Technophilic Nightmare

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

The Maxim's

crew. He wondered, if that was true, if people from the lab were still alive after all these years.

It wasn't that long... if they were cared for, they'd only be a little older. But what were they like now, after years in the captivity of these machines...

He shook his head, and tried to get more information.

"When they... when they 'come', what comes? Those flying octopus things? Those shrimpipedes? Something else?"

"I only saw the big ones that got us come in here, dragging Kyong away kicking and screaming, and some woman from the command staff," Satsuki said. "I don't know what happened to the others with us..."

She went quiet, and Claude looked away. Randall grimaced, but fortunately, Claude shook his head, and continued himself, changing the subject.

"Can't say I saw anything different... but someone else claims they saw something

big

through one of those doors another time. That's where they came from, entering through there, picking one of us and dragging them away. Can't see much out there though, it's dark, and... weird. This place wasn't built with humans in mind."

That Randall figured when he saw this place coming in, and based on Alon's remarks, the interior was probably even more wild.

Still, a part of Randall nagged at him to at least

try

. It was strange, he never really considered himself the sort to stay determined and defiant.

"I'll leave you two to it," he said, patting Claude on the shoulder. "I'm gonna ask around some more info."

They nodded, and Randall moved to the other groups, asking questions, but he didn't get much else from them, just more of the same, though he did hear from the woman who claimed she saw someone else outside the room, someone she didn't recognise.

"They had long blond hair, that's all I really saw. They looked tall, and I think they might've had something mechanical on their back? That's all I can give you, didn't get

too

good a look at their face. Could've been a pretty woman or an effeminate man, but they weren't anyone I recognised."

"That's still something," Randall remarked, considering what he knew about the lab; people were reported missing before the evacuation, and during it, the machines attacked in force. He already conceded that if they weren't killing people, there could've been staff from the lab still alive from then. Just, if the machines weren't killing people... what were they keeping them for

other

than organic sex toys?

He was deeply concerned at the possibilities, moving on to another alcove to ask what those people had to say.

That's when he heard the sound of one of those iris doors hiss open, showing off the exterior beyond; Claude was right, it was dark and weird, a criss-crossing web of conduits dotted with glowing red lights, along with pulsing cables down the far wall of the organic-looking structure, rounded supporting beams branching off main pillars and forming rings that gave Randall the impression of an erratic honeycomb.

There were several flying machines milling about outside, but it was the one that floated through the door and landed on the ground that caught everyone's attention, a few panicked cries filling the air, but the machine paid no attention to any of those noises.

It scanned the various alcoves, examining the many scared, cowering humans... before crawling over to one, and plucking a man screaming from his hole.

It was Alon Malto, the man Randall had just spoken to. He felt a pit in his stomach for it.

Alon struggled, but as always, it was hopeless against these things, and he was swiftly coiled in the embrace of several tentacles, the rest carrying the machine out of the room, Alon's terrified cries trailing behind. The iris door then shut, and there was silence.

It was haunting, and Randall realised his breathing had stilled. He exhaled, and got his breathing back in order, but he was positively frightened.

Several people broke down into tears, others trying to comfort them. Randall heard one person muttering under their breath.

"Well... at least he's gonna feel good..."

That person did well to keep others from hearing him, but Randall still heard. But looking over, Randall saw the man looking as if they were questioning what the fuck they had just said themselves, and buried their face in their knees.

Everyone was rattled, and Randall had no idea of what they were going to do.

It was then, he realised, that the people from the unaccounted for lifepods had to have been here a few days already... so what did they eat? Where did they... relieve themselves.

He found one of the people from those lifepods, and they helpfully, if uncomfortably, explained that the machines had accounted for that; at the back of each alcove were holes people could sit in, covering their bodies up to their shoulders so they could go with

some

privacy, not that there was much when everyone was naked.

And after people were done, they were blasted with water like an extra-strength bidet.

It seemed the machines didn't like their captives filthy.

