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  These are my prohibited dreams.

  Yeah, there must be something wrong with me.

  Chapter 2

  I’M DREAMING of Prince when the bump awakens me.

  I open my eyes in the dark of my cubicle. I sit up on my cot.

  Again.

  I remain still, wide-eyed in the dark. I felt Ship vibrating deeply, as if with a huge shiver.

  The sound, or sensation, doesn’t repeat.

  No matter. I jump to my feet and slip in the elevator.

  I reach Prince’s cocoon, and seeing the green lights flickering on the sarcophagus edge, I let out a sigh of relief. The glass of the cover is coated with frost, and I can’t see Prince inside. However, the green lights say he’s all right.

  I turn to the console.

  And my heart nearly jumps out of my mouth.

  Red light.

  A red light on the console.

  A red light blinking.

  All the blood in my body freezes. My head swirls. I rub my eyes and look again.

  The red light is still there.

  My first instinct, childish and irrational, is to get back into the cubicle and curl up on my cot. Fear paralyzes me. But then concern for Prince perks me up. I have to protect Prince. It’s my duty. So, legs stiff with terror, I stagger toward the console.

  Oh, Corp. I was wrong to complain. I’ll never do it again, I swear. Just give me back all the green lights.

  Corp doesn’t listen. The light is still red and blinking.

  I feel dizzy, but I have to do this. I put my finger on the letter B and press.

  At once, something happens. The wall in front of me comes alive, emitting a blue light.

  I shout and jump back.

  Up ahead, on the wall, appears a giant version of the letter B. Below, other strings of letters that I can’t read.

  “Please complete the code to log in.”

  I jump and yell again. The voice came from the ceiling. A soft, pleasant voice. “Corp?” I call, trembling. “Are you there?”

  “Please complete the code to log in.”

  I turn, but the sarcophagus lights are still green. On top of Prince, the layer of frost is thick.

  I approach the console. My right hand shakes uncontrollably, and I have to hold it with my left hand to enter the other letters of the code.

  —R I G H—

  I pause to wipe sweat from my eyes.

  —T S T A R—

  And the wall in front of me explodes with light as the matte surface shifts from blue to white. I have to squint.

  “You are logged in,” the voice says. “Welcome to Cryodream, Hibernation Operative System. Press any key to continue.”

  I press a key. The wall changes again, turning deep red. All that red hurts my brain, and I have to close my eyes.

  “Seventh Sector under decompression,” the voice says. “Danger, danger, danger.”

  The tone doesn’t match the words, because it’s extremely indifferent. As if all of this were a joke, for Corp. However, I understand the voice isn’t really Corp. Maybe a registered version of Him, or something like that.

  “Danger, danger, danger. Press the key for the action, or vocalize the action. A: start the emergency protocol; B: close all the systems and run an emergency scan; C: contact Corp; D….”

  “Yes!” I scream. I can’t believe I have such an opportunity. “I want to contact Corp!”

  “Request accepted. Please wait.”

  This is a blessing, a miracle. I can talk to the real Corp. I’m excited.

  “Unable to access the communication channel. Channel busy or unavailable. Do you want to try the emergency channel?”

  “Yes?”

  “Request accepted. Please wait.”

  I turn toward the sarcophagus. The lights are still green. How long will it take?

  “Unable to access the emergency channel. Channel busy or unavailable. Do you want to try any other channel?”

  “Yes, damn, yes!”

  “Request accepted. Please wait.”

  I snort and clench my fists.

  “Unable to contact any other channel. Channel not found. The closest space traffic control is—”

  An alarming pause.

  “No space traffic control found. The closest Union Planet is—”

  Another pause that makes me suspect the same answer.

  “No planet found. Calculation of the return route to Earth in progress. Please wait.”

  Corp has to be kidding, I tell myself.

  “Impossible to calculate the return route. Earth not found.”

  “Earth not found? Are you crazy?”

  “Return to main menu. Please wait. Danger, danger, danger. Press the key for the action, or vocalize the action. A: start the emergency protocol; B: close all the systems and run an emergency scan; C: contact Corp….”

