Glancing
outside the carriage Darren spies only a tall sliver and mostly
featureless building looming over him. He would have to look for
landmarks or anything distinctive beyond this place. The thug coughs
and pulls him back to his seat by the shoulder. Darren sees the
bruiser has for some reason equipped a pair of tight fitting science
goggles over his eyes. The reason quickly becomes apparent as the
thug sprays a small canister of wet vapour into Darren's eyes which
alarmingly begins to sharply sting rendering Darren incapable of
opening his eyes.
He is
promptly shoved out of the train carriage and falls flat on his face.
Without a word, someone, presumably the thug, lifts him up by the
back of his shirt and starts dragging him into the building. Darren
furiously rubs his eyelids trying to remove the stinging mist but
despite feeling the moisture transfer slightly to his fingertips it
does nothing to alleviate the pain and inability to open his eyes.
For the
next several minutes Darren is blindly thrown around by an uncertain
amount of people with the sound of footsteps clearly entering and
exiting rooms but no one saying anything distinctly audible to one
another beyond murmurs. Eventually he is relatively settled by being
slammed onto some kind of table, his muddy shoes removed and a voice
is finally heard.
“Welcome
Earthling, you have been chosen as a pet for your galactic overlords,
but first you must be cleansed via deep body probing.”
“Gym how
many times do we have to go over this? Don't mentally torture the
test subjects...It makes the physical torture much harder to
maintain.”
“Sorry.”
Darren
feels his arms and legs pulled away and placed into tight, cold metal
clamps. Something pokes him in both eyes simultaneously and Darren is
struck with the realisation his eyes have been open this entire time.
The acidic assault of the thug's spray has completely robbed him of
sight leaving him in pitch blackness with his eyelids completely
numb.
Darren
takes a deep breath and then clenches his teeth together. He tries to
think rationally but his deductions feel anything but calming. He's
blind, stuck to a table and surrounded by at least two people who may
or may not be aliens. Darren is quickly overcome with panic.
“Please
don't kill me!” He squeals. Today was already a low point for
dignity but if he could just somehow survive he wouldn't care so
much. It's one thing to die scared but to die confused feels
especially uncomfortable and frankly unfair at this point.
“Oh
fannycrackers. What did I tell you? Huh? You want to waste another
one 'cos he dies of shock? Do you?”
“No.”
“No?
Then stop being such a flannelwanking brain-cavity every time we get
a live one.”
“Sorry,
Gluke.”
“Don't
apologise to me, apologise to the potential biomods you pissed away
for a joke.”
“Yer
gonna want to quit fuckin' about. This 'un's priority efficiency and
precision.” The larger words sound clumsy and distasteful in the
man's mouth and Darren feels fairly certain that the voice is that of
the thug from the train carriage. These people probably aren't aliens
then unless extra-terrestrial life is as prone to bickering as we
are. Darren ponders that he can't really be certain of anything
anymore in this new time and a wave of icy futility washes over him.
“What's
so special about this one?” Asks the voice identified as
Gluke.
“Pretty
shoddy scientists if yer ain't worked it out yet...Genuine samples
ain't it.” chides the thug. There is a pause and Darren feels
something prod him in the shoulder and torso.
“You
mean this is actual pre-famine cocoa substance?” whispers Gluke.
“Yep.
Highest up wants it contained, studied, all that shit, without
fault.” There is another pause where Gluke makes some illiterate
dumbfounded stutters before finding a full sentence. He slams a hand
on the table next to Darren and a collection of things bounce from
the impact with a clattering metallic sound.
“Well
colonise my bollocks Wentworth! When were you planning to tell me
this?”
“Figured
yerd 'av got it by now to be honest.”
“Well
no! I'd assumed it was faeces. You know, because all you ever bring
us are homeless or crazy people!”
“Well
yer got the real thing now so get going an' don't fuck it up.”
Gluke audibly sighs and sounds as though he starts to storm out of
the room. Darren hears a door swing open.
“I need
a fucking coffee. Gym, prep the anaesthetics, cell manipulants, laser
scalpel and steam capsules, do NOT bloody talk to the subject any
more...Mr Wentworth, Mr Jams, before I start this very delicate but
potentially historic surgical procedure I just want to take a moment
and say that I thoroughly despise both of you and always have.” The
door swings shut and Gluke's footsteps trail off down a hallway.
