The Black Seas of Infinity Read Online Free PDF Page B

chemicals bit at my nostrils. I blinked
rapidly, narrowing my eyes to slits and straining to make out what
was beyond.
    The black dots of outlying objects slowly
came into focus, and I could spy one lone scientist bent over
something in the distance. He stood toward one end of the long,
sparse room, half-obscured by the gleams coming off of too many
reflective surfaces. Small tables arranged in rows and covered with
paraphernalia stretched out in parallel lines to the far wall. The
technician seemed lost in his own world. That presented a bit of a
problem. I needed to get past this room to make it downstairs to
the ship. I glanced around and considered somehow restraining him.
If I tied him up, there would be a fight, and the noise might alert
whomever was on duty. The restraints would also be makeshift, made
out of whatever raw materials I could scrounge up, and they might
not hold. Even if they did, he might knock something over or
otherwise try to alert someone. The guy looked young, maybe in his
late twenties. He had light brown hair that was too long to be
military, black-rimmed glasses, and a tailored white lab coat. I
had to think.
    Do I really want to do this? This would be
going way beyond the point of no return. Breaking and entering. I
had no prior criminal record. Maybe this could all be minor? A slap
on the wrist? I didn’t see any other option. I had to give this
everything I had. Make it work or fail gloriously. If I made a
halfhearted attempt, my life would be a waste. I would never get
this chance again. It didn’t help that he was so young. I went to
school with people like him. I worked with them every day. I
couldn’t keep wasting time. Every minute was crucial. Any moment
now I risked being discovered, my Jeep being stumbled upon, my
break in the fence, anything? I had no choice. I pointed the gun at
his distant face and moved forwards. Every step seemed to
reverberate with the pounding in my head. Small beads of sweat
built up under the brim of my hat. My throat was painfully dry, my
tongue strange and thick in my mouth.
    Seconds stretched out into an eternity as I
slowly approached him. When I was only a few feet away, he looked
up. I had no idea who he was, but his eyes seemed to glimmer with
faint recognition. On instinct, I squeezed the trigger. A slight
pop, a small hole to the right of his temple, and he froze, slowly
collapsing, his face permanently fixed in a look of confusion. The
blood trickled down his forehead and pooled beneath, staining the
top of his white smock and expanding in a syrupy pool on the tile
floor. I could smell the fresh blood. It hung thick in the air,
accusing me with its stench.
    The pounding in my head grew more intense.
What had I done? There was no other way, I kept telling myself, my
mantra… I have to think in black and white terms. I have to keep
going. I am truly fucked now if I don’t succeed. This is it. I
obtain the suit or I go to the electric chair. A wave of cold
washed over me. What if I was wrong? What if the suit didn’t work
the way I thought it would? I had just killed a man! And it would
all be for nothing.
    A few feet directly in front of me was a
door. As if in a walking hallucination, I stepped around the
crumpled form and approached the door, skirting the slowly
expanding pool with revulsion. The brightness of the room was
overwhelming. My temples convulsed like some poorly running old
motor, ready to seize at any moment. I have to put this out of my
mind. It’s a cliché: you never know what killing a man is like
until you do it. But it’s true. You plan for the extremes, you work
it all out in your head, but none of that is real life. It’s just
you and a corpse that a minute ago was a living, breathing human. I
reached forward, grabbed the lever, and opened the door.
    A long metal corridor stretched out before
me. This was the point at which the warehouse dramatically changed.
It was like in one of those old adventure stories, where some