A Step to Nowhere

by Natasha A. Salnikova

  Probably some people, in certain circumstances, imagined themselves facing death. What would they feel, do, how would they act? What would they do in those last seconds? Would they pray, curse, beg to let them go? I wanted to use the restroom. I became weak and sluggish like a worm. My bladder became weak too and suddenly I was afraid to pee in my pants more than to die. I didn’t want to die with my pants wet and a puddle under the bed. I also thought about my makeup and hair. When they took my lifeless body off the table, they would look at my smeared mascara and hair in knots.

  So, am I really going to die? Now? Just like that? Snap of fingers and I’m gone?

  I had never thought about dying young. I hadn’t thought about my future or my death at all. Unlike me, my fate was moving forward, making plans for me, bringing me to the final line. Other people had died young, and some died suddenly, why not me? I just had to try harder to not wet my pants, so I could die with dignity.

  What about my mom? My friends, my aunts and uncles, cousins? What about Jason? He loves me. He loves me and not some dead girlfriend or whatever.

  Piece of crap, bastard, son of a bitch. I hated Ray. How could he do this to me? Well, he apparently could. Because he didn’t care about me. Now I was going to die, but at least he could one more time …

  The door hissed. I raised my head as far as I could. My neck strained, my back wrenched, but I saw a person in a gray robe over gray overalls. He wore goggles or something looking like them and his facial expression was like ice. He walked toward me, but didn’t meet my eyes. He approached without as much as a single word and started busily unwinding a tube, pressing some buttons.

  I swallowed a lump in my throat.

  “Who are you?”

  Of course, he hadn’t answered. He waved to the mirror, which meant there had been somebody watching us, and detached a tube with a needle from the cylinder. My head became heavy and darkness covered my vision. I didn’t care about my makeup anymore as well as about the whole aesthetic part of death. I hoped to faint. I was afraid of needles, but realization of the fact that there was death in that needle turned fear into stupefaction. I saw the needle coming closer to my skin and tried to object, but there was no sound from my mouth. I couldn’t move either.

  The man reached his pudgy hand and tried my skin at the fold, looking for the visible vein.

  “Don’t kill me,” I whispered.

  No reaction. Like I wasn’t a human, like I was a thing. Probably I was a thing for him in this room of death. One of the unfortunate idiots from Planet Two. Now I believed that Ray from here had told me the truth and I knew I wasn’t the first one here. Everything prepared, no panic, just the regular routine. Just the regular murdering routine of people who suspected nothing and weren’t guilty of anything. Their fault was an extreme credulity and permission to be used. Thank you very much for your appreciation.

  The needle was long and thick, would fill the whole vein. The liquid in the tube was pink.

  “Will it hurt?” I asked. My voice sounded pitiful. I cleared my throat and said more strongly, “You’re killing an innocent person. I’ll haunt you in your dreams.”

  He glanced at me. Under the thick lenses of the goggles, his eyes looked huge and incredibly kind, like the eyes of a deer. His thin, tightly pressed lips betrayed the real nature of his personality.

  “I don’t have dreams,” he said.”

  He found a vein and lifted the needle. I closed my eyes. Warm metal touched my skin.

  “Edward!” Loud voice. The needle moved away. “Come to the observation room!”

  I opened my eyes and saw the confused face of my executioner. He held the needle with the tube like a flag.

  “Right now,” the voice said. “We have urgent changes.”

  The man looked at me, at the needle, attached it back to the machine, and went to the exit.

  I was alone once again. I stared at the ceiling and hoped that urgent changes meant cancelation of my murder. The terrible things were behind me. Ray kept his word and now I could go home. He leaped in the last moment. One more second and I would be dead.

  Don’t think about it. It’s over.

  “Let it be, please. Let it be.”

  A few minutes passed that seemed like eternity, before the executioner entered the room again. He moved toward me in leaps and bounds and I almost screamed in desperation, but when he approached, I saw it was a different man. He was almost the same height and weight as the previous one, but his hair was lighter and when he came closer I noticed he had gray eyes. The goggles covered half of his face and it was difficult to see the difference from a distance.

  “We barely made it,” he said.

  “Who are you?” I asked, watching as the man hurriedly pressed something on the cylinder. The thing gave a squeak, releasing my arms and legs. The man bent to my ear and whispered.

  “Ray has sent me.”

  While I was reviving, he helped me to sit down and talked louder.

  “We’ve got to hurry. Ray tried to cancel your liquidation, but it didn’t work. Somebody really wants you dead, so he sent me. I’ll transfer you to Planet Two. You’ll have to change your location, maybe your name. Temporarily. In a few minutes you will be home.”

  “I’ll have to hide? They will try to bring me here again?” I rubbed the imprints of rings on my wrists.

  “Ray said he’s really sorry.”

  “Tell him to shove his sorry up his ass.”

  “If you wish so. Let’s go.”

  The man helped me to climb down from the table.

  “What happened to that person?” I asked. “The one who was going to kill me?”

