"BORROWED TIME". (2)

BY: MAURICIO ESCOBAR

2.        TRANSFER

Sergeant Dylan Harper finished tightening up the suit as the howling of the alarms started as if announcing a fanfare. Before fitting his head into the helmet, Harper gave a last glimpse at “the Vault”, right below his feet.

As he looked down, he briefly noticed the shadowy human figure materializing in the bright interior of the tank, a clear signal of the completion of the entanglement. He adjusted the oxygen mask and locked the helmet and waited for the alarm to go green.

Tense seconds elapsed before the final dive.

The Vault was an enormous tubular container covered of transparent Plexiglas, white and shiny in any direction and with a shape resembling a gigantic straw and the height of a three story building. As the transit was completed, water started pumping into the cylindrical chamber, drowning the contours of the ghostly dark floating figure materializing in its interior.

Harper approached the panel on the top of the chamber and introduced the code; then it was matter of pushing the release button and the Vault would be open. The level of the liquid rapidly arose as the subject, now fully solid, was floating weightless in it; then the release button lit in green. The Sergeant opened the oxygen valve, grabbed the first aid kit case, breathed deep and jumped down.

The floating body floated still and immobile in the water. Harper found that strange. Usually the “relocs” showed up in the Vault very agitated and chasing for oxygen; but this one was floating still in seated position, still like resting on an invisible chair with the head still lying sideways. Harper realized quickly that the relocation had been that much sudden, that much abrupt, that the subject had materialized preserving the same position he had before the transfer. But unexpectedly, the body started to rotate and fall towards the bottom of the pit; Harper forced himself to swim down faster. The water was forming whirlwinds as the body came closer to the bottom. If the body got caught in the strong spiral current it would be pushed hopelessly out of any reach. Harper straightened his body in an action that resembled a skydiver plunging into the air to cut the fluid resistance to a minimum, but the fall of the body was rapid, as if it was being pulled down by heavy ballast. He then observed the body stretching out, losing that original sitting position and plummeting. In effect, he noticed something attached to his wrist, a rectangular object that was pulling him down as if it was weighty as a stone.

Harper’s helmet spitted bubbles when he involuntarily cursed. The calculation of the counterweights was wrong. Something extra had been passed through; an extra weight in the transfer.

If the weights were wrong the time of extraction reduced considerably. Even if the procedure were to be successful, the entanglement could end up being so defective that…
 

Then, he realized it.

The computer would recognize the weight discrepancy and activate the emergency system. As this thought crossed his mind the whole Vault trembled. Harper looked up as a sudden whooshing sound coming from above shook the entire structure. It took him a few seconds to understand what he was seeing. The level of the liquid was moving towards him.

“No!”, he thought.

He looked down again. If the body hits the bottom there would not be a second chance of recovery…

He breathed air deeply and took the oxygen tank off of his back and dropped the first aid kit as he boosted himself down as hard as he could. The water above kept descending. On the other side, Harper imagined the alarms playing their own orchestra, the emergency light bulbs of Gershon’s container blinking in red and the computer panels sending error messages in cascade.

He was not going to make it.

Bubbles kept ascending from the liquid twisters, blinding Harper’s vision. He only could make sight of a shoe describing turbulent curves in the middle of a violent current that was into the shiny bottom of the tube; beyond the blinding light were the other side and also any chance of recovery. The sergeant then stretched his arm until it cramped out.

All it took was to touch the cold skin…

  TO BE CONTINUED...

"BORROWED TIME". (1.2)

BY: MAURICIO ESCOBAR

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 1.2

 

The bracelet produced the familiar beeping sound. When it was finally around his wrist, the little red indicator flickered slower and slower. The floating astronaut looked through the dark glasses as the rumbling, and the alarms, and the screams and the metal rubbing softly came to an end. The noise decreased in volume, the chaos subtly became quiet and the panic softly became imperceptible.

