Space Dungeon D

2

"Snap out of it, sonny."

    Dirk examined himself to discover that his fatigues had been replaced with a powdery blue jumpsuit. His service pistol seemed to have been replaced with a plastic, toy laser gun—a conical tube-like device with a red spherical bauble at the pointy end, from where, he surmised, the imaginary laser beam was supposed to shoot out.

    What was going on? Where was his ship?

    "Your ship is just fine," said the voice, which had woke him. It was a deep, avuncular voice, one he felt compelled to trust without knowing why.

    "Where am I? what did you do with my uniform . . . and my gun?"

    "Me? I didn't do anything with your belongings. Although I am told that they will be safely returned to you—if you make it out of here."

    "Where is here?" Dirk said, frustrated.

    "I'm sure you have many questions. You will find answers in due time. First, however, I suggest you examine your surroundings."

    He was in a cell of some sort. Although, it was like no cell he'd before seen (not that he was an expert on cells; although, he had been to the drunk tank on more than one occasion, and he had, of course, seen movies). The walls of the cell were entirely white. There were no bars, nor was there a door of any kind, or at least none which he could readily identify. Instead, there was a window with—instead of glass—a blue plasmatic substance, which the window was just about big enough for him to squeeze himself through, should he need to. He reached out to touch the substance, but thought better and withdrew his hand. There was no telling how the substance would react to his bare hand.

    He then remembered what the voice had told him: examine the environs. He faced the window, nothing else on this wall. To his right was a blank wall as well. To his left, on the wall, however, was a little black box. It was positioned low on the wall so that he had to crouch in order to examine it. The box had fine vertical slats, under which appeared to be a speaker or a microphone or perhaps both. He examined the sides of the device and found one button on the right hand side. That was it. It was minimalist in design, Dirk concluded, admiringly. As was his cell; apart from the device and the window he could find no other objects or notable features of the place. He felt the walls with his fingertips; they squeaked as he dragged them down. The walls appeared to be made from a durable plastic.

    Sitting on the floor, which too appeared to be slick plastic, which his back to the wall, he pondered his options. He could press the button on the device and try and talk into it and see what happens, or he could try the window. He meditated on it for a while, ultimately settling on the window.

    He checked his pockets; there was nothing. All he had was the toy gun, holstered at his hip. He unholstered it and brought it over to the plasmatic window. He touched the plastic toy to it. He felt a strange force repelling the gun away from the glowing, blue substance. It felt much like the sensation felt when holding two identical magnet ends together. There appeared to be no damage to the gun. Next, he reached out his hand, this time touching it with his bare skin. To his surprise there was a cooling sensation as well as that familiar magnetic push.

    At first he was fascinated. He had never felt so strange a sensation before, but he soon grew distraught; seemingly he was trapped. Frustrated, he aimed the gun at the window, and made to pull the trigger.

    "I wouldn't do that," said a sharp, tinny voice. It was coming from the black box, which, Dick now concluded, was an intercom. "You'll blow us both up."

    Dirk rushed over to the intercom, pressed the button, "Hello, who's there?"

    "Just another hapless adventurer, like you." the tinny voice said.

    "Adventurer? What do you mean?"

    "You know where you are, don't you?"

    "Last thing I remember I was making a crash landing on a derelict battle cruiser, out in the heap, and now I'm here."

    "That's odd. I came here of my own volition—I have a thing for dungeons, I guess—but I got caught by a roboguard on floor three."

    "Dungeon?"

    "That is correct. You appear to have crash landed on Space Dungeon D—the final and most difficult of all the dungeons in the heap. How lucky."

    Dungeons . . . in the heap? He'd been with the force for five years now. He'd lost track of how many times he'd even been to the heap. Not once had he heard anything about a "dungeon", let alone a whole series of them, this one evidently, "D". He decided to play along for now.

    "Great. Never thought I'd end up here," he said.

    "And yet here you are." There was a long awkward silence.

    Dirk pushed the button again. "You mentioned that I shouldn't pull the trigger on this toy gun here—"

    "That's no toy."

    "You're kidding."

    "Afraid not," the tinny voice said. "I'd keep that thing holstered for now if I were you. We're going to need it, and you've only got so many shots before it runs out of power.

    "What's your name?" Dirk said, reaching for anything normal, any topic other than the situation at hand, for his head was spinning with all of the new information.

    "Joe," He said. "Yours?"

    "Colonel Dirk Comstock, Space Force. I was on a routine patrol of the Heap when some SECTION operatives ambushed us, jammed our signal. I had to do an emergency landing and, well, you heard what happened; we crashed."

    "I'm sorry to hear that," Joe said. More silence. Dirk bit his finger nails, bored. He sat there, making small incisions into the corner of his nail, and then tore the white of the nail off like opening a package of beef jerky. It occurred to him now that he was hungry. He had provisions in his ship, but. . . .

     After some time had passed, Joe continued:

    "Can I ask you a question?"

    "Shoot."

    "It's just, you said there were more of you?"