  I panic. I haven’t the faintest idea what to do. I don’t know what key I should press, but I know the B because it’s the first letter of the code, so I press it on the keyboard.

  “Request accepted. Please wait. Emergency scan in progress.”

  The wall in front of me comes alive from floor to ceiling. A circular shape, crossed by blue lines, appears. The circle slowly rotates on itself. While I look at it, squinting in the light, some lines divide the circle into slices, starting from the center. The core is white and pulsing. Rows and rows of letters appear around the ring, but I can’t read the words.

  The first slice of the circle turns green.

  “First Sector checked.”

  The second slice on the right turns green, too.

  “Second Sector checked.”

  I blink. Inside of me, the awareness that I’m looking at a representation of Ship explodes. I open my eyes wide in wonder. I had a vague idea that Ship was circular, and the magic image, or scheme, confirms this. The white center is the nuclear reactor pit. Around it unrolls the ring of the command bridge. Then I make out the lines of the eight huge main galleries running from the center to the edges.

  Now I understand the whole scheme, and its simplicity is disarming. Ship isn’t a mysterious, impenetrable place-entity, but one of those things Blasius called “spaceships.” According to Blasius, these sorts of flying machines rose up by the dozens from the surface of Earth, carrying people to unknown and beautiful planets.

  I shake my head. “Blasius, if only you could see this!”

  I try to locate our position on the map. How foolish not to understand the truth immediately. We aren’t at the center of Ship. Ours is just a small cocoon like many others, in Fifth Sector. A blue dot, pulsing slightly, shows our current position.

  One after another, the Sectors light up and turn green. “Third Sector checked, Fourth Sector checked, Fifth Sector checked.”

  I start to relax.

  “Sixth Sector checked. Seventh Sector under decompression. Eighth Sector checked.”

  The slice of Seventh Sector turns red and start flashing.

  “Seventh Sector under decompression. Danger, danger, danger. Automatic isolation in progress. Do you want to see the affected area?”

  “Yes!”

  The circular shape of Ship grows to fill the entire wall and then escapes from it. I stagger, dizzy. Seventh Sector enlarges until it covers the whole wall, then becomes three-dimensional, rotates, and—before my amazed eyes—turns real. I yell again. The wall is gone, and a hole opens in its place. A passage toward Seventh Sector.

  I need a moment to realize the wall is still there, and I’m seeing an image of Seventh Sector on it. I know it, although I don’t understand how it could be possible. I’d like to touch the weird wall, but I dare not.

  In front of me yawns one of the suspended walkways toward the machinery rooms, immersed in the dimness of a row of dusty LED lights unrolling along the floor. I don’t think there’s anything unusual.

  I turn to check the sarcophagus. All green lights.

  “Is it a joke, Corp?” I cry to the ceiling.
>
  No answer.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I perceive a red circle forming in the bulkhead next to the suspended walkway. I blink. The ring-shaped brilliance becomes more pronounced, turning orange, then yellow, then white and blinding.

  I watch, stunned.

  The section of bulkhead inside the circle trembles, then falls on the walkway handrail, bending the metal under its weight, and bounces down into the darkness. The image is noise-free, and this makes it perhaps more dramatic. A hole of darkness now opens on the side of the walkway and seems to swallow me.

  I back away, but I notice it only when I feel the cold metal of the sarcophagus behind my legs. I collapse on the edge, my whole body trembling. A groan escapes me. “Oh, Corp!”

  Something white flashes in the dark inside the hole.

  A pale, jointed leg sprouts from the gap.

  A giant spider leg!

  I shout. I crush my back against the lid, half to protect Prince, half to disappear inside. A disgusting, colorless, spiderlike creature slips out from the hole and pats the platform carefully before lying on it. I know it’s not here—I’m watching an image of Seventh Sector—but chills cover my whole body, and my very soul screams to run. I know I can’t escape. I have to protect the sarcophagus with my own life, even if a part of me, a childish, detached part of my brain, shrieks wildly to escape.

  All I can do is watch as my heart rumbles in my ears.

