Disorientation

    At what point does a passion become an obsession?  It’s probably the moment when you can no longer stop thinking about something.  Even when you occupy yourself with other matters, you just can’t help but have your mind drift back to it; it’s like an involuntary compulsion.
    There really is no such thing as a passion, because all the people who claim to have one are actually the owners of an obsession.  It’s impossible to control your passion all the time, if it doesn’t develop into a complete obsession almost immediately, it will eventually.  People don’t like to admit that their passions are actually obsessions because then it gives off the impression that you are no longer in control of your passion and that you are now owned by your obsession.
    These were the thoughts that were presently passing through the mind of Alex Bentley, the First Officer of the Caduceus, the Mercurial flag ship, and these thoughts were regarding his master, whose quarters he was currently approaching.
    The Master of the Caduceus was a man called Benjamin Hall-Thomas, who was in his later years and didn’t really care all that much about the running of the ship, leaving most of the responsibilities to his first officer.  He was more focussed on a hobby of his; he was a very keen artist, spending days at a time confined within his quarters while working on his new paintings.
    The Caduceus was a large Jotun-class transport vessel; in fact, it was the largest of its time, this time being the 6th of May 2152.  What they were transporting was a large group of prisoners from Earth to the penal colony on Mercury.
    Alex was the master of this ship in all but title, he took care of absolutely everything, but there were certain matters in which protocol dictated he must have the consent of the Master before he could give out any commands of his own.  As much as Alex hated himself for it, he still felt an impulse to follow every rule, no matter how slight or insignificant, after having it permanently drilled into his methods and habits everyday during training.
    He arrived at the door to the Master’s quarters, which was located at the end of an elegantly decorated corridor, in both style and colour, and it was circular shaped, except for the floor of course.
    Alex pushed the button for the vid-link beside the door.  The picture of the Master’s face didn’t appear on the small screen, as was expected.  It remained blank, even when the door slid open, the reinforced plastic door disappearing inside the wall.  Alex entered the darkened room and called out.
    “Master?” he exclaimed.  “Are you in here sir?”
    Alex proceeded slightly further, knocking his leg into a coffee table and crying out.
    “Who’s there?” a muffled and irritable voice barked out quickly.
    “It’s Bentley sir,” Alex replied, while rubbing his shin and looking out for where that voice came from.
    A nearby door slid open, allowing light to spill out and fill part of the living room.  A man appeared by this doorway; he wasn’t garbed in the same dark green officer’s uniform of the Olympus Corporation that Alex was dressed in.  Instead, he just wore a cheap shirt, basic socks and simple synthetic cotton trousers, under which was hidden his advanced trans tibial prosthetic leg.
    The Master of the Caduceus was an old man with thinning hair and a bushy beard comprised of many more grey hairs than whatever his natural colour used to be.  He gave his first officer a look of complete perplexity, as if he couldn’t quite work out why he was here.
    “Sir?” Alex said.  “We’re approaching Mercury; I need your authorisation to initiate the entry process…”
    Before he could finish, the Master of the ship disappeared back into the room he had just came from.
    “Sir?” Alex called after him as he followed inside the room.
    This room had once been a study, the only reminder of its former purpose being an expensive and rather cluttered desk full of old sketchbooks at the far end of the spacious room.
    A more appropriate word for what this room was now would be a ‘studio’.  The walls that once held bookcases were covered in Benjamin’s paintings, with the remaining books strewn about the floor in random piles.  Alex had to admit that most of the pictures were actually very good, but some of them deeply disturbed them.  A few of the paintings really stood out and grasped his attention.  One of which was a close up of a pale man’s face with his eyes and mouth sewn shut against a background of deep red.  There was also a picture of dozens of orange and yellow hot air balloons flying at night.  Alex’s favourite was his master’s painting of the Wand of Hermes.
    The Wand was the symbol of the Caduceus, a short staff with two serpents entwined around it against a backdrop of a pair of spread out wings.  Alex had learned all about the mythology behind the Caduceus before joining the ship’s crew.
