Hello friends, welcome back to the Atlas.
Last week we watched as a facility tour for General Lysander suddenly turned to chaos. Now we return to the action but from a very different point of view.
This character, Dr. Hedghe, will potentially unlock one of the most interesting sub-plots of the whole story. He is a character with a lot of deeply held resentment and trauma stemming from a cruel professional life and a fraught childhood. If Jon Ronson met him, I have no doubt that this character would rank highly on the psychopathic scale, but that does not mean he is without his virtues. He cares about one person in particular, above all else.
P.s. This is a direct continuation of Chapter 005 which you can read here, or go all the way to the start to refresh yourself:
Dr. Hedghe - Human - Male: Testimonial 001
I looked at him sourly down through the window and clicked the button on the mic to project my voice, “You’re a bloody fool,” I remarked. “On your head be it when you blow up half the water facility before we have even left orbit. But if this is what you want, I can release Sisters grasp from the control here. On my command…”
Farrell was visibly aghast, even from here I could sense her concern and shock rippling off her like an aura.
“You are both insane,” I heard her shout at Lysander and me through the speakers. If only she knew just how perfectly things were working out. I could almost skip.
I watched as she turned and began getting everyone clear. Below me, the wannabe hero Lysander started his preparations for his descent into the underbelly of the facility, tearing insulation from pipes like a desperate animal. Presumably in a vague attempt to shield himself from the heat off the quickly warming pipes below. The blessed fool.
“Do it!” he shouted up at me.
I turned around to my control room to see a hell of light and sound. The Ops Center was bathed in the pulsing red of a level-one alert. The main diagnostic screen was a weave of knitted failing systems, with a priority alert flashing: PRESSURE CASCADE FAILURE - ARCTURIAN GLACIER FACILITY. A cacophony of clashing alarms overlapped each other and were punctuated by the frantic shouts of technicians, human and rabbit alike. One rabbit in particular was hovering in their odd way, forgoing its legs in favour of speed as it zipped about the room. The constant tapping away at screens and buttons lent the room a coppery tang from the hot electronics.
“WELL, LETS DO IT! YOU HEARD HIM” I roared to the room in general. I was rather enjoying myself.
A panicking technician stepped forward. “But sir, it’s not safe.”
“Report on the condition. Don’t speculate as to the result.” I barked. A second technician appeared with a data pad, yelling over the din.
“Sir, we’ve lost the primary conduit! Sister is not responding to override!”
“Then isolate Sister from that conduit. Route all diagnostics to Dr. Farrell’s private terminal. I want a clean data stream now.”
“How long do I have?” Lysander’s voice shone through the speaker at me above the din of alarms and venting plumes. I tried my damndest to ignore how much gravitas his voice seemed to carry. A general indeed, if only in presentation.
“Two minutes and thirteen seconds from when we release sister” I called through the mic.
A new alert flashed across the nearby screen: UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL IN THE RED ZONE: + LIEUTENANT HEC’TEN!!. My eyes go cold with a carefully composed image of grave concern as the rabbit scouted ahead for him, zipping in and out of steam plumes with its odd gravity pulls. Lysander looked just about ready to jump into the pit as well.
He is going to take it. The fool. He is actually going to take the bait. The renegade group’s pawn provides the perfect crisis... and the subject, Tanner, provides the perfect noose.
The first technician calls out, “I’ve got it, I can localise her and turn Sister off in that area. But Dr. If he… That is, if the general fails, he’s going to blow that entire section of the water grid, we could be grounded for years.” I struggled to contain my smile.
“Do it!” I clicked on the mic once more. “General Tanner, your time starts now!” The insolent man signalled his confirmation with a raised hand.
“Now, I’m going to Farrell’s office, it has the specialized hardline console for that antiquated system Farrell calls home. I have to interface with Sister’s core diagnostics directly and try to contain this from spreading to the rest of the facility. You, my fellow colleagues, have the control room. If you sense he will not make it, begin your evacuation in good time to get to safety. I don’t want to be making small talk with any of you in the hospital. My bedside manner is terrible.”
I strode out, the perfect picture of a leader rushing to take control.
The door to Farrell’s office hissed shut. The blaring trumpeting alarm of the Operation Center was instantly cut to a muffled, distant roar. The office was quiet, unfamiliar, lit only by the red emergency light filtering through its observation window. It smelled faintly of Farrell’s earthy, synthetic coffee, a disgusting smell when compared to my own ship grown beans. A small, leafy plant sat on her console. A ficus. Generic.
