“Yeah. Yeah, I think I would. Like it or not, the people here look up to me. I have to at least try, I think. Personally, I still think I’ll let them all down at some point.”
“You’ve done well so far.” Brekt placed the canteen to his lips, chugging the water loudly. “You know I look up to you, right? Everything you’ve been through, everything we’ve been through. It’s a lot even for me, and I’ve been a mercenary for fifteen years. You’ve been out here in the galaxy for how long now?”
“Six months.”
“Not a very long time.” Brekt stretched his muscled arms out across the top of the couch. “You know, she believes in you too.” He nodded downwards to the small cluster of tables and chairs before the bar. Aileena was shooing out a Cortican who had one too many drinks. The feathered alien was stumbling away on its many thin legs. “Not that she would say. I’ve known Aileena for a long time. I’ve never seen her like this.”
“Like what?”
“I know you have less eyes, but you’re not that blind right?”
“I’m not sure what you’re on-” Michael winced. There was a pain in his head, an intense pressure building behind his eyes. He tried to stand, a choice that proved to be a mistake as his legs collapsed beneath him. Michael tumbled from the edge of the makeshift bar’s roof, crashing through a table below.
The sky seemed to thrum with sinister energy. It was dark, aside from flashes of crimson lightning that lanced across the horizon. Michael was floating slightly above the ground, or at least what he was assuming was the ground. It wasn’t dirt beneath his feet, instead, everything around him was a dull grey. The metal carried on for miles, a single flat plane as far as his eyes could see. Light was being cast from an orb hanging in the sky, a horrid scarlet thing. Michael could feel it looking at him, staring down at his hovering form.
He felt the world fall away beneath him, a chasm forming in the metal with a thunderous crack. He wasn’t falling. Instead, Michael could feel a pull upon him, dragging him beneath the surface into the darkness. As he shot downwards the black was interspersed with dots of red light. Eyes watching him.
A chamber came into focus, lit by hundreds of the glowing red lights. It seemed to go on forever, a vast unfathomable cavern. The room was covered in odd cylindrical objects. They were cast in the same dull grey metal as everything else, though they seemed to be arranged almost haphazardly, covering every surface. Even the ceiling of the room was dotted with them like stalactites. Michael could feel himself drifting towards one, its pull inexorable.
The cylinder was open, glowing from within with a sinister light. It was meant for him, he could tell, the opening beckoning him inside. He was getting closer now, flying across the chamber with incredible speed. The cylinder was calling him. As Michael floated inside, everything went dark.
He was somewhere else now. A city, fires burning all around him. Someone was running from him, a species he didn’t recognise. He turned his head to follow them, the red light pouring from his eye sweeping across the road. He fired a pulse forth, the runner turning to ash. They had already been indexed and taking them to the digestion vats was inefficient. Michael turned, metal legs pounding as he searched for another target.
His vision blurred and Michael found himself somewhere else. A line of collectors was arrayed before him, their bodies cracked open to reveal their captives inside. The bodies were motionless, wrapped tightly in metal tendrils. The collectors lifted their prey, hoisting them into the air before them. Michael reached out with his many arms, allowing the unconscious bodies to be dropped into his shimmering palms.
One by one each of them was placed into the tank on his back, the chemicals within beginning the process of breaking them down. His pumps whirred, draining the thick organic slurry that had already collected there, transferring it to his storage vats. They were nearly full, more than enough to birth another batch of collectors.
Michael felt a pain in his head, another ache collecting behind his eyes. He closed them, his vision fading to black.
Michael’s eyes hurt. The light above him was unbearably bright. He turned away instinctively and was surprised to find himself back aboard the Sword, resting on the hard table of the medical room. His back ached in a way that told him he had been lying there for a while.
“Ah good, you’re awake.” Kerbok was standing beside her patient. She was removing a pair of large rubber gloves. Michael didn’t ask why; he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer. “Took a bit of a tumble there. Cracked that rib again, it had only just set.”
“What happened to me?”
“Like I said, you fell.”
“No, I know that. What happened to me after?”
“Not sure what you mean? Your friend brought you back here and you’ve been unconscious on that table for the past day. I have no idea if that’s normal for your species after it’s taken a blow on the head. Not enough information, really.” Kerbok shrugged.
“For future reference, it’s not. It really isn’t. We’re not supposed to fall asleep after a hard knock. Or we’re not supposed to stay awake. Honestly, I’m not sure. Either way, it’s bad for us.”
“Noted.”
“No, I mean, when I was out, I saw things. I wasn’t here, not on Eden. I was… somewhere else.”
Kerbok slid a small wheeled table covered in vaguely threatening implements aside, sitting on the end of the larger table that was serving as a bed. “It’s not unusual for most species to have vivid dreams in such circumstances. Dreams are your brain’s way of filing away all the loose thoughts. They don’t mean anything. Think of it like you’re watching someone dig through a pile of paper, stuffing them into drawers and you’re just catching glimpses of the words on the pages.”
“No. No this wasn’t like this. I was someone else, somewhere with these… cylinders. Capsules. I went inside one, and when I did, I became a collector, gunning people down.”
“Not surprising considering your encounter on my world.”
“Then I was something else. Some kind of machine with dozens of arms. I was dunking people onto a tank on my back, it was full of I think acid. It was like I was digesting people.”
Kerbok’s orange skin shifted to a lighter tone, becoming almost peach in colour. “A digester. I’ve seen one. It’s what happens to the people the collectors deem worth taking, but not indexing. They break the captured down into the… substance, that runs inside the Unmind machines.”
“How would I know what one looks like? We never crossed paths with one on Purnax.”
“No, we didn’t.”
“I would assume this information has come from the nanobots, in some way.” The voice was Clive’s, the AI coalescing a body as he spoke. “It seems likely a place as any.”
“Should I be worried?” Michael didn’t like the idea of the tiny machines tampering with his mind.
“No, I don’t believe so.” Clive shook his head, the cloud of machines blurring for a moment as he did. “The stalemate within you is unchanged. This could be just an unfortunate side effect.”
“Yeah, unfortunate. Fucking catastrophic by my take. I’d rather not have these images in my mind.” Michael sat up, swinging his legs over the end of the table. “The faster we can get this stuff out, the better.”
Chapter Twenty-Six