Out of Time - Ryan Matthew Harker (short books to read TXT) 📗

of very impressive technology, or so I’d thought until now. A spectacular foyer, huge beyond any I’ve ever encountered, greets us like the mouth of a large cave system. I’m not agoraphobic but spelunking this building jangles my nerves like nothing before. Intense phosphor lighting illuminates the air with a peculiar, bright glow; almost alive it pulsates throughout this cavernous foyer. Banks of terminals of various sizes and shapes blink and blip at us, a cacophonous symphony of lights and sounds. What their jobs are I can only begin to wonder as my escort ushers me across a broad expanse of floor to a row of elevators.

We stroll up to the elevators and Wolfman presses a call button. I only have a short while to continue marveling at the room about me as it takes but a moment for a set of doors to slide open in front of us. Once inside Wolfman again hits another button, one out of many that I can only surmise is going to send our car rocketing towards the top of the tower, or near it. The elevator lurches into motion and I get the feeling that we’re moving at a fair rate of speed as we make our ascent. After an indeterminable amount of time the car stops as suddenly as it started. The doors open and we escape the elevator into a long dim hall with an open door of bright, white at its terminus. The light at the end of the tunnel, I grimly observe.

My brain screams against the impending sense of doom that threatens to overwhelm me and I feel my adrenaline and endorphins slipping towards fight or flight mode. Am I really just going to sit idly by and let these pompous aliens dissect my brain, alter my personality and by proxy my awareness of reality as I know it? what other choice do I have though? Panic begins setting in as I feel the moment of truth wheeling ever closer. Don’t panic, think logically, I’ve been in worse scrapes than this. Or have I? The door of light looms in front of me. We’re only about ten paces from it and its brilliance grows all the more intense while my nerves grow relatively more tense. I want to do something, anything, but all I’m capable of is planting one foot firmly in front of the other, treading down this dreadful path of destruction.

The trancelike momentum of this zombie fugue state that grips me tight in its terrifying clutches carries me over the threshold, from the dim hall into the bright light. I involuntarily shut my eyes against the glare, walking blind for a few paces, and then open them again, just in time before stumbling into Wolfman’s still figure. I stop as well and note that despite how bright the light appeared from the hall, since transitioning past the portal it is now fixed at a tolerable level with no major adjustments necessary by my pupils to see clearly. I almost wish the light was still blinding me because what I’m now seeing does absolutely nothing to reassure me of the benign nature of this room, or my captors.

The room at the top of the tower is enormous. Three of its walls are floor to ceiling glass panels. I’m not ready to inspect the monstrous device that sits in the room’s center yet, in fact my eyes unconsciously refuse to even look at it, so I wander over to the thick glass to experience what I know must be a once in a lifetime view of the Martian landscape. Nor am I wrong in my assumption. I reach the windows and stare in stunned wonder and awe. Though where we are in the tower’s eerie is above the clouds, directly in front of me the wispy red stratus has parted as if by Moses himself giving me an almost uninterrupted view for what appears to be hundreds of miles. My lungs stall, yet I feel no discomfort at the lapse of oxygen to my system. Wow, if only I’d be able to carry this memory with me once I’m free of this unholy place. Far below the forest is tiny, no more than a mossy layer across the land, it extends for miles and miles and miles. Really, it’s hard to tell for from this height distance take on an entirely different dimension. But eventually the forest ends and I can see an orange and red plain stretch from its grasp until it too eventually ends at the border of a city, its features lost to my sight, blurred by the great distance. I only wish I had known what was in store for me up here, I would have brought a pair of binoculars.

My reverie is broken by Wolfman’s voice and I draw in a stuttering breath. “Come, Mr. Jones, the hour is at hand.” Emotionless there’s nothing sinister in his tone but I shiver none-the-less and goose bumps erupt all along my arms. Regretfully I turn from the divine vista to face him, his brethren, and the machine.

“I can feel your hesitation, Mr. Jones, but I assure you the procedure you’re about to undergo is completely safe, and painless,” Wolfman tells me.

I look past Wolfman to the chair that sits in the center of the room. I sure don’t feel assured.

I call it a chair because it obviously has a seat, and a back rest, but it doesn’t look comfortable, like a place I’d want to spend my Sundays watching football. It’s a diabolical looking machine. The chair part of it sits embedded in its center, elevated off the ground by about two feet. It’s made of what, at first glance, appears to be Swiss cheesed stainless and is accompanied by two matching armrests with adjustable leather manacle straps in the vicinity of where a person’s wrists would rest. Larger straps of the same type are situated under the seat where a person’s ankles would be. This isn’t the diabolical part. The machine itself is a sterile metal affair. Two long arms with a various array of hypodermics protruding from their ends dandle like octopus arms from either side of the chairs headrest. Another set juts from behind opposite sides of the lower backrest, these two are armed with scalpels, what looks like a skull saw, and at least three dozen suction tubes and miniature cameras of differing sizes.

