Itinerant __

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        Soundlessly, the twin doors slid open, chrome frame filled with double-layered PEEK panels to cancel out all noises from the outside to the test labs.  My boots banging on the ceramic tile, however, weren't that graceful.  Still, unnecessary as it was inside the complex, it felt great to be back in the suit.  I'd been out of it for a week and by the end of day seven, I couldn't wait to get strapped back in  —  the skin hidden under my tattered canvas sleeves bloody and raw from all the scratching.  It felt unnatural to walk around only in clothes and nothing more.  I'm just not used to it, these days.

 

        Rajht still had his nose in his papers.  There's no way he could have not heard me come in.  Then again, this was Rajht we're looking at here: little, scrawny Rajht.  The environment suited him, the sterile white of the labs made him seem a little less pale in comparison.  But, after a week off, I just wanted to go back crawling, so I scraped my throat.

 

        He breathed slowly and closed off whatever he was working on for now.  As he looked at me, his scraggly brow flared up.  “New paintjob?” he asked, nodding at my pristine white suit.  His hand motioned towards the chair across his desk.

 

        “Had to after—”  I couldn't sit down now.  Had to get back out there, just for a little bit.  I'd already seen all the structure had to offer, all in the span of a week in which I was supposed to be recovering.  My nerves were already fraying from being stuck here this long.

 

        He nodded.  “Right, right, I heard something about that.”  

 

        I gave him an incredulous look; though, with my visor raised, it's not like he could see any of it.  A short, little info-burst brought the head-display's CPU to flare alive, and with an unheard click, the helmet split in half, folding back in on itself and into the back and chest of the suit.  It's easier to hold conversations like this.  “The entire quadrant heard about it by now, I imagine,” I said, feeling the lab's cold, air-conditioned environment creep into my suit.  

 

        Rajht just shrugged.  “I don't leave the lab much, you know that.”  If by ʻnot muchʼ he meant never, then yeah, I knew that.  There's being passionate about your work, and then there's Rajht.  Though, truth be told, I made sure to be listed with him as much as I could.  We're like-minded, in a way.  He's a number-cruncher, I'm a dungeon-crawler.  But we compliment each other nonetheless.  Together, we get more space mapped than any other team in this entire construct.

 

        “So, what are we roping this time?”

 

        He stared at me for a moment, then I almost could see something like a smile on his face.  “Roping?  We're roping jack here, Tesa.”  I waited until he continued.  “Didn't you hear about the accident?  The big one, that is.”

 

        I just shook my head.  “Been out of the loop for a week, remember.  What accident?”

 

        He stood up straight, began walking towards the simulator.  His hands traced the immaculate brushed aluminium paneling that hid the system's hardware from sight.  “Not an accident, really,” he began with a sigh.  “Just a blip.”

 

        “A blip?”

 

        His brow fell, a sour look of annoyance being thrown my way.  “Yes, a blip.  When you're running millions and millions strings of code, there's bound to be… a hiccup here and there.”  He leaned against the control panels, the fabric of his oversized lab coat stacking in uneven bunches behind his back.  “Come on, Tesa, we've had it happen before.  Com-links fading out for a tick, static on the line without a cause, that little accident of yours last week, …”

 

        I turned my eyes towards the little mic, hidden in the ceiling's paneling in the corner of the room and shut it down with another short commando.  Rajht didn't miss that, either.  How could he?  He'd been the one to stick that thing inside my head in the first place.

 

        “Tesa?”

 

        “That wasn't an accident,” I said and then I turned the mic back on.

 

        He gnashed his teeth, muttering under his breath, “Damn it, kid.”  He couldn't press for more, now.  Not if the guys upstairs could hear us.

 

        “What happened, Rajht?”

 

        “Look, I've only heard the gist of it, and I don't intend to find out the specifics,” he said, drawing arcs in the air with his hands, “But supposedly, some kind of error ran and a Crawler's cloak fell.  When they tried to pull him out, the entire sim went hay-wire and a good part of that complex is now floating somewhere out there among the stars as little flakes of dust.  That's all I know and that's all you'll hear from me on this either.”

 

        “Dea—”  He nodded at the mic.  “Deadcount?” I asked after shutting the thing down again.

 

        He threw his hands up, then folded them across his chest.  “No official numbers, of course, but we can both make our guesses, neh?”

