Star Child (2 page)

“PISH!” The seal of his helmet broke open. Jason felt a cool breeze rush across his face when the helmet’s front section folded upward. Subsequently two bulky chest segments unlocked, splaying open after unlatching from the abdominal section. Jason then pulled his arms from the suit’s upper torso where he sat partially exposed to the airshaft’s hollering wind. The deep roar hummed at a calamitous near deafening pitch causing him to waver momentarily before slumping forward. Jason now reached deep inside the pelvic area of the exoskeleton, unlatching the abdominal segment, triggering it to collapse outward. He temporarily stared at the weapon still attached to the suit before pealing off his tight fitted long sleeve shirt. He then tied the shirt around the eighty pound rail gun, creating a makeshift sling.
“No way I am going in there without it
.
”
Without the rail gun, the likelihood of his plan succeeding decreased tenfold.

Twisting his shoulders, Jason pulled the sling over his neck, before unfastening the weapon from the arm of the suit. He then contorted his body out between the suit and ladder rungs. Every muscle tensely constricted from the exosmic movement of squeezing under the Ersatz Suit. It was a rigorous and arduous feat, endangering him by expelling a great deal of energy.

A bleak insidious vigor again washed over him, recharging his inner strength. Dancing around in the corners of his mind, he began to descend with hateful thoughts of punishing plots.

And in a vengeful fit, he roared, “Lexis!” Filling the dark vacuous airshaft.

Rung after rung, a black malice continually bathed his motivation. With each and every vengeful step into the sinister appearing depths, the unknown was his destination, and death dealer was his intent. It did not take long for the makeshift sling to start hurting, zapping his strength. When his muscles began to weaken, he soon realized the heavy rail gun was becoming more of a liability than an asset in the long climb.

Jason began to succumb to fatigue after climbing for some time. He paused, locked his arms around a ladder rung, and scraped off a piece of skin from his sweaty elbows on the rusty metal. Trying to hold fast in the dark, his leg muscles burned twisting in tightening knots. Copious amounts of perspiration gushed from every pore. With a hint of delirium, Jason now began doubting his own strength, and physical presence. He metaphorically thought,
“I’m so small in this vast emptiness.”
This was relating to his sense of self-worth in the grand scheme of the Polaris Corporation.

A searing pain squeezed at his neck, and shoulder muscles tore from his sockets. His arms dithered under the heavy load of the rail gun as his sweaty palms tightly gripped to the weapon’s sling. The worst pain rose from the bottom of his feet, and they felt as if thousands of stinging needles were being plunged into the meaty flesh of his soles.

A plaguing heat exhaustion capered around in synaptic gaps, twisting the nerve center of his medulla oblongata. Fatigue was pushing Jason to the brink, and all he could do on the ladder was hold on. His muscles strained under the heavy weapon’s burden but he still refused to let go of his grip on the rail gun. Not another inch could he move. He fought back against the losing battle, and thought,
“Death before dishonor!”

Glancing into the gulf, he felt there was a quietness looming below, calling, and telling him, all his pain would be absolved. His breathing became laborious, and the world began spinning. He closed his eyes to counteract the dizzy spell. His knee’s buckled from the weight of the weapon, and a loud buzzing noise pierced his head. Everything went black when all his muscle loosened; nothing could stop him from passing out. The heavy weapon of vengeance pulled him from the ladder; he fell backwards into the black empty void.

Jason woke in horrendous pain. Hanging backwards in a 90 degree angle, his right forearm dangled unnaturally. The rail gun’s weight had snapped his bones with ease in the fall. Although, there were no bones protruding from his skin, the damage was extensive. A small iron-grated platform had stopped his tumble into the endless darkness.

In shock, he sat up supporting his severely fractured arm, and looked up at the simple service door with hope.
“My plan has gone to hell and back,”
he thought while grimacing in agony. Battered, bruised, and broken, Jason stood there on the platform trying to turn the locked door handle.

“Son-of-a-bitch! What else can go wrong?”

Locked in the airshaft, with no way out except through the door, nailed home the thought of getting out of the tunnel alive, and made it his only and overriding priority.
“Lexis would have easily figured a way out of this situation,”
he thought while sitting down on the metal-grated platform.

His arm sagged, and his head pounded while looking up into the blackness from whence he came. He searched for the Ersatz Suit. Jason pondered his conundrum, he had only one play left but that would require setting his arm.

“I couldn’t have fallen more than twenty-five feet,” he mumbled, before continuing in thought,
“Any higher, I would have broken my neck.”

The topless man gingerly wiggled on his back, pulling at his tight pant legs with his feet. The fabric stretched until giving way to the kinetic energy of his heels. A throbbing pain squeezed his core, and an excruciating pain shot through his arm; a jaw-tightening scowl nearly broke the enamel off his teeth. Pulling the pants from around his ankles had nearly caused him to pass out as tears of agony welled up in his eyes from the sudden jerk.

The dark vacuity absorbed the paleness of his complete nakedness as he teased one leg around a rail of the grated-platform. Gnawingly, he chewed and teethed at the material until tying a knot in the pant leg. The deed practically exhausted him to the point to where he could barely manage tying the other leg around his lifeless forearm, the angle made it near impossible.

Naked, he sat down on the metal grate, and braced his feet up against the metal newel. Preparing for the monumental task of medically setting his disfigured arm, and like a woman practicing for childbirth, Jason took several deep breaths. And after plunging himself into a state of near hyperventilation, and in one swift movement, “CRACK!” His radial and ulna bone popped into their correct anatomical position. With all his leg’s might he had wrenched back, pulling his arm straight again. The hurt overwhelmed his consciousness causing a fit of screaming pain before passing out.

