Meltwater - Sci-Fi Short Story [7700 words]

GhostManOnThird

Right, hello, first attempt at sci-fi here and enjoyed writing this immensely. I hope its not too long for the forum, I put it in two parts. I guess its borderline novelette according to wiki.

Synopsis: Jack fades in and out of sleep, in and out of reality. He tries to figure out where where his feet actually touch the ground while a phantasm-man guides him in an unknown direction. It is cold.

Wondering what you guys think, thanks for any comments/critiques.

Part 1

Spoiler:

‘It’s snowing again.’ He said indifferently, placing his cigarette into the ashtray on the windowsill. ‘Did you hear me?’
‘Yes, you said it’s snowing again.’
He stared at her while she pulled up fishnets and let them snap onto her thigh. She had a cigarette in her mouth and she squinted through the smoke, crow’s feet like capillaries. She pulled a leather miniskirt up to her waist and buttoned it and stood topless, smoking and staring back at the stranger she had met a dozen times over. Her eyes opened wide.
‘Money, Jack.’
‘Yes, of course.’ He fumbled through the bedside drawer while she clasped the last hook of her bra. With a gentle lunge she reached for the money but he pulled his hand away.
‘Same time next week?’ He grinned.
‘If you got the money.’
She slid her arms into a fur jacket and buttoned it up and left with the slam of the door. Jack walked back to the window where his dying cigarette smouldered and watched her exit the building to hail a cab and disappear into the blinding white.
‘Home.’ He said to the empty room.
‘Yes, Jack?’
‘I am tired. Warm the sheets.’
‘Warming sheets, Jack.’
He slid back into bed to drift to sleep.

‘Do you realise that you aren’t where you are meant to be?’
‘I don’t get it.’
‘You aren’t really asleep, Jack.’

‘Home! Time!’
‘Three-thirty-three am.’
‘Coffee.’
‘Coffee.’
Jack pulled off the sheets and walked to the window. The streetlights the colour of sunrise against the snow. A patrol vehicle hovered by silently, its spotlight tracing Jack’s face. The coffee grinder stuttered then spat brown liquid against the inside of a clay mug.
‘Home. News.’
‘Leading presidential candidate Harry Murtle found dead at home. Evidence pointing to foul-play.’
‘I meant today’s news.’
‘This is today’s news.’
‘Are you sure?’ Jack sipped at his coffee and sat at the foot of his bed. ‘What else?’
‘Drug Kingpin Albert Weasley detained for que-’
‘No. No, that was last week. What is up with your system recently?’
‘If you are unsatisfied with HOME COMPUTER Ver. 2.3. Please do not hesitate to contact our main offices at . . .’
Jack was not listening. A chill had crept up his spine and he swore he had just seen his breath in the air.
‘Shut up, Home. What is current room temperature?’
‘21 degrees centigrade as optimised by Jack Wells.’
Jack put his head in his hands and rubbed his face and scratched at his stubble. A wave of exhaustion enveloped him and he put the coffee down so he could safely close his eyes.

‘Jack.’
‘What? What is this?’
‘I have something to tell you. Do not freak out.’
‘Why can I not see a fucking thing? Why can I not feel a fucking thing?’
‘Jack, just relax. You are just floating. Try and touch your hands. . . see? You felt that, right?’
Jack looked down at his feet, they shifted in opacity.
‘What is this?’
‘Don’t freak out.’
‘I’m not going to fucking freak out!’
‘You’re dead.’
Jack’s eyes shot open and as he sat up he heard a faint whisper.
‘You freaked out.’ It said.

There was a shuffle in the bed and a messy-haired blonde woman sat up. She squinted.
‘What is it, Jack?’
He sat in silence while she lit a cigarette then he did the same.
‘Home. Time.’
‘Three-thirty-three am.’
‘News.’
‘Current news database is under maintenance.’
‘Jack, doll. Is everything okay?’
‘Yes. I think so.’
‘You’re shivering.’
‘It’s cold.’
She grasped at the heated covers. She thought she would not press him further and extinguished her cigarette. Another client awaited her in a couple hours. Jack was certainly one of the stranger ones. He pushed himself out of bed and tried to look out the window but the glass had frozen over in a thick sheet of ice.
‘Home. Defrost windows.’
The computer did not speak.
‘Home. De-frost win-dows.’
‘Statement not accepted.’
‘Fucking hell. First thing tomorrow I’m getting you sorted.’
‘Statement not accepted.’
‘Home, go deaf.’
‘Deafening.’
‘Looks chilly out there.’ She said.
‘You can stay until you have to go but I’m not paying for it.’
‘It isn’t going to happen if you don’t. I’ll just sit here and doze if that’s alright.’
‘Alright.’ He watched her turn over so her back faced his. They always turn away, he thought. Always.

