Dropnauts by J. Scott Coatsworth

Author:J. Scott Coatsworth [Coatsworth, J. Scott]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Other Worlds Ink

Rosemary led them down the long hall, not bothering to glance back at them to see if they followed. She was confident—he’d give her that much.

Out of the corner of his eye, Rai caught a glimpse of a glint near the ceiling. Something shiny. He began to see them at regular intervals. They were small circles—glass, maybe? They might be lights, but none of them were lit. The light on the concourse came from shallow wells in the walls, every few feet.

Cameras.

They had cameras on Luna, of course, but public ones like these were only used around the old Alpha base.

Here they were being monitored everywhere, all the time. It was creepy. He leaned over to Aidan. “Look.”

Aidan looked up, confusion evident on his face. “What?”

“We’re being watched.” He looked at Rosemary’s back nervously, but either she hadn’t heard, or she was ignoring him.

“By who?”

“I don’t know.” Every ten feet or so was a small camera, its lens trained on them. Each one swiveled to follow their progress. “Her friends?”

They passed twenty or thirty doors, all of them closed except one.

Rai glanced through the doorway as they passed and was startled to see a naked young man pulling on pants made of the same material as he and Aidan had worn. He was maybe twenty, with dark hair, well-muscled, but his genitals were missing, his crotch as smooth as a crash test dummy’s.

Then they were past.

Rai’s hand went instinctively to his crotch. He didn’t want any unrequested modifications, thank you very much. He shook his head. This place was getting stranger and stranger. He glanced at Aidan, but Aidan didn’t seem to have noticed.

The colorful mural continued down the hallway to its end, a pair of heavy metal doors. The doors were painted with smoke and tendrils of fire. Black figures writhed in the midst of it—a literal interpretation of hell if Rai had ever seen one. Did Aidan believe in that sort of thing?

Rosemary produced a key and opened the door. It was strange seeing actual doorknobs and locks in this place, instead of the palm pads he was used to.

She led them down a long stairway. The steps were plascrete, worn into slightly concave dips by generations of feet. The stairwell was dimly lit by recessed lighting, which varied widely in color and intensity, from a bright white to a pale golden yellow.

Someone was coming up the steps from below. Rai moved to the side instinctively and stared at the pair that passed them.

The one in front was a woman about his age, with close-cropped brown hair and tawny skin. She held a leash that was connected to a collar around a man’s neck. He had white skin and a wide, pleasant, but not handsome face, and dark hair. His blue eyes met Rai’s as they passed each other, and then his gaze darted to the ground. He was dressed in gray work clothes and seemed entirely at ease with his situation.

Rai shivered. “What the hell was that?” he whispered to Aidan after the two had passed.

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