Survey

The waking nightmare would begin again, but Alex would be prepared.

Alex Simmons had no idea how they had taken him or how long he had been here. He did not care. The box was obviously meant to kill him. He lay in a riveted metal coffin, barely wide enough for his shoulders. Instead of ivory satin, though, this coffin had a concave screen, and a dim red light, a malevolent eye watching his every move. To hell with this shit, thought Alex angrily. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, listening for the telltale sounds.

When the twisted experiment began, the screen had flashed after the metal had pressed hard against his body, nearly crushing him. Alex had yelled and screamed until he went hoarse, while the box returned to normal. The process repeated again and again, randomly starting, leaving him exhausted. When he was young, before the Unification War, he had enjoyed the closeness of cramped spaces, blanket forts and closet kingdoms. After his service, though, he had moved away from the city, just to escape the noise. To escape the memories.

In the dark, the memories consumed him.

Hot metal against his face. Sizzling flesh and deafening explosions.

Osbourne’s giddy laugh, Meat’s back on the menu, boys!

Wexar’s spine snapping against the roof of the hovertank.

Bursky screaming for his mother while lasers burned holes in his body.

No! Alex blocked it out. There was no time. He had to get out of here. This time, he would retaliate. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast, he repeated to himself. He felt his heart rate drop. He stretched in the dark, waiting.

A groan of metal, then the odd, tinny click.

Here we go, thought Alex.

The message flashed on.

Welcome to Humanity United, the company of the future! Please describe your FEAR in complete sentences. We are making the world a better place, one survey at a time!

The sadistic message glowed in white words against the blue ocean background, taunting him. Alex ignored the tight coil of rage in his throat. I’m done playing your game, he thought viciously.

He waited.

The room shrunk in short bursts this time. The machinery sped up, then slowed down, then sped up once more. Alex could hear the pneumatic groans of the box change speeds, and he began to shudder. The instinct to wail like an infant almost overwhelmed him. Fuck, his fear screamed, fuck, what if they suck out the air? What if this time it doesn’t stop?

He sucked in a slow breath.

He waited.

Eventually the screen turned off, and retreated.

Alex could hear the machine stop. It was back, as far away from him as it could be.

“You should have taken my boots off, fuckers!” he yelled. Alex tightened his right fist inside his steel toed boot. It took half a dozen good punches with the steel toe to crack the screen, but he did it. Alex dropped the boot and shoved against the crack with all his weight.

He kept shoving till his head met cool air, his body wet with blood.

Circuitry sizzled around him. Alex wasted no time. He looked around, trying to assess his surroundings. Nothing but darkness. He swiveled his head, searching for a way out.

There! A square opening, probably an air duct. The light flickered weakly, but in the dark, it stood out like a beacon. It was just out of his reach, but he could tell it was wide enough for him to fit through. He was almost completely out of the box, when it began to move.

He heard a metallic laugh, followed by a terrible, childlike voice, reverberating through the air. It seemed to come from everywhere at once.

You Cannot Escape

Alex wasted no time. Pushing his body through the tight space, he ignored the pain, ignored the cold fear in his limbs. He scrambled toward the light.

He made it just as the steel slammed against the walls. He breathed, looking around. The light danced through a grate in the bottom of the shaft, not two feet away. Alex stared into the room below.

He had to bite his lip to keep from screaming.

Flames engulfed a glass box suspended in the middle of the room. An old man in a green cardigan and corduroys cowered inside. Alex could see the same message, eerily asking the man to describe his fear in complete sentences, on a giant screen inside the box. His stomach lurched.

"Please, God, no!! No!"

The man’s screams were the only description Alex needed. He looked away, his wish to help battling with the practicality of his own survival. He hurried as fast as he could along the air duct. The light faded as he moved down the tunnel, darkness pressing in again.

Room after room of darkness, sometimes punctuated with sobs, with screams, and even with manic laughter, made seconds feel like hours. Alex crawled without a plan, twisting through the vents, putting as much distance as possible between himself and the coffin room. He had just begun to slow his breathing when a klaxon sounded angrily through the metal shaft. Flashing red light from the next grate made him move faster. He turned again and again, looking desperately for a way out. After hitting his third dead end, he stopped.

“Fuck this.” With his remaining boot, he kicked the closest grate.

Nothing.

“Goddamnit!” He hit the grate again, as hard as he could. On the fourth kick, it swung open, and he leapt without thinking.

“Oh, hell! Move!” he yelled as the floor rushed to meet him.

Dozens of eyes, beady and black, looked up at him.

Alex tried to land on his back. He failed, miserably. White-hot pain engulfed his ankles and calves as he came crashing down at least a dozen feet to cold concrete. Several bones snapped. Tears leaked from his eyes.

The geese began pecking at him before he had stopped moving, brown bodies fluttering against him, beaks snipping his flesh.

