| "One Way Ticket" | |||
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Liverpool Docks June 4, 2008, 0100 hours Lima Time In the darkness it looked like a fat robot waiting to pounce. In fact it was steel cylinder, seventeen inches in diameter, sat upon a set of metal legs to hold it off of the ground. There was a steel cap hanging down on its hinges; it was not in place. Nikolai unscrewed the inner hatch and dropped the unconscious Odds in, then did the screws up again. He looked through the small window and smiled. The recompression chamber was one of a few hundred designed and built by Hodges PLC for the Navy. This one found its way to the dock because of the need for divers to aid on the construction of a secret Navy project. Once the project was completed the chamber had been left behind and used by the docks own divers, and so it had been kept in good condition. Made of high-quality steel, it was designed to reproduce the pressure that came with scuba diving, and so was constructed to withstand a fair amount of abuse. At one end was a triple-paned four-inch Plexiglas window. Under the chamber was a gasoline-powered air compressor, controllable from a fold-down seat located next to two pressure gauges. One was labeled in concentric circles of millimeters and inches of mercury, pounds-per-square-inch, kilograms-per-square-centimeter, and `bar' or multiples of normal atmospheric pressure, which is 14.7 PSI. The other gauge showed the equivalent water depth both in feet and meters. Each thirty-three feet of simulated depth raised the atmospheric pressure by 14.7 PSI, or one bar. He returned to the chamber after getting a quick bite to eat. Odds had woken up by this time and was banging on the inside of the chamber. Not that it did him much good, seeing as the sound didn't transmit to the outside, but he wasn't to know that. Nikolai sat down on the fold-down seat and looked through the Plexiglas window. Odds stared back, then his mouth started moving; he was shouting something. Nikolai made sure the volume on the intercom was turned right down, then flicked a switch turning it on. "�fuck are you doing?" He sighed. "I'm doing something I should have done a long time ago," he replied. "Yeah? Do your fucking worst you stupid piece of shit! You won't beat me, I'm a fucking God!" "Want to bet on that?" he asked. Odds just stuck his finger up. "Come on, how about a little bet? Or are you scared? I seem to remember taking a lot of your money in our little poker games. I know you didn't like that. Was always afraid of that, wasn't you, my risk taking combined with my randomness. Just didn't like it." "What the fuck you talking about!?" Odds shouted. The spigot valve next to the pressure gauges was tightly shut. He opened the pressurization valve, which vented air from the compressor to the chamber, and watched the needles rotate slowly clockwise. As Odds continued shouting the needle passed the thirty feet mark, then the sixty. He stopped it at one hundred feet simulated depth. Odds noticed that something was wrong. "What the fuck you doing?" "I would yawn if I was you, work your ears. It'll help you get used to the pressure." He shut the intercom off and went to get some sleep. He returned an hour later. Odds was relaxing in the chamber, singing to himself. Nikolai heard it when he turned the intercom back on, and on seeing him Odds sang louder and with a smile on his face. Nikolai chuckled. Dan thought he had balls. Well, that would soon change. "Having fun are we?" he asked. "Yeah, its quite nice in here. Needs a little decorating but its not bad." The sarcasm in his voice was unmistakable. It didn't last long. In the past hour and a half Daniel had been surrounded by four times the normal amount of air for the space he was in. His body had adapted, and so the air taken in through his lungs, also pressurized, had found its way into his bloodstream, and now his entire body was at 58.8 pounds per square inch of ambient pressure. Various gas bubbles, mainly nitrogen, were dissolved into his bloodstream. This would prove to be the source of his pain. Nikolai twisted the spigot valve and air hissed out the chamber. His eyes flicked over to the pressure gauges, watching the needle spin. In the chamber Odds was confused. The gas bubbles started expanding, pushing against cell walls, and rupturing them in some cases. What began as a dull ache in his extremities quickly evolved into the most intense and objectionable sensation Daniel had ever experienced. The feeling followed his heartbeat, pulsing with each beat, waves of sensation. Daniel screamed. Nikolai shut the valve and began reengaging the pressurization one. Soon the pressure was restored, and with it the pain that Odds had felt disappeared to be replaced with a fatigue. Under this sort of pressure the nitrogen in Daniel's blood did something strange, acting like a narcotic, so when Nikolai questioned Odds further he was able to check the information given earlier. Most of it checked out, and he was able to learn even more as the effects increased. Nine hours later the pressure was finally returned to normal. He had been lucky; for some reason the docks were deserted. Maybe the workers were on strike, he mused. It didn't matter though. What it did mean was that he had had a lot longer to work on his enemy, extending a process which he had planned for no more than a couple of hours. It had allowed him to give Odds a true measure of the pain he had inflicted in his lifetime. It was still nothing compared to the suffering Nikolai himself had felt when the shit had hit the fan but it was good enough. The best part had been when he had told Odds that he wasn't going to die. The look of confusion on his face had been priceless, and Nikolai had kept his word. Daniel Odds was curled up at the bottom of the chamber but he was still alive� technically. He was deaf, blind, and suffering from brain damage from the extensive `dives', and in more pain then he could ever have imagined, but he was not dead. With good medical care he would live for a few weeks. If you could call it that. Return |
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