White Space Season 2

Houser

    Brock Houser stood naked in a field of flowing wheat, hot sun kissing warm skin, reminding him of some distant memory — another time when he stood in such a field, staring at a storm as it rolled in from the horizon.
    As if in reaction to memory, the horizon’s bright blue was suddenly blotted — as if God himself was spilling ink from the sky so Houser could watch it spread and churn in a roiling mass of angry clouds.
    The wind grew cold, then icy. The sun’s lips went missing, leaving an empty tundra behind. Houser’s skin split and cracked as it sizzled with a crackle along the length of his arm. The wind grew angry, then violent. Wheat thrashed rather than flowed, tangled in a thick nest of dark thistles, lashing Houser with thorns and lacerating his skin.
    Houser spilled blood from his arm, just as God had spilled ink from the sky. He ran in a frenzy, surrounded on all sides by twisted vegetation.
    Straight was crooked and crooked upside down.
    The wind grew savage, lashing Houser and sending him from his knees to the ground, until he was curled into a fetal ball, barely protecting his face and stomach from the thorns still thrashing like angry talons, ripping into his back until his own screaming was thick in his ears. The copper and ammonia scents of piss and blood curled up into his nose.
    This is a dream.
    Internal logic begged him to wake.
    Somehow, from deep in the thick of his slumber, Houser realized he was dreaming. Once he did, his pain faded.
    He looked up and saw that he was again standing amid peaceful fields of flowing wheat, though day had now bled into blackest night. A faint buzzing hummed beneath the wind where he stood. Houser was about to search for the sound, but was distracted by a mechanical whir coming from somewhere nearby. Houser looked down to see his skin missing, replaced by black chrome, joints connected by gears, pistons, pumps, and tubes pumping dark fluid instead of blood to keep him running.
    Curiosity, and the knowledge that he was dreaming, sent Houser’s stare to his arm. He wondered how so many parts could work so fluidly together, and if the dark liquid was fuel, or blood.
    Ahead, blue light illuminated the sky, as if someone had turned on several spotlights.
    Houser began to move forward, marching to the sound of his whirring gears, utterly fascinated by his every motion, and the space between them. The change to his form didn’t scare him, at least nothing like the static bleeding out from the distance.
    The sound rose as he drew closer to the light.
    Every part of him screamed.
    Turn around!
    Houser couldn’t. He had to see the source of the light because he knew it held answers. It made sense in dream logic. If he were dreaming, Houser could ignore the rising fear telling him to turn.
    He had to know what was behind both light and sound.
    Wheat thickened as light brightened, and he moved closer. The cool wind picked up, and for a moment Houser feared the thorny vegetation’s lashing return. Instead, wheat surrendered to a clearing — a wide, flattened circle hundreds of yards in diameter, charred to black. In that burnt ground stood hundreds, if not thousands of monitors, with their screens showing nothing but snow as speakers blasted with an angry, crackling static.
    What the hell?
    Beneath the thick, buzzing layers of static, Houser heard what sounded like muffled speech.
    He moved closer to the monitors, trying to hear better, to decipher what the person was saying. It sounded like a man, but he couldn’t be certain. It might have been two people speaking. Tough to say. The louder the static, the more he wished it silent so he could focus on the voices.
    What are they saying?
    The screens all flickered at once, and for a moment Houser would’ve sworn they all cast him in his robotic form, standing among them.
    What the … ?

    Houser woke, back in the real world, to pounding downstairs.
    He shot out of bed, grabbing his pistol from the nightstand as he reached out for his prosthetic leg.
    “Who is it?” he heard Jon call from the hallway.
    The door burst open, followed by the sound of barking men. “On the ground!”
    Jon screamed something incoherent, followed by Emma.
    Houser fumbled with his leg, heart pounding as he tried to fasten it. He secured his leg and stood as his bedroom door exploded open and three Paladin officers clad in black stormed inside.
    A bald man with a blue, glowing eye stepped forward, a mean-looking scar matched his