The Gate 2: 13 Tales of Isolation and Despair

DESTINATION by Benjamin X. Wretlind

The ship swam through space, oblivious to the emptiness or the immeasurable cold that created crystalline patterns on its hull. It silently slid among the stars, between the planets, occasionally coming into contact with a stray comet or asteroid and ignoring their existence.

Inside, the atmosphere was cold, but not so immeasurable that the thermostat didn’t register. Twenty-two degrees, and that was with the heating system working nonstop.

Norahc stood at the entrance to the holding bay, his fingers poised above the numbers. He lightly touched the keypad in sequence—five numbers that meant nothing, but ushered in a world of feeling.

He’d been here before…

…behind the door…

…accepting the pain unlike all the others that fought against their circumstances.

The lights above the keypad turned red. The door slid open, like a flower in spring, asking for the life-giving rain but accepting the pesky insect just the same.

The corridor in front of Norahc was lined with stasis tubes. The liquid inside glowed green, more an indication of health and wellness than an indication of operability. He methodically walked past each tube and tried his best to keep his eyes forward, away from their faces.

They were all afraid, and despite their confines and their closed eyes, he knew they waited for signs of life on the other side of the glass.

He knew what it felt like…

….behind the glass…

…accepting the loneliness and isolation that deep space offered.

Norahc stopped at the end of a row of fifty bodies, their naked, pathetic physical forms held constant in a horrific state of unrest. He’d come to ask a favor of the last—and most recent—of the travelers.

He’d come to ask for Reprieve.

The release mechanism was more secure than the door. A glowing pad registered fingerprints, a touchpad accepted his identification numbers, and a laser pointed toward his eye agreed with his last retina scan.

All of this, at least to someone so accustomed to the security, was mindless—an action performed without thought. Norahc punched in his identification, slapped his palm on the pad, and stuck his eye up to the lens. It was too routine, too comfortable, too easy to release one of the passengers.

Anyone with half a brain could do it.

Anyone with half a brain wouldn’t want to do it.

The water in the stasis tube quickly withdrew with a sick sucking sound that reverberated through the holding area. The body inside collapsed into the glass in front of him. Within seconds, his eyes opened and the Panic began.

The Panic was something Norahc expected, and again he was glad the glass was thick enough to keep the body behind it at bay. The man inside screamed and pounded, kicked and screamed some more.

Norahc sat back and waited.

They had waited for him, once. When the Awakening begins and the Panic sets in, it’s only natural to expect the worst but wait for the best. Father said the best never comes.

It didn’t take long.

The body relaxed. The man rubbed his eyes and looked up at Norahc. His expression was less than excited, but more than nonexistent. It was, in fact, just an expression. Eyes held open, nose not flared, mouth in a state of relaxation.

No words needed to be spoken.

The man behind the glass weakly raised a finger and pointed to the door lock. Norahc held his hand over the pad one more time and waited for the green light to turn red.

Norahc was more than happy to have Reprieve. At least someone in charge was thinking clearly.

“Sleep well?” Norahc said as he studied his passenger.

“Not really, but what can you expect?”

“What’s your name?”

“Don’t you have that on some manifest someplace?” The passenger squirmed in his seat and sipped on a cup of coffee.

“Reginald Bruce Haywood.” Narohc sighed. “Yeah, I got it.”

“Bruce, please. What else does it say?”

“Thirty-two years old. Cleveland native.”

“Actually it’s Maple Heights, but close enough.”

Norahc smiled. They were always so cocky when they were released. It was almost like they expected to be treated differently just because they weren’t in stasis anymore.

Arrogance was something he knew all too well, especially during Interview.

“Manifest says you killed a few people. Do you want to tell me about it?”

Bruce smiled and set his coffee cup down on the counter. The Interview room was small, but not so isolated that the outside world was nonexistent. In fact, the walls were glass, the windows nothing more than perforations.

“You know, it’s cold in here.” Bruce wrapped his arms around himself. “Don’t you think you should turn up the heat?”

“It’ll get hot enough. We’re not at Destination just yet.”

“And where is Destination?”

Norahc sat back in his chair and studied Bruce. His face was bruised, perhaps from the Awakening or maybe just a physical defect he brought with him. Why this ragamuffin was selected from all the others, he just couldn’t say. Then again, it wasn’t for him to second-guess the rules of Company. Company knows all.

“How much do you know about navigation?”

Bruce blinked. “What about my question?”

“In due time. What do you know about navigation?”

“Systems or method? I was a navigator aboard the Lincoln. I guess I can find my way around.”

“How many people did you kill?”

Bruce finished what was left of his coffee and slammed it down on the table. The reaction caught Norahc off guard, and he found himself leaning forward again, his hand resting on his Stop Stick.

“You don’t answer my questions, I’m not answering yours.”

“Hell.”

Bruce blinked. “I don’t have time for metaphors. Again—you answer my question and I’ll answer yours.”

Norahc sat back again, relaxing his muscles. His hand dropped from the Stop Stick and reached for the carafe of coffee. He smiled inwardly at the words of his superiors, but quickly remembered their warnings as well.

“Hell,” Norahc said.

Bruce sighed. His expression changed from one of anger to one so much like those before. It was resentment, futility, acceptance—all of it rolled into one.

“Fine. I killed a few people.”

“Children?”

“Twenty three.”

“Mothers and fathers?”

“One of each.”

“Any others?”

Bruce smiled. “At least fifty. Maybe more. I lost count.”

Norahc nodded. “But the State caught you.”

“I guess sometimes even the best of us have to slip up.”

