Aren’t You All Aglow In Your Thousand Yard Stare
Chapter One
Janice Rand was being seized by restlessness. The crossing and uncrossing of legs, the
tapping of fingers on the chrome table that sat next to her chair and the
constant rotations of her ankles did absolutely nothing to make her wait time
move any faster. She glanced at
the time board situated over the receptionist’s desk; a full hour had past
since she and the other cadets had entered this room, and she couldn’t
understand, for the life of her, what was taking so long. The paperwork, the oath required by all
cadets taking the program, had already been collected. It had been early in the morning, upon
rising, when Rand was presented with a sealed plain white envelope by a
messenger. She was instructed to
open the envelope promptly, read over its contents, sign her name on the
bottom, place the contents back in the envelope, reseal it, and then hand them
over to the messenger who stood in her quarters by the doors, waiting quietly
and with watchful eyes. This had
been last month, so what was the hold up?
Rand looked around the waiting room and noted the behavior
of the other cadets; some were rolling their eyes, some were constantly folding
and unfolding their arms and legs, while others tapped their feet and clicked
their tongues. There were a few
smart cadets, however, who had either brought a padd to read or a music deck to
listen to. Unfortunately, Rand
wasn’t one of the smart ones as she cursed herself for not bringing one of her
old hardcovers to read.
The waiting room was clinically white and circular, and the
furnishings were simple and sparse.
The chairs were padded, somehow resembling a benign purgatory where
cadets were sent to await a sentence of some kind.
And wait, they did.
Each cadet at one point glanced over at the digital board,
letting out a deep breath of frustration, shaking their heads in utter
annoyance. Rand chuckled to
herself; she could certainly feel their pain, that was for damn sure.
“This is absurd,” she thought.
Rand got up from her seat and walked over to the
Receptionist, who was sitting behind her desk doing work on the desktop
computer.
“Excuse me.”
The Receptionist, a young brunette wearing a bun pulled back
so tightly it made Rand grimace at the sheer sight of it, looked up from her
work.
“I’m sorry to bother you, but can you tell me what’s taking
so long? It’s been about an hour
and no one’s some to orient us yet.
We’ve all signed the Oath of Secrecy. What gives?”
The Receptionist was polite, but in an almost robotic
manner. She answered Rand in a
voice that was both clipped and bird-like, reminiscent of the telephone
operators from Mid-Twentienth Century Earth.
“We do apologize for the wait, but the program coordinators
are setting up as we speak, so it shouldn’t be that much longer.”
“Yeah, but they had a whole month for set up. I’ve never heard of this last minute
stuff at the Academy.”
The Receptionist regarded her rather coolly, and Rand
wondered if she’d put her foot in her mouth. Not that she gave a shit. This waiting was irritating and unprofessional and they
needed to hear it! Her eyes
strayed over to the emblem on the Receptionist’s uniform on the left side just
over her breast. It wasn’t the
usual symbol of an ancient compass inclined over the points of navigation. It was of an upwardly pointed weapon
that tapered down into an oval plate.
A switchblade?
Rand felt her head jerk back ever so slightly, trying very
hard not to look to stunned.
“Again, we do realize that the wait’s been long, but if
you’ll sit down the coordinators will be here shortly to orient you and the
other cadets.”
Rand had been tempted to say something, but the chilly expression
on the Receptionist’s face, along with that switchblade planted on her chest,
prompted Rand to give her a curt little nod and a barely contained smirk before
returning glumly to her seat for yet another possible long wait.
“This is utter bullshit,” she said under her breath.
Rand had hoped she had been loud enough for Little Miss
Efficient to hear her, but looking over at the Receptionist, her eyes
transfixed onto the computer screen, was proof that she had failed in that
objective.
Sitting back down, Rand turned her attention to the small
table where issues of the terminally dull Academy Magazine lay haphazardly
piled onto each other. Corn fed
cadets smiling goofily in stiff, awkward poses in sad attempts at looking
formidable plastered every glossy cover.
Rand rolled her eyes as she picked up a periodical, desperately wishing
that she had brought something of her own to read. She turned to the interactive bulletin board on the other
side of the Receptionist’s desk where she saw two other cadets on either side
tapping their fingers onto its screen, hoping to keep themselves engaged
through this interminable wait.
