The Company Man (11) Part 1

Nic thudded into the ground face-first and felt fine grains of dirt blow into his mouth and nose. He opened his eyes and a bright white light painlessly pierced his neo-cortex. A swirling pattern of orange, gold, and brown, slowly caramelised into a clay desert vista that stretched around him for miles. The hazy red hue of the sky kissed the horizon and merged with it seamlessly. 

          Nic floated effortlessly to his feet and wiped the dust from his lips, tasting the earthy grains. He instinctively held his right hand in front of him and examined it, front and back. He extended his fingers and clenched his fist, but nothing appeared to be amiss. He scanned his surroundings and noticed several large boulders about twenty metres in front of him. He intuitively approached and rested his palm on one of the cold slabs. The sensation jolted the image of a woman lying on the rock. Her porcelain face was half covered with long red hair, and her one visible eye emanated a faint orange glow, as tears of blood streaked down her cheek.

          Odessa, he thought, and a memory returned. The sub-conscious realm. 

          As her eye radiated orange and gold, Nic saw planets burn. He watched as a star silently went nova. It flashed a brilliant white and its shockwave consumed everything in its path. Planets and moons were incinerated instantly, and so intense were the flares that Nic could feel the heat on his face. Still, they burned brighter, and through the flames Nic saw bodies scorched to ash as their faces twisted into agonised contortions.

          A bright orange beam dazzled Nic and snapped him back to the desert. He looked past the rock and located the source. Orange and turquoise lights blazed in the distance, accompanied by the soft sound of crashing metal and shattering glass. He felt irrevocably drawn to the light, yet he sensed pain. He hesitated, but an innate curiosity pushed him forward. A mental symphony of ecstasy and agony, and bondage and liberation pulled him in. As he teetered on the edge of an invisible precipice, a hazy turquoise flash engulfed him, and he fell into another realm and awoke in a different skin.

Nic was in a bustling square. A single bright yellow sun shone from a clear blue sky. Humans thronged the sidewalks beneath huge skyscrapers. Automobiles aggressively weaved through the streets in a cacophony of roaring engines and honking horns. They pumped thick smoke into the air that Nic felt clogging his nostrils. People pushed him left and right.

          ‘Hey buddy, people are trying to walk here!’ One irate pedestrian yelled as she barged past.

          Nic stumbled forward and saw the scene from above. The people and automobiles were nothing but dots and lines whizzing along the streets. The lights in the buildings sporadically flashed on and off and on again in a haze of greens and pinks, blues and purples, and warm whites. He watched days pass in seconds, as the sun ascended and descended across the horizon. He knew it was Earth, but not as he had seen it. 

          He blinked and was in a large room with a great domed ceiling and even greater din. There were curved rows of seats arranged in divided semi-circles in front of a podium. They were full to the brim with people wearing strange clothes and headphones, who were constantly speaking over one another. One man, whose booming voice echoed around the whole room, stood at the podium gesticulating wildly while others either nodded their heads in agreement or threw their hands in the air in frustration. Behind him was a golden drape that stretched the entire height of the room, and on it was a large picture of what looked like a map surrounded by a large wreath. There were two huge monitors on either side that bore an unusual phrase; United Nations Summit.

          He pondered what the words could mean. He looked down and examined the transparent glass desk in front of him. Then, he caught his reflection in the desktop and froze. 

          The Grand Visigoth!

          Nic recoiled, but the image began to encroach. Gradually, the people and room disappeared, and the eyes that stared back at him blazed green-blue. Nic panicked when he felt them searing into his own, and a crippling pain shot through his right hand. He opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came out. In his reflection, his mouth opened wider than his whole body, and a deafening, high-pitched scream rang through his ears as the gaping chasm enveloped him.

          Nic jolted awake in the med-bay disoriented and sweating. It was the second time he had had the dream and the memory sent a shiver down his spine. His vision was blurry and his right wrist was tingling. He managed to gather himself and focus on two hazy silhouettes that were hurrying towards him.

          ‘He’s awake.’ He heard a familiar soft voice say. Then, he felt a warm hand on his chest slowly ease him back onto his bed. ‘Rest, Nic.’ 

          ‘W-w-where. A-am. I-I?’ He croaked.

          ‘You’re in the mines, Nic. Last stand, remember?’ 

          ‘Delfin, I-is that you?’ He managed.

          ‘Yes, Nic, It’s me. How are you feeling?’

          ‘I can’t see the features of your face,’ he whinnied. ‘Everything is a blur.’ 

          ‘It means the nanoids are working, Nic,’ she reassured. She turned towards the featureless blur beside her and said, ‘he seems lucid.’ 

