Author's Note: And once more, we have a TALES OF THE MACABRE. Once more, I feel compelled to warn my readers. This story does not end happily. This story deals with darkness and wickedness - both human and cosmic. Because, at the end of the day, this story is a fantasy and sometimes it feels good to visit places such as the Night City.
Just don't...live there
*****
The elevator door opened and Dr. Gabriel Judd and Dr. Hailee Sutton emerged into the darkened corridors beneath Dynacore and tried to not look suspicious. Gabriel adjusted the collar of his shirt, while Hailee re-buttoned her shirt. Neither glanced at one another as they walked down the corridor as they came to the first of the heavy blast doors. Swiping his key-card, Gabriel leaned in for the retinal scan.
Quietly, he said: "So, uh, after work?"
"Yeah," Hailee said. Her lips quirked up slightly. "Your place?"
"Sounds good."
He paused as the computer made a quiet chirruping noise - then typed in the pass code. After a moment, a microphone slid from the wall and he sighed quietly.
"If anyone
got
down here, I think we'd have bigger fucking problems than a mistaken identity," he said, covering the mic with one hand as he looked at his associate. Hailee smiled, adjusting her glasses with one hand as she slipped them back onto her face after having her eye scanned.
"Dynacore is paranoid. But we should all be a
little
paranoid." She shrugged one shoulder.
Gabriel nodded, then spoke into the mic. "Golgotha."
The door opened as a computerized voice chirruped: "Welcome to Station-12, Dr. Judd. Have a pleasant day. Emission levels are within-" there was a long pause as the computer switched out voice clips to patchwork a sentence together. "-0.4% of - norms."
"Well, that's good news at least." Gabriel shook his head as the two of them walked into Station-12. Gabriel sat down at his console and rubbed his hands along his face while Hailee got to the coffee pot they had installed within the first day of working there. She poured two cups, her thumb rubbing along her wedding band as she licked her lips slightly. Her finger rested on the tiny diamond that Alby had bought for her. He had been so proud - and she had been so excited. But then her eyes flicked to Gabriel. Lit entirely by the glow of the monitors looking in at the Horizon, he was a sight. Lean. Muscular. Shaven. Even his glasses looked almost predatory.
Hailee shivered and felt a rush of arousal swell between her thighs. She sauntered over, rolling her hips - and when Gabriel looked at her, she leaned forward to set the coffee before him. His eyes were locked on her breasts as she stood - and she loved the way he actually seemed to be
interested
in her.
"...so," she said after the silence had stretched between them. "Going to start today's trials?"
"What? Right!" Gabriel shook himself and then turned to the monitor. He sipped from his cup, set it down, and flicked on the recording microphone. "This is Dr. Gabriel Judd, Dynacore Special Research Division. The date is February 21
st
, 2017, and we are beginning trial number fifteen of the Horizon Project. Assisting me is Dr. Hailee Sutton."
He flicked the mic off for a second, glancing at her. "Do you ever worry about putting your name to this?"
Hailee arched an eyebrow. "No." She snorted. "If we get found out before the Horizon pays off, then we're up against the wall no matter what we do to hide it. This is for afterward. People will understand once..." she shrugged. "The historical weight of what we're doing is shown."
Gabriel smiled at her, then flicked the mic back on.
"Today's subject is a repeat offender from Tennessee - officially logged as Subject-0415. Dr. Sutton, will you please ready the Horizon."
"Beginning sheer-induction," Hailee said - bumping her leg against his as she leaned forward and started to adjust some dials. The heavy magnetic coils built into the Horizon Chamber - visible to them thanks to several large plasma screen TVs that had been hooked up and connected to high definition cameras - started to twitch and writhe as electricity surged through them. Creating the rotating magnetic field of sufficient strength to widen the Horizon was more art than science. And Hailee was a
master
. Gabriel watched her hands work - and tried to not think about what else she was a master of. She caught him looking at her and winked.
Gabriel wanted to bed her over the desk
right
then and there.
Instead, he coughed and checked the readouts. "We're at a sheer factor of two," he said. "Two point three - almost there-"
Hailee's eyes didn't waver. She twisted another knob - then flipped a switch. The pale blue light of the Horizon darkened, then turned into a wash of blood red luminescence. The entire chamber seemed to be painted in the colors of rubies and blood and darkness. Sensing equipment turned into jagged, blocky shadows and even the magnetic induction coils were nothing more than faint shadows in a roof that seemed to stretch on to infinity. Now Gabriel's job came up. He leaned forward and started to dial in the focusing apertures as Hailee kept the field rotating properly. The colors shifted from red to pure blackness as the light emerging from the Horizon turned from infrared to ultriviolet.
Then the cameras washed with static.
"Shit!" Gabriel hissed.
