Chapter 211: Inprocessing (1/2)

Do'ormo'ot trotted partway across the courtyard, the sound of his shod hooves on the stone muted, like he was trotting across packed dirt rather than black stone. He stopped in roughly the middle of the courtyard, looking around.

The fortress was tall. At least a hundred feet, maybe more, with a single tower raising up into the sky almost as tall as the main fortress. It was all black stone that felt dry and dusty even though it was solid. The black color hurt the eyes to stare at, as if it was sucking the light from a person just to stare at it. There were windows and gaps in the stonework, but no sign of light or movement. The citadel was ugly, almost unfinished looking, with the sold entrance being nothing but a black metal double door in a peaked arch.

The courtyard itself was empty, featureless. The wall around it was made of closely interlocked stone blocks with no sign of mortar, just as if they had adhered to one another. The sky was purple with hints of deep indigo and streaks of lavender.

After a while Do'ormo'ot began to get annoyed. He was supposed to be a prisoner but all he was doing was standing in the courtyard by himself. Snorting with irritation he trotted toward the walls.

Within a half dozen steps it felt like he was trying to push through a sandstorm, his hooves became heavy, he almost had to lean forward as if there was a pressure on him, and he began trembling with weakness.

By a dozen steps he gave up, turning around and heading back for the middle of the courtyard.

His steps were easier.

He tried several different directions, getting the same results each time with the two notable exceptions of walking toward the citadel and trotting toward the gate.

When he reached the gate the five nodes, arranged in a rough pentagon, rotated and opened to reveal the eyes. A line extended beneath the nodes and split apart to become a fang filled maw.

”Prisoner 4582143,” the voice said. It was strange to Do'ormo'ot's ears. Like it was different words and syllables and sounds jammed together to make the sounds. He identified three different female voices on the numbers even as the voice continued. ”You are being inprocessed. Do you have an inprocessing request?” the strange aggregated voice asked.

”I wish to speak to whomever is in charge,” Do'ormo'ot demanded.

”Prisoner 4582143 request,” the voice paused. ”Denied.”

Do'ormo'ot just stared. ”What do you mean 'denied', I demand to speak to someone!”

”Prisoner 4582143 request,” the voice paused. ”Denied. Insufficient privileges.”

Do'ormo'ot began shaking in rage. Didn't these jumped up lemurs understand who he was? He was a Most High Direct Action Agent of the Unified Executor Council! A simple memo from him could get an entire world scorched! A word from him could get their families imprisoned in a hard labor mine for the rest of their lives in Lanaktallan Space.

”Prisoner 4582143 is not in Lanaktallan Space. Examples are irrelevant,” the voice said.

Do'ormo'ot opened his mouth to argue and stopped.

He hadn't vocalized those thoughts, had he?

Whinnying in anxiety Do'ormo'ot trotted backwards far enough the eyes closed and the nodes rotated, the mouth thinned and melted into the supporting bars. Do'ormo'ot turned and trotted toward the citadel.

He stopped a few dozen feet from it.

I will go no further until someone forces me to. Now is the time for passive resistance, Do'ormo'ot thought to himself.

Do'ormo'ot folded his legs and sat down on the stone, waiting.

Time crawled by. Do'ormo'ot got slightly thirsty. Just enough that he was aware he was thirsty, but not the maddening urgent thirst. It was easy to ignore but kept popping back to remind him he was starting to get thirsty.

The citadel ignored him as he ignored it.

Do'ormo'ot looked up at the sky, squinting, and found nothing but vivid purple streaked with lavender with hints of indigo deeper in. No patterning, just random streaks and swirls that slowly came apart or shifted as he watched. There was no source of the steady illumination, but it was all around him as if he was surrounded by light emitting nanites like he had seen in a few high tech labs he had been sent to destroy. There was no sun, no stars, no moon. No matter how hard he searched, he couldn't see a single star in the sky.

Just purple on and on and on seemingly forever.

As he watched a chunk of debris the size of a small ground vehicle struck nothing and broke apart. Do'ormo'ot realized that several of the pieces that had broken off of the piece of debris were larger than the piece of debris had been to begin with. Every so often something small enough to be unseen at that distance cracked against nothing with a flash that was muted within a few feet of the impact.

