C James - Dome Six

“Okay, let’s go,” Owen replied.

They shuffled out from their hiding place and peeked around the corners of the buildings, then checked both ways down Rad 36. There was one vehicle far down from them, but it was otherwise empty. They stole across it just as they heard a rolling door open from the back of the Box. As they approached the parked truck, they hugged the wall on the opposite side and eased their way through the narrow gap between the side of the truck and the wall of the adjacent building. There was little room to spare.

The adrenaline was really pumping now. It was terrifying, yes, but also deliciously exciting. Was this what he’d been missing all this time? The thrill of breaking the rules? Had that been passed down from this Hopper guy?

They heard the shuffling of feet on the other side of the truck and a heavy metal door opened, presumably to the Box. This is what they were here for.

“We’re just gonna talk to the guy, right?” Aaron confirmed.

“Right. You ready?”

“What’s the worst that could happen?” Aaron replied.

Owen led the way out behind the rear of the truck. The door was open and a ramp covered in smooth white plastic extended to the ground. It was empty inside. They peered around the corner of the Box’s open cargo door.

It, too, had a heavy inner door but it was open. A squat, barrel-chested man appeared through it with his back to them, grunting as he dragged something heavy. Owen steeled himself — he’d never seen a dead body, let alone someone he knew personally.

The man hauled Art’s body through the doorway with his back to them, maybe four meters away.

“Hey,” Owen said.

The man was so startled that he stumbled back and fell on his ass, then scrambled back away from them like a frightened crab. Owen saw the top of Art’s head tilted back over the threshold, his pale and mottled skin poking through the wispy gray hairs. His eyes were cloudy. Owen looked immediately away.

“Wha…?“ the man started, his eyes peeled back. You’d think he was seeing monsters, not teenage boys.

“Easy,” Owen said. “We’re not gonna hurt you.”

“What do you want??” said the man. Owen had never seen anyone blink so quickly or so often. He was fidgety. His eyes kept looked past Owen as though he expected more people to come out of the dark for him.

“We want to look inside the Box,” said Owen. “That’s all.”

“It’s empty. I mean, it is now.”

“I just want to see for myself. What’s your name?”

“Sam,” he said, as though he wasn’t completely certain. “I just take the bodies from the Box to the incinerator.”

“It’s okay, Sam. All we want is a quick peek inside.”

“There’s no time,” the nervous man said. “No time. The round trip takes exactly 14 minutes. Not 13, not 15. Fourteen.”

Though he was at least in his mid 40s he had a childlike mien. Some kind of mental disorder, perhaps.

“I know this man,” Owen continued earnestly. “He was our friend. We watched him go in the Box this morning. We just want to know what happened to him. That’s all. It would really help us, you know, move on.”

Sam glanced at Art’s body then back at them. The wheels were turning, albeit slowly.

“Okay,” he stammered. “Okay, but one quick look inside and then you have to go. It’s after curfew. You’re not supposed to be out. I don’t want to get in trouble.”

“Neither do we,” Aaron said. “Just one quick look and we’ll leave you alone. Fourteen minutes’ round trip, right?”

Owen extended his hand. Sam visibly relaxed and took it as Owen helped him to his feet. They proceeded past Art. There wasn’t a mark on him. He wasn’t quite sure what to feel.

The interior door was even heavier than it looked from a distance. Owen ran his fingers down the cold edge. It was impenetrable.

“Are they trying to keep something in or out?” Aaron mused.

“I don’t know,” replied Owen, and continued inside.

Owen expected the small room to open up to either side like a rectangle, but as he stepped fully inside he saw that it didn’t. It was no more than three meters on a side, probably less. The concrete floor had a drain in the middle and a portion of the floor was still wet. It smelled of urine. The walls were just as beefy as the door. With everything buttoned up, it might even be watertight.

“What the hell?” wondered Aaron.

From the moment he stepped fully into the Box, Owen felt uncomfortable. Not claustrophobic, not the heebie-jeebies. Something else. It was intense physical discomfort, like he was about to be violently ill. He turned immediately and pushed past Aaron, who had barely gotten through the doorway.

“Did you feel that?” Owen asked, steadying himself on the wall.

“I felt something, all right,” Aaron said, his hand on his stomach. He wobbled unsteadily.

“You can’t stay inside long,” Sam said. He’d already draged Art’s body into the truck and closed the door. He was more antsy now than scared. “Gotta go,” he said. “Can’t be late. Can’t be late. Excuse me.”

He hurried past Owen and closed the heavy door with a faint squeak of the burly hinges, then herded them out of the loading area so he could close the rolling door.

“I don’t understand,” Owen said, catching his breath. “What’s in that room? How does it work?”

“Sorry, gotta go now,” Sam replied, practically shoving them aside. He pushed “Bye.”

Sam made for the door of the truck.

“No, wait. Sam!” Owen called after him.

But his errand wouldn’t wait. Not for them. The truck hurried away down the narrow Arc then took a sharp left onto Rad 32 before it disappeared.

The pain was like hot tar smeared on the inside of his skin — unreachable, unrelenting, and toxic.

Hideki remembered charging toward Tosh, then a pain so extraordinary and instant that it felt like a seed exploding suddenly into a tree. It seized his very consciousness in its searing grip, so much so that he lost hold of it. And yet it was there in the dark with him, loud and insistent, telling him that death was the only escape.

But he couldn’t. Wherever he was, he couldn’t move. Couldn’t lower his head and run into the concrete wall as hard as he could or find something sharp to drag across his neck. He was meant to endure this for as long as it took. How long had he been there? An hour? Maybe more? It felt like eternity.

He knew guys who got shot with neurobullets. They said if you didn’t get antidote inside of about two hours, you’d go mad. If someone told him he’d been there for three days, he’d have believed it.

The door opened and he shrunk back, squinting against the harsh light. A hulking figure entered then kneeled beside him and snapped his fingers.

“You still with us, skinny?” asked the man. His voice rang a bell, but he was too addled to think clearly.

“How about a short break?” he said, brandishing a pressure injector. “Just so we can chat.”

He felt a thin pop in the dimple between his right shoulder and his neck. The antidote worked so quickly that it felt like a dream. Almost instantly, his vision resolved, and he was staring up at the smiling visage of Luther Downing.

“There he is,” Downing said. He rose and set the injector down on a small metal table. “You’re at the Authority. I know you recognize our interrogation room. Well, we call it 138C, but who are we kidding, right?”

“Why am I here?” said Hideki. Amazing how words could form when every last neuron wasn’t being held to a fire.

“Well for starters,” Downing began, “you made Arthur Behrens’ Quietus more interesting than most. I don’t blame you. That shit is boring as hell.”