A Man of His Time: Chapter Five
By NFalc
5
The Plant
I'm at the bottom, my vision blurry, my head aching. There's something wet on the corner of my head. Everything feels off.
I get to my feet and hold myself against the wall until the staircase in front of me stops moving. Then I climb back up it, and stand in the doorway.
The street is covered in dust. Rubble is everywhere. Portions of the street are stained with red. And in the middle of it, something is moving.
I recognize him. It's the man who saved me. But why is he crawling? He's in danger but he's moving so slowly...
Then I see: the bottoms of his legs are bent at odd angles. They're completely shattered. He can't walk. I want to go out and help him. But something holds me back. Then I look up and see that above us, the sky has gone bright red. She's not finished yet.
Oh God. I close my eyes, and wait for the blast...
...but when I open them, all I see is white. Heaven? I did take quite a fall. But something tells me that if this were the afterlife, I wouldn't have such a painful headache. It feels like my skull is splitting open at the temples.
I look around. White. Everywhere. There is no detail around me, just this shapeless, endless white. I look down at myself, and am somehow relieved to see that I'm still here. I have, however, lost all of my ragged clothing. I'm completely naked. I'm suddenly glad it's not cold in here.
In front of me, I begin to make out a faint outline. When I look closer - yes, there is something else here. A small pile of white clothing. I pull it on, and it all seems to fit, although it's far from exact. There's something rough about this clothing: the seams are huge, and it hasn't been cut too well.
I try to get to my feet, but my leg feels like it's splintering, then exploding into sparks, so I quickly sit back down.
So what now? I can't see any detail, I can't move anywhere. What do I do?
I wait. Wait, and stew over my dreams. I don't think I've ever gone that far in the dream before. Usually, it's just the first two parts over and over again. He puts me in the basement, I disobey and head back up, only to see the sole of the woman's shoe. End night one. The man in the crowd finds me in shock, brings me back, the foot falls, I black out. End night two. Wash, rinse, repeat. But something's broken the cycle.
As I think about it, I realize that I don't even remember the names of the people in my dream. Don't know who they are. And yet I remember knowing everyone in my town. Maybe I'm just forgetful. Hell, when did it happen? Was I eight? Ten? Twelve? I don't know. It all goes fuzzy. Just focus on the face of the man in the crowd. Maybe it'll help you remember. Concentrate, focus on his face...
Then a hole opens in the ceiling. It's a small, square hole, about a foot long on each side. A large needle descends from it, on what looks like a robotic arm. It swiftly, precisely, jabs me in the leg.
It hurts like hell, but the leg quickly goes pins and needles. A mechanical voice speaks from somewhere in the room. "Welcome," it says, this soft female voice that sounds more fake than anything I've ever heard in my life. "We are sorry to have kept you waiting. Now that you have received care, you should be able to walk. Please step outside, and join the others." The others?
A slot opens in what I now know to be a wall, and I get up carefully, and walk towards it, and out.
When I saw the look in Cheryl's eyes, I knew I wasn't the last man on Earth. There was too much recognition; she didn't look surprised to see me, not at all. The question was, then, where were my fellow men? And how many of us were left?
The answers are: here, and hundreds, in that order.
My room exits out onto a small hill above the settlement; from my view I see small, squat buildings made out of concrete. And milling around them are tons of men, on my scale, walking and talking and breathing. My gender is alive and well.
As I start down the hill, trying not to go too hard on my numbed leg, a siren sounds. All of the men instantly perk up, at exactly the same time. A mechanical voice, the same one that spoke to me in the white room, is talking. I can't tell where it's coming from: it seems to be from all directions. "Everyone please proceed to the meeting grounds, for announcements of new arrivals, and today's training assignments."
As one, every man begins to walk forward, in the same direction. I follow, hobbling off with them, trying my best to keep pace. Suddenly, there's an arm on my shoulder.
"New arrival?" The man who grabbed me is fairly short, his face round and his hair slick. "I'm Jude. I'm part of the Welcome staff. Follow me, I'll get you where you need to go."
He tugs me off in a direction that's slightly different from everyone else. I wonder how he singled me out, then I realize that I'm the only one in a white uniform, everyone else's is gray. Jude pulls me along for a while, until we come to a large building made out of dull gray metal, with a large opening cut into the side.
"Go on in there," says Jude, shoving me forward. "The rest of the new arrivals should be waiting."
I walk in. The building is oddly silent. A few other white-uniformed men are standing inside. They all seem much younger than me, around eight to ten years old. They're all completely silent.