Through the perforations, an alarm sounded, harsh but distant. Norahc stood up from his seat and walked toward a panel embedded in the wall of the room. He frowned and turned back. “Sixteen hours. We’re at Proximity.”

“Proximity to what?”

“Hell.”

“You keep saying that. I told you I don’t like metaphors.”

“What would you like me to tell you?”

Bruce seemed to regard the question; his eyebrows furled and nose twitched. “You could tell me why you brought me out of stasis.”

Norahc sighed. “Company selected you based on Manifest. As far as I know, you’re here to relieve me.”

“Relieve you? I don’t know a thing about piloting a ship, just the basics of navigation.”

“The ship pilots itself. From Waypoint to Destination, there’s nothing you need to do except keep the controls happy and avoid any unnecessary distractions.”

Bruce reached for the carafe of coffee and refilled his cup. He sat back in his chair with a smirk on his face, whatever thoughts he might have were lost inside the blackness of his eyes. For a second the relentless stare made Norahc nervous, but then again, Company had warned him.

Bruce sipped from the cup and finally turned his eyes from Norahc. “What are my options?”

“Go back into stasis and accept whatever Company decides or take over for me and accept whatever Company decides. I really don’t think there’s an option.”

“And what becomes of you?”

Norahc smiled. He wasn’t sure of how to answer the question, and he felt perhaps he didn’t need to. Company had provided him Reprieve and given him an out. Okay, maybe it wasn’t an out, but it was a chance to relax, to stop ferrying people from Waypoint to Destination pretending he didn’t care.

If only for a few days.

The smile dropped from his face as he thought of the stares, the Awakening, the Panic, and the faint glimpse of Acceptance that sparked in the eye of every passenger as they finally stepped off the ship at Destination. “Are you ready, then?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be, I guess.” Bruce finished his coffee and stood up. “Show me the bridge?”

“This way.”

The bridge was nothing more than a small room with a window to the emptiness outside. Distant suns, faintly visible, were the only decoration on an otherwise black canvas. Below the window, a single red light blinked rapidly. Next to it there was a single red button.

“The light is the Proximity warning. You’ll see that only when you’re within sixteen hours. It’ll blink faster the closer you get.” Norahc stood at the doorway and watched Bruce take in the nothingness.

“And the button?”

“When the light stays steady, press it. That sends a signal to Gateway to open its doors.”

“Sounds simple enough.”

“It is simple.” Norahc turned, half wishing he could tell him how much he hated the job, and half wishing he could do it himself. It wasn’t the button that bothered him, nor the simplicity of the light. It was Gateway and Destination, all of it packaged together as a pill slowly eating away any bit of flesh he had left.

Still, the job had Meaning.

“You know, my father once told me that I’d be doomed to spend my life in service to others. It was my brother, Soré, that would get all the glory.”

Bruce turned from the window. “That’s a wonderful story. Anything else you want to add to that?”

Norahc frowned at the apparent sarcasm. “Yeah. I gave my father everything. Soré gave everything to others. Love and Death—they’re opposites, but married to a common thread.”

“I don’t follow you.”

“I sometimes have to look in the mirror to see what’s really going on. It was my father that created Gateway, and my father that damned Destination. What I do for him is something very few people could do themselves. Soré wouldn’t have any of it. If you pull yourself back for just a moment and see the grand scheme of things, then you’d see where we all fit in.

“You have a chance to be a part of that. Just remember that sometimes it’s the simple things that get us through the day.”

Bruce stood in silence. Norahc guessed he really didn’t understand.

In time, he would.

Norahc stepped away from the door. “Just watch the light. Company will do the rest.” He put his hand against the wall and the door slid shut.

“Thank you.”

Norahc slept.

For the first time in ages, he closed his eyes against the world around him, blocked out everything he’d ever seen, and slept. Dreams wouldn’t come, but at the very least there was relaxation. The stasis tube he placed himself in was Bruce’s—the only empty place to hide. In a few hours, Company would open Gateway, Destination would accept the ship, and Awakening would begin.

For once, he didn’t need to be a part of it all. They promised to leave him alone, long enough to rest, to recuperate, to regain his strength.

Bruce would be fine. Despite his gruff exterior and cocky attitude, he seemed like a good pick. Norahc was pleased with Company’s selection.

Evil is bound to repeat evil.

Death is a beginning.

Eternity is chaos.

The water in the stasis tube subsided. Norahc’s head fell forward and hit the glass enclosure. He waited for the signal, then opened his eyes.

Bruce stood on the other side of the glass, his eyes red. Bloody tears streamed down his cheeks. He shook, though probably not from the cold.

Norahc pointed to the access panel and waited for the glass to slide open.

“What the hell was that?” Bruce screamed.

Norahc stepped out into the holding bay. He smiled at Bruce and turned toward the door. “I guess I forgot to tell you to keep your eyes off Gateway.”

Bruce let loose a guttural laugh followed by a cough and few spots of blood. “Did you also forget to tell me where we were going? Did that slip your mind as well?”

Norahc stopped at the doorway and turned around. “No. I told you—three times, in fact. You just wouldn’t accept it.”

“That was Hell!”

“Yes. It even works as a metaphor, doesn’t it?”

Norahc looked down the row of empty stasis tubes. “Time to go pick up another load.”

Benjamin X. Wretlind ran with scissors when he was five. At ten, he wrestled the giant ape creatures of Seti Alpha Nine while nursing a bad case of the measles. At fifteen, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for blowing stuff up. At twenty, he admitted that only the scissors thing was true. He is the author of CASTLES: A FICTIONAL MEMOIR OF A GIRL WITH SCISSORS and is working on another novel to be released in 2012. You can read his musings at http://www.bxwretlind.com.