The train pulled into its final terminal at the bottom rear of the ship. The abrasive crust of corroded metal on the tracks could be felt during the descent as turbulence rattled the pill shaped train cars, like a single file line of overinflated slugs. The red light was rendered insignificant without visible structure to paint it’s light on in sight. The Car sized cylinder light fixtures attached to the ceiling, some decent distance away from the train rail, poured their light into the large breach of darkness, the reach it’s faint glimmering spears of red, we cut short, apprehended by the assimilation of shadow, making them look like more of a dome of red spikes rather than an actual light source. This station was dark empty, it’s rusted-brown, gaping-mouthed-metal, open air station seemed to be floating in the blackness of space, even the train seemed like a foreign entity there. Geoffrey gazed about outside the train cabin, with an apprehensive uncertainty. “Is this the real fucking place?“ Thinking he should be more relieved to reach his destination. The train dinged announcing it had arrived at its destination. A red text scrolled past on a black thin strip of monitor above the door “Septic and Sanitation Headquarters”. This was it He guessed, even after double checking with his data terminal armband that ran form his wrist halfway to his elbow. He stepped out of the dingy yellow light, that felt almost cozy, as he left. Noticing the relief he felt of fresh air on his face, and back into his lungs again, the peculiar taste and smell of petroleum seemed insignificant now, compared to the feeling of being suffocated by a damp sock over his head.
The metal grate floor rattled a little more than he liked as he steeped out on to it, even his sharp eyes could barely distinguish the holes from the metal itself. It was dark burgundy with a faint red gleam that could only be seen at a certain angle, that seemed move with him as he did, which he monitored closely to make sure he was still walking on a platform, instead of plunging into the abyss below. Deep below him he could the surface of an ocean that could go on forever and perhaps take up the whole width of the ship, with the same red glint, that seemed to flicker as the waves splashed below him. “God only knows what that sauce is made of!” And he did not want to die finding out. He waked along the metal caged hallway from the platform that, without it’s roof, would look more like it helicopter’s landing pad. He could feel some sway with the platform that was more than just his footsteps, like it was anchored to a skyscraper designed to sway under a current of wind, but in this case the the current was the slosh of the murk below. He trekked along the skeleton of a bridge toward a burning white flare to eyes adapted to darkness. “This better be where I’m supposed to go.” He thought and not some postulating antics throwing him into the control group of some hair brained experiment.
He made his way to a massive building that seemed like some infinitely tall hotel, surrounded by a brief reprieve from the surrounding darkness that was a flat plane of asphalt. A parking lot that would never see cars , perhaps to give a comforting illusion of living on the earth still, that was probably just a loitering lot. Near the entrance of the building was a small plaza of rounded bricks orbited by patches of fake grass with plotted trees, that looked spliced with a Fly Agaric mushroom, with it’s red bark and swirling white blotches that looked like several layered streaks of paint. They wrapped themselves around light posts, feeding on the secondhand light, generated somewhere from within it’s spongy looking leaves tangled with jousting spear-like thorns forming their mushroom cloud shaped foliage. He approached the brick walkway clearing in front of the wide glass windowed entrance of the building. He could now read the giant steel letters, no longer hidden by the blinding glare, just above the entrance that looked like would be more for an old cinema building, that read “Outrigger Junction Estates”. “’Estates’ seems like pretty generous word. More like slave cubicles.” he thought upon investigating the exterior of the building above, noticing the windows between units, some of which had been rotted out of existence like a tooth with a nefariously intervened neglect of hygiene, looked nearly conjoined from a distance. The automatic sliding glass doors invited him in as he approached. The brightness of the light seemed to dull to a less abrasive light of a fairly mundane hotel lobby with a light gray aesthetic, a counter for vats heated coffee, and recreation lounge area, that he fantasized about into diving face first into the cushions of.
“Hey, there what brings you here?” A security guard behind the front desk asked who’s face was barley poking over from his chair.
“Special mission I guess, from the command deck. This is Septic and Sanitation?”
“Yeah, that’s this level! Where you headed? Give me your I.D. I authenticate a lift pass.”
He flipped out a badge from somewhere underneath his jacket draped around his waist, with some reluctance to relinquish it, he handed it to him between his pointer and index finger, a lingering bodily habit of having smoked for 3 years. “My mission report said to head here, then to transit down to Chassis Town.”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“Damn! You look so young in this photo, You’re an officer?!” Remarked the guard upon inspecting his ID photo, that was take when Geoffrey was 18, even though he looked like a frail as a rail 15 years old, In his own opinion.
