The Great Game

If you’re new to the Great Game, please have a quick look at the blurb to your left, where you’ll find a short catch-up introduction.

Travis sighed. “Alright Taylor, come with me.” He pushed the door open and looked at me pointedly.

“Yes, sir,” I said. I hauled myself out of the cot, and padded out into the hallway, slightly nervous.

Travis closed the door behind us, and led me a few steps down the hall. “So?” He kept his voice low, but he sounded weary.

I took a slow, deep breath, and tried to figure out where to start. “I had a really crazy dream, sir. I woke up bolt upright in bed, screaming. Uh, so did everyone else in the room. At the same moment. The others looked blank when I mentioned the dream.”

“Right,” said Travis, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “What was the dream?”

I steeled myself. “I was in a black abyss, sir. I couldn’t see anything, but it was unimaginably vast, and it felt… Uh. Every so often, a blip of static would shoot through me, and I thought maybe I could hear something. Then everything expanded into this ocean of groaning, gibbering, throbbing noise, with song, and mathematics, and…”

Travis was staring at me.

I blinked at him. “Right. So, I could hear these ins… uh, voices spiralling around me. Then the static was zapping through me continually, and a horrible voice spoke, and called me by name. It told me that the old was new again, and that the, um, fleshy stars were singing.”

“Fleshy stars,” said Travis dully.

“And it asked if I wanted to hear,” I said. “I told it no.”

“How reassuring,” Travis muttered. “Is that it?”

“Not quite. I moved through the void for an unimaginable time, and then suddenly I was in this canyon of light, and a sort of monstrous version of my own face was floating beside me.”

“I see,” said Travis.

“So, uh, I decided to dive into it.”

“Naturally.”

“Yeah. But it was incredibly large. I ended up diving into the centre of its pupil, which turned into a horrible vortex. And then I woke up.”

“The voice you mentioned,” Travis said. “Do you remember exactly what it said?”

“Not really. It was rambling. ‘The old and new and before and will and was are all in the song and oh the fleshy stars in the darkness,’ that sort of thing.”

“I was thinking I might shoot you,” said Travis. “I would have done, if you’d tried to hold out on me. There’s nothing natural about a whole room of people sitting up and screaming. But now it occurs to me that it might be wiser to just toss you straight into an incinerator.”

“Sir!”

“Oh, stop it,” Travis said, irritably. “Go find the duty doctor, and get a bottle of stims. I don’t want you going back to sleep.”

“I don’t think I could sleep at the moment anyway,” I said.

“I don’t mean tonight, you bloody fool. I mean ever.”

“What?”

“If I ever discover you have slept again Lieutenant, I will have you slung directly into the nearest blast furnace. Do I make myself clear?”

“Sir.” Fear and resentment flared up, hard. I fought to keep my face neutral.

Travis sighed. “I suspect that they can work on you through your dreams, man. You had a very close call this afternoon, and this babble sounds right up their alley. If you go to sleep again, they might be able take you. I’m trying to bloody save you. Long days and a minor addiction would seem like a pleasant alternative to soul-death and a quick roasting.”

“Oh. Right. Thank you, sir. I think.”

“Just do it,” Travis said. “Then you might as well get back to your desk. You won’t be the only one up there.”

He stumped off. I went and got my first course of stims — “You may experience some mild psychological effects with extended use,” lied the doctor blandly — and headed back up to the office. There were half a dozen people around, but I really wasn’t feeling chatty, so I nodded to them pleasantly and sat myself down at my desk. My eyes felt dry and achy, so I reluctantly shook out a stim and took it. Then I stared at my terminal for several minutes.

Today’s picture is Incinerator by Peter Rosbjerg