He opened the fridge door and poured out some milk, its taste sterile and unusual. He pushed some bread into the toaster and as it crisped the smell was of something else and then he turned back to face the room, watching the woman lightly snore into the dimness, the window behind still ridden with thick ice. The toast popped and he ate it plain, its taste unreflective of its substance and Jack began to worry. The voice from before still rang in his ears. I can’t be dead, he thought. This is not what death is. I expect blackness. Just the dark. And then, tinges of light as when you press the palms of your hands into closed eyes. I want light shows, like neon microscopic pictures of bacteria. Black patterns on yellow. Something to follow knowing you won’t ever get to turn back. No. I am not dead. Not yet.

She woke in the hour and smoked again before dressing herself and leaving. He asked her to stay, but for free, and she smirked and jested and he secretly did not take kindly to that, muttering into the empty room after she left. He pulled the covers over himself but sat up with his back against the wall.
‘Home. Listen.’
‘Listening.’
‘Home. I want to continue reading my book.’
‘Book reading. Please refrain from leaning forward while the hologram prepares.’
Blue light shot out from the wall above Jack’s head and pixel by pixel it formed a floating board in front of his vision.
‘Home. Increase font size to sixteen and flip to where I had stopped before.’
‘Increasing font size. Jack, this is where you stopped before.’
‘No. I remember reading this part where the nanites have implanted themselves in the big dude’s brain. He goes round fucking things up for everybody. Jesus, I’ve read at least fifty pages after this one.’ Jack paused, his mind racing. ‘I am screaming at a fucking computer. If anyone saw this they’d think. . .’
‘Statement too long. Not accepted.’
‘Turn to page two-hundred and fifty-five.’
‘File not found.’
Jack stared at the semi-uploaded page hovering in front of him. It was littered in jumbled symbols from a failed attempt at forming a font. Its blue light flickering ever so slightly. He sighed.
‘Home. Fuck you and set alarm for six thirty am. And why is it so fucking cold?’
‘Alarm set for six thirty am. Temperature set at twenty one degrees centigrade.’
And the voice whispered. ‘The temperature is just right.’

‘Who are you?’
Jack watched the humanoid-looking ethereal glow blue within pitch black. It was floating and its skin shifted in and out of translucency, sometimes releasing sparks that faded fast like ashes from a campfire. It smiled a full set of pearly whites, the only thing solid about him - and then it opened its eyes, of which Jake thought were already open before. He could not help but stare at the empty abyssal sockets quietly sat within the blue skin. A rise of temptation filled Jack.
‘I’m you.’ It said.
‘You’re me.’
‘Yep. Well, something like that.’
‘I see. And this place?’
‘Well, Jack. It’s whatever you want it to be really. Your safe-zone. Come and go as you will.’
Jack was taken aback by the friendliness of this phantasm-man. The situation grew increasingly stranger with every second.
‘You told me I was dead.’
The phantasm swayed. ‘Just testing the waters.’
Jack did not say a word, waiting for it to speak.
‘Try something.’
‘Something?’
‘Yeah. Like, make a thing.’
‘What in the hell are you talking about?’
‘Like this.’ The phantasm pushed his hands out in front of him and rolling grass hills stretched out beneath them and they put their feet to the ground.
‘Grass.’
‘Yep.’
‘I haven’t touched grass in years.’
‘I know.’
Jack squatted down and ran his hands through the blades and he thought of the playground he used to frequent as a child with his mother. And then he thought only of his mother.
‘You can’t bring back people.’ The phantasm said.
‘I wasn’t going to.’
‘You were thinking it.’
Jack stared at the phantasm now knowing that they shared a brain.
‘What makes you different to me?’
‘To put it simply, I am the other side. I’m always there, you just don’t really use me much.’
Jack stood up and stretched his back and then looked into the distance, above him it was still darkness. He mimicked what the phantasm did before and pushed his hands outwards and a blue sky littered with pure white cloud erupted above them. He swished his hand around and sun beams broke through the cloud above illuminating the emerald hills. Jack felt a little silly.
‘Not bad.’ The phantasm said.
‘You said, I don’t use you much? What would I use you for?’
‘Assorted things. Things that aren’t necessarily in your nature.’
‘Fuck, that’s specific isn’t it?’
The phantasm shrugged and started walking.
‘All this feels too real. No, no, no. This is a dream, right?’
The phantasm stopped and its head turned to face Jack, its body still facing forward. ‘Something like that.’

