Assorted Ancient Texts

Sector 23 - Part II

The walls slowly morph into the straight, geometrical flat panels they are supposed to be as the lighting dims and the floor stops boiling like water in a kettle. The metallic thumping of his heartbeat slows below 840 beats per minute as his eyes slowly open. The light on the ceiling of the small bathroom stall stabs his eyes like a red-hot iron rod, causing a sharp gasp of air to fill his lungs as his eyes squeeze shut again. An involuntary action of raising his hand over his eyes causes a scream of pain as his arm is tugged from below the skin. He looks over to his arm and notices that there are three tubes leading into his arm and delivering some kind of blue, opaque liquid through needles. One needle is embedded in the top of his wrist, the other the top of his forearm, and the last through his bicep on the front of his arm. His other arm is free, which he uses to shade his eyes as he traces the tubes with his eyes. Sitting up, he finds the tube's source: a small suitcase in the corner of the bathroom stall. He tries to stand, but the length of the tubing makes that impossible without severing something painfully. Not only that, but his knees give way and he falls flat on his face. Smashing his nose is painless, but he can feel the blood run down his sweaty face. The light flickers as he crawls frantically for the suitcase, his fear of needles sinking in. Before he can crawl a single step, however, the walls rapidly morph into different blobs and shapes as the floor again fluctuates into boiling water. He looks down at the tubes and sees that the blue liquid is glowing, causing his arm to become brightly illuminated from inside. Through his semi-translucent skin, he can see the veins in his arm mutate and form branches as they spread out and engulf the insides of his appendage, wrapping around the black shadow of his bone. A scream of intense pain and fear echoes in the small tiled room.

I enter the coffee shop and look around at the busy environment. The dull, dirty walls with no windows surround the full tables of customers enjoying their drinks. I walk to the counter and order my drink, tapping my paycard to the LCD display of a countertop. I grab my drink and turn around, looking for my informant in the loud diner-sized shop.

The walls form into pencil-thin tendrils and reach out at his head, puncturing his skull and stabbing directly into his brain. He screams in agony as a bright light engulfs him and the morphing room. Words echo in the hollow tunnel of pain and mindspace, forming complete sentences as the environment around him shifts.

"These images are over 200 years old." my informant says without emotion. My ears grow hot and it sounds like I'm listening to the café through a muted seashell. A few seconds later the entire café becomes silent. Everyone continues to talk and fight over topics in the shop, but now they do so without a sound. I look around at all the unfamiliar faces talking while I sit in the uncomfortable, warm metal chair. An ear-piercing scream explodes through the silence like a gunshot. I blink reflexively and all the people instantly morph.

The people are morphed into the walls of the bathroom stall. Their faces scream at him in agony, laughter, and sadness at the same time. He looks at the faces and then at the glowing tubes in his arm. The blue liquid pulses brightly as pain engulfs him once more, thrusting him out of this reality.

I pick the thumbdrive off my desk and look at it for a moment, remembering Mark's sacrifice for the information held on it. I thrust the thumbdrive into my pocket and lift my cheap mattress off the metal bedframe, grabbing my handgun from its hiding place. I stuff the gun, a wallet, and a passport for one fictional Walter Matthews into a small runner's backpack. I put on the backpack and pull the thin cords, tightening it against my back. I take one last look at the empty apartment before opening the door and closing it behind me as I stride through.

The walls' tendrils pull out of his head and wrap around his arms and legs, picking him up off the ground as he starts to regain consciousness. He opens his eyes to the stinging light on the ceiling and sees a large tendril directly in front of his face. The tendril separates into hundreds of wires and then thrusts into his forehead, his temples, and his neck. He feels the sensation air rushing past as he closes his eyes tightly.

They yell in a foreign language as they run after me through the street market in the shadow of dirty buildings. With my runner's backpack tightly strapped to my back, my precious cargo isn't going anywhere without me. One of my pursuers pulls out a handgun and fires wildly in my direction. I turn sharply left into an alley as bullets whiz by and impact the nearby wooden support posts of a small produce booth, raining splinters and dust around the booth. Everyone in the street market bolts in every direction as my pursuers turn into the alley and continue to fire at me. I make a left into a cross-alley, then a right, then a left again as I follow a pre-determined path. I turn right once more and sprint for the dead-end wall. A small wooden crate is turned on its side only a yard from the end of the alley. I sprint even faster, straining my legs as the walls rush past. I can feel my heart pounding in my chest as I jump, firmly stomping the crate and changing the direction of my momentum upward. I catch the top of the alley wall with my left arm and vault over in a fluid motion as gunshots echo through the alley. Bullets punch into the concrete wall behind me with loud thumps, abruptly stopping their path through the air. I fall and roll on the ground to absorb the shock of landing.

The sensation of rolling causes him to jolt awake, the tendrils still planted inside his head and neck. He grabs the tendrils in his forehead and pulls them out, screaming in pain as they retract from his skull.

"The process should take an hour, tops. But why do you want it, man, it's never been tested on humans and-"

I grab the small parcel out of his hands and shove a wad of bills in its place, "Shut up. I didn't hire you to tell me shit, I hired you to give it to me no questions asked. Now get the fuck out of here."

The scared teenager nods and quickly strides out of the alley as I put the device in my suitcase. I check my watch, 21:13, and then walk out of the alley and head for the nearest fast food restaurant. I enter the bathroom and sit down, taking the parcel out of the suitcase and tearing off the packaging. Inside is a small soda-can sized container of blue liquid with three IV needles and tubes wrapped around it.

"Here we go..."

I open my eyes. I'm lying on the dirty tiles of the bathroom floor. I sit up and hunch over as I open my mouth, gagging as the thick accumulation of saliva on the back of my neck dribbles out and onto the floor. The liquid pools in front of me. I haven't breathed in at least half an hour, and cough on more slime on the back of my neck as I gasp for fresh air. The sensation of cold, refreshing oxygen resuming its place in my lungs is gratifying. I reach over to my arm and twist the releases on the IV's, slowly pulling their inch-long needles out of my arm. It hurts, but I ignore the pain. Wrapping the empty tubes around the container, I close the suitcase with a snap of the locks. I observe my arm, rubbing the IV marks thoughtfully. It worked.

The definition of luck.