He ran.
He’d already wandered past his entrance point, and couldn’t return that way; he needed another path out of this nightmare. It took him three tries to muster the concentration to summon his map, but when it finally appeared he saw that one of Serjit’s secret doors was located in a large room not far ahead. If he could get to it and shut the door behind him, he might buy himself enough time to get out of range of the airborne poison. He sprinted the last dozen yards, into the large portal that irised open as he approached. Breathless, he turned back immediately and tried to find a way to shut it quickly, but there was no visible mechanism for that, so he had to let it close at its own pace.
Then he claimed the luxury of a few deep breaths, and tried to get his bearings.
He was in a warehouse of some kind, packed from floor to ceiling with containers. It also had two bodies in it. A man and a woman were lying on their backs in the middle of the floor, eyes staring out through the same kind of goggles the other exos had been wearing, dust masks soaked in blood. What little skin was visible was gray and striated and covered with lichenous white spots, like rotting wood. Serjit’s people hadn’t been exaggerating. He wondered if he could bring himself to touch the mutated bodies, to salvage a mask and goggles for himself. Just think of these people as Variants, he told himself. One human race among many, only this one has textured skin. Nothing to think twice about. Finally he reached down and pulled at the woman’s mask; it came loose with a sucking sound that made his stomach turn. The goggles had to be lifted off over her head, and got caught in her blood-soaked hair, but he managed to pull them free without retching. He winced as he tucked the two gory items in his pocket, praying to God he would never have to wear them.
As he headed toward the location where the hidden exit was supposed to be, suddenly it dawned on him where he was. He checked the map to confirm it. Yes, this was the heart of Serjit’s trap, the place the exos had risked their lives to find. Even now he could see that the floor-to-ceiling shelves at the end of the chamber had once held a neat array of food storage bins. But many had been pulled from their perches and dumped on the ground. Had they really contained food? He’d never heard Serjit talk about that aspect of the trap, but clearly the exos had already been here and ransacked the place. Curious, he walked to the nearest box and crouched down beside it, turning it over so he could look inside.
There probably had been food in it once, but the seal had been broken, and what was in there now didn’t look like anything edible. A dark, viscous sludge clung to the walls of the box, and the rotting chunks floating in it reminded him of human vomit. Swallowing hard, he managed to look away, and pulled another box toward him. This mess in this one was mostly green, but equally unwholesome. Whatever food had been in this place had spoiled long ago, and now was utterly putrid.
No, he realized with a shock. Not putrid. Putrid would stink. This didn’t stink.
Startled, he looked around the room, at the dozens of containers whose rotting contents were now exposed to the air. This part of the warehouse should reek to high hell. Hell, the whole frikkin’ warehouse should reek. Only it didn’t. There was no smell at all.
A tremor of fear ran though him. Slowly, he leaned forward over another one of the boxes, placing his face directly above the disgusting sludge, and inhaled deeply. Please, he thought desperately. Please smell bad. Please. Make me vomit.
But it didn’t. It smelled like nothing.
The implications of that were terrifying.
Suddenly he became aware of another presence in the room. He reached for his baton as he looked up to see who had snuck up on him while he was distracted. It turned out to be a woman: lean, high-breasted, athletic in aspect, with deep golden skin that was flushed from exertion. Sweat-matted hair obscured most of the simple headset she wore—looked like an old Sitech model—spiky copper bangs framing large almond-shaped eyes, which narrowed suspiciously as she studied him. She was wearing a dark red leather coat, and through holes in it he could see a shiny black lining. There was a jagged tear in one leg of her pants, and the fabric surrounding it was stained. With blood? She had no facial deformities. She wore no dust mask or goggles. She wasn’t one of Serjit’s people, but she didn’t look like an exo either. Could it be she was an outsider, like him? Another person who didn’t belong in this crazy place? She was holding a nasty-looking shock rod and looked ready to use it if she had to . . . but she didn’t look like she wanted to.
“There’s no smell,” he whispered hoarsely. She just stared at him. He tipped up the box he’d been smelling, so she could see the noxious mess inside. “See?” He shook it slightly. “It should smell, but it doesn’t!”
She leaned forward to peer into the box. Stood back again. Though she said nothing, the truth was in her eyes. She doesn’t understand. Which means she doesn’t see what I do. Which means . . . the thought was too terrible to finish.
“One minute,” he whispered. He held up a finger. “Just a minute . . .” When she made no move toward him he shut his eyes, focusing all his concentration on visualizing the icon that would shut down any virt his headset was running. He added every variation of the command that he had programmed into his headset. Pause Program. End Program. Sever Connection. Terminate Virt. Shut Down NOW! But when he opened his eyes the boxes of sludge were still there. They still didn’t smell. Shit. He fumbled for the release on his headset, aware that she was watching him closely. Lifting the golden dragon from his head should sever the connection to any external program that was affecting his sensory input, regardless of its source. So he did that.
Nothing changed.
He forced himself to be calm as he locked his headset back in place, or at least to look calm. Focus on other things for now, he told himself. Don’t think about the fact that you may have gone insane. Was this woman really from the outside? If so, might she offer him a way to escape this terrible place? Return to a world where people didn’t turn into trees, where putrid things smelled bad? He’d sell his soul for a ticket home.
“So,” he said, trying to sound less afraid than he felt. “Are you from around here?” The words sounded lame as soon as he said them. She was staring at him like one might stare at a strange bug. Great.
But then her expression softened a bit, and she shrugged. “Just visiting. Not very impressed.” She nodded toward the boxes, and a corner of her mouth twitched. Almost a smile. “Food sucks.”
“No argument there.”
“So how about you? From Shenshido?”
He shook his head. “Took a wrong turn on the way to Harmony. Totaled my pod trying to dock here.” He sighed. “Can’t seem to find a rental center anywhere.”
“Services are definitely lacking,” she agreed.
“So.” His heart was pounding. “You don’t know where I could catch a ride home, do you?”