Jason finally stirred awake and felt a wetness coming from his backside. Blood oozed from his butt cheeks. The force of kicking out from the newel had caused the metal grate to tear away the skin. However, the overriding pain of his broken arm nullified whatever else he suffered from.

Part of the railing hung loose, most likely caused from his hard landing. He pried the metal back and forth until breaking it free; the fourteen-inch portion of steel would make a good splint. He looped his pants around the metal before fastening it into a sling around his arm. They say ingenuity derives out of necessity, and when Jason gazed up, it dawned on him what he needed to do next. Exploring the ladder rungs, he again wondered,
“How far is the Ersatz Suit?
Can’t be more than a hundred fifty, two hundred feet.”

The climb up was slow, and painfully tedious. Occasionally, he banged his arm but the metal splint absorbed the majority of the impacts. Albeit, in serious pain, he was making good time, and decided to push right through the hurt; stopping to rest would only exhaust what little energy he had left in his tank. Logically, he started planning his next move, and thought,
“I’ll climb back into the suit, rest, and eat before coming back down.”

Excitement washed over his naked body when he could make out the lumbering shadow of the suit.

He figured the climb had to have been just over two hundred feet when he painfully pulled himself into the belly of the protective exoskeleton.

The Ersatz Suit powered up right away and Jason ordered, “Close to environment.”

The belly retracted upward, and two chest plates closed inward. The helmet folded back down fully enclosing him within the suit. The internal computer scanned his body, and assessed his injuries he had sustained from the fall. Though the suit’s healing abilities were not as extensive as the medical grade healing chamber, it would however rehydrate, and fast track the natural healing process.

“Play Smooth Jazz from the twentieth century,” Jason commanded.

Fly me to the moon

And let me play among the stars

Let me see what spring is like

On Jupiter or Mars.

Frank Sinatra’s lyrics poured from the internal speaker system, reminding him of Lexis. She often cued up Jazz on board the Chameleon, and he left both behind 50 million miles away, and three days ago on the Martian surface.

“Up 10 percent.” The music played louder while he drank fluids from a feeding tube.

Fill my heart with song and

Let me sing forever more

You are all I long for

All I worship and adore.

“Divine,”
Jason pathetically thought. An internal vitality drove him to gulp down the nutrient rich essence that slowly pumped out, quenching his thirst for life. Designed from the suit’s scan, the fluid consisted of a mixture of electrolytes, regenerative molecular DNA compounds, painkillers, vitamins, and minerals. Before the song ended, and with the feeding tube still in his mouth, Jason fell into a deep slumber.

In other words, please be true

In other words, I love you…

He remained resting there in the Ersatz Suit for the next three days. The amount of time would maximize the healing progression by speeding up his natural mending process.

Jason’s vigor for life was renewed, along with his quest for vengeance, and before stepping out on to the ladder he buckled a small utility belt around his waist. He had left behind the metal pipe he had used for splinting. However, he still needed the makeshift sling to support his healing right arm.

Slowly descending into the dark howling wind, Jason winced as the dry crusted blood pulled at the hairs on his legs. Below the waist, and from his butt wound, he was covered in a purple crust of congealed blood. Despite only the use of one arm, his progress was swift. After reaching the small landing, he acted quickly and removed a laser-cutting tool from the utility belt. He pointed the high-energy beam into the door’s jam, and produced molten drops of metal, reducing the steel bolt.

The door now opened freely and Jason staggered into a bizarre environment. Disbelief grabbed his humanity as he looked up at a brilliant astronomical light show and thought,
“Stunning, absolutely stunning! But why is this here?”
It was neither a night sky nor day. A large creamy orange gas giant vibrantly glowed, and a black hole’s galactic outer disk spun near the horizon; nothing escaped its gravitational grip. A plethora of speckling stars filled the black voids.

Mind blown, his body froze gazing at celestial objects projected on the artificial sky. Jason had never heard nor seen anything like it under any Polaris canopy. Rumors circulated throughout the city about how the Level 9er’s lived but he had no idea. Level 9’s visual beauty was overpowering, as was the thickly unkempt humidity that hung about, filling his lungs with mucus. His chest labored due to the thick atmosphere when he began moving along the service path.

“PTOOIE!” Jason spat up a huge phlegmy glob.

Scratching his skin, the utility belt tightly clung to his naked hips, as he moved along the periphery of the level; leg-cramping strides began weighing down his progress. Even more astonishing was the near endless display of bioluminescence below that radiated in a flickering yellow ruddiness, and alien greenish afterglow between shimmering dome-like structures dotting the landscape. The domes attracted his mind like a moth to a flame. Strangely, his leg muscles became sinewy, and taut like piano strings. Momentarily he paused, rubbing his hamstring and noticed weird shapes moving within them. The shapes seemed to be reflecting upward. Jason could not get a grip on whether the domes were translucent or mirrored glass.

After resuming along the service walkway, his discomfort intensified. However, the pain or his freely flopping manhood did not distract, he was too mesmerized by the extraterrestrial world. And caused by the infinite radiance, Jason nearly stumbled into a stairwell leading to Level 9’s surface.

Liquefying steal hissed and popped as the high-energy laser tool melted the outer door’s dead bolt. Jason cut the lock and before the door swung wide open, he made the decision to go directly to the nearest dome for further investigation.
“Maybe I can steal some clothing there.”
Jason bolted into the alien landscape.

When he neared the alien looking structure, a gust of wind caused the glowing undergrowth to proliferate in a dance of glittering waves. Walking among the strange bioluminescent foliage was difficult. He felt more squeezed than up on the catwalk. He struggled breathing under the oppressive and almost viscous air. The heavy atmosphere caused his head to spin.