"Hey," I say to one on my left. "You a new arrival too?"
He stares straight forward, his eyes not meeting mine. He shows no sign of even seeing me. Thinking that this is probably what we're supposed to be doing, I mimic them, standing straight and staring forward.
I realize that what we're staring at is a set of large metal double doors. The doors slowly slide open, making a grating noise as they do so. The others begin to walk forwards, so I follow their lead. As I walk out into the light I'm reminded of a gladiator's arena, the kind I read about as a kid. There are men filling the stands that circle the flat, open stage. Unlike a Roman arena, however, they aren't cheering. They sit grim and silent, and staring, all of them staring.
We walk out into the middle, and I hear the mechanical voice again, this time from all around us. "Welcome to Plant 27B," says the voice. "In order to gain full acceptance into the Plant, new arrivals must survive an initial test. Prepare yourselves." The atmosphere in the room gets much more tense. Some of my fellow arrivals are gritting their teeth. Most of them look nervous.
"The test will begin in five...four...three..."
I realize that I have absolutely no idea what this test even is. 'Survive'... We have to survive it?
"...two...one... The test begins now." A shrill alarm peals, and suddenly, a hole opens in the sky above us. There's something coming down it... And I run, just like instinct tells me to. There's a tremendous smacking sound behind me, and I turn to see a giant female hand, planted in the middle of the arena. It has sharp nails, painted a sparkling pink but stained with red, and if it wasn't for the circumstances I would think it attractive. When it lifts back off the ground, there's blood soaking into the dirt.
Then, without warning, a pink and red nail is coming straight towards me. I duck, and the nail slams into the side of the arena, skittering up the stands. It comes back down, and I see that there's a man impaled on it. He's still screaming and thrashing, but the finger scrapes along the ground, wiping the bloody mess of a person off.
Around the arena, the other fingers are also doing their share of damage, burrowing into the ground and burying kids under dirt, stabbing at others, some flying through the air to land with a pounding sound on top of a hapless new arrival. I simply run around, ducking and weaving, trying to avoid becoming a part of the massacre.
After five minutes, I can only count six of us left. The arena is strewn with carnage, some recognizably human, some not. I look at the hand, following its long, elegant edge up to the arm, and the hole in the sky. I realize the obvious; while I've been running around senselessly, I've been blowing my chance at escape.
The hand flattens once more, crushing one unlucky arrival who was hiding under the palm. Now's my opening. I rush forward, leaping up onto the back of the hand. It bucks upwards sharply, but I'm ready for this and have already grabbed two handfuls of soft skin. As the hand continues to buck and twist, I start climbing like a madman. I race up the side of the arm, going vertical, struggling to keep my grip on the skin. I'm almost to the top -
The arm shakes violently, and I fall, skidding back down the skin and onto the top of the hand, which has ceased moving. The hand tilts so that I slide off, and I find myself lying on the dusty, bloody ground. The mechanical voice speaks. "Four of you have passed the test. You four will now be separated into the established groups. Stand and prepare to hear your designation."
"704, designated group Alpha. 709, designated group Gamma, 714..." I panicked a little, wondering where exactly they were getting these numbers from. Then I looked down at my shirt. Stamped in big, bold lettering, was the number 718. "718, designated group Beta. That is all."
The men begin to file silently out of the stands. One pushes through the crowds towards me. For a split second, I remember my savior from my dreams. But it's only Jude. "Hey, you're in my group. Follow me, I'll show you to your room."
I follow behind him as we weave through the crowds, coming to one of the nondescript buildings that litter the area. "The big 'B' is for 'Beta'," Jude explains, pointing to the top of the building. "Pick a room that doesn't have any clothes in it, and remember to come outside whenever the bell rings. You're gonna love it here." He bounds off in another direction. There's something odd about his perkiness.
I look through the rooms. They're all plain white cubicles, with a small cot in one end. The occupied ones have stacks of clothes against one wall. So that's what Jude meant. I find an empty one, and, not knowing how to claim it, take off my socks and lay them in front of the bed. As far as I know, I was the only new arrival in Beta, so it's not like anyone will take the room anyway.
As soon as I sit down on the cot, hoping to get some rest, the alarm bells ring. I walk outside to find everyone else in the building running for the exits. I wonder what's so urgent.
When I get outside, all the men are lined up in even, perfectly straight lines. I join the one that looks like it's missing a few, and stand straight like everyone else. I still feel like I stick out, like I'm the clueless one that isn't getting with the program. It makes me uncomfortable.
