Breathe, Unit #431504105.
Breathe.
[End of flashback]
Pilot’s chest propelled from a tank of gluey bio-ooze, his arms blindly flailing in an instinctive attempt to avoid drowning. An abrupt pain in the right wrist signaled the synapses to latch fingers onto a cool rim of the silver bathtub. Male pulled himself over to an edge, then forced residual mucus out of lungs in a series of four sharp, painful coughs. Chunks of yellow discharge soiled sterile tiles of the isolated medical bay. Wide, flawlessly engineered shoulders of the spartan figure were lustering in a dim glaze of a cold lab light emitted by an aligned array of fluorescent tubes. The outwardly potent torso was shivering like an abandoned puppy in the rain.
“Aa-ttt-a-ll-a… t-to-ww-e-lll.”
…
…
No response.
…
Dead silence was astronaut’s only companion.
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An obsidian monolith.
An isolated skyscraper so tall that it made an impression of being closer to a starlit firmament than to an emerald-grey coat of gaseous giant below. A red supergiant sun shone brightly, bathing uniform walls of tower in crimson beams of ominous glare. Curly staircase guided a wanderer along its smooth structure, furtively enticing an unmindful client to rest fingers on its round curves in an act parallel to a nubile courtesan, a prodigy fresh out of Khazan academy of erotic arts.
A stash.
Image of pilgrim’s sleek gloves was reflected in a polished surface of an umbral mirror.
Gentle push.
Four lines of sapphire light interconnected and scanned a long-lost customer, then faded without a trace like their existence was only an illusion. A square section of scratchless marble retracted into an abyss of the dark. Infinite limbo stared at visor of a voyager, filling his mind with an uncanny, eldritch feeling of being examined by an unnatural entity out of our plane of existence.
I still get chills down my spine after seeing ‘The Eye’…
…everyone in Krotian guild of thieves mocked me after uncovering it was simply a safety mechanism…
…good days of dishonorable past.
A fist-sized orb exited a hole. Six coarse oval plates adorned the object, tightly clinging to its sides. A gap twin to a ribbed cylinder ran through its poles, revealing strips of electric blue storage cells which warned its holder to tread carefully with a continuous alarming buzz.
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Only one?
…
Right. I recall it now. Two lives remaining.
(…)
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Listing equipment…
(…)
An unstained, nano-thin mantle of velvet nanofiber coated a flat top of spire like a bride’s veil. Silken cloth rustled in the wind against scarlet dawn, glimmering in the entire spectrum of magenta. Wandered ran his fingers over an elongated white gown, letting himself succumb to memories of past…
[ --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ]
A slap.
“Don’t stain a robe of her majesty with your dirty hands, kid!”
A sky shrouded under a fluctuating golden dome.
Blurred images of oriental stalls rapidly shifting, like pictures in a kaleidoscope.
People.
The pungent odor of luxurious perfumes mixed with a common sweat.
People.
Hatred.
…
Nostalgia.
…
Yearning.
…
Sharp pull. Aching wrist.
A strong gust of refreshing summer wind.
Her metallic smell.
…
[ --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ]
A statue of grey granite encompassed by ruffling milky dunes. She rested motionless, in a lotus position, her wavy hair carved in stone and face concealed beneath a blank mask. A trillion years old enigma. Pilgrim bowed deeply, giving his uttermost honors in a manner adequate to a mediating prince.
“Lady.”
Her head rotated by ninety degrees in a fluid yet mechanical motion, like its neck was supported by a steel sphere held in a polished socket. An echoing shockwave of resonating melody smoothened white folds of a gown.
“Glad to see you, Daichi. What troubles you, my son?”
Daichi straightened, continuing a rendezvous at stars.
“Forgive me a bold inquiry, but did he visit you, Lady?”
“No.”
“I understand. That was everything.”
Lady’s head returned to a default position. An act of straightforward meaning – Goodbye. Wanderer obtained all the information that he came for. A confirmation of pointless conversation. A caring voice asked softly as he turned to abandon the place.
“How is Atala?”
But he didn’t respond.
A machine concerned about a machine.
When did it learn to feel?
He could only leave.
She could only sing.
Forgotten verses haunted the voyager, his heart and soul dictated to run… and never look back.
“A black butterfly…”
“…dancing high in the sky…”