and back into the dark caves. It began to get colder, and Andrew clenched his ungloved right hand. As the car rolled on, the running lights on the track growing brighter (they were newer, he reckoned), he reeled at the amount of atmosphere the colonists had created for their operation. The planet’s surface was still thin and made mostly of greenhouse gases, a necessary step for even the accelerated process of creating a garden world, but the vast catacombs of the Gibraltar mine were full of fresh oxy. The way forward was wide, but always around the car earth-like air rushed like wind.

  The car approached sector two. The rock ceiling came into view as the car slowed and paused at what looked like an equipment bay. A few hanging sodium lamps lit a long open avenue, lined with lockers and abandoned tools. A few computer terminals were still lit, ticking away with whatever tasks they had. The doors opened automatically. Andrew flinched and shouldered his rifle, but relaxed as a small robot rolling on tracks appeared from around a rock formation. The light on the end of its single appendage searched back and forth over the smooth floor.

  “Hello!” Andrew yelled. Nothing answered him past the glow of the lamps, but the robot, not slowing, turned its light upon him.

  “Greetings,” it said in a warm, feminine voice as it approached. “Sector two is not staffed today. Are you looking for someone?”

  Andrew felt a bead of sweat pop on his brow, despite the still and cold air of the bay. “Um… I might be,” he said, shrugging, though he knew the robot would likely not recognize the gesture.

  “Are you heading further down?” it said pleasantly, pausing in front of the open doors. “Perhaps I could share a ride with you if you are. If not, or if you do not wish to ride with me, I will wait for the next car.”

  “Um…” Andrew stepped away from the robot to appraise it. It took the gesture as consent and rolled into the lift. The doors closed, and the car began to move down again, the computer being operated remotely by the robot.

  “Are you new?” the robot said.

  “I am,” Andrew said. “How did you know?”

  “I haven’t seen you before.” Its arm and its strange light (which had dimmed to a pale blue) swiveled to regard Andrew.

  “Oh,” Andrew said.

  “What is your name?”

  Andrew thought a moment. “Toro.”

  “My name is Lucille. Are you married or single?”

  Andrew frowned at the thing. “What is your function, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “My function is autonomous maintenance of electronics and basic structures within the mining hazard zone. What is your job, Toro?”

  “Why are you asking if I’m married?”

  The robot dimmed its front light. “I don’t have any records of you. I thought I would update the personnel files for Tracy with the identity of your spouse and children, if applicable. I know she would appreciate having it done for her.”

  Andrew nervously checked the safety of his rifle. He had flipped back to auto at some point. He put his thumb on it and slowly clicked it back twice to safe. “I’ll talk to Tracy myself.”

  “What is your job, Toro?”

  “Mining.”

  “I’m sorry, Toro, I meant to say-” The robot paused and clicked a few times, “What is the title of your job position?”

  “Why do you want to know? I told you I’d talk to Tracy.”

  “What is the title of your job position?”

  Andrew looked out the window. They were passing through a narrower stone passage, not hanging over an abyss any longer. It was still cold and dark. The stone had a mottled color, grey and black, with veins of iron that had not yet gone to rust in the newly oxygenated mine.

  “Have you forgotten your job title?” The robot said.

  “Yes,” Andrew said.

  “Open positions were for maintenance supervisor and demolitions technician. Does either of those sound correct?”

  “Yes. Maintenance supervisor.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Maintenance Supervisor Toro. I am Lucille, one of the autonomous maintenance robots that operate in the mining hazard zone,” it said, seemingly oblivious to its own conversation history.

  “How many more of you are there?”

  “Three.”

  “Where are they?”

  “The other maintenance robots are powered down, sir.”

  “Why?”

  “Their services have not been required.”

  “Why are your services required?”

  “Sectors three and four have not been serviced in 45 days.”

  “Why?”

  “Transport has not stopped at my service terminal in 46 days.”

  “Why?”

  “I am not authorized to operate lift cars except in the presence of staff, for logistic and security reasons.”

  “I meant why hasn’t there been any elevator stopping at your last location?”

  The robot clicked. “I don’t know that, sorry.”

  “You stopped my car. I wasn’t stopping at your last location.”

  After a few seconds, the robot said, “I am not authorized to stop a lift car.”

  Andrew growled to himself softly. “You know what, Lucille, I forgot – I am looking for someone.”

  “Who are you looking for?”

  “Vivian Toro.”

  The robot clicked. The computer terminal moved through some menus on its own. “Sorry, the network is slow.”

  “No worries.”

  The robot clicked a few more times. “Vivian is in the third grade. You can find her in the education center, either in the common area, or as a pupil of Elena Garcia.”