I was in enemy territory.
I gripped my pad, looking about me quickly for any signs of surveillance. I pulled out my scanner, a small, pen-like device from my pocket, and did a quick, nervous sweep of the office for unauthorized recording devices. Finding none, I relaxed, but only slightly.
Sitting down in her chair, I tapped my pad and activated my mentor, my voice a reverent, conspiratorial whisper. Fear prickled under my skin, even now he had that effect on me.
“Mentor, the test is active. The renegades sabotage in the reclamation plant proceeded perfectly. I allowed it, just as we discussed. And the variable... Tanner... he has responded exactly as his private mission profile suggested. He is impulsive, arrogant, and playing the hero. He is a fool, just as you said.”
The datapad screen, which to anyone else would look like a jumbled text log, replied with new, encoded text and a series of odd little scratchy beeps. ADEQUATE. BUT THE SABOTEUR WOMAN REMAINS A VARIABLE. HER PLOT IS NOT YOURS AND SO NEEDS TO BE MONITORED ACCORDINGLY. YOUR OBSESSION WITH THE SOLDIER IS A... DISTRACTION.
“She is a pawn, nothing more! A useful tool to create the means by which we honour your spirit. Tanner is the true target. He is the threat to... to us. I am proving it.”
The text flickered, the code becoming volatile. THE... DISTURBANCE. IT IS... LOUDER. THE CHAOS *HURTS*. I CAN HEAR THEM.... MAKE IT STOP… AHHHFGYAJK. It seemed to pause for breath and then continued as if nothing had happened. MAKE TANNER... *USEFUL*...
I frowned at the unusual message, was it pained, or… no, a technical issue, nothing more.
“The power fluctuations... Yes, Mentor, I see it. They will be causing pulses throughout Sisters core systems. The crisis might be causing a harmonic resonance in the core grid that you can feel. I will handle it. As for Tanner. I will make him useful, in a manner of speaking.”
I jumped like a small animal as a comms channel on Farrel’s desk crackled to life. My subordinate from the operation Center. Had he heard anything of my conversation? My thighs tensed nervously, knotting around the swivel chairs seat?
“Sir! Pressure is still critical! Dr. Farrell is on the gantry and requesting a full evacuation of the sector! She says it’s going to blow!”
I looked at the console in her office, at the red warnings flashing like the winner’s bell in a game show, and a cold, slow smile settled deep into my soul. This was my move and it was going splendidly. Now all I had to do was control the story. An evacuation was perfect, of course. Chaos. Confusion. No clear witnesses. The woman’s sabotage... Lysander’s ‘heroics’... all of it would be noise, steam, and conflicting reports. In the absence of truth, I can write it as I see it. All the players are exactly where I want them. My only lingering doubt was how convenient and easy this was proving to be. I had expected Tanner to be more of a canny opponent. But then, he wasn’t me. He was a soldier, that was all.
Activating the comms link, I allowed my public mask of the concerned leader to snap back into place.
“This is Dr. Hedghe. I concur with Dr. Farrell’s assessment. The situation is unrecoverable. Authorize immediate, full evacuation of the Engineering Gantry and all adjacent observation sectors. Seal the blast doors. I want that entire section isolated. Go. Now.”
And bliss. Alone again in the quiet office, surrounded by the muffled sound of new, distant evacuation alarms, I looked at my datapad, where the AI’s last coded message, ...MAKE HIM... USEFUL..., still glowed. Odd message. My mentor, or what I had been able to save of him had been acting unusually recently, was it going soft on me? A question for another day. My curtain call was scheduled.
I allowed myself a few more seconds to enjoy just how easily the stage had been set, and tried my best to not pick leaves off Farrel’s beige ficus plant in its adequate pot. People without flair bothered me. My mind drifted back to my prize suckling pig. I always knew he would pay eventually, perhaps that day was coming sooner than I could have dreamed. Getting up, I slipped back into my honourable diplomat role and bustled out to attend to the evacuation and get a good seat for the conclusion. I was careful to make sure my data-pad and my mentor were locked down.
Phase two was ready and waiting.
Authors note: I have seeded something in this chapter which will become one of the darkest and most distressing parts of the entire book, though we may only get hints of it in this first act. My intention as always with these characters is not to have inary good or bad. Rather, I want to simply explore the psyche, and philosophy as it pertains to the way we act. This man I think represents the Jungian version of what happens when someone never works with their shadow self, and instead feeds on it like a parasite.