“Yeah, complete annihilation of one’s state has that effect on a fellow.” Said Geoffrey, subtly letting him know there was more to his story than the fresh faced prodigy kid on his ID, that was perhaps less savory that the average person would even want to hear about. But no one aboard the Mordant Despair could be wholeheartedly average.
“Oh … Yeah I’m sorry, I’ve come across a lot of people that come from a similar place. Which was it if you don’t mind me asking? New Mexico , or Texas?”
Both of them already knew he was going to say “Texas”, based on Geoffrey’s attitude, but secretly he the guard had hoped for New Mexico.
“Yeah, it Was Texas.” He said, telling him the opposite of what he wanted to hear.
“Shit man, Sorry to hear that! Texas go hit hard, didn't get the time to evacuate that New Mexico did.”
“Nope, defiantly did not. Guess that whole ‘Impenetrable Front Line’ The Federal Consortium was bragging about to it’s citizens, was either a flimsy bluff, or gross negligent leadership. Not really sure I are anymore though.” But that’s not what his eyes said as a seething rage had brazed across his eyes. The guard caught it flash through him almost wishing he hadn’t.
“Yeah, for sure! Definitely why were all here is some way, ‘refugees’ aboard this new home, a new world. But here this will get you where you need to go.” He said handing him his ID back along with an elevator key card, trying to drown the flames of trauma, the had unknowingly stoked with his probing.
“Thanks, I appreciate it.” he said having become suddenly a little more cold and withdrawn.
“You’re going to take the industrial service elevator to the bottom back of the ship. Semper Fi brother!” He said pointing down a hallway with a large complicated vault hatch for a door. Before giving him a nonchalant wave with along with a the ancient slogan that was somehow more durable than American systems it was built upon. Though it had lost it’s true meaning, it was now a catch all for “good luck” among societal outliers and those with maverick intent.
He made his way to the thick vaulted door into with an exorbitantly long opining ceremony, resembling an industrial airlock, that clashed with the sterile mundane access hallway attached to it. into a round-cornered square chamber, doused with that familiar red light, that was some intermediary point before the actual elevator platform, looking like a chimera between a sweaty locker room, or some kind of prison aboard a steam engine. Once inside this preparation bay he encountered another airlock door, this one with an electronically opened by a spinwheel hatch like the helm of an old boat, for the unfortunate occasion of a manual opening procedure, below a densely plated window built in the middle of the door. Through the pane, he could see the vast empty empty hold of hangar elevator platform. with several smaller metal elevator capsules about the same size as his current room, pressed up against an angled wall each tethered to it’s own metal toothed rail system, surrounding the two mountain sized rails for the hangar itself. “The main cargo elevator” He told himself still astonished at it’s magnitude, having not seen it since he started his journey aboard the vessel, that seemed amplified by it’s current peculiar emptiness. He journeyed across the great prairie of metal. The massive wall of glass wall, that could have been some perfectly sculpted glacier ridge, made up the main hangar door. It poured it’s dingy pale green light from the rising gasses outside, with some of the red light from above trying to pass through turned into burned scarlet amber orange color. It looked like a chemical reaction of some science channel being broadcast at a drive in movie theatre, looking illuminated compared to darkness in the rest of the hangar, making his silhouette look like an ant crossing a plane of darkness.
He made his way to a to a multi glass paneled dome roofed tower building, that looked something like a disco ball mushroom, functionally similar to an aircraft control tower, that was the hangar bay observation deck. He made his way up the rickety metal plated staircase jury-rigged to the outside, up to an entrance door. He knew his personal ID card would grant him access to one of the smaller modular elevators, only needing the other key to enter, but he had never really been this far on the other side of ship, and he might never be back for along time. “Might as well see what trouble I can get into, if I’m given the opportunity.” But he did briefly consider “Is this all an elaborate test, to see what I would do left to my own devices? With no one sent to escort me on this supposedly important wild goose hunt?” Though not an entirely preposterous conspiracy theory, It seemed more unlikely, and out of character for Greis Keis to play games, he was a man of direct action , and direct results. But he assumed his paranoia get the best of him. “2nd captain Greis usually, has very detailed outlines of his mission parameters.” He thought still inflamed with curiosity at the unusual open ended mission, but he would let it rest for now. He twisted the handle on the door that seemed suspiciously unlocked and entered into the observation terminal that seemed criminally unattended.