‘Jack, it is time to wake up.’
‘Jack, it is time to wake up.’
‘Jack, it is time to wake up.’
‘Home, snooze.’
‘Snoozing. Time reminder: eight thirty am.’
Jack cursed and got himself to his feet, throwing the covers across his bed.
‘Home, I am late. Why are you using such a low volume for the alarm?’
‘Statement not accepted.’
‘Home, increase alarm volume.’
‘Alarm volume already set to maximum.’
Jack pushed open the bathroom door and started running the shower. After a few minutes, the water had failed to heat up but Jack in no mood to argue with his computer counterpart braved the icy water to get a quick wash. He came out, his breath steaming in front of him and he shivered as he toweled himself dry. He looked into the mirror and remembered the phantasm and shook his head. A dream like that, he thought, could only be a dream. Dressing himself smart he grabbed his briefcase and sprinted to the elevators which were out of order. He cursed again and flung open the fire exit doors and ran down fifteen flights of stairs until he hit the ground floor and sauntered out the main entrance. The road was quiet and snow drifted easy onto more snow. He looked at his watch and headed to the bus stop where he waited for half an hour until a man approached him. He was old and wore coats over coats and a flat cap that covered his whiskering ears. A scarf strangled his flustered face.
‘Bus not runnin today.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Bus not runnin.’
‘How am I meant to get to work?’
‘Walk.’
‘It’s a good couple miles.’
‘Couple miles is nothin. Couple miles was nothin before all this technology.’
‘Yes, yes.’ Jack replied quickly and started walking at a brisk pace towards the city center. He looked over his shoulder to see the old man slowly turn his head in his direction, impaling Jack with a uneasy thousand yard stare. He began to walk faster.

His journey into town was a hassle, but the roads seemed quieter than usual. Looking at his watch again, he thought that this is probably how quiet it gets when it isn’t rush hour. He’d be sat in his office by now with a hot coffee staring at facts and figures that would dictate whole markets and with a few clicks of a button and phone calls he’d rake in at least a few thousand credits in an instant. An old woman now exited her small one-floored cottage-like house and was in the process of locking up when she turned to see Jack walking at such a pace. She stared at him for awhile until he took notice of her, neither of them breaking their gaze until Jack was out of sight. Something doesn’t feel right, he thought. Not at all.

He arrived at the office two hours late and the secretary Harriet shook her head and tsked jokingly. Jack nodded and then shrugged as he walked into the elevator. The doors opened with a ding on the twelfth floor, a maze of cubicles in his vision. He knocked on all of them as he walked by, his colleagues issuing good mornings with phones between ears and shoulders. The low mumble of the office always calmed Jack and how his heavy leather shoes would sound against the carpet like comfortable thumps of a heart. This place is always alive, he thought.

A young interne's head appeared like a meerkat in the desert, her blonde hair just hovering above the top of the cubicle. Jack stared at her eyes. As green as the hills he thought, and with that she disappeared back below.
‘Who’s the new girl?’ He nudged at his buddy at the water cooler.
‘What new girl?’
‘The one in there.’
‘Jack, that’s Sandy’s cubicle.’
Jack squinted at the pale green box and shook his head when his colleague asked if he read over the report he had sent him. No not yet, Jack mumbled. Not yet.
‘You alright, Jacky-boy?’
‘Yeah, fine. Just gonna go. . . say hi to Sandy.’
‘Alright.’
The thumping of his shoes did not do much to relieve Jack of a rising wave of anxiety as he approached the cubicle. Her eyes had been the exact same colour as the hills. Down to the very pigment of it. He peeked his head around the cubicle wall to see the back of Sandy, clicking away at the keyboard with her cat nails and chewing gum as if she stood on a darkened street corner. She turned and stopped chewing and smiled at Jack, he smiled back and small-talked before entering his office and pushing his face into the palm of his hand. It was deathly cold when he sat down and started working and he asked a technician to turn up the heat. He said they couldn’t bring it up any more than it is now and Jack agreed and sent him elsewhere so he could concentrate.

But concentrate he did not. His mind was scattered, his thoughts rolling into thorny tumbleweeds and dissipating. He poured himself an amber drink and sipped at it. The burn in his throat soothed the cold he had been feeling since he sat down. The phone rang and he picked it up to hear just a dial-tone. He looked out the window, it was dark. He looked at the time. It was time to go home. I just got here, he thought.

He stood and walked to the window which looked out onto the cubicles all of which were empty except one. She appeared again, her head just peeking over the cubicle wall and she smiled. Jack grabbed his coat and exploded out of the office into a sprint until he arrived to where she stood but he met nothing but silence. He scouted across the office again and he saw the back of her blonde hair appear and disappear and he tried to chase her down once more to reveal nothing. He cursed into the silent office before leaving and trying not to look back as the elevator doors closed.
‘I’m going crazy.’ He whispered as soft piano music played in his ears.
The secretary had left already when he walked past the reception desk. But she always leaves early, he thought. He sat down in one of the leather chairs where clients would wait to be called and closed his eyes to calm himself.

