The Second-Degree Out-of-body Experience
by Marianne Resler
The road to the other side led through hell, being in itself a
punishment worse than death. Shape-shifter shadows came for too short
to catch the eye. Whatever she looked at, it eluded, blurring
indefinitely. The OOBE chamber and the world beyond disappeared,
replaced by their phantom extrapolations in the unstable, ductile
matter. The floors got a bottomless depth. Chasms grew instead of
walls, and the ceilings led to the interiors of singularities. Touching
anything was next to impossible. Fear was paralysing the confused
senses. She was reaching out her hands in a vain attempt to grasp
something that would protect her from falling, but unreality swirled
around her body. Air was condensing in the throat and was choking her
like under water. Elusive, erroneous lights, blinking in wormholes were
leading her astray. Suddenly they disappeared, replaced by the barely
perceptible fluctuations of intense blackness.
It is nonsense that when you are dying, you travel to the light.
OOBEnaut opened her eyes. She woke up like from a dream: a colourful
parade of places, situations and figures were spinning around her,
reminiscent of a roulette wheel. A mangy feeling when your whole life
passes in front of your eyes, but you can't stay any longer on any of
your memories, you can't capture any.
Not you, stupid. You can't do it -- but the scientists do.
At the moment, the whirling reality froze in one of many situations
considered, as if she hit the jackpot in the lottery: among millions of
memories, the operators found a continuation of the interrupted vision.
The rooms recovered walls, floors, ceilings; from the OOBE chamber, she
went right into that place. A third time, maybe the last. May this
session last longer. May Feds finally get what they want.
It was her worst memory from the overpopulated space station on the
orbit of dying planet.
Tino's thugs got a dope saying that she had left the warehouse where
she had been hiding for so long. They shadowed her from the fork of the
corridors, and then, mixed up in a dirty, stinking crowd, followed her
up to the ventilation shaft. She noticed it too late. When she climbed
the emergency ladder, they left her alone but others waited for her in
the main transport tunnel.
OOBEnaut tried to escape, but it all was in vain. Captured and forced
to take a back seat of the rust bucket electrocar, she did not resist.
She anticipated they would take her to the spaceport, but they would
not accompany her to the last flight. OOBEnaut clenched her teeth, not
intending to show fear as they passed the passenger section to get into
the maze of containers.
They were heading to harbour master's office.
OOBEnaut was here before. She closed her sweaty palms into fists to
hide their trembling. The complex had little to do with the dirty
office occupied by the harbour clerks. Surprisingly spacious, it
resembled an exclusive apartment in the Old Earth style.
The grim men stayed outside. Only one of them entered the Tino's
headquarters with her, but he kept himself at a distance. The humanoid
being with strange, rubiginous skin was lying on a huge canopy bed. An
alien, who once seized not only business but even the old gangster
boss's body. The doctor just ended to put up him an IV fluid.
Right, that's the memory.
OOBEnaut came closer, encouraged by the weak wave of Tino's hand and
she sat on the edge of the bed, invited by drumming his fingers on the
mattress. She barely glanced at the man reaching for a drip bag hanging
on the drip stand. She could not see his face clear anyway; the
material suspending by the frame blocked her view. The medic will soon
hide in the shadows, and Tino will ask a question about the money she
will not be able to give him an honest answer.
Never mind, it's the past. At the moment, in this one memory, it's
about the mob doctor.
Feds on the space station needed to know his identity, but she couldn't
recall a medic's face or surname. She did not try to remember him then,
and all the thugs who saw him once are already dead. How to recover
information ignored two years ago? She considered it insignificant
then. That's why scientists sent her to hell on Feds' orders. The
researchers wanted to get the mob doctor even more than the agents. The
Petersson-Wolfe Corporation would pay the fortune for the composition
of the mixture that kept Tino alive.
OOBEnaut had a try to see the physician out of the corner of her eye,
but only the IV fluid paid her attention. The almost empty drip bag did
not resemble the one she remembered: now pure blackness was circling
inside it. At the same moment, Tino dug his sharp nails into her palm,
interrupting the vision.
The memories broke off immediately. The dazzling whiteness, as thick as
the former blackness, surrounded everything. OOBEnaut returned to the
world of the living. That's it for today; she has failed again, but the
scientists are close. In a few days, they will send her on a new
journey. She may refuse -- but then she won't avoid death. Official
death, with the signature of the judge.
It will be the fourth time. Maybe last one?