    In the centre of the room was Benjamin, working on his latest painting and with his back turned to Alex.  Sheets covered the ground below him, preventing the odd paint drop from staining the luxurious carpet and a small table stood next to him, on which all his painting supplies rested neatly within arm’s reach.
    “Sir?” Alex tried again.  “I just need your permission to begin landing.”
    “It’s almost completed,” he said, ignoring him.  “What do you think, Bentley?”
    Benjamin stepped aside, allowing Alex to see the painting while, at the same time, giving him some time to fetch an item from his desk.  Alex looked over at the Master of the Caduceus; Benjamin Hall-Thomas had fought in the Corporate Wars, just like many of the people serving on this ship, including Alex.  
    After the war ended almost eleven years ago, they let Benjamin be the Master of this ship, which was a great honour.  The Caduceus was the largest ship in the fleet of the Olympus Corporation, the largest spaceship that had ever been built in fact, and was the main transport ship for the prison route between Earth and Mercury.  
    They granted him this prestigious position mostly because he was a decorated veteran and had apparently done a lot for the Olympus Corporation.  The Company knew that Benjamin didn’t really command this ship; they just let him do what he wanted as a reward for his distinguished service during the war.
    Alex’s gaze shifted back to the picture in front of him and saw an unfinished painting of a dark room comprised of mainly dark blues and faded purples.  A figure was huddled in a corner of this room; he had six wings, which he was using to completely cover his body.  The wings and the small amount of skin that could be seen were over a particularly unusual hue.  The creature in the painting looked as though he was glowing, his flesh had a dark golden tinge to it and there seemed to be an aura emanating from the being’s many wings.
    “It’s good sir,” Alex said.  
    “Maybe,” Benjamin said.  “But maybe it’s not.  I think I might need to redo the whole thing.  There’s nothing more frustrating than feeling you can do better.”
    “What is it?” Alex asked.
    “What do you mean, ‘what is it?’” Benjamin said as he scoured through the drawers of his desk.  “It’s a seraph, a member of the highest order of angels.”
    “That’s nice sir,” Alex said calmingly.
    “You don’t know the story, do you?” Benjamin said.  “The Lost Seraph?”
    “I’m afraid not sir,” Alex said.
    “It’s an old legend,” Benjamin explained.  “About a man who posed as an Olympus employee for years in order to break his brother out of a Company controlled prison.  They escaped in a ship called the Lost Seraph.  You must have heard of it, it’s a well known piece of folklore.”
    “It’s not true is it?” Alex wondered.  “If it is, he couldn’t have lasted very long, right?  No one can beat the Company.”
    “I don’t know,” Benjamin said.  He removed a bottle of pills from his desk and took three.  The Olympus Corporation also provided Benjamin Hall-Thomas with a variety of high quality meds.  Inside his desk was a well-stocked supply of antidepressants, sedatives, stimulants and who knows what else.  His regular cocktails were the reason behind his intriguingly expressive eyes that always had super-dilated pupils.
    It was well known among the crew that the Master of the Caduceus was a drug addict.  The common story was that he developed posttraumatic stress disorder from the war and was heavily medicated afterwards in order to cope with it, but what resulted from that was a serious addiction to many pharmaceuticals.
    His condition developed further, Benjamin began adding more and more different meds to his daily regime and had now reached such an extent that he wouldn’t even leave Earth without first stocking up on all his favourite drugs.  It never really affected anything so the Olympus Corporation didn’t mind.  They just considered his position onboard the Caduceus to be a form of retirement where he was out of the way and free to fill his days however he wished, but also a place where people can still keep an eye on him.
    “I tried to call down here before,” Alex said to Benjamin, who was now leaning back in his chair as the pills started to take effect.  “Why didn’t you answer?”
    “I needed…peace,” Benjamin said in a halting and slurring speech.  “I turned on…the privacy.”
    “You know you’re not supposed to do that, sir,” Alex said.
    “I am the Master of this ship!” Benjamin shouted.  “I choose what I do…and what other people do…I don’t want other people to disturb me.”