When he opened them he was home.
‘I was dreaming. Dreaming the whole day.’ But he looked down at himself in his work clothes and adjusted his tie. He called his lady-friend to only get to her voicemail then noticed the window had been covered by a sheet, blocking the window pane. Further observation of his room resulted in Jack looking at the locks on his front door all being heavily latched, including the chain which he hated dearly. The sound it made if left chained up and the door opened was infuriating to his ears.

There was a knock at the door and he looked through the peep-hole, the security guard staring back. He unlatched the all the bolts and locks and the chain.
‘Mr. Wells, is it?’ The security guard looked him up and down and Jack responded with the same. A fat man, he thought. Balding apart from the sides. A moustache. Really?
‘Yes. How’s it going?’
‘We’ve had complaints of noise originating from this apartment.’
‘I don’t think so, I just got home.’
The security guard looked him up and down again his eyebrow raised and then brought his walkie-talkie up to his bristled lip.
‘Jimmy, come in.’
The radio crackled. ‘Yes, sir?’
‘Mr. Wells says he just got home.’
‘Well, sir. I don’t know about that, I saw him walk in here with his ladyfriend earlier in the day.’
The guard put down the walkie-talkie and tried to look around Jack and into the room.
‘Is there something you’re looking for? I think Jimmy has mistaken me for someone else. Who complained about the noise, anyway? Was it number three-thirty three? That old bat complains about everything. She won’t even get Noise-Away installed that cheap woman.’
‘Sir, settle down.’
‘I am pretty settled. Do I look unsettled to you?’ Jack had started to sweat, yet the cold embraced him again.
The guard looked him up and down the third time before telling Jack to keep it down anyway. Jack closed the door and re-did the locks in a panicked fashion. That Jimmy said he had seen him and the woman walk in earlier. He had no recollection of it all and looked frantically about, searching for some unknown something.

He pulled open kitchen cabinets and looked behind bowls and plates and looked under the sink, behind the assorted plastic bottles of chemicals and cleaning product. He looked in his fridge where the bread he ate before laid there untouched and cold as he. He dare not check the milk to see if it had been drunk.

Jack was lost and he knew it. He was losing his mind and he knew it. But no answer could be found for him. Not yet. The answer, he thought, will be here. It will be in this room and I will understand eventually. I need to. His mind plagued with previous thoughts, the emerald eyes of the girl in the office, the phantasm man spreading his arms as if crucified and encasing darkness in rolling hills and Sandy, turning on her chair, chewing her gum like a horse would hay.

‘What is the answer?’ He screamed into the room.

The search led him to his wardrobe, his jackets and trousers lined up in militaristic fashion oozing grey under the light bulb above that turned off when he closed the door. He ran to the window and the cold embraced him again and his eyes followed the sheet that had been hung up from its bottom to its top and then back down again. Hesitant and still, he thought about what laid behind it, what ugly secret he was trying to hide, why he hung it up in the first place. But when he took it down, all that was there was the frost, clinging heavily to the glass, its crystalline material twinkling minuscule chandeliers and he exhaled leaving a thick patch of vapour across the surface.
‘Home. De-frost windows!’
‘Voice not recognised. Please re-calibrate.’
‘What? It’s Jack.’
‘Voice not recognised. Please re-calibrate.’

He put his face in his hands then sat on the bed and stared into nothing, wondering about everything brought on by fear and with a creeping sense of apathy. I want to give up. Just let me lay down and die. I don’t want to think anymore but I have to. The phantasm said he was dead, but there was something about that he didn’t believe. The world the phantasm inhabited did not feel like a dream at all, it felt right in there. And what of the phantasm saying he is the other side? Jack ran over question after question, afraid and alone and confused. It dawned on him that he’d have to see the phantasm again. He had to have the answer no matter how out-there it seemed. He swore into the darkness, his thought process utterly destroying him question after question until he felt a shuffle beneath him, and then the chill crept up again, his spine an ever growing ridge of ice. Then, realisation. He remembered and instantly regretted. When he leaned over to look under the bed, between his feet, she was there. She was there with her wrists bound and her mouth gagged and her eyeliner streaming down her face like some poor raccoon caught in a trap and Jack fell onto his behind and pushed himself away like a dog and shut his eyes. When he opened them she was still there, still screaming through the cotton rag between her teeth and kicking and crying. He shut his eyes again to wish her away. He could hear the muffled groans and whines and how her fur-coat made a scratching noise against the carpet, and it was getting ever closer. Jack turned his head to the side as if caught in headlights, stricken in fear, wracked in the cold that never seemed to end. But the shuffling eventually stopped and he slowly opened one of his eyes to squint through. She was still there, no longer moving. Jack watched her face knowing that it would not change expression.