 

        “Christ… ”  

 

        “Yeah, that guy would've been a great help there,” Rajht said with the bitterness you'd expect from a scholar his age and social background.  Something like this hadn't happened in a long, long time.  “So… ” he began, “that wasn't an accident, you say?”  I turned the mic back to life.

 

        Oh, that look on his face was worth millions.  Tiny guy, not even breaking five foot four, spitting venom at me with his eyes.  He mouthed, “I'm getting to the bottom of this”, before picking up the paperwork atop the control panels.

 

        “So, what's the issue here exactly?  Not quite seeing what the accident's got to do with us.”

 

        “They're shutting these down,” Rajht said, slapping the flat of his hand on the simulator.

 

        “What?!  They can't be serious!”

 

        “Relax, kid.  Shutting us down is hardly a possibility anymore.  They're just going to replace them, upgrade them if you want to believe that.”  I raised a brow.  He faced the mic dead-on.  “There's nothing wrong with them.  It's all just a farce to keep up appearances.”    Sometimes, Rajht does things like this, goes against every rule they've ever thrown at him.  That's his way of trying to get out of it.  He's too important, though. Had to clean up one too many accidents by now, too much knowledge that the Companies wouldn't want out in the open air to go back down, even if he wants to.  They won't let him leave this place.  Not alive, at least.  “They're just going to call them all back, give them a new paint job like your suit, slap some sort of sticker on there and call it the MK Seven.”  He spat in the flowerpot with artificial Livistonas.  “And everyone's happy again.”  He took a deep breath and tried to flatten the wrinkles in the sleeves of his coat.  “Bunch of PR bullshit,” he muttered, remnants of spittle on his lips shining in the LED-brightness.  “Wasting my time like that.”

 

        “They won't be listening to those recordings for another week, you know… ”

 

        His eyes found mine and he smiled a dirty, smug grin.  “I've got another thing or two to say.  I'll keep those papershovers upstairs entertained, don't you worry about that.”  I shook my head and his grin only grew wider.  He slapped me where my shoulder hid underneath multiple layers of paneling and electronics and chuckled from his throat.  “Welcome back, kid.”

 

        “Found no one else willing to put up with you, huh?”

 

        We could do this all day long, him and I, whine and complain about every little tidbit of what we do.  And he had every right to; this isn't what he signed on for.  But me, I just joined him for a good laugh.  This job, my job, used to be a lot more dangerous than it is now.  And I still love it every bit as much as I did the first day.  

 

        “So why am I here then, Rajht?” I asked.

 

        He sighed, throwing the paperwork back without so much as a glance.  “Factory run-through before we can send them back.  You know, test all there's to test to them.”  I felt a grin spreading on my face.  “Oh sure, laugh it up, why don't you!  Not like I have to deal with enough crap from what's supposed to pass for an engineer nowadays already,” he carped.  “I swear, they just hire anyone with a college degree these days.”

 

        I muttered an apology, which he reluctantly took.  He fervently nodded at the mic again.  “You know what?  Screw 'em,” Rajth said.  “Where do you want to go, kid?  I'll bullshit some rapport together.”  He stroked the control panel, a glimmer in his eyes, the look a father would give his newborn daughter.  “There's nothing wrong with them.”  I made sure to answer before he started calling it his little girl.

 

        “Test all there's to test to 'em, eh?”  That glimmer in his eyes turned into a full-fledged inferno.  “Remember that little planet from a week or two back?  Way on the edge of this section?”  I saw the gears in his head turn.  A week to Rajht is what a year is to most people.  It shows, too.  But once you're up here, it's hard to ever go back down, settle somewhere for good.  Knowing what could be out there.  

 

        He nodded.  “One sun, one moon, right?  Lots of electromagnetic radiation?  The level three one.”

 

        “Yup, that's the one, way out there.  Nothing that comes near it at all.  Think we could map that again?”

 

        “You mean map that, full stop.”  When he saw me look at him, he carried on, “Must've forgotten to bring that up when you came back…  I couldn't save any of the Hornets' data.  Faulty batch, most likely.”

 

        I rolled my shoulders and cracked the knuckles on my right hand.  “Well, think we could do that one again?  Gives us a head start on next month's work, if anything.”

 

        He rolled his tongue over his teeth and shrugged.  “It's only just in reach,” he said, “but I don't see why not.  Any reason in particular?”

 

        “Reminds me of home.”