    “We always need you ready to give your commands to us,” Alex said.  “We need your go-ahead to descend to surface level.”
    “Fine, fine,” Benjamin said.  “Fine, fine, fine, fine, fine, fine.
    “Sir?” Alex said.  “Are you okay?”
    “I’m fine!” he said, sitting bolt upright in his chair.  “I want to know what’s wrong with you.  Why do you need to consult me on every tiny matter?  Of course we need to land on Mercury, that’s why we’ve been travelling through space for the last week.  Show some initiative Bentley!  I won’t always to be around to hold your hand.”
    “Noted sir,” Alex forced himself to say.  “I’ll prepare the entry procedure.”
    Alex briskly walked out of Benjamin’s quarters; his pace didn’t slow as he marched down the corridor, only coming to an abrupt stop in front of the lift.
    He entered the lift and typed in the number for the bridge, just one floor up.  Benjamin Hall-Thomas had been the Master of this ship since before Alex had joined the crew but he suspected that he had never taken an active role in commanding the Caduceus.
    Benjamin had once been an effective presence on a ship; he used to captain a ship of his own during the Corporate Wars.  Near the beginning of the war, it was involved in a crash in enemy territory and Benjamin was the only survivor.  
    He remained trapped under the wreckage for three days before he was rescued, the smell of the burning and rotting corpses of his crew filling his nostrils for every second of it.  His left leg was crushed under a heavy section and had to be amputated to get him free.  Alex had heard that this ordeal was the main cause of his posttraumatic stress.
    First Officer Alex Bentley arrived on the bridge; he stepped out of the lift and immediately took his place in the centre of the mostly dark beige coloured room.  Alex could see the planet Mercury through the heavily polarised main viewer.  It needed special shielding in order to block out most of the heat and light from the nearby Sun.
    “Okay,” he said to the pilots.  “Retract the light sails and take us closer.”
    The Caduceus pushed on towards Mercury.  The ship’s pale grey surface was barely visible beneath the hundreds of large dark solar panels lining its surface like the scales of a great celestial fish, drinking in the energy of the Sun.  All of the Jotun-class prison transport ships were covered in solar panels to help power the ship and to increase the fuel efficiency of the journeys in between Earth and Mercury.  
    There was a strip where there were no solar panels, all that filled this void was the name of the ship, ‘CADUCEUS’, written in bright yellow letters against a background of the symbol of a short staff with wings and intertwining serpents in the shape of a double helix.
Four giant flaps that were covered in solar panels on both sides and had been previously sticking out from the ship’s body at a ninety-degree angle, began to retract, these were the light sails.  
    The light sails were designed to generate more energy for ships passing close to the Sun.  The four light sails had been projecting outward from both sides of the ship and also the underbelly and top of the vessel, giving the impression of the dorsal fin of a fish.  
    The light sails folded back into place, the two horizontal ones covered up the ship’s markings on both sides.  
    The Caduceus soared towards Mercury, the small planet becoming increasingly larger in the main viewer ahead of Alex Bentley; he turned to address the communications officer.
    “Access High Justice,” he commanded.  “Request permission to land from Somnus.”
    High Justice was the name of the communications satellite that orbited Mercury; it was used to communicate with orbiting ships and for contacting Earth.  The communications satellite system worked in a trio, High Justice orbited Mercury, Low Justice orbited Earth and there was a third relay satellite called Middle Justice, which orbited Venus.  The combination of these three satellites allowed communication to be able to occur most of the time between the two planets.  The only time they were out of contact was when Mercury passed onto the opposite side of the Sun from both Venus and Earth.
    Somnus was the name given to the prison AI; it regulated everything that happened within the penal colony.
    “Permission received sir,” the communications officer announced.
    “Take us down,” Alex instructed the pilots.
    While Master Benjamin Hall-Thomas blissfully finished his painting, the Caduceus descended, plummeting down to the unforgiving surface of the planet, Mercury.
