Ben Chaney - Son of Sedonia

“Hah! Just like the car wash back at base!”

“Go on, Shims, time to dry ’em off.” Heavy motors thrummed under the floor. Matteo struggled to get up but a sudden blast of hot air helped him the rest of the way. It blasted out of the floor slots, rasping against raw, bare skin. The air stopped, replaced by roaring laughter

“Ho ho, man! Now that… that was satisfying,” said Shima outside. Matteo and the others stood in line. All shaking. Noticing the track in the floor again, Matteo traced it to the end of the room. Some kind of chamber stood at the end of it. A smooth cylinder with double doors… painted solid red. I’m third in line.

“‘What is that little red room for?’ That’s what you’re all wondering isn’t it?” the guard asked, “It’s a… naaaah. Better if it’s a surprise for each and every one of you fine gentlemen!” The red doors slid open, revealing solid darkness inside. The cables in the floor track went taut and the line lurched forward. Feet squeaked and slipped on the wet metal as they fought against the pull. Matteo fell backward, knocking into Oki.

“What the fuck, man?! Get offa me!” Oki howled and shoved. The T99 at the front of the queue screamed as the cable dragged him into the chamber. After a hiss of air, the doors snapped shut and muffled screams filled the room. Matteo and Oki paused to stare in horror. The sound. Something like the hover-engines of a gunship combined with a grinding buzz. The screaming inside stopped suddenly.

“Unknown Male. Approximately 21 years of age. 1.85 meters. 75.9 kilograms. Blood type A negative. Designating inmate number 272310-A: Scout Operator.” The voice was cold and mechanical. Matteo watched as the jumpsuited guards moved around toward the rear of the red chamber.

“Ey, what the fuck did y’all do to him?!” Suomo yelled, sounding hushed and painful. Matteo swallowed past the rasping knot in his own throat.

“HEY!—” Suomo gagged on the shout and started coughing.

“Pipe down in there, shitbird! You’ll find out directly! ” Muffled laughs followed through the glass. The red doors opened and the track started pulling again. Suomo’s turn. He fought harder than the first, pulling at the cable until the shackles cut into his wrists. Drops of blood left a trail on the chrome floor.

“You motherfuckers, I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you all! Your families! Your friends! EVERYONE! EVERY—!” The shutting chamber doors drowned the last word. When the machine started up, Suomo pushed himself louder. The words gave Matteo chills through his already trembling body.

“ Ra-sa-lla, Ra-sa-lla, we-fight-for-our-home! From-scrap-and-from-ashes-and-dirt-we-are-grown! T-nine-ty-nine-soldiers, our-blood-for-our-own! DIE-EXO-DIE-EXO-in-pain—” The chant stopped. The machine wound down.

“Unknown Male. Approximately 25 years of age. 1.91 meters. 76.1 kilograms. Blood type B negative. Designating inmate number 272311-A: Crawler Technician.”

Matteo’s heart sank… then his eyes fixed on the track in the floor. No one now between him and the chamber. He got a head start on his bonds, tearing at the seals with bending fingernails. A heel slammed into his back.

“This is your goddamn fault, Wheezy! Betchu wish you could’a jumped now, huh?! I should’a shot you right then, you ain’t one of us! ” Oki sprayed spit as he shouted. He planted another kick into Matteo’s side, then the doors hissed open.

“Stand up! STAND UP! Get what’s comin’ to you, bitch!” Oki shoved Matteo toward the blackness of the chamber.

“Get what’s comin’ to you! Go on! You ain’t one of us! YOU AIN’T!”

Matteo stood. Maybe he did deserve it. ‘ No blood. ’ Jogun’s plea bubbled up from the past. Matteo felt hollow. Done. Whatever waited for him in the dark, it was all that was left to him now. He hung his head in tearful silence and took the final shove into the chamber. The doors clamped shut around him.

He shook in the darkness for three shallow breaths. The air was close, still, and reeking of sweat and ozone. A small space . Then the machine powered up. Much louder inside, instinct jerked his hands toward his ears. Couldn’t reach with the cable. A blazing ring of light switched on above him, filling the chamber with red. Jagged mechanical shapes set in the walls seemed to promise pain from all directions. The ring grew brighter. Brighter. He felt the heat from it as it turned pure white. It slid down the walls, sweeping over his body to the floor and then back up again. The light died.

He furrowed his brow. Is that it— A sharp pain seized the back of the neck.

“Unknown Male. Approximately 18 years of age. 1.74 meters. 65.2 kilograms. Blood type AB negative. Designating inmate number 272312-A: Assistant Scout Operator.” The voice sounded far away. Images pulsed through his head, bombarding all his senses. He crumpled to his knees as a set of doors slid open in front of him. The light and reaching hands were the last real things he saw before memories assaulted his awareness. At least they were like memories. The schematic of an LTS-780 scouting vessel. Its load bearing capacity and top speed. Procedures for scouting Helium-3 deposits. Titanium ore. Lunar ice caches. All so clear…at first. They started coming in fuzzy or sort of half-drawn. His own memories pushed back. The dark shape he’d shot back on the rooftops. Raia’s flaming eyes. Oki laughing as he punched and kicked. Jogun lying broken on top of their shack. The first time Jogun brought home a piece of fruit…

Then… the dream. The one he’d been having off and on for years except now in full waking color. It started with a loud boom that made him cry. Is this the dream or am I crying now? Familiar voices spoke frantically in front of him. Their fear made him cry harder. Another boom and everything flipped… started shaking. His tiny chest fluttered at the sensation of falling. The familiar voices screamed now. The one on the left… a man… struggled with a control panel, eventually pounding it with his fists. The one on the right slumped in the seat. The man yelled back to him… something familiar about the voice. Rust-colored rooftops loomed up ahead as the man spoke. Comforting him. Then it all went black.

Matteo awoke to the jumpsuited guards bending over him. They spoke frantically, but the words mingled with the fading dream state. Is this happening? As his senses sharpened, he felt something press over his nose and mouth. A respirator. His eyes flashed wide open as he slapped it away from his face, and struggled to push himself away from the guards. He stopped after a boot to the stomach.

“Talk to me, Doc, what the hell happened here?!” the one they had called Shima demanded.

“I dunno! I dunno! It could’ve been uh… uh… shit, maybe some kind of psychotic reaction to the juice?”

“Thought you said that wasn’t possible with the anti-aggro cocktail you guys mix in!”

“It shouldn’t be possible…”

“Shouldn’t be?! Don’t tell me you’ve been injecting shit into an entire hostile population that should squash their need to kill us all!”

“I’ve never seen anything like this! Some of ’em just go brain dead or have a seizure, sure, but…wait a minute.”

“What?”

“Counter-measures.”

“Counter-measures as in neurotech? As in top of the line neurotech? What the hell would a mope like this need with anti-hacking hardware in his head, huh?!” Shima asked.

The medic shrugged.

“Maybe to keep us from squashing his personality and installing a new one? How the hell should I know?”

“How should you—?” Shima laughed, “Nevermind. Just do a pass with the deep local scanner.”