kaolin fire presents :: writing :: fiction

"FireInTheHole.0"

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Fire in the Hole 3300 words



"We're taking fire!"

"Get down!"

"Get the fuck down!"

Damn, she's heavy. So much plastic.

"Down, dammit!"

"What's he doing?"

That last voice is out of place. I've got to keep running. Somebody without a load will take it down. Or we lose.

But there've been worse extractions, and I've survived them.

"Defensive matrix activated."

Oh, shit. Fucking Murphy.

My right shoulder hits the ground, still attached to the rest of me thank fucking God, though there's a definite crack as I go down. Shoulder's numb. Babe's protected, though. Her wetware is what we're after--every neuron in her body's chem'd for encrypted storage. She didn't even know.

Couldn't know--or he would've.

God damn--imagine the security there must be when he's actually here.

I'm rolling, shielding her with my armor, hoping I don't crush anything. Three pairs of legs rush past; one pair falls in my path and I'm up and running--I don't know, don't want to know who we just lost. I can get that info in debriefing. Now would just be harder.

Sparks and flames are everywhere, smoke stinging my nostrils;

Oh.

Shit.

Fucking time for a--

flashback.

Past. Life. Fucking. Regression. Bullshit.

Got to work through before I--

Blind wall--I think I cracked her head. Hope it's still good; I can't see, can't scream, no way to shift the load to someone else unless they're watching.

If they still exist.

Burnt plastic makes me think of the Pharm.

"The Pharm?"

Think?

Crawling along the wall, I can feel it--an echo of existence that I can follow if I don't focus on it; follow my blind-spot along the route that's burned into memory--so long as I don't think about it.

Life on the Pharm.

Good fucking drugs.

And there was this one--smelled just like burnt plastic.

Burnt plastic.

Makes me think of the Pharm--it would wrap your head in loops

Experience

loops

burnt

plastic loops of time

drug

was military

loops

tighter

TIME

OF TIME

FUCKING GONNA CUM

Is this happening?

head

good head

on the Pharm; burnt plastic

SHIT--she's burning?

something's licking my eyeballs in a loop; wet. my eyes.

animation

celshading

never did like

GOT TO KEEP RUNNING

;;; --- crawling

If I don't think

I can think

I've got her

split

Mind

loop, catch the loop

CATCH THE LOOP

"What's he doing?"

That voice is out of place.

tongue feels

LOOP

thick

LOOP

MAKES ME THINK OF THE PHARM

GOT TO GET BACK

to the Pharm.

Got to get back to my mind.

Got to get back to the mission.

Got to catch the loop by its head.

Got to catch the loop by its head.

LOOP

Burnt plastic

I've got to get back to my mind.

I've got to get back to my eyes.

Fifteen minutes

would loop

for days

burnt plastic

aliens

aliens

some people would get rides with little aliens; the sky would be clear

LOOP

and we'd play games with numbers, counting the

LOOP

that would be one, the first one you remembered

and then the next would be two

and when you couldn't remember

LOOP

that would be two

one

two

LOOP

three

"Tell me about the Pharm."

conversation

other minds would bubble into

out of

other minds

the smoke

of burnt plastic

would loop

counting steps

each iteration--trying to tell if it was a

LOOP

four

trying to tell if it was a loop or something new

counting steps

while I'm running

each iteration

something new

You inhaled the smoke and reality turned

inside out

inside

got to get out!

Corridor LOOP

Have I seen it before?

I can't look or it's gone I can't look or it's gone I can't look or it's gone

is a mantra so I can see.

Did we get her?

Five!

Are we out?

I think

I can think.

Everything looks

digital.

Light.

Where the fuck am I?

Her feet are still dangled over my shoulder.

Was that a flashback?

That was strong for a flashback.

I've never had a flashback; was it strong?

Five!

Where am I?

I think

I can think.

Everything looks

Where the fuck am I?

Her feet are still dangled over my shoulder.

TWO!

Shit, it's metalooping.

That can't be a flashback

I'm going

back

in

IS THIS DEATH?

Breath.

I don't know if I'm breathing.

Am I running?

Fucking chemical mother chemical fucking warfare.

All is fair.

