The Chains are Broken (Intro)

[Tek]

Hey hey, this is my first story in a long time, and is really more like an introduction than a story, and one hell of a long introduction at that. I hope to finish the next part (the part with all the action) in the coming weeks. Enjoy the read.

The Chains are Broken

Professor Harkin looked up from his microscope and adjusted his ponts-nez, stiffly jotting down notes in a leather binder he always carried with him. I never liked him at all. He just seemed a bit condescending when he spoke with me. He also came from a wealthy family, so he felt he was entitled to the respect and admiration of his collegues. He was handsome, though; I’ll give him credit for that. He had piercing amber eyes that looked like they could bore into your soul, and rip out all your secrets. All the women enjoyed his presence and greeted him in the hallways. Like he was some kind of demi-god. I was deeply, hopelessly jealous of him.
Harkin put his pen in his breast pocket and once again put his eye to the microscope. I didn’t know what he was looking at, and I wasn’t too interested either. I simply sat at my desk, typing up a report that Harkin had assigned me as busywork. I had to work when Professor Harkin was around; he had eyes in the back of his head and would catch you in the act of being idle no matter where he was looking. He treated all his underlings like students.
I stopped briefly to take a sip of coffee—I hadn’t had anything to drink since the previous evening, and didn’t have enough time to have a decent breakfast or lunch. I’d been rushed the entire day. Harkin looked up from the microscope to find me drinking my coffee. For a few brief moments, he stared at me with his amber eyes, a scowl marring his features. Then he looked back into the microscope.
“Keep working, Daniel, we have tomorrow’s deadline to meet.” He said this without giving me the luxury of eye-contact. He kept his eye glued to the microscope. At least this time he remembered my name. Daniel. Daniel Ferguson. That bastard was always mentioning his damned deadlines. Deadline this. Deadline that. I was his assistant, for god’s sake. What did he want me to do?
I did, however, admit to myself at that point that the assignment the Union Aerospace Corporation had given us was very important indeed. Opening the Phobos gate was not something to be taken lightly, and three entire science divisions of the UAC’s six had been assigned to the martian moon to open it. The execs at the meetings had told us that opening the gate would be a huge step forward for mankind. They told us that we could reverse-engineer them and use them back on Earth, that the human race would be united and a utopian society would at last be formed. Of course, they were company executives, and even the stupidest of us knew that they were trumping up the effects at least a little.
The Phobos gate had been found when the UAC had established its first colonies on the small moon in 2079. The gate was obviously made by someone (or something) intelligent, and a UAC research base was established around it for observation and experimentation. Subsequently a gate was found on Deimos, the other martian moon, and yet another was found on Mars itself. Research bases were established around each gate. I was asssigned to the Phobos gate research base under Professor Harkin, unfortunately.

I finished off the last of my coffee and walked over to Harkin, who didn’t acknowledge my presence whether or not he knew I was there. In a vain attempt at a friendly conversation, I looked over his shoulder and asked, “What are you looking at?”
Harkin let out an exasperated sigh at having his work interrupted. “These are samples taken from the base of the Phobos gate.” He spoke to me like I was a child. “The material seems to be some sort of half-machine, half-organism. It’s very strange.” He took his ponts-nez from over his eyes and wiped them with a small rag from his glasses-case. After making sure that his glasses were as clean as he could make them (which was very clean), he perched them back on the bridge of his nose and resumed his work. I was suddenly not in the room anymore. I cleared my throat in hopes of regaining his attention, which I almost never was able to hold for more than a few minutes at a time.
“Stop pestering me and get back to work, Ferguson,” he seemed to spit my name out. “I’ll expect the report on my desk by tomorrow morning.”
I could barely keep from biting his head off. “Sir, my report is already finished and I’ll have it sent to your office immediately. And if you don’t mind, I’d like to knock off for the day, if you don’t need me for now.”
“Fine, whatever,” He replied with a dismissive gesture with his hand. “Just be ready to help the science teams with opening the gate tomorrow. You’re late, you’re fired.”
I nodded my comprehension even though he wasn’t looking at me, then I stepped out into the hallway and headed towards the mess hall, passing by other science labs and test chambers. Few of them were populated; the entire development team was getting plenty of rest for the next day’s opening of the gate.