Soon the sky seemed to press in. There was no reason for it, it just began to feel to Do'ormo'ot that the sky was slowly pressing down on him. That the invisible field that small pieces of debris exploded against had failed and now the purple was pressing on him.

His stomachs were signalling that he would be hungry soon as he huddled down and covered his eyes with his hands. He was going to be hungry soon and was starting to get thirsty.

After a bit the fear lifted and he opened his eyes.

He realized with a shock that he had straight purplish black streaks extending from him, like some kind of fringe made of thin fibers. With a panic he brushed at them but they only stuck his his fingers. Whinnying in fear he managed to get the fibers off by brushing them with his hands and then rubbing his hands together.

It wasn't until he looked at the palms of his hands that he realized that the black stuff hadn't vanished, but now his palms were covered with a layer of hard looking glossy black material.

He worked a fingernail under the edge of the material and tried to pry it up and then jerked his hand away at the sudden spark of pain. Steeling himself he tried again, only to get the feeling of peeling away a scab that was still thickly attached to the skin. He managed to pull the edge up, moaning in pain, and his eyes all opened when thick red blood started to flow.

It turned black a fingerwidth from the edge of the coating on his palms, then suddenly hardened, turning a glossy black.

Do'ormo'ot looked over his body to see spots of thinly layered black on his flanks, on his upper torso, on his legs and arms. He felt his neck and head and found spots the size of his palm here and there. He tried to peel one plate on his chest off and stopped when the pain from trying to tear it off got too much.

It felt like he was trying to rip away a thick scab.

Do'ormo'ot got up, slowly, his legs shaking, and looked down. The outsides of his legs that were unprotected by his sitting stance had spots of thin black material over the flesh and hair of his hide.

I can't stay out here, he realized. Taking a few deep breaths to steel himself, he trotted to the double doors. As he climbed the steps the opened silently although Do'ormo'ot could swear he heard a creaking sound far away, almost muffled.

The being that appeared made Do'ormo'ot skitter back slightly, his hooves thumping on the stone.

It was a biped, taller then Do'ormo'ot, wider than him. Completely covered in a heavy black robe, a hood covering its head, and a black mask covering its features that was shaped like a human skull. It stepped to the side and made a grandious motion for Do'ormo'ot to enter.

Shaking his head, Do'ormo'ot shuffled back down off the steps that led up to the door.

The door swung silently shut, leaving Do'ormo'ot alone in the black stone courtyard under a luminous purple sky that pressed in at him.

A mangled hydrogen, disfigured and scarred, hit something that didn't exist a few hundred yards from the courtyard and deflected off of it with a bright flash a sharp crack that made Do'ormo'ot's ears hurt. The sky began to press down on him and he swallowed thickly. He was starting to get thirsty and hungry.

Do'ormo'ot covered his face in his hands and cried. The tears were hot feeling and when he pulled his hands back he realized, with horror, that his hands, covered in a thin layer of the black substance, were now smeared with blood. As he stared the blood shivered, turned to dust, and fell from his hands, wafting away and dissolving.

His skin felt like it was going numb and he opened his eyes and looked down, startled to find the black patches had thickened and begun to spread, the leading edges thinner than the thick centers. In some places the patches had developed eye-watering spiral patterns or strange, almost organic looking, curved sections.

Shuddering, Do'ormo'ot struggled to his feet, able to feel where the edges of where the black chunks and his skin met by the way it pulled uncomfortably, swallowed thickly to banish his lingering thirst, and trotted up the stairs.

Again, the door swung open and that robed human, his body hidden by his mask, gloves, and hooded robe, stood in the middle of the entryway. The human turned, moving to the side, and motioned for Do'ormo'ot to enter.

Looking behind him with his rear eyes, feeling dread fill him, he entered the hallway. The doorway slowly shut.

The interior of the citadel felt dim, even though Do'ormo'ot could see clearly. Just smoothed black stone cubes piled on one another so they fit perfectly. The hallway had no decoration, no ornamentation, just featureless black stone.

Do'ormo'ot blinked his side eyes and the robed figure had vanished as if he never existed.

From the perfectly clear dimness a figure slowly approached. Do'ormo'ot backed up until his rear hit the door as a black splotch appeared, then slowly grew larger as if it was moving toward him without moving at all. From within the black splotch a figure emerged. Black robed, white mask, white gloves, no trace of their flesh at all.