 

        His gaze lingered on mine, trying to measure my composure before he forced one corner of his lips to tug upward.  “Sure, kid.  If it'll make you happy.”  I didn't want to waste anymore time than I already had.  The CPU came out of stasis, the helmet rising back up over my head and my visor flashing with all vitals.  “Are you loaded?” he asked.

 

        The helmet bobbed up and down.  “I'm packed for weeks.”

 

        “Planet that size'll only keep you busy for a few hours at the most.”

 

        I grinned, fully well aware of the fact that he couldn't see it.  “Need to ease myself back in the swing of things first.”  He nodded, and though I couldn't see his face as he turned towards the control panels, I was certain a smile would be on it.  Too many get addicted.  I'm not saying I haven't snuck a little out from time to time, but I can control it for the most part.  That's good enough a reason to be proud.

 

        “Come on kid, I'll get you strapped in,” Rahjt ordered.

 

        The simulator looked a lot like one of those old iron-lungs they used to stabilize breathing.  My end of the simulator did, at least.  Rajht gets the buttonwork and all the fancy monitors.  Lying down on the frame put me at ease for the first time of the day.  It felt like coming home after a vacation.  “Alright,” I heard him say right before the needles jabbed into place in the suit, “let's get you nice and sleepy.”  I listened to him listing the drugs like they were exotic candies, and more importantly, I felt them being pumped through my system.  Our line of work used to be the most dangerous of them all, walking on foreign grounds.  Now, though, with the cloaks and all the safe-guards, people shrug it off, like it's become nothing.  And in a way, they're right.

        In another, they're dead-wrong.

 

        “You're so good for me, daddy,” I muttered, lingering on the edge of awareness.

 

        This is where most of us come to find their end, these days.  Doped up, refusing to come back.  They're still there somewhere; on some base-level, they're still aware of what's going on around them, in the real world.  They hear their names being spoken, their family at their side, begging for them to come back.  Begging to give them some sort of response, anything.  They never do.  The alternative shines so much brighter, so much safer, so much more beautiful.

 

        “Don't make me punch you, kid.”

 

        “I-I'dn like to ss—”  

 

        Then the world faded away and darkness overtook my being.  My comeback'd have to wait for a while.

 

 

                                                =       =       =

 

 

        I felt the world around me begin to take shape.  The sheets were linen, some sort of beige.  Her hand brushed over my bare back and I heard her moan my name.  I took her hand in mine, smelled her perfume  — imported French designer stuff, a name too complex to enunciate —  and welcomed her to another day in paradise.

        We lived in domes, the stars above clear in sight, and watched the suns brush across the horizon.  Kids, wearing boots of washed canvas and smiles more beautiful than we could have imagined, ran out into the streets to play with the others.  In the background I heard a faint piano-tune begin to play.

        We'd sit there, atop of our porch, on our little rock in space, talking about a future that could happen in the spawn of a week.  Her hand lied in mine and the morning sun would kiss her skin, bring her eyes to life.  I asked her if she remembered where we'd met.  The piano grew louder.  I closed my eyes and said goodbye for now.  She might have been crying.  I might have been, as well.  She might have been trying to remember.  I might have been trying to forget.  

 

        I must never forget.  All I want in this moment is to feel, feel how her skin once felt on mine.

 

        Then I start to come by in the void where nothing but an all-enveloping black surrounds me, where sound and smell do not exist on their own and all my memories begin to fall apart.  “Tesa.”  I'm awakening again, alone, to a different voice.  

 

        “Talk to me, Tesa,” Rajht hastily spoke, undertones of worry fighting for dominance in his voice.

 

        I wearily blinked, letting the remnants of a drug-fueled dream sink into the background of my mind.  “Piano?  Really?” was all I managed to mutter out at first.

 

        He harrumphed, the mic crackling static in my ears.  “Like you'd know anything about art.”

 

        I dug deep into my memory, trying to recall what she had looked like but every time I came close and her face began to take shape, the vision fell apart, myriad shapes  — in reds, yellows and blues alike —  shattering like errant polygons in a dying simulation.

 

        “Everything good on your end, kid?”  I wouldn't force it.  I'd be back in it soon enough.  Then I could tell her I was sorry for not coming last week.  And that I haven't given up yet.  “Tesa, is everything okay?  Do you want me to pull you out?”  I never will.