Rand glumly hoisted herself up from her chair and walked
over to the bulletin board. Maybe
there’d be something interesting, but she highly doubted it.
“Exactly what is this Crossing the Rubicon anyway? What are we being tested on? How long we can stand boredom before we
go completely bonkers? Are we being timed for sleep inducement or something?”
she thought.
At the corner of her eye, Rand could see a young man with
his head inclined back, his mouth open and body slack on the chair. She chuckled, shaking her head.
“Yeah, it’s sleep inducement,” she said to herself.
She raised her hand to the icon on the bulletin board
winking in front of her.
THRUMP…THRUMP…THRUMP.
Rand stopped in mid-gesture and turned to the sound, which
was coming from behind the wall on the far side of the room. But, only after three times it stopped.
She shrugged and returned her attention to the interactive
bulletin board, placing the tip of her finger on the grey screen and tapping
it, activating it to life. Icons
and various fonts flickered and glowed, aligning themselves in orderly geometric
configurations.
“Anything interesting?”
Rand turned to a short, freckled faced, chubby auburn haired
young man. He spoke in a voice
that feigned both distress and boredom as he looked at the screen.
“We’ll see.
Hopefully.”
THRUMP…THRUMP…THRUMP…THRUMP.
The sound returned, coming from the back wall, like
before. And, again, Rand turned
towards the direction of the sound, forgetting about the bulletin board.
“What, are they doing repairs or something?”
“I hope not.
Between the wait and that noise I’d chew my nails down to the cuticle,
for Christ’s Sake!”
“You’ve got a point there, kiddo.”
The sound was dense and unwavering. This knocking went on in a drone-like
manner, slow and plodding, continuous, thick and blunt. As the sound went on, the thick of it
began to hollow out and echo, ringing like a hammer against a steel beam. Other cadets started turning to the
noise as well; some got up from their seats while others stayed seated, leaning
their bodies and craning their necks towards the direction from where the sound
emanated.
The hammering abruptly stopped.
There was a minute of silence…
And then…
TTTTTHHHHHHRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMBBBBBBBBB!!!!
It was like a headlong fall down a great flight of stairs.
The tumbling began at the far end of the wall, but then it
spread out like a grid, its branches rolling behind the surrounding walls of
the waiting room, and then up in the ceiling.
There was an uneven rhythm to the commotion. It would go fast, stop, then slow. It would bounce, then skid like a
pebble on a body of water.
Rand noticed that the other cadets were out of their seats
now, their faces expressing alarm as they were clearly glued to the racket that
engulfed them.
She turned to where the Receptionist sat, but the desk was
empty.
There was a resonant slam in the overhead, followed by
vehement scrapings crawling their way upward from the walls to the ceiling.
“What the hell…”
Compact oval slots opened up, letting loose grey pipes that
revolved and undulated around each cadet, like tentacles. To Rand, standing face to face to one
of these things, looked like the long slender barrel of an Italian pistol.
“SSSSHHHHHPPPPPUUUUU!!!!!”
A spiral of thin, silvery webbing glued itself onto Rand,
its slick, feathery substance tightening and hardening as she struggled
violently against its grip. She
screamed, stumbling to the floor as she clawed and kicked at the netting. Her ears were assaulted by the screams,
exclamations, and cursing of the other cadets.
Rand felt the brutal pull of the netting as it dragged her
across the floor of the waiting room.
Through this web, she could see officers garbed in black pulling and
yanking at the nets containing squirming cadets while others wielded long ,
black staffs that jabbed into their captives, causing their bodies to flop
heavily like fish being dumped onto a deck.
Rand drew in her breath sharply, as she watched the chaos
with a mixture of fear and rage.
Then, a pair of feet planted themselves firmly in front of her. Rand looked up to see the Receptionist
standing overt her, gripping a staff strategically with both hands, the lit end
of it glowing like a poker as it hovered over Rand’s face.
Rand screamed, fighting through the net as it continued to
tighten around her. The
Receptionist thrust the staff downward until Rand felt the heat press against her
neck, bringing searing currents that coursed through her body until her limbs
tingled, the heat morphing into a numbing iciness that slackened her body, face
and eyes until she lost consciousness.