  “Thanks. I’ve already been to the school, and she wasn’t there.”

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t help you. You can contact the education center to see if she was out of class due to health concerns.”

  “I don’t think it was that.”

  “I’m sorry; I don’t have information on that.”

  “It’s fine, Lucille.”

  “Thanks, Toro.”

  The car approached sector three. The elevator bay opened to a much smaller space. The lift stopped and the doors opened. Lucille the robot moved out into a dirty corridor, kicking up a few dust clouds to dance under the
bright LEDs and warm sodium lamps which were attached to wires running along the high ceiling.

  “Is this your arrival point, Supervisor Toro?” it said, pausing and looking back with its light.

  “No. Say, Lucille…”

  “What is it, Toro?”

  Andrew took a slow breath, wondering if he should be so direct with a machine that could report to the unsecured network. “Do you know what happened to everyone? Where the colonists went?”

  “I do not know what happened to everyone. Which colonists were you looking for?”

  “All of them. They’re all gone from the residential area.”

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t seem to parse your request. Can you be more specific?”

  Andrew chewed his cheek. He didn’t feel quite right talking to a robot in this way, but the thing seemed harmless enough.

  “Have a nice day-”

  Andrew’s mind shifted for a few moments, inducing nausea instantly, and then suddenly the robot was looking away. More lights were on, and brighter. A few men stood around, talking. One of them was holding a toolbox, which he put down.

  “The network is fine, here,” he said.

  The other man took off a hard hat and scratched his bald head. “Well, it must be further down. Check out sector four.”

  “Maybe the demo team is playing a prank on us,” the first man said.

  “Not my kind of prank.”

  “Can we have them relay back through the robots?”

  “I would think so, but the robots don’t seem able to manage it on their own.”

  “Maybe Johnny could write a few routines for that. Seems like a good redundancy.”

  The other man put his hard hat back on. “Truthfully I never considered this sort of malfunction. I’ll get down to sector five and check it out myself. I’m not looking forward to telling Esquivel how I lost a half-day of work, though.”

  The first man shrugged and picked up his toolbox, then started walking toward Andrew. He faded away, and the lights dimmed.

  Lucille remained where she was, but was clicking and turning away. The lift doors began to close.

  “Wait!” Andrew said, putting out a hand to stop the doors. He glanced at his computer. “I’m looking for the senior plant manager. Um…” He flipped through a few messages. “Ralph Esquivel.”

  Lucille turned back and dimmed its light. “He is listed as absent to work. I lack the capacity to be more specific. Shall I page him?”

  “No, don’t bother.”

  “Alright, Toro. Have a nice day.”

  Andrew watched the robot begin moving again. “You too, Lucille.”

  The doors closed, and jets of air began moving about the robot, kicking up dust and blowing it to the edges of the room. The lift started moving again, resuming its journey down into the rock at a steep incline.

  Once again the walls opened up and the car slid out into icy blackness, bouncing slightly; apparently, the rails in the final sectors were not as robust here, with the supports from the ceiling or rocks below more spread out, or perhaps as a whole, it was built to a lower specification. The car swayed as it moved, but the engine above showed no signs of struggle. Andrew popped his ears and took a breath. He felt lonely suddenly, for the other parts of his mind were silent, and though he knew the robot was a simple thing, its artificial voice had banished for a few minutes the oppressive, uncanny silence of the colony.

  He brought up his wrist computer, unable to ignore that it was past 12:00 hours, and flipped through his messages.

  “Did you instigate this, Saul Toro?” he said to himself, wondering about the vague language used by his employer. He tapped his head. “I need to get you all wrangled. I’m pretty blind for a man who can see the past and future.”

  His inner self answered back, but it was the remnant of his original mind, not the part of him that was prescient or able to see into the past. It was laughing with pleasure – a cackle that was somehow also guttural and strained. Andrew shut it out.

  The lift slowed as it pulled into a corridor hewn into the rock. A pair of black composite doors swung open as the car pushed against them, revealing a tighter tunnel with the lift rail running through it. Air began to whistle all around the car, but stopped when the black doors closed again. The lift stopped, swaying slightly, and Andrew saw out the window a small foyer opening up into workspaces much like those in the residential area. Computer stations sat at desks, but none of them were on. Rather than sodium lights, the space was lit by bright white diodes running in the corners of the hallways, which, though unfinished, were nonetheless quite square.