 

        I looked down, once more aware of the suit I was wearing, and saw nothing but… nothing.  Left and right followed the same pattern and I could, in fact, contain my surprise when I noted that everything above and behind me was just as shapeless and colorless as all the rest.  “Everything's clear here, Rajht.  You're good to print.”

 

        If I didn't know Rajht better, I could've sworn I heard a sigh crackle in my helmet.  “Vitals first, T.  I know you're excited to be back, but we're doing this one by the book.  If it were anyone else, you'd still be in recovery and I'm not losing you just yet.”

 

        “Don't tell me you're getting soft on me now.  I know I come by the lab a lot but don't go looking for any ulterior motives there.”  The speakers spat profanities at me at speeds I seldom encountered.  For someone so certain Gods didn't exist, he sure liked to condemn them a lot.  With a smirk, I looked off into the corner of the helmet's vision, dragging down the basic menus.  “My readings are just fine,” I said after glancing over them.  “Yours?”

 

        The line stayed silent for a spell.  Rajht was probably taking notes.  That, or he was giving me the silent treatment which would complicate things considerably.  Or he had to go to the bathroom.  He's the kind of guy to leave you hanging in a state of non-existence if his bladder told him to.  “You're good to go,” he told me.  “Planet SK-247, take two.”

 

        Maybe I was supposed to laugh at that.  All I could think about were the rest of the drugs stored in the suit for the return.  They say your mind can't handle the transition, say you're supposed to see the Fear once and only once.  I've heard the stories about what happened to the first Crawlers, way back when this operation was nothing but a silly idea, when ʻa map of the universeʼ was only a gimmick and all simulations were build just on venture capital.  This sure as hell isn't perfect, but compared to what happened to those guys, I'll gladly accept whatever they want to pump into my bloodstream.  More than gladly.

 

        It started out as a little light, right underneath me, as it always does.  A bead of white light, the size of a teardrop, softly glowing in the vast expenses of digital nothingness.  Then it began to spread out, a single line, straight ahead and straight behind me, running into the distance until I could see nothing beyond the soft curve where it dipped behind the horizon.  Then another began next to it.  And another.  Countless lines, all but a finger's width apart began to illuminate the void.  Then one crossed them all, soon followed by a million of its counterparts.  As far as my visor allowed me to see, the linescape grew, a vastly expanding grid of data.  It didn't take them long before they began to distort as the third axis came into play and began morphing them into actual shapes.  “Still rendering,” I told the mic, watching the colors and textures seep over the three-dimensional framework, viscous and thick, like molten tar peeking out of the cracks of an industrial highway on a burning summer's day.  

        And all of them halted, right at my feet.

 

        The helmet rattled, “4D is up, Cloak's up…  You're good.”

 

        “Crystal.  I'm going in.”

 

        And with a single step forward, I stood on SK-247, the air above me a beautiful humid blue and the grass, green grass, waving in the wind.  Just like home.

 

        “Are we making the same readings here?” the speakers droned.  I dragged the files out again and found myself watching them with an amused stare.

 

        “I don't know,” I answered.  “Are you reading that I'd be dead if I took the suit off for more than three seconds?”  Guess not just like home.

 

        I could only imagine the wrinkles around his eyes and the smile on his face, looking at the values on his monitor.  “I'd have given you at least five seconds, kid.  Don't sell yourself short.”  We both chuckled.

 

        With a sigh, I opened my visor its widest, the diaphragm soundlessly expending to its fullest and I watched this planet's nature, failing to shed the thought of home.  “It's gorgeous, Rajht.  You'd love it here.”

 

        “Eh, I'm good in my lab.  Just snap me a picture of something good.”  Soft taps of his weary fingers, interrupted by the occasional muttering, resounded through my helmet.  Moments later  — I wasn't really keeping track of time here —  he made the same command I must've heard a thousand times by now.  “Ready.  Set the Hornets out.”

 

        With a dampened hiss, the hatch on the suit's lower right arm opened, letting a few dozen tiny droids take to the skies.  Hornets, we called them, just because they were a lot alike in size.  Right when I got started the Hornets, too, were just a silly thought and instead, a group of Crawlers bore the responsibility to put up markers for mapping and sample-taking.  Things have changed a lot since then and we had the progress to show for it.  It's hard to imagine how much work it must've taken my predecessors to map PC-19 and its moons.

