from sever lacerations on both your paws and flank if you were to try to navigate around the glass."
"Alright." Yin said. She sifted through the different blotches in the darkness until she saw a large hole in her field of vision where the boarding hatch was supposed to be.
"Marcus," She said, pointing to the hole. "I found something."
Marcus turned an eye in the direction she was pointing.
"What is it?" He asked.
"It looks like a way down." She paused, "Do you have any kind of light source?"
Marcus flicked a light on in the outside of his shell.
"Yes."
He turned the light across several cabinets and stopped on the open hatchway, illuminating the door frame and the lumpy dirt wall just beyond.
Yin nodded in Marcus's general direction and stepped carefully through the empty doorway, keeping a paw on the frame for balance. She stepped down lightly onto the packed earth beneath and waited until Marcus had followed and flashed his light across the nose of the plane and onto another door that stood a few feet beyond, it's surface flat, and marked as an entry way to an old building by the seemingly impenetrable wall of concrete that made up the rest of the end of the tunnel. There wasn't a lot of room to get around the plane, and so Yin squeezed herself past the nose, getting dirt on her back and tail and rust all down her front. Marcus followed through.
"I'm not so sure this is a machine like Jerrem said." Yin said, brushing herself off.
"Perhaps It's identity was mistaken."
"I don't know," Yin said, "He seemed pretty sure of himself, and I wouldn't doubt how many people have probably already been here, seeing as the tunnel isn't natural."
Yin approached the door and ran her hand along the surface until she found a handle. She turned it with some difficulty, and pulled the door open. A gust of cold air hit her from the room inside. Yin stood there, a little shocked when she realized how big the room was just beyond."I'm not so sure this place is what people think it is." She said slowly.
Marcus stared silently into the void just beyond, his light unable to penetrate the depth of the chamber, and his personality chip unimpressed with the size of the room.
There were steps leading down into the blackness, straight out across the room and down to some distant object far below. Yin searched out a light switch on the wall and flipped the handle when she found it.
The room burst into light, revealing a huge, elongated sphere on some kind of railed landing platform, floating above a seemingly endless abyss. A single walkway led from behind the ship on to a hole in the wall, just big enough to act as a doorway into the next room.
Yin's paws made an aweful clanging noise when she stepped down on to the stairs, carefully putting pressure onto the cut slits that gave the step traction. The iron walkway shuddered from the unexpected weight, and Yin grabbed the handrail instinctively, waiting until she was sure the rust covering the steps was just cosmetic.
She stepped down lightly after that, before taking the steps two at a time, the platform practically racing to meet her. She hit the elongated sphere before she could stop herself, the pads on her paws hitting first and her arms taking the majority of the impact.
Yin shuddered when she looked back toward the airplane. The door was letting light back toward the front of the plane, illuminating only a few feet beyond.
Marcus took his time catching up, giving Yin a few seconds to run around the giant blob sitting on the platfrom. She stopped when she'd found some indentations on the side. Marcus floated patiently beside her.
"This is some kind of ship." Yin said, almost imperceptibly to herself.
Marcus ran a quick diagnostic on the hull of the craft.
"This seems to be of alien origin." He said, "I assume you are correct."
Yin put pressure on the hull, targetting the spots that seemed to protrude like buttons.
"Yin," Marcus began, "I doubt you will find success. This ship seems to be of an older age, just as the machines above. You will not find success if you continue."
Yin ignored him.
"I'm not sure if it's going to work, Marcus. But I have to try." She stopped playing with the ship and stared at it for a moment. "The lights on the ceiling worked. That should mean someone has a reason to come down here."
"I'm not sure you're thinking this through."
"Marcus, please keep to yourself for a moment." Yin squinted and looked closer at the hull, bringing her nose less than an inch away. Her mind raced at what she saw.
"Marcus, I need you to look at this." She backed away and pointed to where she was looking. Marcus adjusted his eyepiece and moved closer.
"There is an entire world in this device."
