Kade took a moment to wander the other sections of the hotel. The second level had been demolished to make way for the infrastructure and support beams for the Vac tunnel. It was crazy to think they were mere feet away from vacuum splattered paste death. He sighed, trying not to think about it as he walked back. Kade shivered as the corridor shuddered and the lights dimmed. Another train shot above them.
His mind drifted, and he found himself on the empty docking bay of Rengilum Beta, alone and broke. Again.
Three million credits, I thought. What the hell. The shuttle burned into the darkness of the stars. I was left alone and empty-handed. I had to scramble fast; the magistrate's security service was bearing down on my location. I looked guilty as hell. I looked at the edge of the platform, nothing below, deep dark. I took a breath and figured Vac was better than being skinned by the security service. “SHEEEEIIIITT!” Kade hollered.
He opened his eyes. He was back in the capsule hotel, the walls gently creaking from the train traffic. His chest tingled, and he reached for the tingling chest scar tissue under his jumpsuit. “Fucking Gutterrig's,” Kade mumbled as he clicked the switch to the 700 section. It was jammed. He slammed his palm against the hatch panel, and it hissed as it broke free.
He needed rest, not just sleep. He had been running for the better part of 2 solar cycles, and he felt it. Everywhere. Kade grabbed the edge of the bunk and pulled himself up to the platform. His fingers glided over the Atmos panel, setting the noise to tranquil beach and the temp to 70. He unzipped the jumpsuit, wriggled out of it, and slid into the coffin. The platform closed with a satisfying thunk, and Kade was out before the lights faded.
The dream was the same dream he always had when things got slow. The light, then the corridor, the holding cells with varying species of criminals and vagrants. The air is recycled and warm, with a metal smell, mixed with bodily fluids. Boots echo off the metal panels of the corridor as it bends to the right. He’s whole, no cuts, no scars.
The corridor narrowed, and the temperature dropped as he walked to a simple hatch. ‘Um ta dink rig myel shi,v’ The security service unit bellowed as the hatch hissed open, the steam and moisture clouding in front of him, collecting on his face in drops of dirty moisture.
He turned, even though when it really happened, he was terrified, and almost passed out. Here, Kade was chill and stoic.
It's crazy how your subconscious doesn't care about accuracy in a dream. Kade guessed that dreams are more concerned with how we remember them than with how they actually happened. He heard the scattered Gibberlink vocalisations, and his skin grew cold. It was a dissection chamber. They were going to take him apart piece by piece until they got what they wanted.
In the dream, this is where Kade usually woke up, but damn it. He must really be tired. He can't understand any of the gibberlink but gets the intent.
“I'm going to die here, pulled apart by Gutterrig's.” He thought.
The bright burning light blinding him as metallic hands grip his arms, lashing him down to the cutting table, the smell of guts and death so strong he vomits on himself.
‘HELLP!’ What the hell, it's worth a shot. ‘HELLEPP!’ He tried again. Nothing, the damn Butcher machine laughed mechanically. He felt a small prick on his neck as his vision blurred. The butcher Bot had hit him with a sedative, enough to dull the panic but not enough to knock him out.
He felt a pressure across his chest. NOOO!!! begging. NOOO!!! The pressure was hot, and he felt it drag through his chest.
AWRFHGGHHHH! He burped, and the pressure was gone, replaced by the searing pain of a bleeding chest wound.
The gutterrig stopped, studying his vitals, the panic response. It began again. Kade felt the hot pressure on his leg. NOO!!! He screamed. The hot pressure stopped. He panted, sweat stinging his wounds.
“Kade…Baby…you're lucky I run this gut shop. You'd be one leg short otherwise.” Kade recognised that voice. Please, God, let the Gutterrig finish, I begged.
‘Oh, my meatsuit, beauty.’
Kade felt a cold, scaly hand touch his arm. ‘NOOO!!!’ he twisted and pulled away. Kade felt breath on his ear as the light went out and the gutter rig went back to its charging station.
“Damn it, it was Sepav Oleva, Big Boss.” Kade thought, his eyes frantically scanning the room. Part of him was grateful, the other part terrified, the part that owed him 500,000 credits. He was head of the Underworld, and that meant Kade was in the Empty.
‘Kade, I can't let one of my best meatsuits get carved up.’ His words hissed across Kade’s ears as he felt a cold scaly hand brush his cheek.
‘ESPECIALLY NOT WHEN YOU OWE ME SO MUCH MONEY!!! ‘His words hurt and crushed Kade's ears. ‘So three mill credits from the Edge magistrate. You got big dreams, Kade, big dreams. And to think I once wanted to eat you. Now I think I love you.’ Sepav chuckled as he had a med droid cauterise the chest and leg wound.
‘AWWWWWWW!!!! FUCK !’ Kade screamed, but the bleeding stopped.
“ Now, Kade, baby. Let's talk about my money, and how you're gonna get me a chunk of that three mill.” Sepav hissed.
Kade jerked awake, the capsule coffin dark and warm. He had sweated the sheets through and was short of breath. He touched his leg, and his trembling fingers drifted over the chest scar. His hand drifted and pinched his temples as he tried to catch his breath. The hatch opened, and a rush of cool air entered the coffin, and he slid out into the common area.
“Damn, I need a shower.” Kade breathed as he made his way to the wash stall.
The water hit before he was fully awake. Kade had stepped into the shower on instinct. He shivered as steam filled the stall, and little rivers flowed in the cracks in the tile. Kade felt the anxiety in my ribs as he propped against the wall, his palm slipping and his chin hitting the tile. He was fully awake now.
The scar looks pale against his skin, a thin crescent cut of a memory he’ll never forget. In the dream, it burned; here it's numb. He let his finger drag across, ensuring himself the butcher bot and Sepav weren't here, weren't waiting to cut him up.
The water kept running, and Kade let it fall over his neck and head. He held his breath, trying to calm a racing heartbeat.
Kade pressed his forehead against the wall, on purpose this time. The tile is cool, unforgiving, but welcoming. A small mercy from the anxiety.
He let the water's heat soften the knot in his chest. He straightened up and took a deep breath, and sobbed, letting the pain find an outlet, if only briefly, in the chaos that was becoming his life. He shut the water off and grabbed the towel as he stepped into the common area of the 700 block.
An old Holostation flickered in and out of some alien species wrestling, or at least Kade hoped it was wrestling. The screen went blank and flickered, and the room went dark. The holo screen sputtered back to life, static crawling across its surface like frost. At first, he thought it was another system glitch, but then the image sharpened. The girl from the transport.
He blinked, and he wasn’t in the capsule anymore. Kade was back on the shuttle, the engines humming beneath his feet, the air thick with a recycled citrus smell meant to disguise the metal. She was there, clothed like a normal person. She had been across the aisle, one leg tucked under her. Those eyes. Her alien eyes scanned the cabin. When they landed on him, Kade felt a tightness in his arms that paralysed him. Her mouth smirked as he felt a burning sensation in his chest. Three sharp knives dug into his flesh, piercing the scar; he tried to gasp. The noise, silent, was only a gurgle of life and blood as he blacked out.
He imagined her leaning closer, whispering something in his ear. Her voice, her touch. She had stabbed him, but he wasn’t dead. In this dream, she hummed a fragment of a song, one he had heard somewhere before, but here it had felt different. It was private, meant for him alone.
The holo screen glitched. Her image fractured into static. Kade blinked, and the capsule walls returned. The scar burned against his chest, reminding him what was real.
“Damn, I think that fish was bad.” He thought as he stretched out on the hard plastic bench in the common area of block 700. Slowly, but calmly, Kade drifted off to sleep.