I passed by one of the few plexi-glass windows in the entire complex. The red landscape of Phobos stretched out in the distance, the flat plains only disrupted by the occasional rock outcropping or basin. In the sky I could see Mars in all its crimson glory, hanging in space like a giant basketball.
I checked my watch. It was almost half past nine in the evening when I arrived at the mess hall and sat down at the bar. Only a few scattered groups of people were in the mess hall; mostly off-duty security guards and workers from the landing docks.
“What’ll ya have, Dan?” Asked the bartender as he walked up to me, wiping a glass. He was a portly, middle-aged man who had a bushy beard, a generally cheerful disposition, and a tattoo on his left arm that read “Suzan,” though I’ll never know who Suzan was. His name was Charlie, and he seemed to be perpetually wiping glasses, at least whenever I was around.
“Just a Dr. Pepper, Charlie,” I replied, taking out a dollar and two quarters and shoving them over the bar. I frowned at the amount of money I had to cough up for one Dr. Pepper. Sodas were getting more and more expensive every year, it seemed.
“It’s always ‘just a Dr. Pepper, Charlie.’ You need to broaden your horizons. How ‘bout a Bud instead?” Charlie held the glass he’d been wiping under the Budweiser tap and filled it with beer. He offered it to me with a childish grin.
Then it was my turn to grin. “But you keep on forgetting, Charlie, that after you offer me a beer, the answer’s always ‘no.’ Just give me the Dr. Pepper, thanks.”
Charlie’s grin disappeared and he slid the glass over to a security guard who sat down a few seats away from me. Then he reached under the bar and took out a Dr. Pepper, which he opened for me. I drank gratefully, still thirsty even after the coffee I’d finished off a while ago. Charlie took notice.
“Parched, I see. Hardly working?” Charlie chuckled at his own joke, but I frowned when he brought up my work.
“You know, Charlie, that Harkin guy I work for is a right bastard.” Charlie nodded at this.
“He’s always ordering the drinks that I almost never have enough ingredients for, and he’s always bragging to the girls who come by here about his ‘exploits in the field of scientific advancement.’ Well, to hell with him, I say.”
“Damn straight,” I replied, taking a few sips of Dr. Pepper before setting it down. “I don’t even think his job’s that important anyway. He just talks a bunch of B.S.”
“Well now, don’t be so sure about that.” Charlie replied. “I’ve heard from some of the scientists who come around for a drink every once in a while that this gate you’re opening could lead to another dimension—real sci-fi type shit like that. I heard from some guy in R&D that some weapons designs could be based off the technology from the gate. I hear ‘em talk about bio-tech, nuclear fusion, all kinds of crazy things.”
“You sure know a lot for a bartender,” I said, feigning suspicion. Charlie simply chuckled.“I’m just telling you what I heard.”
“Well, you sure hear plenty, don’t you?” I replied, finishing off the last few drops of Dr. Pepper. I peered mournfully into the bottle for a few seconds, then threw it into the trashcan.
“How’s about a refill?” I asked, smiling amicably. But Charlie was never one to give out freebies, and waved off my request.
“Cough up another one fifty, then we’ll talk.” He picked up another glass and set to wiping, a devious smirk on his face.


I retired to my room, an austere nine-by-nine-by-nine cube with a bed, some metal shelves, and a wardrobe. A picture of my former home on Earth hung on the wall, a continuous reminder of what I had left behind in the name of science. Well, not science, exactly. More like UAC. I would have been fired if I hadn’t agreed to coming to Phobos. The UAC basically blackmailed me into leaving Earth. That’s why I was anxious for the next day to come. The opening of the gate would make me non-essential in the facility, and I would be sent home.
I undressed and flopped on my bed, but sleep was a long time coming, and when it did, it was dreamless and short. Almost as soon as I fell asleep, it seemed, my alarm clock started chirping, and it was time to get to the gate platform.