The room
is mostly quiet as presumably Gym fiddles with some utensils on a
metallic tray and the thug or “Wentworth” as appears to be his
name, stands motionless and silent. Darren panics at the thought of
being pulled apart by mad scientist surgeons but mentally writhes in
anguish at the impossibility of blindly escaping metal clamps on his
limbs, Wentworth's Gorilla arms and the building in general. How is
it that something so extraordinary as time-travel befalls him and
then almost immediately his life comes to an end.
Darren's
head throbs with the overwhelming stress of his imminent demise.
There is absolutely no way out and he can't understand or even see
what's going on. If this were a film some miraculous happenstance
would carry him out of this nightmare. The stinging in his eyes has
faded somewhat only to be replaced by a deafening ringing in his
ears.
It's
a strange kind of ringing in that it's not overly high pitched or
confined to the background, it sounds very much like a mobile phone
ringing directly in his ear but seemingly Gym or Wentworth are
completely oblivious to the noise so it must be only in his mind.
Darren reconsiders the sound. If I'm about to die anyway I suppose
nothing I do matters anymore.
“Hello?”
To Darren's surprise the ringing noise abruptly stops, and a rich and
deep, yet oddly familiar voice reverberates within his head.
“Hello
Darren. Do you know who this is?” Darren blinks in bafflement and
uselessly turns his head to look at where he believes Gym and
Wentworth to be standing. There is still practically no noise from
either of them apart from the tinkering of medical equipment from
Gym. Darren concedes he is finally going insane and hearing
responding voices in his head.
“No I
don't know who this is.”
“Yes,
I've been looking for you Darren. I don't know if you're ready to see
what I have to show you but unfortunately you and I have run out of
time. They're coming for you Darren and I don't know what they're
going to do.”
Darren
bitterly responds to his lunacy voice, irked by the strange
familiarity of it.
“They're
not coming for me, they've already got me and I don't think I'm going
to see anything ever again regardless of if I'm ready.”
“Hmph,
better hurry this up, he's goin' off the deep end.” Growls
Wentworth at Gym who doesn't respond, perhaps out of fear but
continues assembling or assorting equipment and utensils.
“Stand
up and see for yourself.” continues the mental voice.
“I can't
stand up or see.”
The voice
no longer responds but Darren subconsciously or perhaps even
involuntarily twitches his wrists and finds them startlingly loose in
the metal clamps. He had heard no definitive clack as the clamps had
made when being locked to suggest they were now unlocked. Moving his
hand upwards, it seems they were not in fact unlocked but his hands
and feet could slide through their grip, previously thought to be
absolute and unbreakable.
Darren had
attempted to only wiggle his hands and feet to subtly test if he was
genuinely free or simply suffering another mad fabrication.
Unfortunately his extremities were far enough from the restraints
that the burrowing gaze of Wentworth had noticed.
“How tha
fuck?” Wentworth takes an audible step towards the table. Darren
scrambles to get his limbs in order then pushes himself off the table
and bolts towards where he thinks he heard the swinging of the doors
that Gluke left through.
Feeling
the slap of the doors in his face but mercifully pushing them open as
he passes, Darren collides swiftly with a flat wall outside the room.
“Go
right.” The mysterious mental voice returns but Darren decides to
spend no time questioning it and sprints off to the right as the
heavy thud of Wentworth's boots chase after him.
“Now
left.” Darren skids and slips trying to change direction in his
socks but fortuitously avoids colliding with anything or anyone.
“Now
left again, you'll hit a door, keep running until you hit a wall.”
Darren blindly follows the voice's instructions both figuratively and
literally until stubbing his toes and smacking his head on the far
wall of another corridor. He seemed to have passed one or two people
but he can't be sure and they made no attempt to grab him. Despite
this Gym and Wentworth's footsteps quickly grow in volume as they
catch up to him.
“Now say
Sub-Parking Floor.”
“What's
a sub-parking floor?” Mechanical doors whir shut behind him and the
sensation of descent tells Darren he's somehow escaped to an
elevator. A moment later and a cold gust of fresh air swoops into the
opening doors and something grabs him and pulls him out of the
elevator. A different but also familiar voice speaks in hoarse tones
as they continue pulling him somewhere seemingly outside the
building.
“Hello
Darren, do you know who this is?”
“Myriad?
But how the hell did you get, find me, what the, who was that other
guy?”
“That
was Laurence Fishburne. Now quickly follow me and pretend you're not
blind and have shoes.” Darren makes a noise only describable as a
verbal brain aneurysm.
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