Wolfman doesn’t really expect me to seat myself willingly into this torture contraption, does he?

But in the end I do go willingly and as Wolfman’s fellows are strapping me securely into position I wonder for the first time if, along with being telepathic, Wolfman is also capable of manipulating my mind. I look to his eyes and knowing he must be reading my thoughts notice his pupils dilate slightly, though this is the only change in his composure. It’s enough though and I believe it may very well be the case and would certainly explain my docility throughout our recent aquantience. I’ve never gone so easily into such obvious danger and impending doom in my life.

As the last strap is cinched I hear Wolfman whisper soothingly, “Now just remember this won’t hurt a bit.”

I almost believe him.

I hear the machine start up with a distinct whine and a mellow hum which almost immediately turns into a shudder. My heart doesn’t even skip a beat and I try to turn my head but find that my body has become somehow immobilized. I don’t really care though. A peaceful, easy feeling settles over me and I grow relaxed in my seat. Hmm, sedatives? That would explain the slight pinch I felt in my neck. The shudder I felt was probably the needle arm lowering down and around. Interesting, I hear the far off voice of my mind observe. I wonder how long this is going to take. Should I get in touch with Stacey when I get back. Yeah, I think I will. Man, it’s been a long time since I thought of her. I wonder how she’s been for all these years? Not that it’ll matter, I guess, being back in my own time no time will have past for her. Crazy, maybe I’ll take her...

My drugged interlocution is suddenly interrupted by a very loud ‘BOOM!!’. Wolfman and the wolfmen yell and scream in different degrees. I feel the chair skew to the left as my restraints bite into my ankles and wrists. Someone’s giggling loudly in my ears and I realize it’s me. Wow, whatever they injected me with is awesome. I feels as if a war is going on around me. It sounds like one too as more booms and ratta-tat-tats ring in my ears along with my giggling. Is that my AR? It sounds like my AR. Then there’s a more powerful explosion. I and the chair are airborne. We hit the ground and I’m thrown free to fly through the air again. I land somewhere in what may be a corner. I’m not sure as the world’s going dark around the edges.

The last thing I see as I lose consciousness is Sammi kneeling next to me. I can’t hear right and, trying to read her lips, it looks like she’s asking me if I’m all right. I try to shake my head no, but it’s too much of an effort and I pass out.

Consciousness comes slowly. I fight it, and for a while I succeed, but eventually the light of where ever I am bleeds through my eyelids and forces me to acknowledge my wakefulness. I’m not ready to get up. I attempt to shift my position in a very soft, comfortable bed and my muscles scream their protest while every bone in my body aches as if they’d been repeatedly abused with riot batons. Oooh, what happened? Where am I? These questions barely have time to take shape when my subconscious coughs up the answer to the first one. Sammi, Sammi rescued me from Wolfman and the chair. Well, one down, one to go. The answer to the first just begs the second to be asked once more; where am I? If I’m with Sammi I’m sure all shall be answered before long. I don’t even open my eyes, I’ve woken too many times alone in strange rooms. Nope, with a moan and a groan I snuggle back down into the softness of my mattress, pull the blanket over my head and close around me, and go back to sleep.

 

 

“Wake Up!”

...

“Davey, Wake Up!’

... ...

“Davey, please, Wake Up!”

... ... ...

“Please, please, Wake Up, Davey!!”

... ... ... ...

The voice keeps yelling at me from a long way away. Muffled, as if coming from down a long underwater corridor, I perceive urgency in its summons. I’m groggy though, and the voice sounds, a little familiar, but mostly unreal, as if I’m imagining it. I must be dreaming.

“Goddamn it, Davey! WAKE UP!”

I’m being shaken. I can feel it, it’s real. So I guess the voice is real too. With great effort and command of will I open my eyes to slits, only to hurriedly squint them shut again.

“That’s right, Davey, wake up!” the voice repeats. The urgency is still there but it doesn’t yell at me this time and I can hear it clearer.

“Sammi?” I mumble and attempt to prop my eyelids apart once more.

This time I’m marginally more successful. My eyes are only slits but at least this time they stay open. Sammi’s sandy brown locks and angelic face swim into view. She’s smiling down at me but I can tell behind her happiness is a load of worry.

“What’s going on?” I ask. “Where are we?”

“There’s time for that after we escape,” she informs me. “First let’s get you out of this machine!”

“What?” I ask, surprised and not yet fully awake or coherent. “I am free of the machine. I thought we already escaped?”

“No, Davey, that wasn’t real.”

I shake my head, trying to clear the cobwebs from