After a modest breakfast of tasteless, plain corporate cafeteria food, I made my way to the gate platform to report for duty. The hangar that the platform was in was huge, about three stories high and a football field long. Computers and desks were set up all around the centerpiece of the platform, the gate itself. The gate was huge--two stories tall, and its base was thirty feet around. The whole thing was colored a dark, organic green, and had the texture of flesh to it. It was composed of the base and a giant, ring-like structure that a tank could drive through and still have about two feet of clearance from the sides. Strange carvings adorned the sides and base of the gate, and none of the interpreters could decipher them.
I took stock of the crowd in attendance. Besides the usual scientists and researchers, all of the big rollers were there: Professor Harkin; Dr. Ensley, a quantum physicist; Dr. Friedman, a biologist; Professor Abukhar, a consultant; and some nameless UAC employees wearing the suits and nametags of UAC vice presidents and higher-ups. One man, however, stood out from the crowd: He was tall, maybe six-and-a-half feet, and he wore the uniform and medals of a general or someone like that. He stood apart from the crowd in straight, military fashion, and was attended to by a man wearing military fatigues. I tapped one of the scientists on the shoulder.
“Who’s that guy in the uniform?” I asked, pointing.
“What, you didn’t get the memo?” The scientist replied, pushing his glasses back over the bridge of his nose. “That’s Colonel Gaynes; he’s been assigned with a squad of marines to look after us while we open the gate. I don’t see why; I don’t think some little green man is going to come through and start shooting.” He grinned at this. “But regardless, they’ve stationed troops at the main base, and twenty will be stationed here.”
I nodded my thanks and walked over to Professor Harkin, who was chatting it up with one of his female “collegues.” He just kept talking when I came; he didn’t even acknowledge my presence—as usual. I had to clear my throat to gain his attention.
“Ah, Daniel,” He said with a touch of venom in his voice. “You’re late—again. You are in your early twenties and still you must learn to be punctual.” As he said this, his eyes continually drifted to the lady he had been talking with. She seemed to take some measure of enjoyment in hearing him berate me. She grinned viciously.
“ I say, Daniel, punctuality is the key to success, and if you can’t be bothered to get here on time—which you obviously cannot-- you will end up out of a job. Feel free to quote me on that if eventually you do become—“
“With all due respect, sir, I was here on time, and I’m reporting for assignment.” I had cut him off—an unprecedented move when dealing with a person such as this. He seemed to take chagrin at this and a scowl played across his face.
“You are dismissed for today, Daniel, but I want you to write a two-page report on the importance of punctuality. I’ll expect it on my desk tomorrow morning.” He looked me straight in the eye for once. “Or you’re fired.”
“Yes, sir,” was all I could say, and Professor Harkin, that son of a bitch, walked off with his admirer.

*****

I hope you enjoyed this, meager though it was, and you can expect the follow-up in a few days to a week.

[dsm]

Apart from saying that I did indeed enjoy your story, I have this one thing to say: Boy I can't wait to hear about Prof. Harkin gettin' eaten by demons *evil grin*

[EVIL]

fist story I read on this forum.. and it was a realy good one.. cant wait to hear the rest

[dsm]

HAMMER-STROKE said:

fist story I read on this forum.. and it was a realy good one.. cant wait to hear the rest

Make sure you read Tek's other stories (find them through the index) - he's one of the ace writers on this forum (at least imo).

[Tek]

Oh dear...I'm not sure I can live up to that kind of praise, but I do try, as you all can see. Thanks a lot for the kind words!

[dsm]

You write better than I and a lot of other people on this forum. Hm, maybe it's just because I like your particular writing style :-)