I run, putting distance between me and the nest. Passing a deep, wide puddle of chemical slime, I consider just diving in and ending it all. But I don't.
I take refuge in a deep, dry crater and pull the last of the clinging monsters from my skin. Tiny, pocked sores appear where I've been bit, already turning purple at the edges. Throwing the insects to the ground and stomping on them is enough to kill them. Their shells cut and slice the heel of my foot, but two or three good stomps and they stop moving.
Once they are all dead, I sit down in the crater, exhausted. My stomach is moaning as I stare at the smashed corpses. My mouth begins to water…--
Neural Log: 23:70-64-
--After gorging myself on the foul insects I begin to feel tired, woozy, poisoned. A burning sensation erupts in my stomach and grows and spreads through my belly. At first, it was all that I could do to bring the creatures to my nose, touch my tongue to their shells, without gagging. But soon enough hunger took over, and I was able to close my eyes and my mind and suck the wretched juices and organs from the shells, until I'd had my fill. Bug-juice stains the weeks-long growth of beard on my chin.
And now I am feeling sicker by the moment.
My naked skin is pink and burning, slick with sweat and mucous. My desperate mind is going quietly insane. And my stomach…
My stomach-the pain is unbearable, belching geysers of gas and foul liquid that smells like rotting death erupt from me as I curl into a fetal position in the muck and garbage of the crater.
Oh, let me die…--
Neural Log: 23:71-13-
--But I don't die.
After timeless hours (or days?) of feverish nightmare-sleep, I awake with a parched throat, shivering in the damp cold of the city's floor.
I'd dreamt that the Arches of 24-G were opened up to me and that a Great Eye was peering down at me from the sky-crack above. I was naked, but the voices of my neural net had returned, and they were laughing at me, mocking me, telling me that I would never ascend to 24-G, that none of us would, that no one ever did… And then I dreamt that I was one of the Elite of 24-G and that I was looking down on the lower levels through the eyes of god and that I saw all but saw nothing. None of the struggle, none of the strife was seen through those all-seeing eyes. Only the dedicated hard work, the clean streets, the happy pedestrians-joyous celebration and the steadfast working for their ascension-even the lower levels, even the Red Rings, were seen through a blurred, myopic lens. The filth was airbrushed until it seemed smooth and clean. None the cyber-sluts or human trash were about, all cleverly hidden just out of the eye's view. Not a pinhead in sight. The Refuservoir was totally obscured beneath a pleasant valley of clouds drifting easily along the city's lowest tier.
I awake to find that my stomach has swollen to twice its normal girth. It's distended and hurts to touch, and it jiggles unnaturally at the slightest movement, as if filled with jelly or sludge. Chills wrack my body, as a shrill, cold wind shrieks over the crater's edge, stirring garbage in tiny whirlwinds and biting my exposed skin.
I start to cry.--
Neural Log: 23:72-56-
--A gentle, warm breeze stirs me, and turning my head I notice a small passage in the crater's floor. It is from this downward opening that the warm air billows.
The passage is tight, but wide enough for me (distended belly and all) to squirm into. Garbage and the crust of the city floor scratch my raw, sensitive skin, but the warmth eases my aching muscles. My nose is beginning to run, but the foul smelling belches from my gut are becoming less frequent. Perhaps it's my imagination, but the skin of my stomach feels slightly softer, not as pinched and taught as before.
As I worm my way down into the tunnel, it occurs to me that this might be the end-that I could just curl up in a cozy ball here and die. But something urges me on. Pushing with my toes and pulling with my fingers I inch my way downward. The tunnel floor is illuminated with the pervasive light of the city above, or perhaps there is a chemical phosphorescence to the walls, it's hard to be sure. And then I see it.
A small sign, white on red, set into the floor of the tunnel. Dirty but legible:
SALVATION
I pause for a moment, my muddled brain attempting to decipher the significance of this strange omen.
I begin to dig and scratch at the crust embedding the sign. I pick and claw at the petrified garbage for what seems like hours, before pulling away enough debris to read another single word. ARMY.
What is this? With bleeding fingers I dig some more-desperate before exhaustion, hunger, sickness, or death overtake me to uncover another bit of this mystery-when the ground suddenly gives way beneath me.