    The penal colony was located in a flat area of the Jotnar Basin, one of the northern provinces of Mercury.  The Jotnar Detention Centre was the only prison left in the whole of mankind, all of the old Earth based penitentiaries are now just temporary holding facilities to contain all the criminals while they wait to be transported to Jotnar, far away from the rest of society.
    The Jotnar Detention Centre had been built by the Olympus Corporation over thirty years ago and everyone who worked at the facility and on the transport ships were all employees of Olympus, including the Governor of Jotnar who was a woman named Alison Riley.  The Caduceus plunged deeper towards Mercury; every crewman on the bridge was waiting for the order that was necessary to prevent the ship from crashing into the prison.
    “Reverse engines,” Alex calmly told one of the pilots.  “Slow us down to docking speed.”
    The only interior part of Jotnar Alex had ever seen was the Quays, there was never any reason for him to venture further, but he often wondered what the sight of this colossal ship falling from the sky at such great speed must look like from down there.
    The deceleration of a ship as large as the Caduceus took a significant amount of time and energy, the process needed to begin before Jotnar was even in sight, but after a few seconds Alex could make out the outline of the Basin itself.  They drew closer to the surface, Alex could now perceive what the computer-guided ship was aiming for, he could see Jotnar.
    The Jotnar Detention Centre was divided into three parts, the central section, where all the inmates were housed, was circular shaped and by far the largest.  This portion was called the Pit and consisted of a huge circular wall to protect the prison from the harsh Mercurial surface temperature.  The containment wall was several storeys high and opaque, but when it reached a certain point, the wall became a transparent dome that enclosed the facility.  The north part of the complex was the men’s wing and to the south was the women’s.  These two huge buildings took up most of the space, leaving only a comparatively thin strip of land along the centre from east to west, creating a kind of ‘No Man’s Land’ in between the two buildings.
    Against the east and west wall were immense gates, each leading to different parts of the facility.  Beyond the west gate was a tunnel, which lead to another structure similar to the circular Pit, it had a round wall of its own and a transparent dome for a roof but it was much smaller.  This area was called Tannhauser and the Governor’s mansion was located in this small section, which held the CPU of the Somnus prison AI.
    This building was only by the far west wall, the rest of the dome was comprised of the Solar Farms.  These were row upon row of silver solar panels, when no one was out in the farms; Somnus would decrease the level of protective shielding in the dome above, letting much more light in than usual so that it could be collected by the Solar Farm.
    The energy absorbed by the Solar Farms provided power for the entire facility.  Back in the Pit, through the east gate, was another shorter tunnel, which lead to the Quays.  The Jotnar Quays were not contained within a transparent dome because this is where ships needed to land.  The Quays were within a huge rectangular building attached to a giant opaque cylinder that stretched up high into the sky.  It was this structure that the Caduceus was currently flying towards.
    “Decelerate to hover mode,” Alex ordered.
    The Caduceus slowed down to a hover and waited patiently at the summit of this immensely wide tower.  The safety seal detached, the top section opened inwards and the Caduceus lowered itself into the docking tower, along with the staggering amount of thermal energy from the broad Sun overhead.
    The ship stopped at another section of airtight doors, above them the first set of blast doors closed again.  Oxygen sprayed back into the room and the cooling system exerted its effect, lowering the temperature back down to non-lethal levels.
    When the internal environment of the airlock was normalised, the blast doors opened and the Caduceus descended down into the Quays of Jotnar.      
    Landing pads of varying sizes took up most of the space within the Quays, with two small structures built into the walls by the gate.  One was a guard post and the other, a station for the technicians who service the ships of Jotnar.
    The Caduceus landed in its own landing bay and teams of technicians dressed in dark green jumpsuits instantly began scuttling around various sections of the ship to check components and refuel its hydrogen-powered engines from pumps hidden within the floor.
    “Contact Somnus again,” Alex ordered the communications officer.  “Request the activation codes for the pods and prepare the medical staff for the integration procedure.”
    Deep within the bowels of the ship was a floor that contained the static chambers.  This was where all the prisoners were being contained in preparation for their transfer to Jotnar.  