       

        Taking off at speeds that I could barely register with my own eyes, they spread out and began gathering samples and data on this planet.  Once they'd reached their full capacity, they'd bury themselves in the surface of the planet and begin to disintegrate, disappearing completely into materials naturally present on the planet in under five minutes.  In the past we made the mistake of using them over and over again.  It's amazing what just the tiniest hint of a foreign element can do to a planet's structural integrity.  Though horrifying would be a better way of putting it.

 

        Rajht voice muttered, “They're doing it again, damn it.”

 

        “What's the issue?” I asked, pulling up the Hornet's readings as I did.  It didn't take me long to find out what he was talking about.  All Hornets that'd gone north were flickering on and off screen, their readings showing up as incoherent messes.

 

        “I've tried taking over their flight paths manually,” Rajht said, “but whenever I pull them up too far north they just drop offline until I order them to go back out.”

 

        “I thought you said this was only a level three?  Do you think someone on the outside is interfering?”

 

        I heard him sigh and curse some more Gods.  “There's nothing that's close enough to you to intercept what we're doing and there's nothing close enough to us that's got a reason to interfere or the technology necessary to do so.”

 

        “How far away is it?” I asked.

 

        “The disruptions begin about… an hour up ahead and they only get worse the farther you'll go.”

 

        With a sigh, I pulled up the map and began marching towards the black zone where the Hornets all began malfunctioning.  Now you know why they call us Crawlers.  I've walked ten times the distance a guy my age should've walked and then some.

 

        “Hey, don't worry, kid,” Rajht said.  “I'll keep you entertained.”  The piano began wailing through the speakers again.

 

        I called him an ass and closed down the com-link for the time being.  There are worse ways to spend your time than to roam across the surface of a planet as beautiful as this one.  If I was lucky, I'd get to see one of those funny colored quadrupeds again.

 

         

                                                =       =       =

 

 

        My surroundings'd been green at the point where I landed.  Just vast expenses of a single color, monotony as far as the eye could see, the occasional rock or flower withstanding.  The further I pulled up towards what I'd come to claim ʻthe danger zoneʼ  — for a cheap laugh, if nothing else —  the more herbage I began to encounter.  Trees, bearing much familiarity with the ones that had grown on Earth, back then, were the first to cross my path.  Soon, shrubbery popped up to fill the empty places in between and it didn't take too long before my visor began to show all manners of carbon based lifeforms hiding in the depths of green surrounding me.  I took a quick check to see if my cloak was up and how far away I still was from the disruption.

 

        A good fifteen minutes separated me from finding out how a level three planet somehow managed to mess with our technology and with a brisk pace, I continued my travel, hiding all screens and menus in a far-off corner of my visor.  No reason not to enjoy the beauty of things.  If this job has shown me anything, it's that everything can change in just the blink of an eye, for better or for worse.

 

        The trees began to thin out again and I expected to see another field of near-endless green again soon enough.  What I found instead was something that made me stop dead in my tracks.  In a neatly structured pattern, its accuracy certainly rivaling the linescape, I came across trees bearing a deceptively familiar fruit.  “Can't be.”  I dug up another Hornet from my suit and let it take a sample of the dangling orb overhead.  I noticed, whilst manually steering it through the suit, that its controls were even less precise than usual.  Whatever was causing the interference, I was closing in on it rapidly.  But with some struggle  — from the Hornet more than from me —  I managed to take a sample and its readings confirmed my suspicions.  What looked like a perfect replica of an apple, contained enough toxins to down me in a matter of minutes.

 

        I resumed my walk.  “Strange little world.”  Minutes later, I found myself walking onto farm grounds, barns and sheds spread around me in a seemingly random pattern.  I pulled the map up on my visor, noting that my destination was within minutes of me, just a smidgen farther up north.  The rustic orchard had something eerily Earth-like to it and I decided that this would likely be something Rajht could appreciate.  Sometimes I wished that they'd just let him go, let him go spend the rest of his years like an man his age should.  I took a picture of the farmhouse and carried on, trying to remember if he'd ever brought up a family in any of our conversations before.

 

        It looked like I would be a lucky man today as I saw a small village begin to appear up ahead.  Quaint little houses dotted along the unhardened road, with less and less space in between them as I neared towards what I presumed to be the center of this village.  And again, their build was eerily reminiscent of what Earth had looked like in days of the past.  I found myself entranced with my surroundings, still failing to grasp how something that looked this ancient to me could cause so much trouble that not even Rajht could fix it.  Granted, the Hornets were still in development and their accuracy was laugh-worthy at best.  It certainly wouldn't be the first time we had to discard an entire batch of them, but something like this hadn't occurred yet.