The red indicator continued flickering, slower and slower…

The man in the dark suit looked up. The rolling and flying objects, the blinking lights, the people, everything, peacefully froze. The air blowing with the violence of a hurricane peacefully diminished into a subtle breeze and finally into nothing. The rapid, twinkling bursts of lightning outside and the motion of the dark clouds solidified. The scared features on the faces of the passengers gradually petrified until resembling that of freakish statues.

The red indicator flickered slower and slower…

The entire scenario progressed in slow motion as everything stood still, silent, passive. The man in the suit observed with a silent gasp. Bodies frozen, levitating on the air like balloons.  Some of them had their arms extended, trying to hold onto something as the now stationary current of air from the sudden loss of pressure tried to pull them outside of the plane; with violence; but there were others, hose holding at each other with facial muscles tense and eyes looking at emptiness, resigned themselves to their final hour.

He couldn’t avoid shuddering.

He then looked at the back and could see the flames flying off towards him at a lethargic speed. The final moment.

The astronaut observed static. Then, his bracelet beeped.

The indicator suddenly blinked off… and then turned green. 

Everything was quiet now.

The floating astronaut in the black suit then looked down.

Martin wasn’t there anymore.

  TO BE CONTINUED...

"BORROWED TIME". (1.1)

BY: MAURICIO ESCOBAR

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.1

 

He looked down terrified. An instantaneous shot of adrenalin made his consciousness return momentarily and then he saw it. The flickering bursts of light made it hard to distinguish, but there was a man dressed in what he couldn’t recognize but a dark diver suit with some sort of helmet on his head, almost like an astronaut, right in front of him. Martin opened his eyes as plates and swallowed. The figure was just not standing there... It seemed to be floating! Was it real or a figment of his delusions? Martin rubbed his eyes.

The astronaut didn’t move and remained still for an instant, suspended in the air; but then the ghost seemed to revolve, almost as if the air was water, and grabbed Martin’s wrist. He shook and screamed. Initially, Martin thought the man was trying to hold onto something to avoid falling, but then he confirmed that the stranger’s feet weren’t either touching the floor neither was he supporting his own weight from falling. He was just floating, inexplicably levitating in front of
Martin’s eyes. The phantasmagoric vision became more vivid as the lightning reflected on his dark, brilliant suit. Then Martin could corroborate, barely giving credit to his eyes, that flying objects went through him as if the astronaut was ethereal and immaterial, not just ghostly but actually ghost-like.

The apparition then extended its black hand and grabbed Martin by the hand. Right before collapsing, Martin saw one thing: that the man in the spacesuit had put a shiny bracelet on Martin’s wrist; the bracelet had a red light that flickered and the stranger had an identical bracelet on his own wrist, with a tiny red bulb that started flickering in the same way…

And then, it all went quiet. The world around Martin McGregor had simply stopped to exist.

TO BE CONTINUED...

"BORROWED TIME". (1.0)

BY: MAURICIO ESCOBAR

1.0        RELOCATION

Martin’s heart started pounding rapidly as the piston squeezed the last drop of the colorless liquid under his skin. When he pulled the needle out a red dot popped out through the tiny orifice. Martin closed his eyes. That was the fourth dose. He was already feeling the shaky tremors, the weakness and the sweat. His throat was dry and he was finding hard to swallow. Clumsily, he managed to put the needle into his pocket. The metallic mirror reflected a blurry and distorted image of him. Indeed, the effect of the drug was kicking in. Martin looked around and noticed everything else was getting blurry as well. He had to find the force to stay conscious and return to his seat or there was just not going to be enough time. He managed to pull a few paper towers out of the dispenser with the one free hand. Martin wiped away all the humidity from his face and breathed in, trying to get a hold of himself.

When he opened the door the ground shook moderately and Martin almost lost the equilibrium. He wondered if the tremor was real or another side effect of the hypoglycemia. The seat belts on sign lit up accompanied with the usual ding. One of the flight attendants started walking towards him; he noticed the blur approaching and walked away.

-       Sir…? –said the stewardess.

-       I’m alright –replied Martin without turning around.

-       The Captain has just…

-       Yeah, yeah –said Martin.

