“Now what?” demanded Skylar.
Dobbins shrugged. “We wait. And devise a strategy. I don’t know about you all, but I noticed something quite interesting about our two ‘Enforcers.’ ”
“As did I,” added Ella, smiling faintly.
“The eyes?” Dobbins questioned.
Ella nodded. “The eyes.”
“Okay, okay, I give,” Skylar said in frustration. “What about the eyes?”
“They were purple,” Ella said.
“So?”
“Weren’t you paying attention, Skylar?” Zhang said strongly. “Captain Dobbins mentioned that the androids that were supposed to help the Lethe crew run the ship had purple eyes.”
“So, what does that mean?” asked Skylar.
“It means,” Dobbins replied, “that something a bit strange is going on here, if the androids think that they are the police of a town instead of security on a spaceship. If only we had some equipment, we could get out of here and investigate.”
“Would this help?” asked Samuelson, pulling a blaster out of pocket hidden in the side of his uniform.
“Where did you get that from?” said a surprised Skylar.
“You don’t work in security as long as I have without learning a trick or two,” Samuleson replied enigmatically.
“Excellent,” Dobbins said. “Now, if only we had a portable scanner, we could find a way out of this cell.”
“I think I can help you there,” Commander Ella said, pulling a small, rectangular device out of one of her pockets. “You don’t work in psychiatry for as long as I have without learning a trick or two,” she added with a bit of a teasing smile towards Samuelson.
“Okay,” Dobbins said. “Here’s the plan…”
Suddenly, they heard the bolt on the door being thrown. Samuelson and Ella quickly hid their contraband equipment. Enforcer Madden and his counterpart stood in the doorway, both brandishing blasters.
“You will come with us, immediately,” Madden ordered.
The team reluctantly obeyed. Madden led them back to the hallway the first saw and into a room in that hallway.
“You will wait here,” Madden commanded as he closed and locked the door.
The room that they found themselves in looked like an interrogation room. The walls were a plain, sanitary white. A small, white table sat in the middle of the room, surrounded by eight, unpadded chairs.
The entire team sat in silence for a couple of minutes. Time crawled as they waited for something to happen, someone to come through the door. Samuelson slowly tapped his fingers on the table. Dobbins sat staring at the one-way mirror. Eventually, the door opened, and a man the same height as the two Enforcers. He had brown hair and disconcertingly purple eyes. Enforcer Madden followed him in.
After seating himself in a chair across from the table from the team, he pulled out a small, old handheld, and looked over it briefly before speaking. “You say you found them below ground, Enforcer?”
“Yes, Chief,” replied Madden. “They were well below ground, close to the Chasm.”
“So, who are you?” asked the Chief. “You must be citizens, yet we cannot find anyone who looks like you in the town files.”
“I am Captain Dobbins,” replied Dobbins, “we are from the Earth Ship Hyperion and here to help you get to Elysion. We are not citizens.”
“You have to be,” the Chief countered. “You are not Enforcers. You are not Maintenance Workers. You are not part of the Mayor’s Office, and you are not Radioactives. Therefore, you must be citizens.”
“Do citizens dress as we do?” Ella asked, joining in the argument.
“No, but doubtless you made these clothes yourselves in a crude attempt to imitate the Civil Service uniforms in order to successfully sneak past the guards at the passage underground.”
“Town?” asked Skylar. “You mean the ship?”
“No,” replied the Chief. “The town of Larson. The town that all citizens are from. The only town.”
“What do you mean ‘the only town?’ ” asked Dobbins.
“Do not play dumb with me, citizen,” replied the Chief. “I know that you know what has happened to this world in the past thirteen years.”
“Pretend that I don’t and tell me the story,” Dobbins said flatly.
The Chief stared at Dobbins for a minute before countering, “I do not have time to waste on foolishness such as this. You will tell us what we want to know, or we will extract it from you in one of several unpleasant ways. After that, you will be reconditioned and put back to work.”