The fall is painful, my swollen stomach feels ready to burst, but nothing seems to be broken. Once I get my bearings I can see that I am in a large room filled with strange, whirring machinery. I'd fallen through the ceiling.
Conveyor belts along the walls carry bits and pieces of unidentifiable electronic and mechanical components in from openings in the walls and out through similar passages. Large pot-bellied steel machines rumble and shake beneath tremendous pipes that extend from the floor and into the walls and ceiling. I appear to be in a factory of some sort.
Around me on the floor is the debris of the sign and the ceiling. The sign, freed from the crust of the city floor lies at my feet. Apparently there is little more to the mystery than I'd already uncovered, it reads simply SALVATION ARMY.
What strange army of the past was this? I'd never heard of it, but then, the neural teachings seldom spoke of the past, but rather we were taught to look forward to ascension. But even Dexter's history lessons (which admittedly, I only half-listened to) had never, to my recollection, mentioned such an army.
With further inspection of the debris, the mystery only deepens. Dozens of small metal disks, tarnished and crusted with age, are littered about the floor. And each one bears the strange etching of a man's face. Were these men the soldiers of this army of salvation?
My stomach takes another turn as my eye catches something among the debris that I first mistake to be the bloody gore of preserved meat, sealed neatly in transparent plastic.
Closer inspection, after wiping away ages of smudged dirt, reveals it to be a uniform of some sort. Red velvet in a vacuum-sealed bag.
I tear at the plastic, which rips quite easily, and remove the strange clothes. Stiff with age, the uniform unfolds awkwardly. Red velvet trousers and coat. A matching, pointed cap. A white shirt and coal-black boots and a belt. Also a bell, no doubt a primitive alarm, of some sort… And a large, empty velvet sack. What a strange outfit these soldiers of salvation wore!
But it looks warm and I climb into it, buttoning the shirt and tightening the belt gently over my sore, distended stomach. It's loose-fitting. The boots are sturdy, made of a material unfamiliar to me. The white trim of the hat tickles the sensitive skin of my head, but it is warm, and it feels somehow appropriate to wear the full uniform of this long dead soldier.--
Neural Log: 23:74-87-
--The small factory room seems to be totally automated. That is to say, that other than the small conveyor belt portals (much too narrow to admit a skinny child, let alone a man of my distended, sickly girth) there appear to be no entrances to the room.
The hole in the ceiling through which I'd fallen is too high to reach, and there's nothing substantial to stand on in the room (the rumbling pot-bellied machines are far too heavy to be budged, and are secured firmly in place with large, immovable bolts).
Watching the strange devices and unfinished bits of mechanical junk fly by is fascinating. Some of it is vaguely recognizable, and some is strange and unidentifiable. There goes a water filter, and there's a keypad and a seat cushion. Watching the endless stream of odds and ends is monotonous, repetitive, transfixing-data disks, food containers, waste receptacle lids, traffic lights, tooth-scrubbers, ceiling lamps, it all flows silently by. It's hypnotizing. I lose track of time just watching…
And then something glides into the room that is so shocking that at first I don't even consciously realize what it is that I'm looking at. Without thinking, I reach out and pluck it from the belt.
Holding the thing in my hand, I stare at it and it stares back at me. The small golden orb is lighter than I would have imagined, and smaller. The red crystal areole is dark, and doesn't glow with the holy fire that that bathes the streets of Crack City. Holding it in my hand, it seems impotent, insignificant, and I feel suddenly empowered-how ever did I fall so low only to come into possession of one of the eyes of god?--
Neural Log: 23:75-47-
--The malleable, uncertain beginnings of an idea tickle the back of my mind. Not really aware of what I am doing or why, I begin collecting pieces from the conveyor belt and stuffing them into my sack. Odds and ends, strange electronic devices and components, circuit boards and data chips, and a handful of implants that I'm almost certain are neural nets…
When the sack is full, I sit heavily down on the floor and carefully examine my surroundings.