  The creature is only vaguely reminiscent of a spider. The long jointed legs are eight, four for each side of the body, but then the similarity ends. The monster’s body is a kind of pale oval, translucent, in which its internal organs float in a sort of transparent liquid. No head nor eyes. The thing moves cautiously on the walkway on all its legs. Behind it, another similar monster peeps from the hole.

  I yell, “Oh, Corp!”

  Corp doesn’t listen to me. Rows and rows of green writing overlap the image.

  “Danger identified. Seventh Sector isolated. Alien invasion. Warning. Alien invasion.”

  Alien invasion.

  The words are terrible, even though I don’t understand their meaning. The monsters penetrated Ship from Outside, but Blasius never told me other living creatures populated Outside. Perhaps he didn’t know this. How could he? He was just a poor clone.

  I am just a poor clone too.

  The image on the wall changes again with dizzying rapidity. Ship’s map, with Seventh Sector red and flashing, reappears. A white, pulsing dot shows the aliens advancing inside. I gasp in horror when the dot divides in two, then in three. The three dots branch out quickly into Ship in three different directions. The first toward Eighth Sector, the second toward the center, and the third toward Sixth Sector, stopping just on the edge.

  “Sixth Sector under decompression,” the voice says.

  “No, no, no!”

  A handful of seconds, and the Sixth Sector’s slice starts flashing.

  “Seventh Sector and Sixth Sector under decompression. Danger, danger, danger.”

  “You idiot, tell me what the hell I have to do before they pierce all over Ship!”

  “Danger, danger, danger. Emergency protocol recommended. Start the emergency protocol now?”

  “Yes, yes!”

  “Request accepted. Emergency protocol in progress. Please wait.”

  My heart thumps so hard that it seems to explode through my ears. The dot moves across Sixth Sector in a diagonal line. I think the monster is walking on one of the suspended walkways. I guess it’ll take at least half an hour getting to Fifth Sector. If it doesn’t stop. But why should it? Ship’s empty. What is their purpose?

  The horror makes me gasp. “Kidnap Prince!”

  “Please wait, emergency protocol in progress. Cryosleep awakening started.”

  “What? What?”

  I turn slowly on my heels.

  I watch, in shock, while all the lights on the sarcophagus edge increase in intensity. I jump a step away.

  The coffin shines like I’ve never seen. The lid exudes a thin veil of steam.

  “What are you doing, Corp?”

  “Subject condition: good. Twenty minutes to total awakening.”

  It can’t be. Can’t be what I think.

  The light from the row inside the lid grows in intensity and becomes white and blinding, while the ice on the external surface dissolves, smoking. I can see Prince, now, and he’s exactly the same as usual. But an awful lot of lights and signs I have never seen start blinking in the panels on the sides of Prince’s head, an area I have always mistaken for a kind of headrest.

  “Temperature: four degrees Celsius. Heartbeat: absent. EEG: flat. Plasma transfer in progress. Eighteen minutes to total awakening.”

  “For Outside’s sake. Is that all? Is this the emergency protocol, Corp?”

  Corp doesn’t respond.

  “Can’t be. I’m dreaming.”

  But I know it’s not true. I couldn’t dream things as complicated as those I have just witnessed.

  The sarcophagus begins to buzz, and some frost on Prince’s chest and upper lip dissolves. Prince is changing color. His skin is turning from white and veined with blue to pale pink. I check the tubes of his refrigerant.

  Two thin ducts slip into Prince’s neck, just below his left ear, carrying the refrigerant inside his system. They are usually frozen and light blue in color, but I realize that now one of them is bright red.

  “Damn!”

  I turn to check Ship’s map. The closest alien has traveled across half of Sixth Sector. Is it heading here? Do the aliens know where to find Prince?

  “Temperature: five degrees Celsius. Heartbeat: absent. EEG: flat. Plasma transfer in progress. Fifteen minutes to total awakening.”

  “At least hurry up!”

  If the alien continues to approach, I need to take Prince out of here. But where? And how? The idea of dealing with Prince is so absurd that I can’t understand how I should behave with him. Will he speak, walk as Blasius and me? Will he be able to understand what I say? Will I be able to understand him?