If you don't get caught.

GOT TO GET OUT.

With her.

The data.

I'm running.

Burnt plastic.

Neurons.

Frying.

Pan.

Back at the Pharm.

We use to take drugs that acted like this.

The Pharm.

Why?

I can feel her.

On my shoulder.

Wrong shoulder.

Can't open my eyes.

"...coming..." Whispered. Echoed. Muddy.

Her room.

Can't open my eyes.

Pressure--

My lungs feel weak, warm mist dusted with burnt chemicals tickling deep inside; I'm trembling, not running.

Mind games.

This is not real.

Can they project?

I tell myself that I'm running--I'm running. I've got to keep running. Doubt is creeping in--my senses could mean anything.

No loop in a while, I should be coming out.

No loop.

I know where I am.

Where I think.

Where I am.

I can see the map clearly, now, but I still can't open my eyes--they're warm. Hot. Cold.

Internal clock seems unfazed--ten minutes have passed from the insertion, two from the moment of extraction. Is she still on my shoulder? I can hope. Maybe she's on both.

"He's moving!"

That voice does not belong.

I've got to recalibrate. More time has passed.

How much have I lost?

I've got to keep moving.

Moving.

I've got to start moving.

Is this all a--

My thumb keys a sequence on my palm; stims, counter-stims, I've got to get moving. Who's got

"How the hell is he moving?"

They must be projecting.

Or an AI.

Defensive matrix?

One hell of a lockdown.

My legs are not moving.

They're trembling.

The pressure falls off of my shoulders; I'm on the ground.

In front of me, a pair of boots--I saw those fall. Before me.

But I ran.

Another pair? They're all the same, but they seem familiar. They look like mine, but what are they doing--

in front of me?

On another body, lying forward--

Oh God, they're my own.

Legs.

Well, that would explain the flashback.

LOOP.

Legs.

I saw those fall. Are they mine?

"Well, get some better fucking scanners!"

That's interesting.

I smell burning plastic, but I can't let that distract me.

I've got to get up.

She--focus. The corridor; I haven't left the fucking corridor. God damned mother fucking defensive shitfaced matrix. I've got to get her out.

"What do you mean?" The voice is angry.

I have a chance.

I lock my jaw and look down--sweat and smoke in my eyes, they sting hot and cold.

No legs.

There's a piercing screech that comes from outside my body--I'm sure of it, though if it were the slightest bit organic I'd be willing to believe the screech came from me--and static--in my head. Static--my receiver--that's where I've been hearing the voice. Coming from the ship.

My diaphragm chokes back and there's bile in my--I cough before I breathe. Bile does not belong in the lungs, no matter where your legs might be located.

Well, I've got to crawl then.

Not very efficient.

Really not very efficient, when I've still got to carry her. Presuming she's not part of this whole botch-up. If she's not the real goods--no, she's got to be real. She's got to.

Dead--flesh--cloth. A litter. Sure.

I start stripping the first body I come to, careful not to think, careful not to look--not to look too closely. If I thought, I'd know; if I looked, I'd not be able to stop the thought. But I need the cloth. I need to move. And I need to move fast.

Crawling.

Absurd.

Must.

My hands hurt from synthcloth ripping into them but the cloth tears before my muscles split. Good for something, right? But I can't hurt my hands too much or they'll be worthless for pulling us along.

I try not to think about where we're going.

I know I don't know.

There're escape pods. We disabled them on the way in.

Why did we do that?

Part of the plan. There must have been a reason.

Who sold out the Pharm?

Who gave the reason?

No--who fed the reason? Conspiracies don't work like that. Whoever spoke up didn't know what they were saying. Probably. But whoever I'd been hearing over the comm, I don't know them. So there's an outside element. And maybe they're having trouble. I hope so. I don't want to have some battle when I get to the pods.

This is beyond me. I can't think about that right now. So much to not think about.

I've got enough cloth strips to make a wicker litter; I tie ends together, leaving some open to tie to myself and to her. She's damaged.

Very damaged.

Only thing keeping her alive is statis, probably. Don't know how long that can last. She's definitely lost some information. Who knows how much. But I've got to try. She's probably the reason I'm still alive.

