Super Spaced Out

You're An Unthinking Emotionless Doll And I Hate You

Quiet cushioned Lily's ears like she wore muffs. Steps echoed in the black space. How big was this place? Light from the workshop stretched in a long rectangle over the ground. A strong metallic scent mixed with oil and chemicals twitched her nostrils. She wandered deeper inside and strained her ears. Was that bubbling in the distance and creaking overhead? And there. Just there. Was there a faint green phosphorescence fighting the gloom?

"Quit dawdling, Abadie. The overhead controls are probably on the wall near this entrance which is getting very heavy."

A few hasty steps brought Lily back to the entrance. She went right, trailing her hand up and down the wall, then left when she didn't feel any switches or buttons. Fingers tripped on a solid, plastic mass. Felt like switches. She flipped them. Light followed three loud clicks. Brows raised and her eyes widened. Ringing filled her ears. Lips ovalled around a scream she couldn't scream. A tiny croak came from her mouth.

"What the hell is this?" Vortrand looked aloft as he stepped fully into the massive chamber and lowered the door. The retractable door caught again on the bolt which prevented it from locking in place.

Forms hung from the ceiling. Bodies. They swayed from clinking, creaking chains. Arms and limbs and heads drooped. They were all either unconscious or dead.

"Oh, God," Lily whispered into her hands.

Vortrand whistled as he came to her side. "That had to take a long time. Incredible work."

Reeling, Lily made a face at him. "Incredible? Seriously? This is...horrifying. All these people. Hersch is a monster."

Laughter rang out in the chamber. The captain's voice bounced off the stone walls. "Abadie, those aren't people. Look." A hand dropped on top of her head and turned her toward one of the far walls where more bodies and body parts hung. They were metal. Frayed wires twisted from the severed end of an arm or thigh. Various heads and jaw and eye pieces littered a worktable near them. Lily heaved out a sigh and relaxed. Robots. Doctor Hersch was, she guessed, a bit of a fanatic.

"Looks like there's another room over that way." Vortrand headed for the far end of the bot-house. "Keep moving."

Lily meandered through this second, weirder, workshop. Yes, robots, mechanical constructs, hung above them, but she got the creeps if she looked up. Large glass tubes, big enough to hold a person or two, with thick metal bases, lined the wall to her left. Tubing snaked from the rear of each cylinder and curled around the bases. There were control boxes on each of them, too. Lips scrunched. Vortrand wouldn't want to stop to explore. The captain was almost all the way across the room already.

The space tapered where Vortrand tread. Sweating pipes and tubes formed an intestinal canopy overhead. Condensate dripped from the tangled mass onto the floor. Lily's foot slapped in a silver puddle. A pipe near her head hissed a blast of white vapor. Shrieking, she shielded herself with her arms.

"It's just coolant." Vortrand linked one of his arms through Lily's and escorted her through a short small tunnel formed of all the tubes and pipes. This was the source of the green glow. The bubbling too. Fluorescent green liquid shunted through clear tubes intertwined with the steel and brass pipes and rubber hose. Clusters of white bubbles belched into the fluid. Vortrand trailed his hand along the sweating glass then rubbed his fingertips together.