The No Names

by Frank Albelo

  Once he felt he had thoroughly grated my brain enough to make me wish I’d been sentenced to a torture colony with his constant blabbering, he ordered that I be released, defrosted, and placed in the holding cells of the Pendett. There I was fed and clothed, as most of my clothes had not survived the nuclear radiation blast as well as me. The cell was almost as big as my old room, and definitely cleaner than it had ever been since its construction. I remained there for what I guessed to be about a week, not doing anything but wandering in circles and eating whenever the cook for that sector of the ship came to bring me food scraps.

  On one occasion during this time, I overheard some of the guards mention that they were almost at their objective location, but they sounded confused; as if they had no clue as to where they were, but they knew we weren’t in Martian orbit.

  On other instances I thought I heard whispering that sounded like jargon but whenever I focused on it, it disappeared.

 

  I naturally attributed this to my isolative existence.

  Then one day the speakers announced the preparations for docking procedures and the Captain came to escort me to the bridge of the ship. There were the normal crew members in their blue slacks milling about keeping the ship on route as it approached what looked like a frozen moon. Behind the moon, a planet rose firmly into view. Typically, this would tell me where I was, but new planets were not a common sight and it drew all my attention until a short man nudged me in the ribs.

  The giant blue gaseous mass shone brightly as golden-orange storms appeared to rage on its surface. The light from the planet reflected angrily off the ice that covered the majority of the moon. I could see dark gray towards the poles but everywhere else was icy white and blue hues.

  “Very resilient you say…hum…I suppose so, since he survived a nuclelectric generator explosion…hum…” According to the Captain, the short man was the warden of the prison I was going to be taken to, and he had insisted on meeting the most “arousing” addition to his prison. However, the short man did not strike me as a warden at all, primarily because he did not carry himself with authority but also the fact that he talked about quantum mechanics and nuclear engineering as if they were tea time small talk while the Pendett moved to orbit the moon.

  The Captain suffered through the man’s scientific ramblings as well as could be expected from a soldier. It didn’t take long for the Captain to feign business and redirect his attention to me. “Now. Be good and don’t cause trouble.” After a brief conversation with some of the bridge officers, the Captain placed me in the hands of an armed escort that took me to a transport pen. The pair of tall men explained that it was so that I could be shot down to the moon before the Pendett could dock with the orbit station. As younger of the two explained, they did not do space launches from the station and they did not have a space elevator.

  When the escort and I arrived at the cargo bay, several other groups of people were being pushed through the openings on the metal frames into the pens. These people seemed to have lost all hope of living, or ever getting out of this off-world prison, for they did not even pretend to fight their imprisonment. In my case, I had become more interested in what place I was than a way out; along with that, I had begun to wonder about the girl and what might have happened to her. As I was distracted by these thoughts, the escorts roughly pushed me into a pen and locked the door. They left without mentioning when the launch would occur.

  During the time before the launch I began to wonder why the drop choice had been transport pens, instead of a shuttle. It would have been much cheaper, since the pens often times could not be reused. Then, as the comm speaker warned one minute to launch, the transport pen began to whir about me. Braces clasped my arms and legs and pulled me back to the wall. Now the braces began to wrap around my body, until I was covered in what looked like a body-sealed elastic suit, much like those used as underclothing for deep space exploration. As the process continued I became a bit more apprehensive about what the Government had planned for the people about to be dropped onto the frozen moon.

  As my confusion grew, the pen also added armor plating to the suit, reinforcing it so it wouldn’t collapse into the vacuum of space. The armor plating was something I had been accustomed to wearing at the nuclelectric center since it also helped reduce the damage taken from explosions, and it didn’t feel that different from those of my engineering profession.

  As the countdown approached ten seconds, by my count, the heads-up display helmet ejected from inside the piece of armor plating that sat dead on the center on the chest. My eyesight was blurred for those last ten seconds and then I felt the fall. Those hadn’t been transport pens at all, but drop platforms. I had to wait until my visor booted up before I could see anything and once it did, I saw that I was inside the skeleton of the pen - meant to stop immediate death from occurring upon impact.

  While falling I looked around and saw that many people had struggled against the armor system inside of their pens and suffocated when the elastic entered their mouths. Also, there were others that were simply frozen in place as the platforms moved further and further away from the Pendett. I was pretty calm, I knew the cages would hold against the surface impact, but when we began to enter the atmosphere of the moon the cage began to burn up. I hadn’t expected there to be oxygen in the atmosphere of the moon, but the fact that there was, meant that the integrity of the platform would be compromised.

  The heat became quite unbearable as the cage spent more time in the gravitational pull of the moon, and then the platform shattered around me. The heat was now in direct contact with my plating and it glowed yellow-orange like forge fire. The HUD of the helmet counted 30 seconds to collision, but just as the ground, glaciers and mountains of the moon could be seen clearly, a beam shot from the surface and targeted all the atmospheric fall survivors. The light cushioned us as it slowly moved us towards the base that could now be seen on the surface.