He got on his knees and crawled slowly towards the bed. He pushed a finger forward to touch her hand, a dead spider, its arms up and curled. She did not move when he made contact. How he wished her to.
‘What have I done?’ He whispered. ‘I do not remember.’ He began to cry and he felt a tear freeze on his cheek. He pinched at it and held it between his fingertips and stared - a jeweler to his gemstone.
‘Home.’
‘Voice not recognised.’
‘Please. Home, what did I do?’
‘Voice not recognised.’
‘Oh god, oh god.’ He spoke into his hands, his words muffled, his palms sweaty with the spit that trickled between his lips.
‘Voice not recognised. Please re-calibrate.’

There was a knock at the door and Jack froze. Another knock soon followed along with a voice he had heard before.
‘Mr. Wells. We’ve been having complaints again.’ Jack looked at the door then back to where the woman lay but she was gone and Jack was left wide-eyed and in silent confusion.
‘Mr Wells.’
He looked around the room, at the frosted window, the dirty lampshade on his bedside, towards the kitchen then back under the bed. He felt the carpet where she laid still before and it was damp.
‘Sir, are you alright in there?’
Jack stood and looked through the peep-hole of the shining bulbous head of the security guard. Trickles of sweat across the scalp, the few strands of hair at the side damp and greasy. He opened the door and waited for sometime for the guard to speak again.
‘Please, Mr. Wells, it is half past three in the morning. You’ve been clattering around and screaming and shouting with no concern. We’ve had calls from the landlord herself wondering what you’re up to.’
The guard received no reply but a slow shut of the door, Jack’s face like stone, his expression unreadable. He knelt down to look under the bed one more time until he saw his breath in the air and he felt a cold unknown to him. It encased his bone and he fell into the darkness, the crackle of the guard’s radio fading down the hallway.

GhostManOnThird

Part 2

Spoiler:

‘You didn’t let her leave, Jack.’ Said the phantasm.
Through tears he spoke. ‘I don’t remember. I don’t remember any of it. How could she even be there? I was, I was in the office wasn’t I?’
‘You said you weren’t feeling well. So we said you had to go home.’
‘No. I left after everyone else had. The office was empty. Wait, what do you mean we?’
‘I didn’t say we.’
Jack shook his head and then pushed his arms out, his bare feet now surrounded in soft blades of grass and he sat down, his legs crossed. Then he looked up into the darkness and created light, and cloud and blue sky. In the distance mountains formed covered in evergreens and a small log cabin situated in the middle of it all.
‘She would help me when I felt down.’
‘Mother?’
‘Yes. But as you say I can’t bring her back.’
‘Yes.’
‘But I can create everything that reminded me of her?’
‘Yes.’
‘But that would just remind of him.’
The phantasm nodded and sat down opposite, grinning, his pearly whites glinting in the sunlight.
‘I am beginning to question how long I have been this way.’
The phantasm tilted his head.
‘Has this stuff been happening recently? Or like, for months. Years. . .’ Jack’s voice trailed off.
The phantasm brought his hand to the grass then raised it slowly, bringing a small wooden table out of the ground, where he placed a kettle and two cups side by side. He asked Jack if he wanted something to drink and Jack said whiskey but was given tea.
‘It helps you think.’ The phantasm said.
‘I don’t remember much of her. My mother. But what I do remember of her is how she treated other people.’ He picked up the teacup by its delicate handle and noticed the intricacies of its design, a golden pattern of vines and flowers twirled against its white. ‘Mother had this tea-set.’
‘Yes.’
‘I thought it broke.’
‘It did, but we can fix things here.’
‘Just things though, huh?’
The phantasm nodded slowly and then peered into the distance and snatched the log cabin from the mountain and brought it to them. Its patio old and worn and eaten through by multitudes of burrowing insects. Cobwebs lined the corners of the rotten wood and little six-legged things scattered across the wood. As a child, Jack used to watch spiders entangle the annoying buzzing insects that would enter his home, wrapping them in beautiful white packages to be eaten later. His mother said you treat people with kindness you get kindness back. It works for spiders too, she added, and he laughed.
‘I miss living in this place. Is this what it looks like now?’
The phantasm sipped at his tea.
‘This is my assumption of what it looks like now.’ Jack answered himself. ‘I remember, I’d come in from playing outside and she’d be there on the patio with a towel if it had been raining. I’d take off my shoes and socks and I’d sit in front of the fire watching my clothes steam as they dried.’
Jack felt a chill across him, something he had not felt before in this weird dream-scape.
‘Everything is coming together.’ The phantasm said ominously.
‘What exactly is that?’
‘I only know half of the story, Jack.’
‘Which fucking half is that?’
‘We’ll reach an understanding eventually, I think. You’re growing impatient.’
‘You’re being so freaking cryptic its hard not to.’
‘Jack.’ The phantasm spoke deep. ‘I killed her.’
Jack stared at the phantasm, its skin aflame in blue.
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. I was hoping you would.’
‘Why would I know?’
The two shared a silence and then Jack spoke again. ‘Is she really dead?’
‘Yes, she’s really actually dead. Strangled by our own hands.’
‘Your hands.’
‘Our hands.’
Jack had tears running down his face again and he rubbed his hands through his hair, scratching at his scalp and his bristling cheeks and his neck.
‘What do we do?’
‘To be honest, Jack. I think we’re already done.’

