Chronicle of Nautilus

Chapter 22: The Retirement

Ermac sat in the middle of the Navigation room, in a chair surrounded by many holographic projections. His white hair covered his wrinkled face. The tight black uniform he wore today camouflaged him in the darkness. He inputted a command to the console, put his hand behind the neck, twisted it and detached a plug, it fell to the ground. All projections disappeared. Then, like a shadow, he drifted to a small computer placed on the right of glass cylinder. He pushed a couple of buttons, turned to the window to outer space and a holo-screen appeared on its surface.

There was a curvilinear path drawn between many dots, small in the window, but clear on the transparent three-dimensional image that gave depth to the stars.  A curve passed closely through many points but never pierced them. Many digits and functions were indexed at each point. He slowly lifted his old shaking hand and brushed his hair to the side. He looked intensely to the monitor and for a moment, his eyes started changing from crystal blue to different shades of it, giving him additional depth and understanding of the picture. He came to a silent conclusion and glanced at the glass tube with a worried stare.

My time is over, I will not be able to do this, it will be up to him now, he thought, pushed a button and the hologram was gone.

“Stacy, I’m done for today. I’m going to take a nap for two hours, prepare me a dinner and pick some movie from the older collections.”

“Understood.”

“Thanks, and please…”

“Sir?”

“I have not much time left.  I want you to promise me that you are going to make sure that my substitute does his work no worse than I did.”

“Don't talk like you are about to die, Sir, you are going to have many great moments after retiring. And of course, I will look over my new master as I have looked over you.”

“Retirement you say. Do you imagine me going to the entertainment centers, taking a swim at the public pool or visiting a theater? Those things are not for me. I exist only to work on the controls. I am just another gear of the ship. Let’s not pretend I can exist outside of my gearbox. There is no other place for me to fit in,” he reasoned, walking the same corridor he passed every day for at least two times a day for the last forty years.

A minute passed and Ermac was already standing in the doorway of his humble room.  There stood a large comfortably looking bed on his far left. On the same side, only a bit closer to him - a large opened wardrobe was filled with different models of the uniform he wore today.  A small grey table with no drawers rammed the corner on the far right. Three chairs of perfect simplicity stood in the room, there were some clothes hung on their top rails.

 He came to the small table and spoke up. “The letter to T.L. No. 1102.”

A projection of a long digital letter appeared in front of him.  He tapped his fingers on the table and contours of a keyboard showed up. Ermac sat down and started typing, making thinking pauses from time to time.

After he was finished he walked to the bed and fell down. With closed eyes he searched for a pillow and once he got it he pushed it under his head. Even though it was the last dream of his life, all he dreamt about were the monitors and his command chair.

******

The ground shook once. Ermac’s bed jerked and he was awoken.  He sat down and brushed his hair to the side.

“What is it Stacy?” he asked calmly.

“Nothing to worry about Sir, we have a single intruder, I am taking care of him.”

But Ermac felt in his guts that this time Stacy would not manage to take care of the intruder.  He walked to the digital notebook on his desk and opened the letter. He wrote the last sentence and pushed ‘send’ button on the screen.

He lifted a cape which lay on one of the chairs in his room, wrapped himself inside it and moved towards the door.

“Sir, you are not allowed to leave this room until I have dealt with the threat.”

Ermac extended his arm to the controls on the side of the door, pushed a series of buttons on a holo-keypad and the door opened up. Words ‘override initiated’ flashed on the controls.

“Sir, what are you doing?!”

“I am going out as it is fitted for a man of my position.” He silently muttered and walked the same corridor for the last time, feeling a slight relief, that he would not need to do this ever again.

“Do not go that way! Do you know whom are you going to encounter?!” Stacy shouted.

“Please, don’t think you are the cleverest in this place. Trust me. I know what I’m doing.” Ermac smiled and increased his pace.

And there it was - the door to Navigation room. He could hear someone moving, tapping buttons inside.

Ermac took a deep breath, entered the room, took a glimpse of the intruder he had never met in his life and got shot in the head. Slowly his knees bent and he fell down with a smile on his face. Finally his well-deserved retirement was here.

******

Simons stood by Ermac looking at his messed up body.

A light flashed behind him, the beeping of the devices in the background went away. He touched his chest, looked down and saw his own blood on his hands. He coughed and blood spilled out of the mouth. Simons could not believe this was happening to him, he was so close, yet so far from achieving his goal.

It was his ally who slipped him a foot, what the hell was the entity thinking, when it walked to the dead body like that, when all was left was to enter a couple of commands.

Surprised, he fell down to the same puddle of blood his victim lay in. Again he gasped for air and coughed.

Someone strong came behind him and roughly turned the scientist around. A perfect younger copy of the old man lying near Simons stared suspiciously into his face.

“Who do we have here?” The man spoke to himself and inspected the intruder.

Simons coughed for the last time and his vision slowly faded to black.

******

Landau with his men rushed into the room. After he was done giving orders he approached the young Ermac and two dead bodies lying on the ground.