The Crimson wake vi enter the machine

Draz sat looking at his closed wall screen, feeling both frustrated and alone.  He fell back on his bed with a thump and listened to the muttering’s coming from both his parents in the front room.  He heard words such as “Proctor” and murmurs of “she’s a bad influence” and the like. They don’ see her like I do.  No one does. She can’t help the way she learn.  In truth he had hated the way the he had spoken to Kit.  He loved her independence and found her lack of fear thrilling to be around.  Yet The Proctor had been clear. He had to stay away from her or face the orphanage for tutoring.  Thoughts of endless hours of military training didn’t make him feel good at all.  Sure it’s a career, but not one that he wanted to consider. In an act of rebellion that made his heart quake, he turned on his phone. There was a call immediately.
​      ‘Draz?’  she sounded tearful.
​      ‘what’s up?’
​      ‘Its  Da…I I think…’
​      ‘what about  your Pa?
​      ‘He’s dead! Draz he’s dead!
​      ‘Dead?'    
​      ‘He was assigned to go go  on the the  Wake…Weasley…just  just told me that they have lost contact with their bio signals…’  Draz sat up
​       ‘where are you?
​       Suddenly the room’s lighting began to dim and fluctuate 
​        ‘What the-
​       ‘There’s  power outages going on… the    w-  ke is  - rai-  -sytem’ ‘Im -ing to m-frame, W-sley -nts me to tr to nd with th - erver thr-‘ 
​          The line went dead. Drax rose from  his bad and tried to get though his door. But it was locked. His fists in thight knots, he thumped at the door again and again, then tried to slide it open.  Sweat curled from his brow as he tried to get his finger’s in the door jamb.  But he failed.  Then he looked up at the ventilator grate.

                                                   ***

​         Kit walked with Weasley through the growing chaos that was bio server central, then along a narrow dimly lit and greasy corridor to main frame.  This was the nerve centre of the Way station. It was where Gabriel maintained contact with all the bio server’s both on board the station and with the ships that docked.  In the rumours and mysteries that surrounded the Way station, Mainframe was the most treasured. Only those of high level clearance were allowed into the room, and nobody, but nobody talked about what went on other than in whsipered tones.
​         Weasley inserted his access key and typed in a code number that Kit stored in her memory   8  7  4  3  Op. INT Weasley.9   There was a pause, then the door slowly curled open with a grinding hiss.

                                                    ***

Draz Having  shoved his desk into the centre of  his  room, then climbed up though into  the ventilator system, He  crawled carefully  along the dimly lit space.  It was hot. Beads  of perspiration swelled up and then fell like hot rain from his brow, then  into his eyes, smarting them.  The  vents were just big enough for him to crawl through but not small enough for him to wriggle, so he  moved  making sure that he braced his legs into the corners so as to not to put too much weight in the middle of the vent. Something he, recalled that he picked up  from  mouse during one of her escape attempts from her father’s lock down.  From below,  he could hear the sounds of sirens and alarm systems and the muffled voices of people and  what he thought was  the sound of a rumble.  There was a shudder. Suddenly  he became weightless. 
​       ‘Way station has lost gravity control.’ his voice ecoed to no one.
​        To start with he was exited as this would mean he could get through the vents with more ease.  Then he thought harder, and recalled his Procter’s induction. Way station was in fact a self-contained gravity system that functioned, because the station span  at a specific speed. This also maintained its position in space and at the same time prevented  it from falling into Jupiter.  Panic rose in his chest as  he pushed  himself off   then   glided, almost fish,  like through the vent tubes  and , as far as he could tell towards the Mall and deck command.