Jack woke again and cursed into the darkness shivering. He pushed himself up off floor.
‘Home.’
‘Yes, Jack?’
‘You are working now, huh?’
‘Systems are operational.’
‘Time.’
‘Three thirty three am.’
‘I see.’
Jack sat on his bed and looked at the window thickly sheeted in ice.
‘Home, defrost windows.’
‘Defrosting windows.’
Surprised and somewhat satisfied Jack walked towards the window and lit a cigarette, staring out of the glass as the ice turned water. The moon was full and pale, its blue glow caressing the snow along the roads. The streetlights were not on and the more Jack observed his surroundings the less anything happened. There was no movement, no sound, no nothing as if he stared at a painting. But in the stillness he noticed a glimmering red light above in the blackness of space, and it pulsed as it moved between stars. Adjacent, an amber light now illuminated, then blue, then a fluorescent white until the entire hull of the cargo ship was lit up. He thought, a spacecraft like that would have to be the size of New Utah to be so clear past the atmospheric barrier.

He remembered his father now, as he burned through another cigarette, and how he complained that he was being overworked, pushed into factories shoulder to shoulder with other men all in the name of ‘The Human Endeavour.’ The world was dying, his father said, but I ain’t gonna die with it. He said, robots don’t do jack either. They malfunction everyday and don’t do as you tell em too, part of me thinks they got a mind of their own - they’re clever like that, he said. ‘They’re clever like that.’ Repeated Jack in the silence.

Millions of tons of newly researched precious metals would be used to build a transport ship able to house a billion human beings. All stuffed together like sardines waiting decades to reach the next inhabitable planet. The ship would land covering a vast amount of ground, then unfold like you would an origami crane until it flattened all around it. The robots would soon get to work creating new buildings, new facilities, new factories and mining facilities to tap the resources of the planet. New Utopias they were called. Should be called fucking Temporary Utopias, his father would mumble. In a couple hundred years, the new planet depleted, the process would start again. Although, some would choose to stay behind in their dying new worlds. After all, these planets had become their homes.

His father said that hundreds of years ago the human civilisation pointed technology in the wrong way. In that they followed the mindset of the nomad, constantly moving and finding new places to inhabit and using the resources from there. Unfortunately, he continued, their technology was so darn efficient, the world had no time to recuperate and so they began looking to other worlds focusing on survival rather than keeping things a natural cycle. They had the fucking technology, he said. They had it. The subject would get his father riled up. And he was a good man until he got the drink in him. Jack thought he was a good husband to a wife until he got the drink in him. A good father until he got the drink in him. It isn’t right seeing the blood of your family spilled, he thought. ‘It isn’t right.’ He thought he heard himself say.

Jack inhaled and watched the spacecraft burn its engines and fade into the black like a far away star. He exhaled against the glass and it frosted over instantly, as thick as it was before. He shook his head, giving up on myself shouldn’t be this easy. It should be hard. I should have to work for it.