-       …please return to your seat…

Martin walked with the eyes semi-closed. The same message given by the stewardess was being repeated on the loudspeakers by the pilots.

-       Sir? Are you alright?

Martin ignored her as he looked for his seat, a few rows ahead. The world was spinning around him. The airplane shook once again, slightly.

-       Sir?

-       Yes, I’m OK!

Martin felt the collapse was imminent. As he was walking, he felt numb, weightless and immaterial. He looked down to make sure once more that the briefcase was still attached to his wrist. The stewardess approached him on his seat and she was still asking questions but he could not understand what she was saying anymore. He stopped at one of the empty seats and just dropped himself down, hugging the portfolio with both hands.

-       Oh, my God, sir! –exclaimed the stewardess. –Sir? Do you…? Sir?

The pilots were announcing something about turbulence and a storm on the loudspeakers. Martin was loosing consciousness rapidly. Thoughts from within were collapsing into a spiraling nonsense and the weakness was taking over. He had perfectly realized that things were not going right.

He opened his eyes briefly.

-       Sir? Sir? –continued the stewardess. It was a gray unrecognizable figure. –Sir, you need to put on your safety belt! Sir, can you hear--?

A blasting sound whipped through the airship and in a blink the blurry figure disappeared out of his sight. Martin could hear the chorus of moans coming from terrified passengers in the back section, reduced by the abrupt roaring of the engines. The baggage compartments vomited objects that flew as rockets hitting people’s heads. Plastic masks dropped from above hissing air with a sound resembling that of a serpent. A violent current of air pushed Martin’s head forward with the force of a fist. Passengers jumped from their seats and flew over his head and rolled on the floor along with dozens of objects, as the airship started inclining in an impossible angle and the high-pitch whistle of the turbines continued in crescendo until it was unbearable: the clear indicator of depressurization. The sound of shattered glass and metal straining followed. The airplane was collapsing. The lights on the whole corridor blinked on and off and on again to finally extinguish gradually until total darkness filled the scene. Momentarily, the lightning from storm outside shed grisly cascades of whitish blue inside. The intangible sensation of the inevitable spread through the ship faster than the electricity outside. The chaos within was animated by both the stroboscopic light from the storm and the fearful melody of terrorized screams as the descent became inevitable.

Martin hoped for the end to be quick and pushed the briefcase to his chest harder than before, as hard as his weak arms allowed him.

But then…

TO BE CONTINUED...

"BORROWED TIME". (0)

 

 BY: MAURICIO ESCOBAR 

bor-rowed time. n. A period of uncertainty during which the inevitable consequences of a current situation are postponed or avoided. Term often used with terminally ill patients.

0. TIME

The ticks from the clock hanging on the wall reverberated in his ears as a distant repetitive echo. The rhythmic breathing of the child lying on the cold bed completed the chorus together with the musical beeps from the cardiac machine. A fearful orchestra that gave him shudders.

But the ticks were hard to ignore. He looked at the second hand and felt momentarily hypnotized by the rhythmic clicking sound. The minute hand followed lazily and silently.

He grabbed the little child’s palm and looked at his delicate face, stripped off of any form expression, covered in tubes that came out of his mouth and nose, pushing and sucking air into the fragile body that arced up and down, following the compass in the only form of motion that he had seen him do for the last six months. The hand of the kid was cold and his skin pale.

The clock kept ticking.

-       We will get you out of this one, champ –he murmured with flimsy voice.

The air was impregnated in the smell of disinfectant solution and alcohol typical of hospitals. The room was pathetically decorated with the kids’ posters hanging from the adjacent walls and his half a dozen toys, which he will never see or use, spread on a nearby table.

The clock kept ticking.

-       We will. –He gasped and squeezed the cold small hand harder. –We will! –He repeated and looked back at the mute face.

The clock kept ticking.

A tear ran down his face.

The clock kept ticking…

And then he looked back at it.

TO BE CONTINUED...

BORROWED TIME - 0000

By: Mauricio Escobar.

Follow this story and others at

 http://s-k-o-r-p-i-o.blogspot.com/

coming soon...