She's missing a lot.

Where do I tie her? I've got to protect as much as I can--her arms are going around my neck. Midget wrestling, this is absurd. I tie her hands as if she were a prisoner, figure eight through them--no, this isn't going to work--she'll choke me on the first crawl.

My thoughts aren't nearly as clear as they feel. Shock. Right.

Try two: bandana round my head, and God this is hard. Loop it four or five times, need good traction. My neck is thick, but it was not built for this. It will have to do--arms above her head, I've got a tie from her wrist to my bandana. This is going to fucking suck. This really fucking sucks.

I want to cry, how fucking sad is that? I want to be back on the Pharm. I want the haze. I want the loops. I want the drugs.

I want out of here.

But the only way out is forward. Right. We came in through the emergency dock. That's where the pods were. That's where we were supposed to get out. That's why we disabled the pods.

One pained grasp at a time, I'm moving forwards. My limbs find a rhythm--I pull the ground towards me, and climb above it--breathing in. Breathing out. I slump towards the ground, and pull the next piece towards me.

We're really moving, now. The sarcasm is bitter in my throat, but it's tinged with hope. All that time I thought I was running; I'm making better progress than that, at least. But it felt better, then. It was a puzzle, but I had my legs.

I want my fucking legs back. But if I'd lost my arms, there wouldn't even be this chance.

How the fuck far does this go?

Disabled the pods so they couldn't follow us. Just one way out, and that's the carrier. So we couldn't get out if we caught on? Will it work to get us out, or will that just finish the job, destroy the evidence? Destroy her, and me.

Can't be chanced.

Got to make the pods work.

We managed to disable them quietly. I don't remember how. I'm pretty sure we didn't use the EMP, or we would have been detected sooner. Or did we use shaped EMP, thinking we were sneaking. And that gave us away, and it wasn't sabotage after all? But what's the voice in my head?

Fuck it--even if we EMP'd them out, there'll be a reset. Or something. Something manual. Sure. Just take a little bit of time. Time could be on my side. Whatever's doing overwatch doesn't sound too happy. But why aren't they here? And why are they so quiet, now? Am I walking into them?

Fucking walking.

I want to stop whining. But my fucking legs.

Fucking legs.

Just a little trim below the knees, doc.

Thanks.

Fucking trim.

A little delirium. But I'm still moving forwards.

The bay's miles away.

I check my memories--took seven minutes by stealth. Huh. Last time I complain that things are crawling. I'm another ten minutes just halfway.

Where are they?

Silence--how quickly everything goes wrong.

Fucking Murphy.

Who did this?

Crawling.

Endless.

Crawling.

I count tiles.

And almost miss a turn, somewhere around four hundred and fifty seven.

Almost there.

Nobody made it this far. Nobody made it very far at all. The ship is unscathed, beyond the patrols we disabled. And the pods.

Fuck the God damned son of a bitch that did that! Even if it was me. I can't remember, at this point. Too much going on. Too many other memories fighting for my time.

I untie the girl at the furthest pod, and start to work on its circuits. Nothing too complicated. Try the power--nope. Cut, or the standby is wiped. If it's cut, I'm going to be here a long time looking for it. Probably can't even reach it, now. No, I can do something if I have to. But damn, if I have to--

Damn.

An idea comes to me. Absurd. The best kind, right? The kind they write into textbooks, when you survive. Sometimes when you don't.

There's a spare EMP on board the ship. If I tried to power up the pod while blasting an EMP, maybe--just maybe, and I know enough electronics to know how absurd the thought is, but when faced with a black box that doesn't work you've always got to try one good physical kick. Electromagnetic kick is as good as I can do.

The stairs are down. Is there somebody still on board, after whatever ended the communications so abruptly? I crawl up the stairs, slowly. God help me if I meet someone up here.

There's the stench of fighting.

Burnt flesh. Thank God, not burnt plastic. I've been down that memory lane more than enough; could not deal with another trigger. I don't have a clue if it was an honest flashback, or a biochemical attack.