  “He’s … fine. We need to hurry. The controller is going to be here soon.”

  The man ran out and then rolled in a gurney. It looked just like one on my planet except instead of a sheet there was a semi-transparent tent on top of it. The sides of the tent fell apart and hid under the gurney after the man pressed a button on his remote. The man grabbed me under my arms and put me on it like a doll.

  “I hope you’re not claustrophobic.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Block of extermination is at this level, down. Block of transportation is at the last level. We need to do everything fast before the controller’s visit.”

  “Can’t I just walk?”

  “There’re plenty of workers in the building. We can’t just walk out. From the block of keeping where you were before, and to here, the liquidation block, to Eris—the extermination block, there are a lot of cameras. After Eris they put only one camera over every elevator. That’s not important. Lie down.”

  “Lie down. What do we need the extermination block for? What are we …?”

  “You have nothing to worry about now. Lie down.”

  I did as I was ordered (wasn’t I ordered a lot lately?), put my arms along my body and watched the sides of the tent snap closed over me. I thought I was going to start shaking again, but I didn’t. If I kept my eyes open, I could see fuzzy light.

  The gurney jerked and rolled softly, I didn’t feel the jolting. Once, I heard a man’s voice asking about our direction, and the man pushing me said he was going to Eris. Eris, shmeris, what was that? What if somebody asked him to show the body under the tent? What then? I didn’t have to think about it for too long. The gurney slowed down then moved again into a dimly lit room, then stopped.

  CHAPTER 11

  The tent fell apart. I sat up and looked around an empty, gray room. Another empty, little room with a dome-like ceiling.

  “Is this your extermination block?” I asked with disappointment as I jumped down from the gurney. In my imagination it looked different. Bigger and gloomier. “It’s not that terrifying here.”

  “They call it Eris.”

  “Romantically. What do they do here?”

  “Dispose of corpses. I thought you understood.”

  “Dispose of corpses,” I mumbled. “So convenient. Kill here, exterminate here also
. The whole system. Who’s it for?”

  The man lifted the goggles to his forehead and turned the remote in his hand.

  “I can’t remember all these codes.”

  “Where is the chimney?” I asked, searching the room.

  “What chimney?”

  “Where they burn bodies?”

  “Take your clothes off.”

  “What for?”

  The man pressed on the button and half of one wall went up. There was a hollow, a cell, just the right size to fit one human body.

  “Everything is so convenient,” I admired again. “What kind of building is that? What is going on here?”

  “The controller will check the hearth, checking to be sure the process of extermination went well. He needs ashes. Everything here is even more convenient than you think. I need your clothes to leave here and you need to change anyway.”

  I swallowed.

  The man took a bag from his shoulder that I hadn’t noticed before and pulled out a metal jar. He went to the hearth with that and dropped the contents inside. Ashes. I didn’t want to know where he’d found them.

  “Why do you need my clothes? They’re not going to burn?”

  “Our hearth destroys only flesh. It doesn’t work like the crematory on your planet. Rather as … microwave oven.”

  “Great technology.”

  “We are ahead of you just a little.”

  “I’m not sure I can get jealous.”

  The man withdrew gray overalls from his bag and gave it to me. When I accepted it, he handed me a pair of gray boots, a rubber band for my hair, and some goggles like his.

  “Change now.”

  The man turned away and I pulled off my favorite jeans and the T-shirt in a rush. If somebody asked me about the Planet One, I’d say that first they take away your dreams and then your clothes.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Alex,” the man said. “Please, hurry, we don’t have much time.”

  “I’m trying.”

  I put the coveralls on. The outfit actually wasn’t exactly a coverall. It included pants and a jacket that zipped on at the waist and was girded with a wide belt. The fabric was smooth and cool like silk. It touched my skin pleasantly. The costume smelled of freshness, as did all the surroundings. Weren’t they getting sick of the same smell? Elastic on ankles and wrists, zipper from the waist to the neck. What were they going to think at home seeing me in this designer’s dream?

  Don’t forget to ask where you’ll appear.

  “The overalls are on,” I said.

  Alex immediately collected my clothes from the floor, threw them in the opening of the hearth and closed it while I was lacing my boots. They were a little big, but that was okay.

  “Ready?”

  I gathered my hair into a ponytail, put on glasses that looked like you could swim in them, and nodded.

  “We really have just a few minutes for everything. Walk beside me, don’t make eye contact with anyone,” the man said.

  We left the extermination room and moved along the corridor. Alex talked to me, but fell silent if any people walked past us. They all were dressed in the same clothes. My feet squelched in the boots, glasses pressed tight on the bridge of my nose, and I hoped to take them off soon. No one paid attention to me, so they assumed I was one of their people.

  “The controller starts checking the process from the death block or liquidation as they call it,” Alex was saying. “Then he goes to extermination block, which is Eris. The controller will be there in a few minutes. After that he goes to the upper floor to the report section to meet the directors of the corporation. He reports about the procedure to them after making sure that everything went according to the rules.”