No doors in the room. Other than the hole I'd fallen through in the ceiling (and I have no desire to return to the Refuservoir) there don't appear to be any exits. But the conveyor belts must go somewhere, the large pipes and shafts emerging from the floor and walls and heavy machinery must lead somewhere…
I get up and begin to pry at the largest shaft in the room. It is a good three feet in diameter and extends at an upward angle from the largest rumbling pot-bellied machine (a furnace of some sort, I reason) into the seam where the ceiling and wall meet. It's warm to the touch, but doesn't burn, and to my surprise I am able to pry a large plate from the front of the shaft. Warm air billows upwards, but otherwise it is empty.
With nothing to lose, I climb inside, pulling my sack in after me. It's warm, and I'm suddenly filled with an urge to sleep. But curiosity gets the better of me. It's dark inside the chimney-shaft, but I can see that it continues upward without turning for quite a distance. Regularly placed rivets make nearly perfect hand- and foot-holds, and with the warm air billowing up my pant legs and under my coat I begin my ascent.--
Neural Log: 23:76-98-
--I climb the chimney-shaft for so long that I lose all sense of time, the warm air rushing past makes me dizzy, lightheaded, and creates the illusion that I am drifting downward, rather than moving upward. Every so often I knock against the steel wall of the shaft, only to hear the unmistakably solid thud of concrete behind it.
Eventually I've climbed far enough that I must be well above the level of the Refuservoir-in fact, though it's difficult to gauge, I feel I must be up past the Red Ring, by now. Perhaps as far as Plaza 3 or the protein farms…--
Neural Log: 23:78-32-
--Finally something! I reach a section where the chimney splits into three directions-straight up, and off to either side. Securing my sack firmly to my belt, I continue straight up.
Eventually I come to a similar split. Then another, and another.
I continue my course, straight up…--
Neural Log: 23:79-74-
--Blinding light up ahead. As I draw nearer, it begins to take shape. A rectangle, with crisscrossed shadows giving it texture.
Drawing closer I see that it is a vent. Peering through, I am surprised to find myself at floor-level, looking into someone's living room! A pair of feet stride past, startling me, and then a woman's voice calls out, muffled by the carpet and the thick walls, "Pork or chicken-stuff, tonight?" My mouth waters, and I continue onward and upward.--
Neural Log: 23:81-38-
--Up past living rooms and bathrooms, apartments, offices and factories, I climb. Past basements and playrooms and studios. Past gene-rep kiosks, breeding gulags and cancer shelters.
I climb past classrooms and auto-feeds and euthanasia clubs, but in all cases the vents looking outward are too small or too secure for me to escape through.
With my bowels churning and my stomach rumbling-I'm belching and moaning, expelling noxious gas from both ends-perspiring, dehydrated and starved, I finally find an exit. A large vent that opens into a dim, clinical room. The vent itself is oversized and so rusted with age that it is nearly falling off of the wall to which it's affixed. Beyond it, all is quiet and still. Small liquid lights cast strange, dancing shadows on the walls and ceiling.
As inconspicuously as I can, I push and pry at the vent, twisting it from the wall, and climb carefully inside. I have no idea what level I might be on, but I suspect that if I am discovered there will be hell to pay. Back down into the Bath-or worse, if such a thing as worse exists in Crack City.
A desperate search of the room reveals no food, and no answers to the question of where I am. One entire wall of the room is glass, a window, and it is from behind this window that the strange lights and reflections originate.
There's only one door leading out of the room, and pressing my ear to it all seems quiet on the other side. It opens into a narrow hallway leading to the room behind the glass.
Bile rises in my throat and a painful shiver wracks my body and weakens my knees so that I have to lean against the wall for support. My nose begins to bleed and suddenly, calmly, I know that I am dying. My distended stomach aches in a deep, unnatural way, and I can feel bad things happening in my kidneys, my lungs, my brain.
Staggering into the room, I am bathed in the dancing liquid light, and enveloped in a warm, wet mist. I fall to my knees, my legs no longer able to support me. The air is thick and cloying, almost claustrophobic, but somehow, despite my failing body, comfortable and inviting. I only want to sleep. I only want to hear those voices chattering through my neural net once more before I commit myself to… to what, I couldn't even guess.