"You're slewing into soft X-rays!" Hailee snapped. "Don't drop to gamma, we won't be able to-"
"I know, goddamn it!" Gabriel didn't tear his eyes from the screen. His fingers ghosted along the controls and the static faded. The room looked like pure blackness with a single white sliver of light. The sliver widened into a sphere of perfect, non-reflective white. Gabriel slammed his palm down on the computer lock and the systems designed to sustain the modes the humans had found slapped into place. The controls dimmed and Hailee took her hands off the console. Sweat beaded on her forehead and she brushed some of her red hair back behind her ears.
"Horizon successfully breached," Gabriel said into the microphone.
"Releasing subject." Hailee flipped a switch.
The subject - a bound and gagged African American man - staggered into the room. He squirmed and looked around, his eyes wide and afraid. The gag around his mouth popped open and his manacles fell off as Gabriel turned on the PA system. He spoke into the microphone.
"Greetings Subject 0415," he said. "Please step into the Horizon - the white sphere in the center of the room."
"Fuck you!" Subject 0415 said, his head craning around. "I want my fuckin lawyer!"
"0415, you were declared legally dead as of this afternoon," Gabriel said, keeping his tone steady - though he felt a swell of irritation. These prisoners were always so
stubborn
. "But if you enter into the Horizon, you will be helping to advance the future of human science and-"
"Fuck that!"
"-and," Gabriel continued over his objection. "You will be given a full pardon as well as a sizable compensation. The alternative is death."
The prisoner glared around at the room - clearly looking for the cameras, or the PA speakers. When he didn't see them, he squared his shoulders and started walking towards the sphere. His lips moved in a prayer as he came closer and closer as Hailee turned on several monitoring systems. Then the prisoner stepped into the sphere. Hailee rubbed her palms together.
"All right," she said. "You got a bet?"
"A bet?" Gabriel asked. "Like, you mean, how long he lasts?" he pursed his lips. "What do we bet?"
"Hmm." Hailee's eyes danced as she rubbed her hands together. "When we get back to your place, if I win, you eat me out first." She grinned, wickedly. "If you win, then I'll do anything."
"Anything?" Gabriel arched an eyebrow. Then, grinning. "A maid outfit?"
"S-Sure," Hailee said, blushing.
"Okay, I bet ten minutes," Gabriel said. "With no telemetry."
"Five, with no telemetry," Hailee said, nodding. Then, sighing. "But god-all-fucking damn it, I wish we'd get more than just static from the probes." She tapped the screen that was showing the prisoner's body camera. His heart beat read zero, his brain-wave patterns read zero. The potential of the Horizon was theoretically infinite, and the animal tests had been remarkable. The first time she had seen a rabbit returned with bulletproof skin and sawblade teeth, Hailee had had nightmares and daydreams that were wondrous and terrifying. But the human trails had been...
Unsatisfying.
The minutes ticked by as they waited.
Then, at the five minute mark, the heart-rate monitor pinged. It showed the prisoner's heart rate. Then the static from the camera unfuzzed for
just
a moment and showed smooth blackness - it shone faintly, as if it was metal, not merely darkness. Then static returned. Hailee gaped at the screen, her eyes wide.
"Holy fuck," she whispered. "Holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck!"
One of the spectrometers pinged back a partial response - it was being pressed against some material that didn't even seem to be possible, considering what Gabriel knew about atomic science. Since the spectrometer was hooked to the prisoner's palm, he knew that he had to be touching it. Was it a wall? A life form?
Then the Horizon quivered and a stream of red, black, and pale white liquid shot from it. It splashed against the cameras and the walls and the equipment, splashing and splattering for a good minute, like a high powered firehose. The spray slackened slowly, turning to a trickle, then nothing, and then the horizon closed with a snap. Hailee checked the readouts, nodding slowly.
"Once again," she said. "Water, carbon, trace amounts of iron, calcium and phosphates."
"But we got actual
data
this time," Gabriel said, his eyes glowing with glee. "Real
fucking
telemetry too! Some
footage
."
"Do you ever feel bad about the poor fucker?" Hailee asked, her voice speculative as she looked at the prisoner - returned in his component parts. Dripping from the walls. The ceilings. Puddling on the ground.
"What?" Gabriel looked at her, then snorted. "Course not. It's all in the name of science."
"And Dynacore's profit," Hailee said, quietly.
"And
our
profit," Gabriel said, grinning. "Speaking of that..." he tapped the clock. Hailee saw that it had hit nine minutes thirty seconds. He waggled his eyebrows at her.
"Shit." Hailee sounded less than upset.
###
Tabitha Judd rubbed her wedding ring with one finger and tried to make sense of the reports that she was getting from Lab-1369. Dynacore, like most proper multinational energy companies, had more than its fair share of fingers in the pots of a few dozen different energy projects. Some of them were clean energy, some were more efficient methods to use classic energy sources, some where simply used to expand the corporation's possibilities in the profit making game. But 1369 was the
weird
one. She knew that her Gabey worked at it - she knew that much - but every analysis they kicked upstairs had so many notes scrubbed and elements redacted that she felt like she was half blindfolded.