  “Why do the directors control the process?” I asked, panting from the fast walk. I hadn’t exercised for a while and it had an impact. I would have climbed onto a running track if I had known I’d have to run from death.

  “They control everything.”

  “Why don’t they put cameras in those killing rooms? Plenty of excitement to watch.”

  “It’s the only thing Ray was able to prevent. He didn’t allow them to turn murdering into a show. There’s only an observer, in case something goes wrong with the technical part or some changes occur.”

  “What does Ray have to do with it?”

  “He’s the president of the corporation. Didn’t you know?”

  “Huh?”

  I thought that nothing could surprise me at this point, but Alex’s explanation put me into a stupor. I stopped for a second, but slapped myself in my mind to wake up and catch up with the guy.

  “President of this corporation? Are you sure?”

  “Here,” the guy said instead of answering.

  We stopped in front of the clear doors. Behind them was something like a capsule with a mass of different buttons.

  Alex lifted the gray device that I called a TV remote, pressed something, the doors parted, and we stepped inside. It was an elevator. Alex pushed the top button and the machine flew up. I didn’t feel the movement, only gray walls whizzed before my eyes.

  “What is that thing?” I asked, pointing to the multi-buttoned object in his hand.

  “Central remote.”

  “Remote? I’d guessed that part right.”

  “There’s no better word. Another creation of our great minds. They’ve invented a lot of things and the results …”

  He didn’t finish. The door had opened and we entered another white corridor with regular, visible doors, though without handles. We moved along it swiftly, almost running. I tried hard, but still lagged behind Alex. There was no one else besides us in this part of the building.

  “Now, you tell me,” I said, breathing through my open mouth, “is Ray the president of this corporation of murderers?”

  “That’s a good name,” the guy said with a chuckle.

  “But how? Why then …? I don’t understand anything. He rules here?”

  “I’d say … yes.”

  “Son of a bitch!”

  “Sorry?”

  “I can’t believe it!”

  We stopped before the huge, white, floor-to-ceiling doors.

  “We made it.” Alex pressed a few buttons on the remote. “Almost there. Ray is going …”

  Nothing had happened.

  He pushed the buttons again.

  “No. No, no, no.”

  “What? What happened?” I yelled.

  “They must have changed the code!” Alex kept pushing the buttons. I saw the tips of his fingers getting white, the veins on his temples popped. “Pard! Pard! I know the code!”

  He put his head down, thinking over something, then looked at me. I didn’t take my eyes away from his. I wanted him to tell me that everything was fine and I was going home. Please.

  “Ray’s going to kill me. You can’t stay here; neither can I. Hurry!”

  “I won’t get home? Where are we going?” I was panicking. I didn’t want to stay here another second.

  “You’ll get home, but now we have to get out of here.” We went back to the elevator.

  “We need to go down on the ground level and get out of the building. It’s not the best choice, but we can’t do anything else. I will take you to my friend’s house and contact Ray. He’s going to kill me!”

  “Crap,” I mumbled. “I want to get home, but instead I will go to another planet.”

  “It’s the same planet, but alternative.”

  “Oh, sorry I wasn’t precise.”

  We entered the elevator again, rode down to the first floor, and went in the direction of Block 1. That was on a big sign over the door and then another one—Exit.

  My heart was beating faster and faster.

  “We are going to walk out of the building. There’s a security booth. We can’t let the guard see you. I’ll try to distract him. There’re cameras, but we’ll worry about that later.”

  “Are they going to let you g
o?”

  “I work here. Or worked. Just in case … if there’s a problem, you have to go alone. Run, don’t look back.”

  My heart was beating with the speed of a car driving down the hill and now it seemed to gain speed.

  “Remember the address. Park Street Twelve. I’ll try to call my friend, but you can tell him that you’re sent by Alex and everything will be fine. You have to wait there, but we’ll send you home. I promise.”

  “How will I get there?”

  “The best way is on a bus. You … Let’s say that you have unique features.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Listen; just try to blend with locals. Act natural, don’t talk to anyone, and don’t look at anyone. It’s very important. Here’s some money.” He stuck his hand into his pocket and gave me a crumpled heap of blue bills. “The bus’s number is twelve or thirty nine … I think. You’ll see a Park Street sign on it. It’s just in case. I’m saying all of this to you, but I hope to get out of the building together. The security system at the entrance is just zacry, but not here. Thanks Mar!”

  “What in hell is zacry and mar?”

  “What is hell?”

  I rolled my eyes and pushed the money inside my pants pocket. Ray wasn’t kidding about some differences in words. He wasn’t kidding about anything, he just lied a lot. He wasn’t with me, so I had no problem hating him.

  “Take off these glasses when you leave. There’s a selling booth by the bus station. Get yourself some dark glasses and please, don’t talk to anyone. Besides the salesperson. They will realize that you’re not from here.”

  “How? What’s the difference between us? I didn’t notice any.”