Solaris's Baby

“The Dao that can be spoken is not the eternal Dao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name”

- Dao De Jing

It is the second day of our employment in this temple and again, I managed to not be the last one to arrive, although I’m nowhere near close to being the first. I celebrate internally; if I show my happiness about this I know Marina would hit me. Curiously the same 6 people that were late yesterday are late today, that includes Michael. I feel like I should reprimand them but I don’t think I have the moral authority to do that… I’ll ask Marina to help me with that later.

Half an hour has passed beyond the agreed meeting time and they still haven’t arrived. I decide to ask Captain Liu if they can send someone to go and check on them. As I approach him the ground shakes for a moment. It is strong enough to topple the glasses of water that were on the table, making me lose balance and almost fall to the ground. After it ends I look at the Captain with a worried expression and tell him “Captain there shouldn’t be earthquakes in this part of the nordic ocean, right?”. I can see his expression going from surprise to having a small frown on his brow, then he replies “There shouldn’t be, but before we jump to any conclusions let me communicate with the guards at the security room, to see if there is anything that could explain this”. Then he makes some space between the two of us while he turns-on his intercom. Meanwhile, I try searching on the internet if there is any report on earthquakes in this area but I found nothing. Then the captain approaches me and, with a more serious face, tells me “The intercoms aren’t working so we are going in person to check what could have happened. I would like to ask you to accompany me. While the other guards check on the GMs, I’ll go to the security room and see what the camera feed has to show us. If anyone in your team is related to this tremor I’ll need your help to quickly identify them”.

As we walk I see the several drones acting strangely. Some are completely still with their legs stretched as much as they could, making them around 2 meters tall. Others are moving erratically, twitching as they move and changing directions in an instant. Thirdly, there were others that overheated and started producing smoke. Everyone got incredibly tense, with their faces starting to show a bit of panic and tensing their shoulders. Before we could fall into disarray, Captain Liu shouted “Everyone, have your guns ready. If any of the drones acts aggressive in any way, use lethal force to stop them. I don’t want to see any victim reports later”. Although the faces of the guards showed disgust and a little fear, now they looked a bit more collected.

As we moved through the hallways, the guards started splitting to go and check on each of the GMs. Eventually, I was left alone with captain Liu and another guard on our way to the security room. As far as I understood, all the camera feeds of the temples and common area could be seen there. If there was an explanation to what caused that tremor and why the drones were acting weird, we should see it in the footage.

Finally, we had arrived at our destination but, to be honest, I wish we hadn’t. From the large black door we could see a set of trails of blood going into the distance towards another annexed hallway. I heard Captain Liu finally lose his cool and with erratic breathing say “what the hell is going on…”. I was frozen in fear, visibly trembling and starting to hyperventilate. The last time I saw blood like this was when I lost my leg, but even then it was because of an accident. Now it seems like there is someone who purposefully caused this. Captain Liu breaks the mental spiral of panic I’m falling into by shouting “Miss Numa!”. I turn to look back at him, still trembling because of the fear and I see he has regained his composure, only showing his level of stress by how tightly he is holding his rifle. Then he continues “We need to understand what the hell is going on here. I’ll enter there, if it is safe I’ll call you to come in as well”. Then he turned his sight towards the other guard accompanying us and shouted “Björnson! you will stay here and keep Miss Numa safe while I’m away. After she has entered you stay in front of the door in case whatever created those trails decides to come back” This other guard was a large and muscular blond man, so it did make me feel safe knowing he will keep an eye on me.

After Captain Liu passed through the automatic sliding door, we waited for around a minute for him to communicate with us. Suddenly I could hear his fumbled voice coming from the door “Miss Numa, you can enter. Use the key I gave you yesterday to open the door. Once it closes behind you let it scan you for a couple of seconds until the doors in the front open”. I looked down on the trails of blood coming from the door and doubted following his instructions, but in the end I managed to collect my bearings and proceed.

As I put the key in front of the scanner next to the door, it slides open and I can see the small room created between the two identical doors. I enter just as Captain Liu told me to and try to relax as it scans me. It makes sense to scan for people who shouldn’t be in here, or carrying something they shouldn’t when entering this place, but I wish I could skip it this time. Suddenly, I feel a connection being made to the chip in the back of my head, the medium that allows people to connect directly to computers and work with them more easily and directly. When someone or something connects without me being prepared it feels very awkward and invasive, as if someone was accessing my mind without my consent, and right now it makes me feel very on edge. The system probably is checking that my mental ID coincides with the one registered in the key.

As I try to not focus on the mental scan I look up to the right side corner of the room. There I see that a weird moss-like growth is pulsating, then in an instant it inflates to the size and shape of a basketball. Its surface has the color of peach and is covered in twitching fingers, eyes and lips that move as if testing what shapes they could take. Seeing this scares me and I end-up falling on my butt and closing my eyes in response to the pain of the impact. When I reopen my eyes the abomination is nowhere to be seen, not even the small moss growth that it came from. As I frantically look for it I realize that the door in front of me is open and I gaze at a room engulfed in darkness.