    The static chambers were not as nice as the upper levels of the ship, there were no decorations of any kind, just dirty metal and hanging chains.  Armed guards dressed in green with black vests patrolled up and down the grated floors as they waited to move the prisoners, who were being stored in pods attached to the walls.  
    The static chambers were comprised of row upon row of horizontal hallways, like furrows on a farm.  The containment pods of the prisoners completely lined all the walls of each corridor.  The pods were made from an extremely tough polymer coating and inside each one was an unconscious prisoner, submerged in a preservative liquid.
    It was more sensible to put the prisoners into comas before transporting them because it saved on space; the transport ships also took supplies to Jotnar so it allowed more room to be put aside for storage.  Transporting unconscious prisoners also eliminated the risk of the convicts rebelling and taking over the ship, which would contain much less guards than Jotnar itself.  The guards that the Caduceus did have onboard were still walking up and down these hallways of humans, waiting for Somnus to transmit the signal that would allow them to open.
    Small computer screens were attached to the front of all these pods, on which were the names, faces, serial numbers, life signs and the crimes that each convict was found guilty of.  On the front of one of these pods, the name on the computer monitor informed that a woman by the name of ‘Tabitha Roth’ was confined within.
    The screen suddenly changed, the green word at the top of the monitor that usually read, ‘Locked’ had disappeared and was instantly replaced by the red word, ‘Unlocked’.
    The pod opened slightly, allowing a green fluid to pour out of the crack, it seeped out onto the ground and fell down through the grated floor to be recycled for later.  The first thing Tabitha experienced was an electric shock, she felt it all over the surface of her body, but it wasn’t painful, it was just sudden.
    She was distressed; it felt as though she was standing upright in a bathtub, with the water slowly disappearing down the drain.  She knew neither how she got here nor even where here was.  The last thing she remembered was awaiting transport to Jotnar in a temporary holding facility and one day she was escorted with some other prisoners into a room where they piped in a gas and they all went to sleep.
    She tried to open her eyes but they refused to, she reached up to discover that there was cotton taped over her eyes.  Tabitha ripped off these bandages and tried to see.  
    She was in a confined dark space with a narrow strip of blinding night just in front of her.  Tabitha could feel things attached to her face, she clawed at them and wrenched off an oxygen mask and the pair of electrodes that were stuck to her temples.  The light ahead of her grew brighter as the container opened further, causing her to fall out.  Tabitha landed on her hands and knees quite painfully on the grated metal floor.  She couldn’t stop coughing, she realised that there had been an oxygen mask over her face in whatever place she had previously been, but she felt as though she had just spent a long time underwater.
    Scanning her new location, Tabitha could see that the surrounding walls were full of vertical human-sized capsules.  They were all opening, a light green fluid poured out of them all and through the holes in the walkway, it sounded like dozens of tiny waterfalls in unison.
    Tabitha looked around to see more and more people falling out of their cocoons and landing mostly in the foetal position on the cold hard floor, and they were all naked.  She looked down at herself to find that she was in a similar predicament; she also saw that she was covered in the same translucent green liquid that was now spilling out of various pods around her.  Something was wrong, something didn’t feel right.  Tabitha raised a hand to her head and felt that it had been shaved, she wondered what was happening.
    She didn’t have much time to wonder before a man in green and black approached her.  The first thing she noticed was his boots on the ground in front of her; the second thing was his hand around her throat.  Tabitha was forced to her feet, she tried to look at what was grabbing her but all she could see was a mixture of black and green in front of her.  She couldn’t even focus on the person’s face properly, it kept shifting from one blurry pink shape to another, her eyes hadn’t adjusted properly yet.  The face vanished when the arm attached to it threw Tabitha down the corridor; she landed face down and could feel the wind being knocked out of her.
    Tabitha looked behind her to see the unclear shapes of several of these guards forcing the prisoners down the hallway and could hear muffled shouts that she couldn’t quite understand.  Tabitha attempted to clear out her ears of the viscous green liquid, which she assumed was clogging them up, but it wasn’t.