  At last, the door opened and Andrew stepped out. Immediately he lifted his rifle and checked his left and his right, making sure he was alone. He quickly grabbed his nose and forced his ears to pop again. There wasn’t an additional atmosphere generator running in the space, he realized. He took a deep breath, thinking that he should have been more cautious and worn his full suit. With a sigh, he stepped through the foyer to the workspace beyond.

  It was large and sparse, a remote office made to serve the technical and logistics needs of the current progress zone. The dead computer monitors reflected back the subtle white of the ambient lighting, looking like a dozen frozen faces with white slits for eyes. Past the workspaces were more hallways. Andrew stepped toward these, checking around each desk, wondering if he would see a body lying behind one, or perhaps a living person. He saw nothing but dusty wires and refuse. The robots which maintained the living spaces of the colony had obviously yet to reach this distant place.

  Still, that’s a lot of trash, he said to himself, wondering at the piles of forgotten papers and wrappers. A chill ran up his spine as his boots slid over the slick floor caked with rough dust, and for a moment, he heard laughter, almost audible. He ignored it.

  Andrew stepped toward a hallway, where the running lights thinned to a single strip in one rough-hewn corner. He resisted the urge to flip on his flashlight, and instead stepped softly into the dim corridor. A few yards in he saw a fork. One path, lit by old lights on a rough stair, went down to a space filled with orange sodium lights. The other wound forward, and he could see more white light there.

  He tried asking himself what he could expect with each one, but his prescient mind gave no response.

  He turned to go to the mine first. He began to feel sweat breaking on his brow as he descended. The steps were irregular, some short, some steep, and many of them much longer than stairs normally were, so he got deeper only slowly. The white lights of the office began to dim behind him, replaced by the eerie flickering orange of high-pressure sodium.

  He held his breath as his foot stepped and slipped on something. He flipped on the light attached to the forward lug of his rifle, refusing the detached caution that begged him not to, and looked down. There was a pile of food going down several steps. Most of it was unopened, still sitting in its clear cellophane wrappers as if waiting for someone to buy it from a machine. In other places, the food was ripped open and half-eaten.

  Andrew wondered if the food was piled up from the bottom or thrown down from the top. He decided that nobody would go so far down the steps just to toss unopened food, and so he carefully stepped his way through it until he reached the landing. Before him was a wide mining zone. Tunnels reinforced with steel ran in many different directions, some up, some down. Tracks ran out of most of these. Robotic haulers stood idle in a line to the side, most of them looking broken or forgotten. Some of the tunnels were still lit in the same orange, but most were dark.

  Peeling his eyes from the maze in front of him, Andrew looked down at his wrist computer. He searched for a wireless network, but could find none. I guess the office was shut down, along with the network. But then, Lucille was still active…

  He looked at the time, wondering if the loss of network would reset it. It read close to 13:00. He shrugged and stepped toward one of the tunnels, meaning to see how far down it went.

  He forgot his
train of thought as a vision assaulted him.

  He was in one of the corridors. A light flickered just behind him. Two people appeared from the darkness, rising from an unlit tunnel he hadn’t seen. They were too quick for him. All he could see was their faces – ashen in the monochromatic lights, thin-skinned and pale. Their mouths were exceptionally large and twisted into strange grimaces over teeth that were over-long from the withering of their dark gums. He fired his rifle into nothingness, then the vision began to fade as he felt hands pushing into his stomach, parting the flesh, seeking something inside him. Dozens of wriggling fingers, like the tentacles of some vicious squid twisting his insides towards a beaked maw…

  He was staring at the tunnel again. Around a bend, he saw a flickering light. Calming himself with a slow breath, he stepped into the tunnel.

  Each time he was assaulted with a vision of his death, he had to make a decision – run away, or use the knowledge to confront and hopefully avoid his demise. He didn’t always decide to face his fear, but more often than not he trusted the optionality of the vision, especially since he had regained his old proficiency with his weapons. He supposed that in the abandoned mine that, should he inspect another path, the monsters he saw could approach him from another angle – an angle he hadn’t yet foreseen.

  The vision held steady in his mind as he walked along the cart track, letting Andrew know that he was proceeding toward the finality of it; had he walked away, the vision would begin to evaporate like a dream, being no longer part of the future. He saw the flickering light, its ballast failing after untold hours of steady work. He brought his sights up to his right eye as he approached the empty space from his vision.

  It was a space of nothingness, easily overlooked as part of the endless colorless dark stone. As he pointed his flashlight into the void, he saw movement. Two heads turned to look at him, their eyes wide and reflective like those of a cat. Attached to those heads were two malformed bodies, withered but also smooth; colorless or so covered with filth as be robbed of the hues of flesh. They were hunched over something, but Andrew could not see what.