Technophilic Nightmare Part 2
How far was it taking him? Where was it taking him? It was further than they had gone when he trekked from his lifepod to the campsite. But not so far away from the mountains that he couldn't see them in the distance when he craned his neck to see the ground below.
That's when he noticed what looked like a long, dark-metal conduit running along the ground... and slowly realised it was some sort of tunnel, or something, large enough to fit several vehicles through. It glowed with red lights, and though highly technological, it had a biomechanical hint to its design.
Further still, he saw another such tunnel come into view, and out of the corner of his eyes, a third... all three slowly converging together, like spokes on a wheel.
He groaned, feeling like he was being edged now, that gentle stimulation not going away.
He kept watching the ground below... and soon, strange grass gave way to metal and glass, as rounded, curving structures came into view, glowing with red lights, sharp antennae and pylons jutting out everywhere. The structures were steadily getting larger and larger, and much taller, electricity crackling between the various pylons and antennae.
Then, he was pulled from the machine's sucking port, his throbbing cock left to bob in the cold air as he was lowered away from the machine's body, and allowed to face the looming structure that he was brought to.
It was a towering spire, at least a kilometre or more in height, with satellite towers joined by struts and what looked like passages, ovoid nodules protruding off the side the structure. He didn't get a good look at its peak, but he thought he saw a number of large antennae and what looked like radomes or something similar.
Red lights pulsed everywhere around it, and he saw
dozens
, if not
hundreds
of those flying machines slowly flitting about, their tentacles waving lazily behind them as they patrolled and transited in and out of the structures through various iris doors.
Such as the one right ahead of him, dilating and revealing a dark interior lined with cabling.
The sense of foreboding he got was immense, but he hadn't the strength to resist as he was brought past the threshold into this ominous place.
The machine carried him through tight passages, until, he was brought to a chamber, the floor dimly lit by the red optics of the machine. He spied numerous smaller iris hatches on the metal surface, and as he was brought to one, it opened, revealing a platform just large enough to accommodate his form, even slumped.
He saw Henrietta brought forth as well, and dumped on another such platform. Immediately flexible tubes, not unlike tentacles themselves, rose up from the edges of their platforms, and curled overhead to form simple cages.
Moments later, their platforms dropped with surprising speed, making Randall's stomach lurch.
They were drawn down into another chamber, lit by red and white lights, highlighting the gunmetal grey of the smooth, rounded walls only broken up by conduit-like pillars converging to a point in the centre, flanking short ramps that led to iris doors all round.
The floor was a lighter colour of grey, and had glowing lines that pulsed with red ambience, converging into a ring around the centre of the room, of which their platforms, two of several, were arrayed around.
In the middle of this ring was a conical device that seemed to be projecting a hologram of geometric shapes and symbols Randall could not understand.
But immediately after this, he noticed all the little alcoves around the large room, between the ramps, where naked humans huddled.
Many he recognised.
They recognised him back, the eyes of one pudgy man lighting up.
"Randall?" they hissed out quizzically.
Randall didn't know them personally, but he grabbed Henrietta's wrist, and dragged the quiet, glassy eyed woman over to the alcove where several of the other humans were gathered. A quick count, and Randall figured there were more here than when they made camp near the wreck of
The Maxim.
"You don't recognise me, Randall?" the man asked. He was pudgy, with thinning hair, and middle aged. His skin had a natural tan to it, and dark brown eyes that were hard to make out in the alcove.
Randall shook his head.
"Sorry, I don't know your name, but I do remember seeing you on the ship before," Randall conceded.
The man shrugged; even with a crew of 100, not everyone knew everyone's name, shifts and schedules kept people apart, and without nametags now, well, Randall wouldn't have a clue.
"Alon Malto. I'm the guy who was at the wreck site. Was with you when Gina was... well, you know what," he said, trying to dance around the word.
Randall looked him up and down, noticing that the man was unharmed. None of the survivors appeared to be in any state of injury, though there were some subtle marks that suggested what happened to them.
"They got you too?" Randall ventured.
"They raped everyone," Alon said grimly, saying the word up front this time. "Didn't matter who except anyone who got injured trying to escape them. Those guys, they got taken away. Don't know where..."
Randall tried not to think about it.
"Are some of these people from the missing pods?"
Alon nodded.
"Yeah. They all made it down safely. One-hundred-percent survival rate escaping
The Maxim
. Only, they got caught before they could even make contact. They've been here a bit longer than we have, but..."
He trailed off, a look of fear and dread crossing his face.
"But, what?" Randall asked.
Alon sighed.
"Only half of them are actually here, and not everyone from the camp is here either. You know how I said they took the injured away? Well they took some of the others away, but randomly. We haven't seen them since, but one of the crew here before us, she said... she said they saw someone. A human they're sure wasn't on
The Maxim
. But that's impossible, we're the first ones on this rock."
"That's not quite true," Randall corrected, and proceeded to recount what they found at the LEYLINE Project lab... and what happened to them.
Alon's eyes widened.
"You got to be fucking kidding me... why the fuck did we not know!?"
"I've got a feeling whoever was involved didn't want to leave behind a record. Seems they were pretty sloppy about it," Randall grumbled.
A nearby woman let out a defeated groan.
"It was a trap..." she said. "They left the damn place and accidentally baited a trap."
"Question is, what are we gonna do now?" Randall suggested, and he received grim looks.
"Like what? We don't even have a way out of here, we don't know how high up we are, or whether there's any way for us humans to get to the ground. This place wasn't built for us... well, maybe to contain us. But these things can
fly
. And god knows what else. The only thing they haven't seemingly done is torn us apart, but then again, who knows what they're doing to the people they've taken..." Alon stated with a defeatist attitude, one Randall couldn't blame him for.
He was feeling much the same. He looked around at the other humans, looking full of fear and uncertainty. Some looked like they had cried recently, others were blank-faced like Henrietta. A small handful seemed catatonic. And a number of others were... looking oddly ashamed? Perhaps, from having enjoyed what happened to them, angling their bodies to hide certain reactions they had.
Randall decided to see if he could see the others, venturing into the open with a sense of dread, like a small creature scurrying over a field beneath open skies filled with hungry raptors. Nothing attempted to grab him, and that's when he saw Satsuki, looking shocked, but otherwise aware of herself, along with Claude, who seemed to be doing his best to maintain his composure.
He moved over to them, though there was hesitance in his motions, expecting contempt and hatred for 'abandoning them'.
Instead, Satsuki's eyes seemed to light up a little.
"Randall! You're alive!" she exclaimed, but did not get up from her position, hugging her knees to her chest and keeping her naked body as covered up as possible.
"There was nothing you could do for us," Claude said, preemptively trying to assuage any guilt Randall might have had, not that it worked too well, but he did his best to hide it.
"Didn't matter in the end. They got all of us," Randall stated glumly.
"Surprised any of us are remotely sane," Claude remarked, clearly referencing just how... intense, the machines stimulated all of them.
"Not all of us, but they seem to take the ones that break. Along with the others..." Satsuki said, trailing off and tucking up tighter.
Randall grimaced, and decided to take another simple headcount; there were about seventy or so people in the chamber. He wasn't sure on the exact count, but that meant plenty of people were missing; the injured, the 'broken', and those that were simply 'chosen'.
He looked around again, and noticed a conspicuous absence.
"Where's Captain Carrow?"
Claude shook his head.
"We didn't see her when we arrived. Only a few people did, and that was on the way here... she was never brought to this room, far as anyone could tell," he explained.
It was an unsettling thought, Randall wondering if she was chosen immediately because of her leadership position.
But he kept thinking back to what Alon said, that someone saw a person not part of