  I had encountered some strange technology while working for the Nuclelectric Center and the Lunar Mining Corporation, such as the heat module and radiation blast pistols, but the beam that was now holding me and the other prisoners afloat was new. The beam oriented us so that we would be feet down on the upper platform of the base, and held us there. After a quick head count, I noted that the number of people in the original launch had been reduced to a meager ten in armored suits.

  As we hovered, held inches off the base by the beam, we could hear the crashing sounds of the other platforms landing on the lunar surface. Six of the people broke down, and sobbing could be heard through the communicators in the suits. Without a bit of warning, the beam was shut off and we fell the rest of the way, making those who had lost it them come to their senses, or at least shock them into silence.

  Standing atop the holding area we could see endless fields of ice, rocks, and snow glinting in the light that reflected from the sun. It only took me a second to realize that the glow was red and white, like that of Earth and Mars. It was only then that the cold began to kick in, and that we remembered we had limbs to move. I tried to wrap my head around the possibility that we had gone to another star system, but the technology was supposedly still decades away.

  As the people scurried around the fenced area where we had landed looking for a way out, I also became acquainted with the HUD of my suit, noticing the heat meter feature and oxygen level meters as well as the overall damage it had received, which was directly connected to my vital signs and was designed to alarm me if any issues arose.

  The suit also had an internal heat regulator which I then activated, allowing for my own heat to be cycled throughout the suit so I would not die of hypothermia. I also noticed the other three people that had not broken down on arrival do a similar thing.

  “Does anyone know what hell is going on!” said one of the people that were panicking once they figured out how to use the communicators.

  “No clue, mate” said one of th
e more calm members of the group. I realized that the panicking people would die if they didn’t turn on their heat cycling system, so I did my best to instruct them on its activation. Unfortunately, most of them continued to run in circles, ignoring what I said.

  The same person that had responded previously said “Forget it; they’re just going to die because they don’t listen.”

  I turned to face him once I had identified the signal with the help of my HUD, and I put my visor right up against his, “Listen, this is no ordinary prison, as you might have noticed from the way we were dropped here and picked off easily. I would like to take my chances with the largest number of people if I can help it, and I can, so cooperate.” I didn’t want to seem aggressive, but the manner of our arrival had me on edge.

  The people around looked in my direction and backed away slowly. Everyone seemed to have noticed something I had not when I got closer to the pessimist, and as I finished my speech and backed up, I saw that something was wrong with the man I had been talking to. He had begun to convulse, slowly at first but it was starting to make him writhe. I asked for help to restrain his movement so that he would not get hurt but no one came to aid me. The vigor of his seizure would definitely hurt him.

  I grabbed him by the shoulders and held him against the metal floor until his convulsions became so strong that an arm knocked me off of him. However, that arm had not been there a second before, and the man had an extra pair of arms sprouting from his chest.

  The convulsions only strengthened and from time to time an arm would burst from the man, straight through his suit- the same one that had taken atmospheric reentry, causing the rest of the group, including me, to back further away from the convulsing man. This episode lasted for almost ten minutes and by the time he had stopped shaking he was more arms than person. The blood that had spurted from the arms now laid on the floor freezing over as the heat began to escape the corpse of the man. His armored suit plates were scattered on the ground; not designed for outgoing forces, they had come off as the arms sprouted. One of the other people lost it and puked inside their helmet before they had a chance to retract it, and simply laid there on the floor, paralyzed by the fear of the thing that had just occurred.

  My original interest in finding out what had happened on that moon and why I was imprisoned died instantly. I had nearly lost it myself, but I kept composed for fear of missing something that would lead me to end up like the arms man. It was not easy.

  The lights of the base suddenly turned on, and the entire fenced area was flooded with fluorescent light.

  A man in a wooly coat and arctic suit, far better equipped for the moon’s weather than our own armor suits, came right up to the gate of the fence and looked in. “Ah, it seems that one of you was susceptible… well, no matter. The rest of you still seem to be quite capable of completing the mission.” I recognized that mocking and superior voice the moment it sounded on the intercom.

  “Well Captain Starden, I think we really need some kind of explanation here.” I said.

  The fear I felt and the irritation at his mocking tone were apparent in my voice. “Why of course! I can’t just have you running around a moon waiting to die from the cold, but that is for later. I would suggest that you, for instance, pummel that corpse before it tries to place you in the same condition…ah” Just as he was finishing his sentence, the corpse began to convulse again and its arms flailed around with such terrible speed that no one tried what the Captain had suggested a second ago, for fear of being pummeled.

