Andrew Mackay - Pink Symphony

“—It’s trying to kill me,’ Jaycee threw his hands forward and opened his fingers in an attempt to grab the doors before they sliced shut, “Stay right where you are, you—”

Too late – the doors were half a second away from slamming shut.

Baldron’s face disappeared behind the closing doors.

“I’m gonna tear the skull out of your head,” Jaycee clenched his right hand made for Baldron’s throat.

“I’m s-sorry, Jaycee—”

SCHLAA-AAM !

The elevator doors clamped shut on Jaycee’s wrist, “Gaahh!” The severed appendage clanged against the wall and crashed knuckles-first to the ground.

Baldron tumbled to his knees as the cage hurtled up through the elevator tube. Jaycee’s grunts and screams dissipated behind the outer door as he fought with the creature.

“Hey, man. You there?” Tor asked.

“Yes, I’m here,” Baldron slumped to his behind on the floor and breathed a sigh of relief, “And Jaycee… isn’t .”

“Good job, comrade.”

“We’re so dead if that thing doesn’t finish him off—”

The severed hand’s fingers and thumb fanned out and clench into a fist, punching itself to its fingertips. It crawled toward Baldron like a mad, mechanical spider with an opposable thumb.

Thoroughly intimidated, Baldron kicked himself back against the far wall, “His hand. It’s his damn hand , man!”

“What hand?” Tor asked. “What’s going on—”

“—The elevator doors, they… they… cut it off . Oh, G-God, it’s trying to kill me—”

The hand crept forward, threatening Baldron. sparks of electricity blasted along its trail of wires and metal dragging behind the destroyed wrist.

“Please, no!”

The hand quickly ran out of juice – containing just enough energy left to hold its middle finger up at Baldron as a parting salute.

“Huh?”

It splayed its fingers out and punched the floor with its palm, giving up the ghost. The white button on the wrist flap flashed, desperate to be pressed.

“Baldron? Give me a sit-rep, please.”

“It’s okay. I think it’s dead,” Baldron quickly arrived at an epiphany, “Wait, wait.”

“What?”

“It’s… not real ,” he grabbing the discarded appendage by the fingers and looked at the trailing wires and connectors.

“Not real?”

“No.”

Baldron slipped the glove from the synthetic hand, “Well, not human. Titanium. Special connectors, with heat-proof underpinnings.”

“Classic Manning/Synapse hardware, right?”

“Right,” Baldron brushed the tip of his thumb across the synthetic skin on Jaycee’s hand, “What do I do with it?”

“What do you do with what?”

Baldron pressed his shoulders against the elevator wall as it rocketed toward level one, “The hand, Tor. What do I do with Jaycee’s hand?”

“What? The hand? Who gives a rat’s ass? Just leave it there. It’s the glove we want. For God’s sake, do not press any buttons on it.”

The Decapidisc slunk around Baldron’s shoulders, enabling a terrifying prospect, “Oh, God…. Oh, God.”

“What is it, now?” Tor asked, near ready to explode.

“The button’s flashing on the glove. The disc is gonna take my head off—”

“—It’s okay, it’s just in advisory mode,’ Tor mocked his friend for fun, “I need you to bring that ghastly, five-fingered contraption back to control right now. The elevator is making its way to Level One. Control Deck.”

Baldron tossed the hand at the wall and held the glove to his chest, “Are you sure we’re okay?”

“As long as you keep away from that activation button, yes,” Tor said. “Now, calm yourself down and meet me at control. We’ll take care of the others.”

“Okay.”

“And that stupid cat, as well.”

The elevator bolted skyward in a haze of spinning bulbs and lights.

Wool sat against the exterior Medix wall. She’d resigned herself to the only course of action available.

Jelly’s muffled howls of pain muffled from within the room.

“They’re not coming,” Wool lifted her Rez-9 firearm in her right hand and looked at the safety catch. She closed her eyes for the last time and pressed it down with her thumb, arming the weapon.

“Forgive me for what I’m about to do,” she pushed her heels into the ground and slid her back up the wall.

“Wool!” Tripp’s voice rumbled across the walkway, flying into her ears. She jumped in fright and opened her eyes, instinctively aiming her gun at the emptiness dead ahead of her.

“Tripp?” Wool hollered, prepared to fire, “Is that you?”

“Yes, it’s me and Bonnie.”

Tripp crept around the corner with terrific trepidation, “Are you okay?”

“No. I’m not okay,” Wool thumped the door to Medix. The rectangular slab slid away from its casters.

“Why have you got your firearm out?” Bonnie joined Tripp She readied herself to beat the hell out of whatever had upset her colleague, “What’s going on?”

Wool peered through the transparent door’s window. A futile effort – the surface had fogged up a storm, leaving only a blurry contour of slowing down on the bed.

“She’s in there.”

Tripp made for the door, “Right, let’s rescue her—”

“—No, no. I, uh…” Wool stood in his path and clutched at her Rez-9, “Something’s happening to her. Whatever that pink stuff is… it’s doing to her what it did to Haloo.”

Bonnie frowned and quickly grew angry with their predicament, “For God’s sake!” She socked the wall with her fist and held her breath.

“It’s over, Tripp,” Wool sniffed. “She’s quarantined in there riding it out.”

An intense, guttural howl crashed from the other side of the door. Tripp looked down, barely able to soak in Wool’s distress. He reached into his belt and grabbed his Rez-9.

“You want me to do it?”

It was the least he could do, given the circumstances. Wool and Jelly had formed a bond that was better left on the happiest note available.

“No, no,” she wiped a pink tear from her eye, “Let me do it. Please .”

Bonnie tried to offer some sympathy. “Wool, look. It’s the best thing—”

“—What the hell do you know about feelings, Bonnie? You’re just a lump of pretty metal, made by men for men.”

“How dare you!” Bonnie protested. Her absence of mind neglected the fact that her follow-on statement would correct the wrong half of Wool’s accusation, “I am not made of metal,”

“Whatever. It doesn’t matter anymore,” Wool turned to the door, ready to execute the monstrosity in the throes of its last breaths, “We’re all somebody’s bitch at the end of the day, aren’t we?”

A wave of sobs crept through the crack in the door as Wool pushed it open, “Wait here. It’ll only take a second.”

Tripp and Bonnie lowered their heads and nodded.

Wool allowed the door to slide shut behind her. She aimed her Rez-9 at the whimpering with her eyes closed. The sniveling and gasps of anguish were impossible to withstand. All she had to do was pull the trigger, hope to hit a vital organ, and leave without seeing what she’d done. A blissfully ignorant act of mercy, to be sure, but a necessary one if Wool was retain any semblance of mental well-being post-execution.

“I’m sorry, pet.”

“Wuh…” groaned a voice more human than she’d expected, “Wuuh…”

In a rare moment of assurance, Wool lifted her eyelids slightly, keeping her gun facing the bed.

“Huh?”

“Wuh-wuh… Wooo… Luhh…”

Wool squeezed her eyes shut for two seconds and then opened them again. She froze on the spot as if having seen God in the flesh.