    Eventually, the guards managed to manoeuvre all the naked prisoners down to one end of the corridor, occasionally using the stock of their rifles as a form of persuasion.  The throngs of confused criminals, Tabitha included, were forced through a heavy door and into a spacious assembly hall.  
    When all the prisoners of this row were inside, the guards closed the door with an echoing metallic thud.
    Tabitha looked over to her right to see even more prisoners being ushered inside from a different hallway.  Now the hall was filled with all these ignorant and frightened criminals, milling around as they waited for what was going to happen next.
    The hall was dark; Tabitha couldn’t see much apart from the few people around her.  Just standing up under her own power felt strange, it took a lot of effort to stop herself from collapsing.  All her muscles felt weak, but at the same time, she was numb all over, and she couldn’t shake the taste of blackcurrant from her mouth.
    Suddenly, powerful industrial-sized lights turned on above the confused masses, revealing that the far wall was lined with more guards, but these ones were different.  They wore the same uniform but they carried shotguns rather than rifles and wore small black gas masks, which just covered their noses and mouths, like the oxygen masks that were attached to the prisoners throughout the journey.  The lights were blinding, they caused all the men and women to shield their sensitive eyes and some were even shrieking in pain.
    Tabitha wasn’t afraid of the lights, she liked them, now that her sight was beginning to return, they allowed her to notice everything.  She could see patches of grills on the floor and speakers high up on all the walls, Tabitha wondered what they were for, and then she found out.  A low note was played for a couple of seconds just before a loud and intimidating voice was transmitted through the speakers.  What Tabitha didn’t know was that there were many of these assembly halls on this level of the Caduceus, one each for every two rows of prisoners, in fact, and this message was being played in every single one of them.      
    “Attention, new residents of Jotnar,” the voice announced, it sounded like a recording.  Actually, it didn’t even sound human; the voice was synthetic, like a male and a female voice being overlapped to create a sinister sounding androgynous tone.  This was the voice of Somnus.  “You have all been deemed to be enemies of society.  That is why you have been removed from Earth and are to be placed where you will help benefit the society that you have previously harmed.  At the Jotnar Detention Centre, you will work; those who do not work will be executed.  You will have to earn your keep if you wish to prolong your wasted lives.  There is only one general rule at Jotnar, do what you are told at all times.  There are no laws on Mercury apart from those created by the Olympus Corporation; any act of disobedience will result in your death.”
    While everyone else was focussing on the speech, Tabitha was searching the room for a way to escape, she didn’t find one.
    “After this assembly is over, you will each be confined into your individual cells,” the monotonous voice droned on.  “There is one thing you must be aware of that will benefit both you and us.  When the red lights that mark out the border of your cells are on, do not cross that threshold.  If you disobey this paramount directive, what will result will not be a pleasant experience, you have been warned.  I want you to know that most of you will never leave this facility, welcome to the Jotnar Centre.”
    The voice stopped there, followed by that same low note, which had been played before the speech.  Nothing happened for a few seconds; Tabitha looked around to see that other people were also looking around.  This lack of activity concerned Tabitha, but then she found herself missing this moment of peace when a new situation developed.  
    A pale green gas began emerging from the gratings in the floor, it rapidly dispersed, filling the room and greatly obscuring everyone’s sight.  It was like being in the middle of a dense strangely coloured fog.  Most of the prisoners began panicking, believing that they were all about to be executed.  Tabitha knew better, she recognised it as the same gas they had used on her back on Earth and soon, everyone started behaving in exactly the same way as they had back then.
    All the prisoners surrounding Tabitha eventually started falling asleep.  It wasn’t a sudden collapse on the floor; everyone just gently lay down on the ground and drifted off to sleep.
    Tabitha saw everyone do this and began to smile, she didn’t really want to fight it, she couldn’t see the point, she was just so tired.  Tabitha slowly sat down amongst her unconscious friends, she then eased her eyes closed and let herself go.