Yin had seen the origins of her people in this space craft. Layers upon layers of miniaturized rooms, less than a millimeter in height, had carried her predecessors here from the stars. The rooms themselves seemed accessible from the outside, but Yin wasn't sure how. She observed the layout of the indentations on the side one more time, noticing for the first time their order.
A knob, followed by a button followed by two more knobs, a button, and a single, almost imperceptible, switch. All blended in with the texture, color, and finish of the device. Yin rubbed her forehead in frustration when she realized their significance.
"I am so dumb." She said, "These knobs control both the location of the door and the size I want to make. The rest is nothing more than an execution of commands." She ran around to the other side of the vessel where a small window had opened, enlarging one of the tiny rooms of the ship.
"If I flip the switch again, it should close back up." She flipped the switch and watched as the window shrank back into the hull. "I wonder how large my species really is." She said to herself.
She went back and flipped the switch back on, pressed the first button, and turned the second and third knob until a tiny, red light illuminated a single point on the ship beside her.
"Marcus," She said, "I think you were wrong." She twisted the first knob as far as it would go then punched the button next to it. The red dot expanded, slowly bringing a corridor into focus on the ship.
A door covered the entrance and Yin stepped in when the spot had finished expanding. She coughed as the stale air filler her lungs, reminding her of its age, and warning her to be weary of anyone and anything aboard the ship.
"I think Jerrem wasn't joking when he told me the wreck was huge." Yin said. Marcus simply flicked his light on in response and went ahead. Yin followed behind, letting Marcus take the lead. The ground was smooth, made of the same metal alloy as the hull. Straw littered the floor beneath her paws, giving her steps a crunch that caused her to wince.
She looked up, startled, when she hit her head on Marcus, who'd stopped in the middle of the hallway.
"Yin," He said, "I think we need to leave."
"Why?" Yin said, pushing past him and walking through his light, dropping the end in shadow.
"These premesis are guarded by something inhuman."
"I'm inhuman." She shot back, "Trying to get at me for that or something?"
"No." Marcus said, "The term inhuman implies something unlike a human in character and form. The creature I am referring to exists as some-" He didn't finish. Yin had been sucked into an adjacent corridor by something large. She'd screamed, but the sound hadn't come out, her air already gone from the force of the grip.
Marcus floated in the hallway. He'd seen Yin being taken, but now he was unsure what to do. His basic programming was designed to help in times of need, but the action required was beyond his capacity.
He followed behind, mapping the sound waves left by the thing that took Yin. Through corridors and rooms Marcus followed, shining his light ahead as a signal.
Eventually, the vibrations stopped, and Marcus had to rethink his strategy. Yin was beyond his range of hearing and so he was at a loss, the size of the ship dwarfing his capacity to navigate its entirety, and the knowledge that a syst
ematic search would become pointless once Yin was moved.
Marcus sat in silence, his processor burning away at his options. He feared using too much energy on verifying the situation, but he felt he had no choice. Yin was his designated user and he required her as his companion until he was decommissioned or sold to another user. Marcus turned inward and began probing the various pieces and gadgets built into his new frame. He'd run across a simple wireless data chip and, on closer inspection, it was meant as a pairing device to be used to connect with the old synth-cards. Marcus ran a search, finding two devices capable of command control within the ship's premesis. Marcus tagged the moving target, verifying it's identity as a synth-card, and began following the signal. The other he ignored, stowing its coordinates away for future reference if Yin's location was designated as false.
Yin held on for dear life as she was tossed haphazardly over the shoulder of some beast and carried through countless twists and turns; shadows, random bursts of light, and the grunt of exertion her only companions. Her chest felt as though it was being bruised, and her rib cage was being squashed by the thing's arm as it held her in place, grappling the back of it's head with it's hand and keeping Yin from falling in the process. Yin's thoughts were lost in the fight for self control. She'd been taken unaware, and the constant feeling of almost being dropped, coupled with the ignorance she carried on the identity of her captor put her at odds with her sense of self comfort. She shivered
The Urimine Effect Page 18