The video feed came back on. Just the tunnel and the murky water, sediment suspended in the beams of their lights.

“All right,” Orr said, mopping sweat from his brow. “Continue mission, gentlemen. Let’s get this done with.”

29
REVELATION

The city was in Hubbs’ head.

It was haunting him.

Calling to him.

He stood in Entry Lock, staring down into the moon pool, dazed and disoriented, not truly sure if he was dreaming or awake, but fearing he was trapped in some netherworld in-between. He was certain that a gigantic eye was staring up at him from the lake, a globular and hypnotic orb. In his mind, he saw himself climbing into his Exosuit, his mouth set, his movements sure, his eyes like polished glass. No, no, don’t do that, he warned himself, but his voice barely carried even in his own head. The city was calling his name as it had been for days ever since he had found the tunnel of living corpses. He could no longer shut it out. Every time he tried, his head whirled with dizziness and he thought he would fall straight over like a post.

Don’t listen to the voices, he kept telling himself. Do not listen to the voices.

But he listened all the same as they spoke and whispered, some singing like sirens to induce him to come to them. He could see those many, many, many eyeless faces and shriveled, puckering mouths that opened wide, calling his name in eruptions of bubbles.

As his hardsuit sealed itself around him, he was overwhelmed by an epiphany that made him see and feel and know reality as he had never known it before. The essential nature of the living condition was made known to him as, some said, it was made known to all at the moment of their death. He was plugged into it, cognizant of it, part of it and he could not deny its plan for him.

(it’s always been simple, Hubbs, so very simple: you were born to become part of something much larger than yourself, a cosmic all, part of the many, a gleaming, energetic piece of the whole puzzle that nears completion)

The disembodied voices chattered constantly, echoing through his head, making him think things that were alien to him and making him do things that he knew were not only inherently wrong, but dangerous.

(don’t fight it: please don’t fight it)

(there is peace and security and beautiful revelation in what is offered, if you deny it there are horrors, the monsters will come for you and they are hungry)