“I already told you,” Dobbins said, sounding frustrated. “We’re from the Hyperion, and we’re here to help you get to Elysion. Let me talk with Captain Loman.”
“Captain Loman? Do you mean Mayor Loman?”
“Whatever you call him, yes, we need to speak to Mayor William Loman.”
The Chief spoke flatly, without blinking. “William Loman is dead. He was killed by Radioactives thirteen years ago. His son, Desmond, is the Mayor, now. He does not talk with rebellious citizens.”
“Dead?” Dobbins said. “And what are Radioactives?”
“Enough stalling,” the Chief’s voice was matter-of-fact, betraying no emotion. “You obviously will have to have the information extracted. Enforcer Madden, take these rebels back to their cell. Have Enforcer Zetwig prepare the extraction chamber. We will question the woman first.” He rose and left the room.
Madden drew his blaster. “You heard the Chief,” he said forcefully. “Move!” He kept his blaster trained on them as they walked out of the room.
The team slowly rose to their feet and walked towards the door. They filed out quietly and walked in silence back to the same cell as before. As they entered the small room, they noticed that the equipment that they had left outside of the door had disappeared. After they all were inside, the door slammed shut with a clang.
Skylar spoke first. “I hope you have a plan, Captain! Whatever ‘extraction’ is, it doesn’t sound pleasant, and I want no part of it.”
“At ease, Mr. Skylar,” Dobbins said forcefully. “Yes, I have a plan. Clearly, something is quite wrong on board this ship. It sounds like this Desmond has taken over the ship and reprogrammed the androids to perpetuate this myth of a town called Larson. We need to get out of here, contact the Hyperion, and see if we can ‘arrange’ a meeting with the Mayor.”
“And just how are we going to get out of here?” Skylar asked, still showing emotion.
“Mr. Samuelson,” Dobbins said, ignoring the question. “Do you still have your blaster?” Samuelson pulled it back out of the hidden compartment in his uniform. “Excellent. Mr. Zhang, could you re-work this so that it will disable androids?”
Zhang took the blaster from Samuelson. “It shouldn’t be hard, sir. Using Commander Ella’s scanner, I can set it up to emit a broad electromagnetic pulse. That should overload the android’s artificial neural network and force it to reboot.”
“Do it. Quickly,” ordered Dobbins.
Zhang took the blaster and the scanner and began to work quickly. In less than two minutes, he gave the devices back to Ella and Samuelson. “All done, sir. This should take care of any androids that get too close. It’s a broad-spread pulse. It will take out multiple androids with one shot.”
Ella had activated her scanner and exclaimed, “Commander, there are two androids approaching our location!” She quickly hid the small device in her pocket. Samuelson did likewise with his blaster.
The banging of the door bolt being thrown echoed in the room. Into the cell walked Madden and his unnamed associate. Both had their blasters drawn. Madden pointed his blaster at Ella. “You will come with us,” he ordered. “Now.”
Ella stood and walked towards the door. As she walked through the doorway, both androids turned their back on the cell. At that moment, Samuelson drew his blaster and fired in one, smooth motion. Both androids crumpled to the ground instantaneously.
“Good work, Samuelson!” exclaimed Dobbins, grabbing their blasters and giving them to Zhang. “Can you reprogram these?” he asked the engineer.
“It will take a few minutes, sir,” replied Zhang. “It would perhaps be better for us to get out of here first to somewhere safe.”
“You’re right,” Dobbins responded. He gave one of the blasters to Skylar and kept the other for himself. He set his for maximum. “Commander Ella, does your scanner have a map of the area?”
“Yes, sir,” she said as she examined the map she had already pulled up. “Our best bet is to go back to the main hallway, turn left, and walk about 20 m to the exit. There appears to be a wooded area immediately behind this building. It should provide us with some cover for when the pursuit begins.”
“Excellent. Let’s go.”
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