The Pilot

One Shot

The phosphenes wove their colourful display behind Astrid's eyelids as she reclined in her cocoon of shadows and silence. She took a deep breath and released it, with the delicacy of a butterfly's wingbeat, as she sought out the mental peace that only the darkness offered. In her mind, she floated adrift in the swirling sea of shadowy colour, her brunette hair billowing around her, framing her sharp, gaunt features and sunken eyes.

It was subtle to begin with. The gentle sensation crept across her scalp like the gentlest fingers of static, massaging their way by across the top of her head to the base of her skull. She allowed the sensation to pull her along like a sublime current as it cascaded down her spinal column and spread through her nerves. She followed it down her arms all the way to her fingertips and continued following it beyond them.

Astrid felt the other body, the one that wasn't her own, but felt like an extension to it. She curled one hand into a loose fist and was met with the sensation of a much larger set of fingers flexing instead of her own digits. So far so good. Taking another slow breath, Astrid slowly began to open her eyes, ready to be greeted by the usual synchronicity monitors and initialisation screens.

Instead there was another woman floating there. Her athletic body was garbed in a tight skin suit, typical of pilots, that further highlighted her muscle definition. She wasn't reclining, as Astrid was, but instead she seemed to be reaching out towards her. The Pilot's blonde hair floated behind her like a yellow comet tail and the expression on her face was one of urgency, punctuated by the worry lines around her hazel eyes.

A shiver ran through Astrid's body. The mysterious pilot was completely motionless in front of her. Like a frozen video file, it was an unnatural stillness and it filled Astrid with a sense of foreboding. Her gaze flitted from the pilots eyes to her fingers that seemed to be desperately reaching for her. Astrid reached for the pilots hand, but stopped short of grabbing her. She hesitated. This had to be some kind of glitch in the system. No Hard Suit had ever done anything like this during boot up and this situation had long since departed the realm of normal, skipped past strange and landed firmly at disturbing. But her curiosity ate at her. What was this? Who was this?

"What would happen," She thought to herself, as her fingers started to close around the pilot's wrist. "If I were just to touch…"

As her finger just brushed against the skin suit, the pilot's hand clamped down on Astrid's wrist like a vice. Astrid yelped and tried to loosen the pilot's fingers as the hammering of her heart began to intensify against her sternum. As she struggled against the steel grip Astrid looked into the pilot's face and felt the blood in her veins chill her from head to toe. Bloody tears poured from those hazel eyes and the look of desperation was now a twisted mask of agony etched across every line of her face. Then without warning the pilot's face was an inch from Astrid's and her mouth split in a deafening, bloodcurdling scream. But it wasn't a normal scream. It was endless and broken, like the very sound had been dissected, incorrectly reassembled and distorted until it could barely be recognised as human, and Astrid screamed in reply forming a shattered chorus of terror.

The nightmare scene was interrupted by the sound of metal on metal and a sudden blast of tungsten light from behind her. Still screaming, Astrid blinked through the light as a pair of wardens stepped into the cockpit on either side of her. The one on her left grabbed her face and began turning it this way and that, examining her for a moment before releasing her again.

"Another one gone." The man's voice was tinged with irritation and disappointment. "Get her out of here and prepare her for examination."

As the warden released her face, Astrid snapped her gaze back to where the pilot had been only to see that the screaming woman had vanished. As she began to claw her way back to the fringes of her mind, Astrid finally stopped screaming. She took in the dimly lit cockpit as the wardens set about loosening the restraints around her and removing the interface spike from the back of her skull.

"What…" She spluttered breathlessly. "What the fuck was that?"

The wardens froze where they stood.

"Did she just…" The other warden spoke this time. A younger man judging by his voice.

The first man stepped in front of Astrid and grabbed her roughly by the chin, forcing her to look at him. He was a grizzled looking man, his dark hair and beard peppered with flecks of gray that matched his cold eyes.

"Prisoner 4077," He spoke slowly, watching Astrid's every twitch of the eye. "What is your name and former occupation?"

Astrid swallowed drily, interrupting the sound of her ragged breathing, as the two wardens waited for her answer.

"Astr-" She coughed. "Astrid Williams. Former Captain of Armoured Suit Squadron 42 of the Mercurial Army."

The silence in the cockpit was deafening as the wardens exchanged glances. Then the more senior warden let Astrid's head drop and faced the access hatch behind her.