My Friend the Worm

Chapter 14 The Machine

I woke to the faint creak of wheels rolling underneath me. First thing I noticed was that I was lying flat on my back and I was moving. It was very dark around me.

"H—hello?" I said.

"Oh, good! You're awake, Ash." It was Lola's voice, right next to me. "It's perfect timing actually." Turning my head, I could see her shadowed form walking alongside me.

I started to move my hands and fingers only to realize that I was strapped down on some kind of stretcher. "Why can't I move, Lola? What's going on?" I demanded, but my voice was apprehensive, without bite, without authority.

And who was pushing me? If Lola was beside me, that meant someone else was behind me. Some stranger who I couldn't see. I felt queasy.

Long crisscrossing streams of light began to appear overhead, like brightly glowing crucifixes, which allowed me to take in my surroundings. The shiny, black metal ceiling of the narrow corridor was high and curved.

Running along the wall was a staggered array of control panels with blinking lights and swirling icons on small glass screens. It was in a different language. It was all in rike. I was in a spaceship.

Panic set in. I pulled and tugged my arms and legs against my restraints, but to no avail. The cart underneath me sped up.

"You had a brain bleed," said Lola, ignoring my attempts to break free. "You were minutes away from death, but we healed you just in time. The only thing you'll have to remember it by is a fading bruise. I told you our technology is beyond anything you've ever seen. Now you can return the favor to the universe, to me, to everyone, and save billions of humans and scaypians."

With the addition of proper lighting in this corridor, I could see Lola clearly now as she walked briskly alongside me. Again, all I could do was turn my head to look at her because I was strapped down like a patient in an asylum. She stared straight ahead stoically as we made our way through the passage. She wore a black leather tank top; smoky gray makeup encircled her eyes; dark maroon lipstick adorned her lips. She looked like a rike.

In this moment, I wished I'd died in telepathy, drowned in the nothingness. I finally realized the scope of what I'd done by allowing Lola to save me. I had become the end of times of humanity. I experienced an uncontrollable wave of nausea. I dry heaved twice and the third time vomit shot out of my mouth, splattering my face. The rest of it spewed out, running over my lips and chin. I groaned, swallowing some of the bitter bile.

The gurney came to a halt.

"What's wrong Ash?" asked Lola, looking terrified as she hovered over me. "Are you okay?"

"I won't do it!" I shouted.

The terror in her face mutated into revulsion. She glowered at me and quit hovering over me. She went back to standing beside the gurney, her eyes on the path ahead.

"Get him to The Machine! Now!" Lola barked. I felt the cart shoot forward as the person behind me began pushing it again, but this time the gurney was moving twice as fast, and my body was being jostled about.

Not long after, the cart came to a jarring halt, and I heard an electric door whiz open. I was rolled in slowly at this point. I strained my neck so I could take in my surroundings.

The room was all metallic gray, but filled with enough light so I could see electronic equipment and thick wires running across the sides. My cart turned and I could see the main feature of the room—an enormous pod-shaped tomb that was metallic but partially transparent, lit up with an eerie purple glow. This enclosure was slightly raised on a platform, which had a conveyor belt table sticking out of it.