Death’s Dimensions a psychotic space opera

“I transferred the lifeboat in between the two of you, grappled the escape ship and transferred out here. I matched velocities and brought you onboard. You were nearing brain death.”

Yanked back again. And I thought it had ended. What do you want from me, Master Snoop? Why not let Nightsheet have his way? Why keep me alive? What code must I break?

The inner doors cycled open. She lay before him inside the opened glasteel capsule.

Death Angel!

Step forward. No! Get away. No. He leaned back against the doors, his arms hanging weightlessly away from him. The hands twitched, as though trying to explain something to the still body before him.

She doesn’t move. The lights shine off a head balder than mine and wires grow from her chest and temples. Tubes worm in and out of her nose and groin. She is as I was once: a prisoner of Master Snoop. He moved forward one handhold.

Naked and trapped she floats in her glass coffin nestled in funereal foil. Skin so white and pure- soap smooth-

“She’s in a state of coma vigil. When the psychfighters downed your escape boat, they transferred a Valli into either engine pod. The one in the port side demolished the control circuitry and she began to thaw. I sent a robot to her as soon as I determined the situation and initiated normal resuscitation procedures. I do not know if she can be brought out of the coma. I took the liberty of injecting picotechs into her carotid artery in an effort to preserve her mental matrix against degeneration.”

“Coma vigil?”

“Random brain activity. Spontaneous breathing. Periods of semiconsciousness. Delirium. It may be due to the transfer out here.”

“Out where?”

“Tau Ceti.”

“Were we followed?” He moved closer to the capsule.

“They had no idea where we were going. And even if one could have tagged along, there is a practical limit to psychfighter distances. I suspect that a twelve year wait to re-establish contact when the fighter appears is stretching anyone’s patience.”

We’re alone, then. Death Angel and I.

“Wake up!” he whispered to her. No movement disturbed her perfect stillness. Virgil bent over the capsule, locked his feet under the table, and gazed at her closely. An uncontrollable anger welled up inside him.

Death Angel’s mask doesn’t fool me. Like a helmet, she hides behind it, as aware as I am when the dead man inside me takes control.

The layers of metalized Mylar insulation, bent back, crackled like fire under his waist. He leaned closer and raised his hand.

Her head swung sideways with the force of his slap. Saliva flew from her lips, scattering across the room, adhering to whatever the globules hit. One eyelid swung open. An enlarged pupil stared sightlessly.

“Death Angel, you wake up and tell me!” A red image of his hand appeared on her cheek. “You tell me why! Why you made me die die die die!” Another slap punctuated his words. Her head rolled back.

“Stop it,” she mumbled.

“Death Angel?” His fingers tightened around her shoulders and shook.

“Stop it. He’s just different from all… you. Can’t help…”

“Death Angel wake up and tell me!” He floated above the capsule now, his feet anchored under machinery braces, his arms shaking hers.

You make me scream, Death Angel, make me die inside a thousand times more than out. Hurt. Hurt.

“Why do that? He’s not… hurting you…” She coughed and fell silent, closing her eyes.

“Death Angel wake up!” he shouted next to her ear.

“Brain activity is depressed, Virgil. You will not get anything out of her until she is in semiconsciousness again.”

He hovered directly over her for the next hour, watching, listening, speaking to her in a rambling monotone, apologizing, begging her to return. The computer suggested that he receive an injection of nourishment. He snapped the plastic tube into his wrist port to accept the trickle of dextrose and vitamins. After a while, the computer made a buzzing sound.

“Brain activity resuming.”

Death Angel, you make it hard. Harder than it’s ever been. So hard and you can’t be reached.

He pulled closer to her bare, pallid skin. The oxygen cannula under her nose hissed with quiet regularity. He floated horizontally over her, arms grasping the lips of the capsule.

“Wake up, Delia,” he whispered in her ear, pulling even closer. You make it so hard. He touched her. “I want to-”

“Free for-” she muttered. “Thrive. Sick heaven, hate. Trine. Men.”

“Delia.”

“Ate mine then. Mind. Denned. Dead. Dead. Frozen dead died.” Her head rolled about, loose as a rag doll’s. Wires rattled against the capsule. Her eyes opened. “Virgil. Killed me. Virgil. I died for Virgil.”

“You’re not dead.”

“Waited until I died. Cold dead.”

Closer he drew, pulling in, touching the flesh of his body to hers. “You’re not dead, Delia,” he said, his voice a low murmur. “Feel. Life is feeling. You’ve only died once, just once. Believe in me: you can die again and again with me forever.”

Slowly, reverently, he slid into her, feeling the cool touch of her thighs against his. For a moment, she murmured peacefully, beginning to move with his rhythm. Then her eyelids snapped open like a mechanical doll’s. Her pupils irised down into tight, black points of terror.

She screamed. A powerful shove pushed Virgil out, spinning him against a bulkhead. The food tube popped out of his wrist and snaked about, leaking fluid.

“No!” she shrieked. “Died enough. I’m dead!” She thrashed her arms about, tangling them in wires and pulling off the electrogel contacts. With a shriek of animal fury, she ripped the waste tubes from her. Blood smeared the catheter that snaked loosely about in the weightless chamber. Blood and urine sailed about in pulsating globules, adhering like living, hungry microbes to anything they touched.

Virgil kicked back toward her, whipping about to grasp at her thigh. Overcome by nausea, she doubled up, pulling in her legs. Virgil sailed past her, grabbing at air, and hit the opposite bulkhead.

“Delia. You’re safe here. I’m Virgil. Just keep calm.”

She dry heaved in small, rapid spasms. Coughing, she looked wildly about.

Adult fetus, hanging over me, her arms cradling her stomach, her eyes so scared. Death Angel so unprotected, so far from Nightsheet, so hungry for him. Hold still. Please.

“Hold still, Delia. I’ll bring you down.” He climbed over to her and reached out. Seizing one foot, he received a powerful kick in the face from the other. He hit one bulkhead and she the opposite.

“Damn you!” he shouted, covering his nose and eyes. “You’re alive. Thank me, damn you. I died and died to find you!” Gave up my body to get the dead man’s help. I boiled and froze.

Somewhere, a hatchway hissed open and shut. “She has left the room, Virgil.”

“What?” He uncovered his eyes to look about. “Well, stop her! Seal all hatches.”

“Done. However, I cannot keep a hatch sealed against a direct command unless there exists a pressure differential-”

“Then change programming.” He kicked toward the exit hatch and bumped his shoulder passing through.

“This is not programming, this is the construction of the hatch locks themselves.”

“It’ll slow her down, at least. Where is she?”

“Ring One, Level Five, Two O’Clock, going to One-Five-One. She is moving aimlessly, no apparent goal.”

Sniffing back a small puddle of blood building up in his nose, Virgil dragged through the passages, listening to