          ‘Can you see me, Nic?’ He recognised Odessa’s voice. ‘How many fingers?’

          Nic could just about see three blurry digits extended in front of him and he managed to mutter, ‘th-th-three.’

          ‘Perfect, Nic. In a few more hours I think your vision will have returned completely.’

          The memories of his dreams began to resurface, and he started to panic.

          ‘The fire,’ he mumbled. ‘The fire,’ he said again and began to try and get up from the bed.

          ‘No, Nic, relax,’ Odessa soothed.

          ‘The fire will burn us all,’ he said as he suddenly became animated. ‘He was here!’ He yelled, ‘the Visigoth was here!’

          ‘He’s not here Nic. He’s ordered everyone in the city to report to the tunnel. He’ll reach the core whatever the cost now.’

          ‘Not now,’ he cried, ‘before! I’ve seen it in my dreams.’

          He began flailing his arms as Odessa held him down.

          ‘Delfin, give him a sedative.’ She ordered

          As he writhed on the bed, he felt a sharp prick in his left arm, and he gently drifted off to the faint sound of Delfin and Odessa muttering as the ventilator whirred softly beside him.                

It had been about ten hours since they escaped the roof of Company headquarters, and the Grand Visigoth’s almighty rage, and made their way through the cavernous underbelly of Hallogen. Nic stood on a small cliff-edge inside the cave and watched moisture slowly form into a droplet and begin to snake its way down the glistening white stalactite hanging in front of him.

          The old mines snaked into the depths, and it wasn’t unusual during the pre-Grand Visigoth days for mining duties to be disrupted when the ground beneath them crumbled away after they had axed their way through a stubborn slab of granite. The ensuing cave-ins were always at the cost of a squad or two of noble Privates, gallantly sacrificing themselves in the hunt for the precious minerals the General so desperately needed. Nic had been involved in several himself. The network of caves that they sometimes stumbled upon were summarily resealed, fallen comrades were left to rot in their tombs, and the miners were relocated elsewhere. The work never ceased. The fact that Odessa’s rebels had chosen such a place as their final haven was not surprising, as well hidden as they were. 

          As Odessa had tended his wounds, she had informed him of her first days on Earth. Her painstaking search to find a secure location outside the grasp of her mighty foe had lasted months. She had scouted hundreds of tunnels alone in the cold, dark depths, and finally she had settled on this place. With only one way in, space enough to house several hundred people in its expansive network of tunnels and clearings, and a source of, if not exactly drinkable water, at least that which could be purified. And here they now were, shielded and hidden, for the time being at least.

          He marvelled as another droplet coursed its way down the well-worn limestone crevasses. He saw every nook and cranny to the most minute detail. As it dripped into the cloudy turquoise water streaming gently beneath him, Nic felt like he could see every shade of blue and green as the ripples undulated away. He felt that if he concentrated hard enough, he could even differentiate between the molecules themselves, the hydrogen and oxygen, and the array of heavy metals that lurked in the water and blessed it with such vibrant colour. 

          His eyes weren’t sore any more. Odessa’s nanoids had taken care of that. The microscopic robots she had injected into his eyeball had worked their magic and now his vision had not only returned, but he could see each and every detail with even greater clarity and purpose than before. He slowly rubbed his left palm along the wall next to him and he could see the subtle differences in the shades of rock as his hand passed over them. The calcium-carbonate, granite, and iron ore were all within his field of vision. In a mere six hours, he had gone from being completely blind to seeing more clearly than ever. He glanced down at the sling, and the stump resting in it, and frowned. It hadn’t fully healed yet, although the wound was scabbing over nicely; he was pretty confident the nanoids would leave him with barely a hint of scar tissue when they were done. He only wished they had enough time to regenerate the whole hand. Repairing the cell-receptors in his retina was no trouble at all, it seemed. 

          The med-bay behind him was filled with bodies laid out on makeshift gurneys, unwitting victims of the Grand Visigoths almighty vengeance. He walked over to Honza and Bagon, and watched as the stolen ventilators, no doubt spoils of Odessa’s insurrection, pumped simultaneously and kept them alive. Their broken bodies proved a bigger obstacle to the nanoids workmanlike perseverance. Every bone had been shattered, their organs crushed under the weight of the Grand Visigoth’s rage. 

          ‘Just one nanoid can repair as many broken bones as you put in front of it…’ Odessa had said matter-of factly, as she held the syringe and examined the volume closely. ‘0.01ml of nanite solution contains over one million nanoids,’ she said proudly, but then she frowned. ‘All they need is time.’ Such a small amount meant their recovery would take far longer than the thirty-six hours Odessa had predicted it would take the Grand Visigoth’s men to locate their hideaway.