 

        I kept my pace, keeping my eyes open for anything unusual that might lead me to what I was looking for, but so far there was nothing that caught my attention.  Every once in a while, I passed by one of the little creatures I spoke about earlier and the farther I kept going, the more showed up  —  all in wide array of colors and sizes.  It was in the middle of the town's square that I came to rest and pulled the com-link up again.  This was more Rajht's shtick anyways.  I called his name but the speakers remained to stand still.  

 

        “Rajht?” I tried again.  Several long seconds of silence followed, soon to be interrupted by a piercing shriek in my helmet as the speakers wailed incoherently as loud as they could.  Out of reflex, I brought my hands to my ears, the suit obviously hindering me from cancelling out the horrendous noise.  It was seconds later that I turned down the output to only two percent, standing in the middle of the crowded marketplace, hunched over in pain.

 

        “Rajht?  What's happening here?”  I pulled up the other screens: the Hornet's readings, what they'd mapped so far, my vitals and the Cloak.  All of them were shifting around uncontrollably, most of them displaying values that were simply impossible.  I did, however, see my heartrate spike on the visor as one thought made itself very, very clear to me.  Whatever was out here could open my suit.  Three seconds, five if I was lucky.  I'd come too far to give it up now.  “Rajht, I don't know if you can hear me, but I'm going back.  Pull me out as soon as it's safe.  We're in over our heads here.”  I had every reason to panic, though I'd been taught not to and for good reasons.

 

        With that in mind, I intended to just go back towards the field I'd came from, away from whatever was blocking us out and back to the station so we could analyze this properly and most of all, safely.  There was one thing I had managed to overlook, on the other hand.

 

        “What is that thing?!”  Oh boy.

 

        I tried to locate the source of the noise, finding it quickly in the form of one of the little quadrupeds looking right at me, its eyes shrinking to pinpricks at the sight of me.  Surely, this could be solved diplomatically and without panic.  When a pink one began pointing at me and shouting, “The horror!  The horror!”, however, that plan took a different turn.  In a matter of seconds, the entire marketplace was screaming and shouting in panic, all of them running around in random patterns  —  some doing the sensible thing and running away from me, others just running around in circles without seeming to know what was going on in the first place.

 

        Though I'd have much liked to see things go differently, I could at least make good use of the hysteria to get out of there as quickly as possible.  I began running, turning the com-link's output back to half.  “Rajht?!  You have to get me out of here! Now!  We've got a containment breach!”  The speaker's groaned their static.

 

        “Hey!”  I snapped my head back to see one of those little things trying to chase me.  

 

        As fast as I could manage whilst trying to contact the base, I pumped my legs, hoping I could create some distance between the little thing and myself. “Any time now Rajht!”  

 

        The helmet hissed and the thing behind me called out to me again.  “Stop!  I just want to talk.”

 

        A familiar voice crashed against my eardrums, “Tes…  —appening?”

 

        “Rajht!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.  “Get me out of here!”  I ran across the edge of the town and saw my vitals shift back towards their normal values.  “Rajht!”

 

        “I heard you, kid!” his voice boomed through my helmet, loud and clear.  “Get ready.”

 

 

        They call us Crawlers, since we're almost always walking.  I'm widely considered to be one of the most experienced ones of our job.  Which basically amounts to the notion that I have walked quite a lot.  I must've made tens, if not hundreds of millions of steps.  And it had to be this one that I missed.  I have no idea how it happened; I didn't trip on anything: the road was a perfectly even one.

 

        I just felt something holding one leg back and before I know it, I was ramming SK-247 with my right shoulder, a blistering white pain spreading throughout my body upon impact.  It was as I tried to roll on my side to ease the pain that two things occurred that should have never occurred at the same time.

 

        The little thing had apparently not given up on its chase yet as it leaped into the air, pouncing upon me like I was some sort of wounded animal.  And Rajht said, “I'm pulling you out.”

 

 

        The suit rammed the drugs in my veins and I felt my mind wash blank.  I must have made the transition towards the dark a thousand times now.

 

 

        I've never heard the screaming before

 

 

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