As for food... every now and then, the pillars they sent people down on would drop into the floor... and when they came up, there were magnetically fixed bowls filled with a bland-tasting 'dough'. It wasn't horrible, though it was quite moist.

It had an energising effect though, and it seemed to last, so people were confident it was nutritious... they hoped.

A few had apparently refused to consume anything... but as some of the first captives said, hunger is a compelling argument.

Sure enough, there was a dull 'ping' noise, and those platforms descended.

They vanished for a moment, and rose again, elevating above floor level to table height, now furnished with those bowls filled with numerous balls of that 'doughy' substance.

Randall tentatively crept towards the offerings, feeling his stomach rumble. Others did the same, though some remained hiding, not wishing to give into these machines more than they had already.

Truthfully, Randall had no idea what was in the stuff, there could've been contaminants meant to affect them in different ways... but there was only one way to find out, and starving was not on his bucket list.

He reached into one of the bowls, and took two of the balls, each the size of a burger. They were pale grey, and lacked much in the way of texture.

With another grumble of his stomach, Randall steeled himself, and took a bite.

It was... bland. Not tasty, not disgusting. Moist, and quite smooth, and it went down easily enough. He finished the two balls, and felt that was enough.

The others lined up, and some made sure to keep the distribution equitable. Not that hoarding food was feasible in this prison cell...

When most everyone but those who refused ate their fill, the pillars retracted back into the floor. When they returned, they were back to being flush with the floor, the bowls now gone.

He muttered to himself as he finished off his balls of nutrient dough, if that's what it was.

Now he was just left to wonder what happened next. He could hear chatter, but most people were quiet, probably thinking the same as he was. What happened next? When was it their turn?

He was surprised no one tried to kill themselves yet... though, perhaps those machines intervened too quickly for it to matter.

He was wandering back over to Claude and Satsuki, when one of the iris doors opened, and another of those machines flew in and landed on the ground... this time, Randall thought he saw something long and

big

outside the door, just glimpsing the edge of whatever it was.

But his focus was mostly on the machine that just entered, as he ducked into the nearest alcove.

Its eyes began to scan, sweeping those beams of red light across the room... and slowly settled on him.

A pit formed in his stomach, and he felt his blood chill. It seemed his time was up. He wanted to run, but that instinct meant little in a place with nowhere to run to.

The machine scuttled over to him with that swift but unsettling loping, claws clanking against the floor with a metallic keening. And then, he was coiled by several of the machine's tentacles, held tight and pulled against its body.

He struggled in reflex, grunting in fear, but he did not scream, even if he felt like it.

With him secure, the machine scuttled over to the door, and once on a little landing pad outside, it kicked off and took flight.

Now Randall was able to see that the structure they were in was one massive, central column, its exterior lumpy and with numerous landing pads and transit tunnels protruding from it into the surrounding tower structure.

The architecture was a bizarre blend of cold organisation and almost organic arrangement, with the interior surface of the 'shell' that surrounded the central column covered in the broad, web-like honeycombing reinforcing beams he saw before, which branched off to join with the central column.

He couldn't see above, but below, he saw a bright blue light pulsing at the very bottom of the tower, and the occasional arc of raw electricity run up glowing conduits arrayed equidistantly around the outer wall, running straight and true without deviation, the crackling audible as each occasional pulse travelled by.

He was being taken downward, passing by dozens of other flying machines, some which seemed to pause to look at him.

He wondered just what they had planned for him.

He was carried, until they came to an opening in the outer wall, leading into a tunnel filled with glowing red lights, likely connecting to one of those satellite structures he saw on the exterior.

He was soon brought into another hollow structure with a central column, though this one was considerably smaller, the structure overall lacking the same depth, more spherical, with the internal column much shorter.

The interior of the shell wall was covered in glowing red nodules, all pulsing with a red light.

An iris door ahead opened, and he was brought into another room, this one looking rather spartan in appearance, with no obvious features or functions.

He was placed on the floor, and he dropped to the ground and crawled backwards in fear, tucking up as that machine loomed over him.