I've been smelling enough burnt flesh from myself, but there's more in here, and a tang of blown electronics. Hopefully there's nobody else aboard. They didn't clean up, so I'd imagine there isn't. Anyway, wouldn't they be gone? Or out after me? And if they were out after me, they'd have gotten me by now, even if the ship sensors were blown. They must be dead.

I push myself up the stairs, harder than any pullups; muscles are well past burning, now trembling--constantly trembling from the overload; skin's gone cold, sweat dripping off leaving salty streaks along it. Great. I'm curing.

Someone was strapped into the pilot's chair. I think they were strapped. Head's missing, and a good bit of their torso, so it's hard to tell.

The computer's damaged, but mostly just covered with gore. Not as much as if it the bomb'd come from there.

A cortex bomb.

That would explain the mole in the team, though it's hard to believe a cortex bomb made it through security screenings. It would have to be some pretty fantastic tech. The Pharm wouldn't have had to do that. The politico--he could have stooped that low. There's no telling, I guess, unless I can get the girl out of here, decipher her.

If it's not the Pharm, it's safe to go home. Unless they think I did all this, as the sole survivor. Hard to say. If it's not the Pharm, maybe I really could just take the shuttle and get out of here. But maybe there's a secondary safeguard against that somewhere. I want to try. I want to try, so badly. But I don't.

I'm probably best off just going to the police, if I can get out of here. With the girl. If I run, everyone's going to be after my ass--and it's kind of hard to run with no legs, right? There's good work as a miner, perhaps--they do alright with a limb, or even three, missing, but expecting every bump in the night to be a Them that's after me. That's not life.

"Alive!"

Oh, fuck. The screen's still powered. It must be transmitting, even though the local comm went down with compadre's head.

The voice resonates through the small ship, tinning out and bouncing back to dig at my spine.

It's the politico alright.

And he's watching.

And he knows I'm alive.

And he's watching.

And he--enough of those loops. First time through, only time through, only fucking chance, now.

I shove off and pound the distress signal. It'll shut up when the EMP goes off, but that should get more attention than Mr. politico wants--and anything he doesn't want is a bonus for me, right now.

I need the EMP--I push myself down the aisle to the emergency gear. Shame there aren't any spare legs in there. Plenty of pain meds--proper Pharm ship it is--and thank fucking God the spare EMP is there as well. I fling its over my neck, and push myself back out, feeling more like a bruised and battered seal than a man; I nearly slide headfirst down the stairs, but catch myself and gingerly let myself down on my stumps--it can't be helped, arms are weakening fast.

The pain is enough to make me run a marathon, if I'd had legs.

I can't run, though, and I can't escape; the endorphins fade with those two thoughts. Less and less is keeping me moving. Cold, pained determination only counts for so much.

He'll probably take out any escape pod that makes the attempt.

I can't take the ship.

I can't take a pod, even if I get one working.

And I can't stay here, obviously.

Obviously?

Well, I can't just stay here--he knows where I am.

My odds suck ass, but there's little I can do about that.

I shuttle a hundred kilos of crap from the drop-ship to the first pod, wedging the pod door open with a crowbar. I don’t take no fucking no for no fucking answer. Even if it kills me, right? Better to die trying.

I can’t shut the pod door again, so I tape it with medical supplies. If I’m lucky, it gets destroyed before anyone notices nobody would have survived.

Then there’s nothing to do but hope.

I don’t have much of that left anymore, but I use what I’ve got to keep moving. Smashing the pod emergency box, I hold down “emergency evacuate”, and activate the EMP--no small feat for not being able to keep my face off the floor without use of at least one arm, but there it is.

A bang. Something else burnt, but I'm not sure--

The pod door slams against the medical tape, and the retaining doors slam shut as well.

It's out of here.

There's a buzzing in my head that tells me I just fucked up some expensive circuitry, but so long as I'm still moving, I've got to keep myself that way.

I can't fucking believe the pod launched like that.

But whatever.

Now to get into one of the other ones--only place I can think of to hide. Only place I could get to anyway.

If I'm lucky, there'll be cops here soon. If I'm really lucky, they'll find me--or they'll be around when the politico finds me, and damn me if her brain's damaged from all this.

If I'm not lucky, well.

Somewhere in-between, I simply won't wake up again.

I've done what I can.