The scientists started the OOBE chamber. Cascades of darkness grew
stronger, creeping out of all corners. Memories did not keep up with
the vision this time. Fluctuations of nothingness complemented their
deficiencies. Blinding lights of the orbital metropolis were still
flashing on the windscreen of the gangsters' car, but the pure
blackness ruled the side windows. The vehicle stopped in front of the
harbour master's office. Thugs stayed behind the door. Tino waved his
hand weakly and tapped his fingers on the mattress, and the mob doctor
hid in the shadows. OOBEnaut heard the question, and she hedged,
avoiding Tino's penetrating look. Impatient gangsters' boss dug his
nails into her hand, but now she was not afraid of his icy touch.
OOBEnaut was ready. She tore her hand out from his hand. He groaned
softly.
The thug guessed Tino's wish in a flash. He tugged her hair, threw her
off the bed and started to give her a kicking until she lost
consciousness.
Something changed -- she was looking at herself from above.
OOBEnaut could see Tino in spite of the canopy as if the material
suddenly became transparent. It meant that scientists and Feds made it,
finally. Second-degree out-of-body experience, that's what they called
it. All team was waiting for this moment. They had to drug her to
achieve such an effect. She preferred not to know what they had been
giving her.
She was watching closely, curious about what had happened when she was
lying unconscious, even though the darkness was whelming the corners of
the gangster's asylum. The doctor took off the room with the back exit.
He was in a hurry, or he just didn't want to be a witness to a crime.
She followed him on a secret passage, leading to one of side transport
channels. Nothingness thickened. Doctor's face was swathed in murk more
and more.
Nothing can come of this! Even an identikit picture.
She didn't let it off and began to circle him like a moth. He reached
the car, got in and gave the command, choosing one of the tunnels
penetrating the space station like a bloodstream. However, he did not
specify the destination. Medic intended probably to input them later or
just to change the vehicle. He knew someone could track him.
But she will not lose him, of course, if the vision will last long
enough.
OOBEnaut almost got through the roof to the starting car, when someone
or rather Something fell on her from above. It pushed her away, then
grab her with ghostly talons, and started devouring her, greedily
absorbing energy. Emptiness immediately was penetrating the scratches
in her crumbling consciousness. It was solidifying, and deepening the
gaps; one more moment and it would blow apart her into a thousand
pieces. It does not matter how much she will be struggling. OOBEnaut
won't escape.
The mob doctor did not manage to leave. An embarrassed Tino's man fell
out of the secret passage and stopped the vehicle, almost throwing
himself at the mask. He was screaming something about dying and shouted
any common surname, but OOBEnaut, absorbed with the fight, did not try
to remember them. The medic left the car and ran after the gangster.
The door slammed behind them with a loud bang.
She weakened and stopped fighting. The Something let her go.
And suddenly she tore out of a nightmare: a colourful kaleidoscope of
places, situations and figures were spinning around her until the
reality frozen in one of the many events considered. The OOBEnaut woke
up on the floor of Tino's flat. Stains of blood from her mouth enriched
the ornamentation of the carpet.
"He's back! He's back!" repeated the mob doctor. "He's breathing!"
OOBEnaut was pretending she was still unconscious. Tino was barely
breathing. She realized who a moment ago had been sinking phantom claws
at her. The pain of her mutilated being was growing. The gangster
returned from a short trip between this and that side, in which the
OOBEnaut had been getting stuck for a long time.
"It was only a fluke, you stupid quack," told the thug. "If he died, I
would tear you to pieces! Do it one more time, and I'll kill you!"
The medic was lucky, she admitted. He will never know that it was not
him who bring Tino back to life. Boss came back to life only thanks to
her energy. She wouldn't have known the truth if it was not for
second-degree out-of-body experience. OOBEnaut saved her worst enemy.
She closed her eyes. The whiteness gleamed under the eyelids instead of
blackness.
At last! Maybe it's not a time to die?
Everything is great on this side: the noises of ventilators, equipment
beeps, excited scientists' voices, relief. But this overwhelming
weakness and pain piercing the body from the head to the fingertips. It
doesn't matter, that she has nothing new for the agents.
And, suddenly, she's got a flash of memory.
”Baker! Baker, come back, you screwed up! He's dying!”
And yet she remembered how Tino's man was hitting with an open hand at
the vehicle window. If only she had enough strength to pass a message
to the Feds!
"His name is Baker," she had mumbled before blackness overwhelmed her
again.
This time for good.
THE END
© 2017 Marianne Resler
Bio: Marianne Resler is an amateur writer from Poland. Writing is
her favourite hobby.
Her science-fiction and criminal stories were published in Polish
webzines.
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