Alien Gears

Chapter 19 - Murk

MURK

I hit the pool of dark liquid with a great splash, making waves and plunging beneath the surface. The oily substance burned at my eyes as I struggled to make it back up to the surface, turning in circles as I tried to climb upwards. I burst through the surface, struggling to stay above the slowly rippling tide. The greasy fluid was flowing out through sets of tiny valves, drawing me in but giving me no option of escape. I had to fight the moving current and drag myself towards the biggest pile of rubble piled well over the surface of the murky lake.

I scrabbled at the rubble at the bottom, causing some of the makeshift island to collapse before finally making it on top. Sheets of cut up stone and chunks of metal and bone shifted in the pile below as I struggled to find balance and keep stable at the top. When the shifting stopped I was finally able to stop and try to clean up my eyes. Finding a relatively clean piece of cloth inside my bag, I poured a third of my remaining water onto it and began to dab at my eyes. The pain was dreadful; small blisters had begun to form around my eyeballs and they popped on contact with the water, leaking their contents into my eyes as I struggled to keep them clean. When I could see better again, I attempted to get a good look around the dangerous chamber that I was now within.

There wasn't much to see. Everything was black, or at least a dark shade of grey. The lake of oil surrounded a central pillar, rising up with a series of gantries extending to the ceiling. At the bottom of this pillar was a wide metal platform, positioned above the surface. This was where I would have to attempt to swim across to. I hated swimming. It was another of the things that I had done badly at when training with the Marshal but it wasn't considered a huge fault: nobody was expecting swimming to come up navigating a giant robot, but here I was, nearly useless at it facing a great lake of liquid of different density to water which it might not have even been possible for a professional swimmer to cross. I had to try though. Replacing all my equipment and tying my pack on securely, I prepared for the attempt to cross to the safer platform island in the centre.

I went right to the edge of the island of garbage, watching out for more refuse possibly falling down the great shafts above me. I crouched, checking my gear over again before gingerly stepping out into the slowly flowing liquid.

Keeping my face clean of the oils was easier than I had expected. Beneath the lake of oil, the floor was only several feet down and the collections of rubble in many places made it possible to cross by wading. Within minutes I was already halfway across the channel and quickly approaching the central island. The metal framework on which the great pillar was built was more visible and it was possible to make out the individual winding stairways that made their way up, encircling the central pillar. This was not the way I was heading however; I had seen enough of the upstairs and I was running out of time rapidly. When I got to the central island I would have to work out my next plan of action there.

After taking a minute to climb the grid-like metal framework that made up the edge of the central platform I had already found where I was going to head next. The platform surrounded the pillar for about twenty feet out on all sides. It had stairways heading up in three places but there was only one visible way down. A large ventilation pipe with a grille covering the end exited the pillar, tilting down into the darkness, out of sight. It was probably one of very few air ducts which kept the lower areas at suitable temperature and as an added feature made the air breathable to humans. Without it, the fumes from the lake of oil as well as the exhausts of machines like the great grinder above would have made the environment that I was in highly toxic.

As I was without breathing apparatus and a limitless oxygen supply I was happy for whatever safety standards these alien constructors worked by. I had an escape route now, hopefully one that led straight out of the COLOSSUS and back into the normal world. I started working away at pulling the vent cover away from the pipe, first seemingly having no chance of freeing it but the first of the great bolts that had it fixed to the section of pipe came free and after several minutes of strenuous pulling and bolts shooting free the pipe was finally open and I was able to crawl in, watching my head in the limited head space and dropping down the curving slope into the deeper pipes.