A thump came from his front door and he extinguished his cigarette and walked over to peer through the peephole.
‘Mr. Wells. This is your landlord. You haven’t paid rent in four months, neighbours are complaining of masses amounts of noise and screams, now a disgusting odour is seeping out from your flat, can you please open the door so we can discuss this. You have ignored me for too long now. I have sent you messages, emails, phone calls, hell god fucking damnit, I even wrote you a handwritten note and slid it under your door.’
Jack looked down, a white envelope, untouched.
‘Mr. Wells! I can see your shadow through the peephole.’
‘Do it.’ Jack said. But it wasn’t him who said it.
‘Open your door!’
‘Come on, Jack.’
‘No, I can’t. Fuck off. Fuck off. Fuck off.’ He heard himself mumbling to the voice ringing in his head.
‘I can hear you, Mr. Wells.’
‘You did it before you can do it again, Jack.’
‘You did it before. You. It’s always you.’ Jack fell to his knees his arms against the wood of the door.
‘Come on, Jack. One more time. One for the road.’
Jack breathed out heavy, his breath hanging in the air only to rise back into his face.
‘Mr. Wells. I will call the police.’
‘Jack, you have to. You have to do it NOW!’
Jack rose and unlatched the locks and the chain and stared into the eyes of a small quivering man before grabbing his collar and pulling him into the room, slamming the door behind.
‘Mr. Wells, I - I - I’m sorry to disturb you. It’s just the rent. . . the smell.’
Jack grabbed his bedsheets and threw them over the man’s head before throwing a heavy fist into the writhing mess. The man screamed from underneath but Jack came round behind and grabbed the sheets and pulled them hard across the man’s face. He led him into the kitchen where he opened a drawer and grabbed a roll of duct tape and began wrapping it around the man’s head until he could hardly be heard from beneath the layers and then kicked him in the back so he fell onto the ground. He began wrapping the man’s body now to the muffled screams until he was cocooned in a silver blanket. Jack stood and watched this serpent-like creature squirm around on the floor until its movement became slower and slower and then finally, still.
‘He deserved it, Jack.’ The phantasm sat on the bed looking at the cocoon.
‘No. And you shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t ever be here. What are you doing here? You fucking asshole.’
‘Jack, for god’s sake I am always here. I have always been here. You know that.’
Jack sat down next to the phantasm and rested his head on its shoulder.
‘There, there. It’s alright.’ They both looked at the body in front of them for a while. ‘Now put him with the others.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The others.’ The phantasm replied hurriedly. ‘You know. The others.’ He pointed his head in the general direction of the bathroom door and Jack’s eyes widened, another plume of frozen breath escaped his mouth.
‘What’s in there?’
‘How can you not know, Jack. Come on. . . fine I’ll do it.’ The phantasm stood up and left Jack sitting on the bed, watching its movements. It glided across the carpet not making a sound until it stood next to the bathroom door and it grinned its perfect pearly white teeth at Jack and reached for the handle.
‘Don’t -’
‘Don’t what?’
Jack thought. ‘Don’t open that door. Let me. I’ll do it.’
‘So you do know then.’
‘Yes.’
‘You going to put him with the others?’
‘Yes. That’s what I’m going to do.’
Jack stood and grabbed his landlord’s feet and started dragging him towards the bathroom.
‘Oof, he’s heavier than he looks.’ The phantasm said grinning as he turned the door knob. A stench filled Jack’s lungs as the door opened. Inside, bodies wrapped in duct tape laid still against the dirty tiled floor. He pushed the landlord against where his ladyfriend was and the body drooped over hers. In the corner Sandy’s stilettos poked out the bottom of her silver cocoon. He thought he could hear her chewing her gum and he told her to shut up. There were a couple other bodies but Jack failed to recognise them.
‘I remember those ones.’ The phantasm said. ‘That was before you started helping. I think they’re the stinky ones, actually.’
Jack took one last look around the bathroom before he closed the door on it all and walked back to the bed to sit, the coldness in him stirring. He looked at the phantasm who opened the bathroom door for one last look inside and then closed it again. It turned around and grinned and then faded. Jack fell back onto his bed.
‘Home.’
‘Voice not recognised.’
‘Please, Home.’
‘System malfunction. Coolant leaking.’
‘Cool. . . lunt?’ His eyelids gave way and sleep took him.

When Jack woke, sunlight filtered in through bedroom window, its glass clean and dry. A sublime weakness crept over him as he stood to walk towards the windowsill where a cigarette laid. Am I free? He questioned. The roads were no longer snowed over, the ice long gone. He had forgotten how the city looked without the white sheet covering it. He thought that everything seemed settled until he saw the phantasm in the middle of the road a few stories down, staring back at him as if it was beckoning him to come downstairs. He shook his head and stayed, staring at the figure as it started walking at a fast pace towards the building entrance.
‘They’re coming, Jack.’ He heard it whisper. ‘They’re coming for us. We have to go, Jack!’

‘System malfunction in Section Thirty-three.’ The computer whistled.
‘God damn rust-bucket. You there, get an engineer.’
‘Sir.’

Jack began to sweat heavily, his palms were damp and he pushed his hair out of his eyes. He was hungry, but even more so he was thirsty. And yet, he needed to piss bad as if he felt is bladder was about to explode. He paced over quickly to the bathroom but stopped at the door, hesitant to see what he had done once again, but he throbbed and pulsed. He pushed himself through and pulled at one of the cocoons that lay over the toilet seat, its head making a dull thump against the porcelain bath adjacent. He pissed like he’d never had done before. He couldn’t remember the last time he had pissed like this and the rush felt like something else, something new and how he wanted it to last forever. He let out a soft moan and a slight shiver ran up his spine, but it wasn’t the familiar cold he had felt before.
‘Jack, they’re coming.’ The phantasm’s voice echoed. ‘They’re coming. We have to run.’
‘No. No more.’