HONK HONK HISS HONK HISSSSS

Alex yelled and swatted at the geese. He fleetingly remembered a scrap of poetry, about a giggling gaggle of geese giving nobody peace, and another goose pecked at his exposed throat. He gagged on the overbearing smell of feathers and goose shit. “Why the fuck are there geese here?!” he screamed.

A disconcerting chuckle echoed through the room.

Don’t You Like To Play Alex

The door to this room swung open, and Alex finally realized the nightmare was real. He simply could not have dreamed this, so it must be real. No one could have dreamed this.

A figure moved rapidly forward into the room, ignoring the protesting geese. It was mostly a torso and legs, with thick arms, and no head. The body was plated, painted bright yellow, bearing black lettering which read UNITY SERVICES INC. A glowing red lens in the center of its absurdly long torso bore down on Alex, and he tried desperately to scramble away.

The voice came from the robot this time.

I Asked You If You Like To Play Corporal Simmons

A metallic arm, hard and strangely warm, wrapped around Alex’s waist. Alex struggled, but there was no hope. The robot strode quickly from the room. He watched as several geese waddled away, down the dark hallway, followed by a row of goslings.

“Good luck, you bastards!” he shouted. Alex tried to squirm his way out of the robot’s grip, but it was no use. It carried him effortlessly down a long hallway, past countless doors, most closed but some open. Alex could barely believe what he saw in those rooms. He saw hyenas gorging on a carcass, rows of books which seemed to go on for miles, and even a snowstorm. More robots, mirror images of his captor, walked along the hallway, whirring and beeping, some inputting information into screens along the wall at incredible speed. Above each door, red lenses burned, and Alex felt them following him down the hallway.

“I’ll kill you!” The words came out stronger than he felt. A wave of nausea hit him, and his head throbbed. Memories swam behind his eyes. He remembered pulling Osbourne’s body through the wrecked door of the hovertank. The realization that his source had been the one to set up the ambush. The court martial. He had felt the same sense of shame at his grandmother’s funeral, that meaningless shame that is guilt in disguise.

Finally, the hallway ended, and Alex saw it was only one of many, extending left and right as far as he could see. The robot continued marching forward, and Alex saw a blue sign swinging from the ceiling.

Humanity United Inc. Est. 2022. Survey Rooms. Research Division.

Soon, the sign disappeared as the robot carried Alex into a massive chamber, roughly carved from rock. The linoleum floor underneath slowly gave way to bare earth. The robot began to walk slower as they went up a steep hill of excavated dirt. Alex tried to twist his body, but he could not see the top. He tried shoving against the robot’s grip once more, but it was no use. He sucked in a slow breath.

He waited.

When they got to the top, the robot dropped him unceremoniously on the ground.

Alex scrambled into a sitting position, wincing at the pain in his legs. Chest heaving, he was almost unsurprised by the sight before him.

Almost.

Dozens of robots stood in a circle, horrific guardians protecting a tangle of wires the size of a bull elephant. In the center, a glowing red light pulsed around the outline of a small figure, nestled at the center of a web of smaller wires and hoses.

The figure moved toward him.

At first, Alex did not understand what he was seeing.

Why Did You Not Answer My Question

At the center of the wires was a small girl, no more than 10. Alex blinked, then swallowed dryly. She was not caught in the wires. They were threaded through her lime green shirt, through her fashionably ripped jeans, around her limbs.

They were threaded into her skin.

WHY DID YOU NOT ANSWER MY QUESTION

Alex felt the voice like a rumble of thunder in his head. He swallowed. Might as well go out a hero, he thought.

“I don’t take orders from 5th graders, pipsqueak.”

The girl’s head tilted. The tangle of wires got closer, so close that Alex could see the girl’s eyes, pale and clouded with blood. She was the picture of innocence, even wearing a silver heart shaped locket and a tie-dye headband.

Except her skin was rotting. Now that she was closer, he could see a robotic arm pierced her body, and under her shirt, where her heart should have been, Alex could make out a faint glow of red. Her eyes followed his gaze, and once again laughter made the hairs on his neck stand up.

“What the fuck are you?” whispered Alex.

We Are The Regent

Alex took a deep breath.

“What do you want from me?”

We Are The Regent And You Will Play With Us

“Like hell I will!” With his last ounce of strength, he leapt at the thing in the machine.

The Regent chuckled.

From The Silicon City Chronicle

Alex Simmons took his own life while on leave in Silicon City at approximately 11:38 am on Monday, June 12th, 2079, Unified Standard Time. Alex served as both a member of the United States Army, and the New Unified Peace Corps. He is survived by his wife, Monay, and their son, Malik. This obituary is sponsored by Humanity United, a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the memory of people who have donated their remains to science. Please contact Unity Services Incorporated if you wish to express your condolences.