  Meanwhile, the tube sticking into his neck has turned to a dark red, almost black, and an exclamation of astonishment escapes my lips, surprising even myself. I approach. A strange, unimaginable, rosy hue spreads on Prince’s complexion. His cheeks redden. His lips become juicy.

  “Temperature: twelve degrees Celsius. Heartbeat: absent. EEG: flat. Blood transfer in progress. Twelve minutes to total awakening.”

  I consult the map. The white dot in the Sixth Sector approaches faster than I had guessed. Evidently the alien, with all those legs, can proceed quickly.

  “Blood transfer completed. Temperature: twenty-two degrees Celsius. Heartbeat: absent. EEG: flat. Start resuscitation procedure. First defibrillation.”

  Suddenly, a terrible jolt shakes Prince’s inert body. A spasm raises him at least a palm from the padding, and then he falls down, sprawled, hair upon his face.

  I shout and put my hands on the cover. “Corp, what are you doing to him? Stop it!”

  “Heartbeat: absent. EEG: flat. Temperature: twenty-nine degrees Celsius. Second defibrillation.”

  “No!”

  Prince’s body quakes again. When I imagined his awakening—and I imagined it many times—he just opened his eyes, the sarcophagus lid lifted, and there he was, smiling at me. Nothing like this. I’m not even sure Corp is really awakening him. It seems Corp’s torturing him.

  “Heartbeat: irregular. EEG: minimal activity. Temperature: thirty-three degrees Celsius. Third defibrillation.”

  “Stop it!”

  But Corp doesn’t listen to me. He never listened. He created me in pain and He’s awakening Prince in pain. He has as little respect for Prince as for me. This angers me deeply.

  Prince’s body jolts again.

  “Heartbeat: irregular activity. EEG: irregular activity. Temperature: thirty-six degrees Celsius. Fourth defibrillation.”

  I can’t do anything but watch, my hands clenched o
n the sarcophagus edge. Corp shakes and tortures Prince two more times. His body trembles, and at every violent shock his head falls back. I wonder what will happen if the tubes in his neck tear out. I realize Prince’s eyes are open to two white crescents. I can’t stand it anymore, and I look around for something to break the glass. But there’s nothing. Nothing.

  “Fifth Sector under decompression.”

  I swivel toward the map. The alien has entered our sector.

  As in my whole stupid life, I don’t know what to do. “You’ll be damned, Corp. Could you provide me with something to use against them?”

  I watch in horror as the dot approaches. I think the alien is moving in the levels above us, and perhaps uses some kind of equipment to sense our living bodies, as it travels directly toward us.

  The aliens are here for Prince, I’m his guardian angel, and I don’t have a weapon to defend him with. I clench my fists.

  A sound travels toward me. A faint echo inside this tiny, ridiculous metal shell, lost in the depths of Outside, that I always considered my whole world. Since I was born, I never questioned Ship’s safety. Ship seemed endless, indestructible and inalterable. What a stupid idea.

  I hear the alien’s steps, several levels higher, approaching and then stopping above us.

  I wait, fists so tight I hurt my palms with my fingernails.

  A moment of deadly silence. Then Corp’s fake voice makes me jolt.

  “Heart rate: 50 bpm. EEG: regular activity. Temperature: thirty-five degrees Celsius. Subject condition: good. Resuscitation completed.”

  This catches me by surprise. I thought Prince was dying.

  Another sound travels up to me through countless levels of bulkhead: the clink of metal against metal.

  And behind my back, muffled by the heavy glass lid, a cough.

  Incredulous, I turn to Prince, but the cover is fogged in condensation and I can’t see him.

  Something moans behind me. I spin sharply on my heels, heart in my mouth. The little keypad on the wall beside the elevator’s door shines with a threatening green light. The main elevator comes to life with a huff.

  I gasp.

  The elevator exhales a dusty puff from the slot between the two sliding doors, unlocks with a groan, and begins to climb. The alien has called it from the level above us.