  The body began to move and scurry slowly around the floor, the head of the person rotating at painful angles and staring in our direction. It moved its arms in such a way that it crossed the space between us and it in an instant. All but one of us jumped out of the way where we had been looking at the Captain. The one who had puked in his helmet had the arms man grab him all over. The poor soul didn’t stand a chance, the arms were like steel rods as they struck him and broke him, his limbs torn to shreds while we overheard his agonizing screams on the comms.

  “You might want to do something before you have two of those things to deal with…This might help.” The Captain tossed a four foot pipe wrench through the fence and it laid only a couple of feet from the creature that was now chewing on the entrails of its victim. Another of the prisoners ran to grab the wrench and beat the creature. He managed to break about ten limbs before the creature whipped around and knocked him against the opposite side of the fence twenty yards away.

  The creature, disturbed from its meal, focused back on us. I rolled out of the path of the arms, as did the rest of the prisoners. While I looked for a way out of the fenced in area, I felt my right hand rub up against the wrench the man had dropped as he flew. The moment my hand closed around the metal and it scraped the floor the creature rushed at me. I pressed all my weight on the rounded point at the back end of the wrench and pushed it through the mouth of the creature. Its momentum carried it forward as the wrench pushed in deep from the charge.

  The creature fell on me, dead. The blood it had consumed dripped down on me and I heaved against the body that was crushing me. The creature had somehow made the man it had malformed increase in mass and I was not able to get it off until the rest of the group got the courage to move and heave it off me. While I struggled against the bulk, I heard the whispering I had heard on the Pendett, except this time it was not muted jargon.

 

 

  I didn’t have time to process what I had heard. Just as they finished removing the bulking mass of limbs that had once been a person, the Captain came back around into the light to assess the situation. He was clapping slowly as his helmet became illuminated.

  “Ah, it seems you were quite successful, new record in my book. Seven survivors out of ten prisoners, not too shabby for a bunch of Digits—” At that moment I had taken the wrench out of the corpse and slammed it against the fence, inches from the Captain’s helmet.

  “I want some answers… Now.”

  The Captain retracted his helmet and his eye shone in the cold light being reflected from the ice that surrounded the base, its malice as clear as day. “Welcome to Dun Lund…your grave.”

  Chapter 2: Cold Arms

  It did not take a genius to realize that Captain Starden wouldn’t be giving any real answers. Confirming that suspicion the man scoffed, turned around and began walking toward the main building of the moon base with the confidence of a Banker. He wore a plated suit similar to us underneath his better ice gear. As his armored steps clanked through the steel gangplank that connected the building to the holding area I felt my anger flare, thoughts of the strange whisper I had heard dismissed.

  After slamming the wrench where the Captain’s face had been, I moved to look at the rest of the group. All the other Digits were shaking in their suits, one of the shorter looking ones looked ready to pass out or freeze as I noted the purple of his skin through his helmet. “Everyone! Please, you need to activate the heat systems of your suits. At the current temperature you will die within the hour.” I shouted through the comm system in the suit as I drew everyone's attention with the wrench.

  The timeframe on their death kicked the other survivors into action. I quickly demonstrated how to access the switch settings on the arm of the suit and explained the HUD display the helmet provided. The group relaxed a bit as the cold was staved off, but I knew it would not be a permanent solution. The suits required energy to circulate heat, and there was bound to be a limit on the compact model we all wore. After a minute of searching and patting myself down I found the battery back built into the armored belt.

  I cast a look at the dead bodies. Lifting the body of the multi-arm person, I searched for the battery bay of the belt. I unclasped the belt, having to tear off a pair of the arms in the process, and slung it across my chest. I went to the other two bodies and did the same. The other survivors looked confused by my action
s, particularly the fact that I wasn’t frozen with fear.

  “I have no clue where we are. I have no clue what happened to him. I do know that standing around will only make that—” I pointed at the corpses. “—what happens to us.”

  The shorter individual, not quite as purple, grabbed my arm. “Please. Help us.” he said. The voice that sounded through the comms was definitely juvenile and I realized that I’d seen youths being thrown into the pens at launch. My anger at the injustice of the Government and whatever fucked place this base was kindled once again. I white knuckled the pipe and gripped the boy’s shoulder firmly.

  “I will. We need to work together. Search around, see if there is some way out of this holding area or something of interest.” The somewhat faked confidence in my voice succeeded in reassuring the boy and the others as they got up to their feet and milled about the space.

  While the others searched, I examined the holding area. The whole area was about a hundred feet by three hundred feet and fifteen feet high. The links that made up the fence appeared to be made of ordinary metal, but the lack of frost and the smooth texture indicated a much better material. Every ten or so feet a tall support column rose out of the ground attached to the mesh. I banged the head of the wrench against the supports and the fence as hard as I could, but they didn’t yield. As I was choking up on the pipe wrench to swing again at the post, the young survivor tapped my shoulder.