‘Which section is Thirty-three?’
‘Dangerous cargo, sir.’
‘Well ain’t that fantastic.’
‘Sir.’ A pause, then the recruit spoke again. ‘Sir.’
‘Yes, what is it?’
‘It’s just one module, sir.’
‘Who’s?’
‘Spider’s.’
‘Well when have we ever gone somewhere without a little malfunction here and there? If anything this is a good thing. The bastard deserves it.’ He lit a pipe then stared at the recruit who stood next to him in attention. ‘Well, go on then. Check it out. Bring someone if you like. You know, just in case.’ He mockingly smiled and clawed the air with his hands to scare the recruit.

Jack watched three black vans pull up outside the building, their sirens muted for surprise, yet their tires squealed. He rolled his eyes. Three teams of five exited the back of each van, armed to the teeth with weaponry and gadgets. Jack thought it was a bit much for one person. But then again, he thought, he’d never been just one person. He’d been many.
‘What fun.’ He heard the phantasm say. ‘I wish we were better prepared.’
‘It’s all coming together.’ Jack said.
‘Yes. I suppose it is.’
‘The end, the end, the end.’ Jack tittered.
The boots thundered upstairs. Above a patrol vehicle hovered and Jack was blinded by a spotlight beamed through the window.
‘We know you’re in there. Come out quietly, Jack. Come out and you won’t get hurt.’
Jack watched the vehicle through the fluorescent light, shielding his eyes with his hand.
‘Your father said the same thing, Jack.’ The phantasm said.
‘Yes. He lied.’

The recruit stood next to another and spoke. ‘Jesus Christ, it’s everywhere. How the fuck did the computer not pick this up earlier?’
‘Don’t fuckin touch it. Put on some gloves.’ The pair of them were panicking and afraid, the chemical pools in front of them steamed into the air.
‘Hell, are our boots gonna be okay? I mean, the shit they put in these things.’
‘I think so, maybe we should be wearing masks or something?’
The recruit shook his head. ‘Do they?’ He pointed at the hundreds of other modules that stretched into the darkened room.
‘No. I suppose you’re right. But if I get any of that on my skin I’m going straight to the med bay. And you should too.’
They nodded in agreement. Then both of them looked into Spider’s pod.
‘He’s pissed himself.’
‘Well, he has been in there awhile, man.’ He wiped away the moisture from the frosted glass to stare into the face inside.

Heavy boots could be heard through the door and Jack walked back to sit on his bed, waiting and lit his final cigarette.
‘I wish we never met.’ He said to the phantasm who stood leaning on the wall opposite, its arms crossed.
‘Cruel, Jack.’
‘You made me do these things.’
Three heavy thuds against the door bellowed and with the crack of the frame wood splintered into the room followed by a small metal capsule which cracked along its sides and instantly plumed great grey clouds of smoke.
The phantasm grinned its pearly whites and disappeared. ‘We never met. We always were.’
Heat enveloped him. A warmth he had not felt in a long time. Jack pulled against his cigarette and then exhaled, unafraid and accepting. He faced a barrage of screaming orders from behind barrels of guns of which he ignored until he was grabbed and forced to the ground. With his face against the carpet and a policeman chaining him up, he stared under the bed. They were all there, like little sardines, each and every one of them in their silver cases, stationary and in semi-darkness. He heard the policemen point them out and some gagged at the sight and recoiled. Jack smiled his pearly whites knowing they’d find more. In the bathroom, in the wardrobes, under the kitchen sink. Some he knew they’d never find at all.

Jack woke for the last time.
‘Do we. . . do we open it?’ The recruit’s voice quivered and broke.
‘No. He’s awake. Just, not moving.’
‘From the pod’s computer it says he hasn’t been fed or hydrated since take off.’
‘You’re kidding me. Why isn’t he dead?’
The recruit pressed a button on the side of the chamber and skimmed the words across the holographic image displayed, it illuminated their faces in a deep blue glow.
‘Says here, that he’s fuckin close.’
‘To dying?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Good. I mean that was his verdict anyway. I guess this malfunction saved someone some time.’
The recruit stared into the pod, the ice almost completely thawed. The glass littered with condensation. The thinning man’s ribs were showing and his belly protruded and he drooled slightly.
‘His eyes are open.’
The man began to sway slightly back and forth, his eyes darting from side to side and blinking slow, the recruits keenly watching. Jack tried to scream at the two strangers that stared back but his voice was unheard through the thick glass.
‘Freaky stuff. Should we tell the cap?’
‘Right behind you, lads.’ The recruits turned and saluted.
The old man smoked his pipe, blew smoke and smiled at the writhing mess in the pod. ‘The man they called Spider, trapped in his own cocoon.’ He spat at the glass.