The Last Resort
Lullaby's Echo: Chapter 5
He stumbled through the door. The hiss of the seal locking behind him sounded like a prison gate slamming shut. The sterile air of his apartment hit him hard after the raw dampness of the tunnels. He leaned back against the cool polymer with his chest heaving. His mind whirled with images of a serene face in a pod and a small boy left standing guard.
Gideon waited in the centre of the room. A silent column.
‘Your excursion was twelve minutes longer than the optimal risk window. Your vitals are elevated.’
‘No shit,’ Gabe rasped. He shoved himself off the door. A jolt of dizziness shot through him. The lingering sickness from his last session in the chair churned in his gut. He paced the length of the room. ‘They’re everywhere, Gideon. Security droids. Sweeping the residential blocks. The system knows I’m moving.’
‘My passive monitoring confirms this,’ Gideon stated. His voice remained a calm anchor. ‘Patrol density in this sector has increased by a further eighteen percent since your departure. Going out again is a statistical certainty of capture.’
Gabe stopped dead. The words landed like a sentence. He was trapped. The physical world had become a closing fist. A hot tang of metal bloomed on his tongue. He slammed his fist against the wall. The impact jarred his shoulder but did nothing to silence the screaming in his head. He had to move. He had to act. There was nowhere to go.
His gaze fell on the bio-pod.
A surge of revulsion rose in his throat. It sat in the corner, dark and silent. A vertical coffin waiting to claim him. He had just seen his sister trapped in one of these things, her soul eaten by the machine while her body remained as a hollow trophy. Climbing inside felt like a violation. An act of surrender.
He looked for another way. He considered the tunnels again. He imagined running the gauntlet of Shocker patrols. He pictured himself cornered, sedated, and slotted into a cell for re-education. His mission would end before it had truly begun.
Bodhi’s words echoed in his mind. They find someone hurting and wait for a good soul to open it for them.
The patrols and the droids were just the System’s physical cage. He could not outrun its body. He had to attack its mind.
The thought solidified. The pod offered a path of infiltration. He needed to stop trying to escape the prison and start trying to burn it down from the inside. He would be a virus in their perfect garden.
‘Get it online, Gideon,’ he said. The command came out low and dangerous. ‘Now.’
Gideon’s head tilted. His optical sensors cycled from blue to amber. Processors whirred in the silence as he weighed the contradictory directives. The mandate to protect Gabriel clashed with the order to proceed. Logic bridged the gap.
He turned to the pod without a word. The hum of machinery filled the space as he initiated the sequence.
The pod slid open. A pneumatic exhale revealed the interior. It looked less like a cockpit and more like a stomach. The lining was slick and moulded to receive a human form. It waited to digest him.
Gabe took an unsteady step towards it. He reached out a hand to trace the cool rim. For a heartbeat, his resolve faltered. This felt like a mistake he could never undo.
‘Step in, Gabriel,’ Gideon said.
Click the Lullaby’s Echo: Index to read all published chapters.