                                                        ***

Kit found herself in a place that was, at first glance, deeply disturbing. She stood in front of a screen board that was connected via liquid fibre optics to an E-visor that rested on the only chair, in the room.  It was mysteriously a grav-couch, in the room. 
​      ‘Why the grav couch?
​       ‘You’ll see soon enough.’ Came Weasley’s reply
​      The room itself was lit from its centre by three intensely glowing undulating diamond shaped cubes;   Two  glistened with a mint green. One glowed hotly red. And shuddered more than the other two.  They were also covered with a translucent, membranous gel, that snakelike, writhed about the structure changing the outline of the shape at slow yet regular intervals.  This was suspended in zero G, within what she considered as a perfectly circular space. The walls lined with banks and banks of memory systems, that curved down In dark lines.  From the diamond structure, there extended three phallus shaped tendrils, that  were  thrusted into the walls of the inner room via circular entry ports that covered the wall in equidistant intervals.  Two of which glowed minty green, and seemed to be pulsing in some liquid, she couldn’t see but heard readily enough. One phallus was red and was quivering violently
​         ‘So far, the team at central have managed to contain the problem from the Wake; but as you can see, its leaking into Gabriel’s other systems and it won’t be long before there's a  full breech.’
​        It was then that Kit knew what the grav couch was for.  She would have to go into the network via a holo-portal  and communicate directly with the Wake.   She had heard stories about how people had been driven mad by the experience. she shudderd.
​       ‘I’m going to be with you all the way.’ Weasly wheezed gently.
​       ‘ Yeah, well forgive me for saying so, but that’s not entirely comforting.
​        Weasley’s face flushed and he looked away.  ‘ who-
​        ‘- Draz ,  I want Jayton Draz and I want to talk to him now.
​         She was half way through the call when one of the minty green cubes suddenly quivered and suddenly went red.  Weasley paled. ‘ Right  kid, don’t fuck me about.  Engage with the Wake NOW!’

                                                        ***

 Draz floated through the air shafts and found himself further than he expected.  He was at the docks in half the time it would have taken him to crawl.   He  opened the grill and pushed himself through.  The dock was deserted.  The door to the wake sealed.  He had decided that he was going to make his way to command and find Mouse, when he heard a regular metal sounding thump, thump, thump, coming from the sealed hatch. He looked at the only sealed door.  Its designation “crimson Wake” flashed in red letters over the door seal.  He bounced his way to the door and looked through the viewing screen next to the manual override button. Behind the door stood Kits father. He had a metal pole in his hand, which without the gravity being off there was no way on earth he’d be able to hold.   He was bashing the door with it. 
​        Without thinking he slammed the override button. There was a hiss and the door slowly opened. But no one was there.

                                                          ***

Kit sat in the grav couch and put on the helmet.  Everything was dark. All she could hear was her breathing.
​        ‘Okay… this is going to hurt a bit. But go with it....’ Weasley's disembodied voice was all around her,  She could hear the apprehension in slow tremors. ‘... what you’re going to see isn’t real.... though you  will be  in the Wake, and a part of the ship, you’re  also separate from it?  You recall your training with the Excelsior?’
​     ‘yeah.  I  gettit.
​     ‘Good. good girl.'
​      'Don't patronise me.'
​      Suddenly there was burning sensation on the top of her scalp, then it felt as if her entire skull was going to explode.  Pain ripped through every nerve in her body. She screamed in a howl of agony. Then there was light. Bright green light coming at her in circular waves.  She felt herself slide through the circular waves of light, her body throbbing in total agony that then slowly began to diminish.  Instead there was a sense of incredible acceleration; followed by a dip in her stomach that came with a sense of a swing back motion that led to her to believe that was on the verge of an imminent smash.  There was a flash of bright white blinding light and then she found herself in the deck room of the ship of her dream the previous night.
​       Without knowing why, she knew she was on the main deck of the Wake; and there in the middle of the room was the little boy
​      ‘help me.’ he said weakly.
​       She walked towards the little boy
​       ‘My name is-
​       ‘Mouse, your name is mouse.’  Said the boy  
​       ‘No… Its’s Katherine Havisham or Kit.  Only my friends call me mouse….’ She looked at the pale boy’s face. ‘Do you want to be my friend
​       ‘I’m so cold… so cold. 
​        Kit stared at the boy. She was certain now, there was little difference in their age, yet his pinched and sunken skin and the glittering of the eyes, unnerved her.
​      ‘He’s  a boy.’  
​      ‘No it’s a machine.’ came Weasley's disembied voice. Its Gideon. You are seeing what it want's you to see,  
​      ‘I’m so cold….so cold…’
​       ‘He is a boy! And He needs help!’  Kit snapped
​       ‘They are coming.’ Gideon whispered
​       ‘Who… who are coming?’  Kit walked towards Gideon.
​      ‘ So cold here…so cold here… they are coming… they are coming.
​       ‘Who’re they?’  Kit stepped closer.  
​       Suddenly Gideon grabbed Kit in a vice like grip on her shoulder. With a howl of pain Kit was driven to her knees
​       ‘They’re coming and nothing will stop them!  
​       From the peripheral of her vision she could see dark shadows looming up from the floor of the ship. One of the shadows moved behind Gideon and slowly came into the light.  It was her father
​       ‘Da?  Da? Is that you?  Da are you’re alright? Da I’m so scared.
​       ‘I’m alright darling…soon everything…everything… will be all right.
        She screamed as he, with one lightening motion, extended a slime covered undulating tentacle tightly about her neck.