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I typed out my response.
How long do I have to wait for this program?
His reply was quick.
I am going through the final systems checks now. After, I will clean myself, prepare, and open the doors. I will signal you with a sound, and to begin all you need to do is bring the handheld portion of the treatment the doctor gave you and enter the new facility.
He moved away from the window after he sent the message, heading over towards the rounded bulk of the new building he had constructed off to the side of this one. I watched him for a moment before heading back to the room. I didn’t know what I would be walking into and I wanted to feel good in my body if I was going to have a huge adrenaline dump. I’d do a quick round of yoga to limber up and get my blood flowing and then take a quick dip in the bathing pool.
I shot a quick message back.
I’ll see you there.
His reply was curt.
Your senses are not developed enough to perceive me in the space I’ve created.
I laughed.
No way I was going to let a challenge like that slide.
[ 21 ]
JESSICA
Ok, this was it.
I clutched the device the doctor had given me in my hand and stared at the hallway in front of me. The instructions had said that it would work best if I took it while absolutely terrified. How I was going to time that, I had no idea, but I was about to find out. While I had been bathing, one of the yellow painted airlocks had been redesigned, colored over so that it looked like the pattern on Aeson’s scales. I lightly pressed a fingertip against the new design and then pulled my hand back to look at my finger - there was no color transfer. Whatever it was, it wasn’t wet paint.
The converted airlock was now open, leading into a dark hallway, the light from the common room barely penetrating it.
I took a deep breath and stepped inside.
Once I’d progressed a short way, I couldn’t see anything at all. I put my hand out in front of me as I walked, my steps short and cautious. The floor beneath my feet changed, from a hard surface to a squishy, damp sensation that seeped into my socks, chilling my feet. I hadn’t been wearing shoes in my room or the common room, so I hadn’t thought to put them on to walk inside yet another fully enclosed building.
I stopped to pull them off, wadded them into a ball and tossed them backwards towards the light of the common room behind me.
I wiggled my toes in what felt like an ice-cold, mossy marsh. The floor had an uneven texture, with small slimy bits that pressed into the bottom of my feet as I walked. I stepped forward, further into the darkness and my feet sank down to the ankle in ice-cold water.
I looked down and saw the slight glow of a dim light reflected in the water.
I looked up and saw a dim light high up ahead of me, and the shadowy overhang of the hallway connector I’d just passed through slightly behind me.
I had entered the new building.
“How did he get all this water to the moon?” I murmured out loud.
A sharp rattle, like dried seeds in a seed pod, broke out from the silence next to me. All of the muscles in my body tensed as I froze at the sudden sound. My heart began beating faster. The rattle shook again, slightly softer, like it was moving away from me.
I took sharp, shallow breaths as my brain caught up with the tension in my body.
That rattle sounded like a rattlesnake but bigger.
I shifted my weight from foot to foot.
Uncertainty swelled in me. This was already so unpleasant with the darkness and the ice-cold, ankle-deep water. I didn’t know what lay in store ahead of me, but it wasn’t going to be good despite my earlier attempts to danger flirt my way into a more pleasurable encounter.
I could feel the tight grip of anxiety beginning to dig its clawed fingers into my chest.
