Chasing the Void

Chasing the Void

This is Imagine Sci-Fi. Todays story is “Chasing the Void”. Prompted and Edited By Jeff Weber.

The air was dry enough to sting as Makayla moved through the skeletal remains of the city. The nanodust clung to her, a fine gray film that filtered into every crack in the broken pavement and the folds of her jumpsuit. She wasn't equipped for this terrain. They were EVA-rated for orbital platforms, not urban wastelands. The thin polymer layer had given out hours ago, and the sharp edges of debris had sliced through the fabric beneath. She didn't stop to inspect the damage. There wasn't time.

Behind her, the drone's signal pinged intermittently, a low-frequency pulse that swept the area like a blind predator sniffing for prey. She adjusted the frequency scrambler strapped to her belt, twisting the dial until the faint hum shifted out of phase with the drone's sweep. It bought her a few minutes. Maybe.

The sky above was a sickly orange, the color of burnt sodium from the atmospheric processors that had failed decades ago. No one lived here anymore, not since the megastorms stripped the surface of its last breathable air. The city was a shell, abandoned to scavengers and automated patrols like the one hunting her now. She ducked into what had once been a metro station, the stairs collapsed into rubble halfway down. She ached but climbed over the mess anyway, dropping into the cavernous, darkened space below.

The air here was worse, thick with metallic dust and the faint tang of old coolant. She pulled her respirator tighter, forcing herself to take slow breaths. The scrambler sputtered—damn it, she hated when it did that—and she twisted the dial again, cursing under her breath. She didn't have the tools to recalibrate it properly. Not here. Not while running.

The drone wasn't the real problem. It was him. Thaddeus Graber. She hadn't seen his face up close in years, but the memory of his voice was enough to keep her moving. He didn't need to speak loudly; the calm precision of his orders was what made her stomach knot. He would have sent the drone ahead to flush her out, sweeping the grid one quadrant at a time. He was methodical like that. Always had been.

Makayla slid behind the gutted remains of an old vending machine, its plastic panels warped from some long-forgotten fire. She pulled out the tablet she'd scavenged two days earlier, connecting it to the scrambler. The screen flickered, then stabilized. The drone's signal was stronger now, closing in. She tapped into the metro station's ancient power lines, she moved across the cracked screen. The city's subsurface grid was decades out of date, but some of the maintenance bots were still online, wandering the tunnels in endless loops. She sent a ping to the nearest one, hoping its rudimentary systems would still respond.

The tablet vibrated in her hands as the bot acknowledged the signal. It was close—closer than she'd expected. She rerouted its path, sending it toward the drone's coordinates. The distraction might give her enough time to slip out of the station and into the next sector. If she was lucky, the maintenance bot's metallic shell would confuse the drone's targeting systems long enough for her to disappear. Luck wasn't something she counted on, but it had to be better than nothing.

She pulled herself out from behind the vending machine, wincing as she stepped onto the ground. The pain was sharper now, each step a reminder of how much ground she'd covered. She couldn't even remember when the bleeding had started. The jumpsuit's internal sensors had probably logged it, but she didn't bother checking. Blood loss wasn't the kind of thing that killed you quickly. Not like Graber.

The tablet beeped again, a sharp, insistent tone that made her stop. The drone had shifted its pattern. It wasn't circling wider anymore; it was coming straight for the station. The scrambler wasn't working. She adjusted the dial again, but the signal was fragmenting now, breaking apart into static. Something was wrong.

“Makayla,” a voice said, clear and calm. It wasn't coming from the scrambler. It was coming from everywhere. The metro station's old intercom system sparked to life, Graber's voice sliding through the static like a scalpel. “You can't keep running.”

She didn't respond. She knew better. He didn't need her to answer; he just needed to talk. That was his way. He talked, and the world folded around him, people falling into neat, orderly lines. She wasn't going to be one of them. Not again.

“You're smarter than this,” he continued, his tone almost conversational. “The scrambler you cobbled together—it's clever, I'll give you that. But you know it's not enough. You're burning yourself out for nothing.”

Makayla forced herself to move, following the faint glow of emergency lighting deeper into the station. The maintenance bot would have reached the drone by now. Either it worked, or it didn't. She couldn't control that. What she could control was her own trajectory. She found the maintenance tunnels at the far end of the platform, prying open the access hatch with a piece of rebar she'd picked up earlier. The space beyond was cramped, barely wide enough for her to crawl through, but it was better than staying exposed.

“I'm not going to hurt you,” Graber said, his voice echoing faintly in the tunnel. He'd tapped into the whole grid, then. The bastard always did overreach. “You know that's not my style. But I can't let you keep running around like this. It's dangerous—for both of us.”

She didn't stop. The tunnel was narrow and rough, but it led somewhere. It had to. She kept the tablet tucked under one arm, its screen flickering with the drone's telemetry. The signal was erratic now, bouncing between coordinates. Maybe the maintenance bot had done its job. Or maybe Graber was playing with her. She wouldn't put it past him.

The tunnel opened into a larger chamber, some kind of old storage room filled with rusted-out machinery. She climbed over a stack of collapsed shelving, her movements slower now. The bleeding wasn't killing her, but it was definitely making things harder. She needed to find somewhere to stop, to bandage herself up. But not yet. Not until she was sure he wasn't right behind her.

The tablet beeped again, and this time the signal was gone. Not fragmented or weak—just gone. She stared at the screen, she paused for a moment. The drone wasn't tracking her anymore. That should have been a good thing.

It wasn't.

“You're predictable, Makayla,” Graber said, and this time his voice wasn't coming from the intercom. It was closer. Too close. She turned, and there he was, standing at the entrance to the chamber, a faint glow from his visor illuminating the room. He wasn't wearing a standard exosuit this time. He didn't need to. Not with the augments.

“You always think two steps ahead,” he said, taking a step toward her. “But I think five.”

Her hand went to the scrambler, but he shook his head. “Don't bother. It's dead. And so is the drone. I don't need it anymore.”

She backed away, she caught on the edge of a rusted panel. The pain flared again, but she didn't let it stop her. “You don't have to do this,” she said, she spoke more quietly than intended. She hated how small it sounded.

“Neither do you,” he said. “Come back. You know I'll take care of you. Like always. Like before.”

She laughed, sharp and bitter. “I'd rather die out here.”

Graber tilted his head slightly, as though considering the statement. “That can be arranged,” he said.

Makayla didn't wait for him to move. She grabbed the tablet and hurled it at the nearest power junction, the ancient capacitors sparking violently on impact. The room plunged into darkness, and she ran, she pushed through the pain as she disappeared into the tunnels again.

This has been “Chasing the Void”. Thank you for listening.

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The writing prompt for this story was:
She has been walking for hours. Her feet are starting to bleed. But she can’t stop moving… she can’t let him find her again. Make it Tech-savvy. Story is Dark and Disturbing.

This story was written by:
openai/gpt-4o-2024-11-20

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Thank you for reading. Please post a comment if you have feedback on this story.