D-99: a science-fiction novel

by H. B. Fyfe

After a moment, he brought his right foot up opposite his left knee. Another rest period, on hand, knee, and foot, was required before he shoved himself away from the floor and slowly stood upright. The ceiling suddenly looked too low.

He was tall, perhaps two inches over six feet. His features were regular without being especially handsome. A man sizing him up might have expected him to weigh about a hundred and ninety pounds, but slight hollows in his cheeks suggested that this would not be true at the moment. His eyes were blue, but the lids drooped and he seemed to focus only vaguely upon his surroundings.

At length, the man turned and walked deliberately to the side of the room where a doorless opening offered egress into what looked like a corridor. The opening was in the shape of an ellipse about five feet high and three wide, beginning a few inches above the floor. He bent to thrust his head into the hall, peering in both directions but taking no heed of faint, scurrying sounds out there. Satisfied, he walked back to his bed, turned over a cushion with his toe, and kicked a small utility bag of gray plastic out into the open.

The man stared at the bag for some minutes before reaching an evidently unwelcome decision. Laboriously, then, he knelt until he could slide one end under a knee and slide open the zipper with his left hand. He pawed out a few items—battery shaver, towel, deck of cards, toothbrush—which he left scattered on the floor as soon as he located the object of his search. This was a many-jointed mechanism of metal that resembled an armored centipede. It was as long as his hand and nearly as broad. He held it in his palm as if wondering what to do with it.

Some slow process of judgment having blossomed in his mind, he turned over the object to press a small stud. The plates of the "belly" parted. From a recess there, he fumbled out a miniature accessory that fitted easily in the palm of his hand. This was round, about an inch thick, and might have been made of black plastic. The man's lips twitched in a tired smile as he hefted it pensively.

Without moving from his kneeling position, he thumbed a nearly concealed switch on the edge of the disk. Within seconds, the thing began to put forth music, a diminutive reproduction of the sound of a full orchestra. The man gradually raised his hand until he held the little player to his ear. His expression remained uncomprehending. He lowered his hand, shrugging slightly, and turned off the music.

Once more, he forced himself laboriously to his feet. Leaving his other belongings on the floor without a backward glance, he strode to the door with the pace of a man who has just walked five or ten miles. His long legs carried him across the distance in only a few steps, but there was a slowness, a heaviness, in their motion that revealed a deep weariness. He raised one foot just high enough to step through the opening into the corridor.

Outside, he turned left and walked along at the same pace, passing several other doors at irregular intervals. That they may have led to other rooms with other occupants seemed to interest him not at all. He neither glanced aside nor paused until he came face to face with a barrier, a wall blocking his path.

It was the first doorway that sported a door, and the latter was closed. It looked to be made of a plastic substance, darker than the ivory walls among which he had thus far moved, but smoother. There was a grilled opening more or less centered, but no other markings.

Nevertheless, the blond man seemed to know where the portal would be fastened. He ran the tips of his fingers along one curved side, as if judging a distance. Juggling the black disk in his hand until the grip suited him better, he pressed a second switch, which was concealed at the center of the object.