The now all-too-familiar mechanical voice is starting up again. "We will now give out Assignments. Alpha is assigned to climbing practice in the climbing zone." A few of the lines break off, and begin marching away from the rest of the group.
"Beta is assigned pedicure practice, in the arena." A few other lines moved away. Mine wasn't one of them. I moved away and started following the Beta people. There was a weird feeling on the back of my neck, and I turned to see everyone looking at me out of the corners of their eyes. Like I was crazy. Like I didn't belong.
I walked anyway, then jogged, caught up with the rest of the Betas. They lined up in the middle of the arena, straight and even as usual. Some of the men trade nervous looks. Jude says loudly to another man, "This will be so exciting! I can't wait!"
The mechanical voice says, "Today's lesson will be in the proper way to perform a pedicure, one of the tasks required of men by their owners. Paint and brushes are available in the first row behind you. Trimming equipment is available in the row behind that. Those who cannot perform this task to the required level of ability will be placed in the isolation room."
"I heard there's a madman in there," whispers one of the men next to me to another, so quiet it can barely be heard.
"THERE WILL BE NO TALKING DURING THIS EXERCISE," says the mechanical voice, much more sharply and loudly than its previous tone. It then returns to its usual, flat drone. "The exercise will begin in five, four, three, two..."
I tense and prepare to run. If this exercise is anything like the initiation test, I'll need to be ready for anything. The men behind me are all filing into the first row, grabbing paint buckets and brushes. I realize that I should be getting utensils as well, but by the time I get there, all the paint equipment is gone. I'm one of the three who go up to row two, to get trimming equipment. We each take a huge pair of shears, and return back down.
Then the sky opens, and a massive foot comes down.
It shakes the ground as it hits, sending a tremor through my bones. Despite the fact that the nails are unpolished and somewhat longer than normal, it's a very nice foot: long toes, smooth skin, gently sloping instep. It smells fairly strongly, and I find it very odd that this is sort of alluring.
"Cutters, take position." says the mechanical voice. The other two step forward, and after a moment I do the same. "Ready, go."
The other two quickly take the smallest toe and the middle toe. I understand that I've been given the big toe. I quickly rush forward and start using the huge trimmers I've been given. Luckily, they slice through the thick nail without much effort. I concentrate on trimming round the nail, getting a nice shape out of it. Before I feel I've completely perfected my job, the mechanical voice speaks again. "Cutters, time is up. Analyzing performance..." There's a slight pause, and a small whirring noise in the air. I turn to see a small camera placed on the arena wall on the far right. "Performance from all was satisfactory. Please step back and watch painters."
The three of us retreated to the arena wall, and watched as the other men set about dipping their brushes in thick red lacquer, which they carefully daubed onto the nail. I noticed one at the end was having trouble handling his brush, and accidentally spilled a bit of the red liquid on the ground.
"Time's up. All men stand back while performance is analyzed." Again there was that whirring noise. Then the fake voice spoke once more. "Number 698, please step forward."
The one at the end, who had been having trouble, began to tremble and shake. "Nooo," he moaned softly. "Please no." He doesn't move forward. It looks like he can't. Someone else gives him a shove, and he stumbles, falling onto the ground in front of the titanic foot.
"You think he'd have more dignity," Jude says. He's standing in line a few spots away from me.
698 is in tears now, his face red. He wails silently, like a baby put on mute. "Resident number 698," the mechanical voice says stiffly. "You have been found inadequate, and will be terminated."
The foot rises off the ground, balancing on its heel. Everyone is able to see the massive wall of wrinkled flesh that is this woman's sole. Then, swiftly, it comes down, covering 698. It twists slightly in the ground, grinding his remains into the dirt. Then it withdraws, back out of the hole it came from.
"The rest of you may leave," the mechanical voice says.
The other men head back towards the buildings. I hear one of them say, "They don't usually do it like that, usually they take them somewhere else..."
I sit down on the arena steps, and I think. This place is so confusing, so many rules and patterns that I don't know. And so much death, and misery, and pain. Yet the men seem indifferent to it all. There's something wrong here, I can feel it deep within me. There's something I don't know yet.
I stare into the blue sky above. Fake, undoubtedly. I wonder what's really beyond the roof of this place. Then I see it.
There's the outline of something in the sky. Very faint, but I can just make it out. It looks like a giant pair of eyes, superimposed on the clouds and blue.
I stand up, and the eyes vanish.
There's someone watching over me. For some reason, this thought isn't chilling, but comforting. The eyes looked warm, and kind. They looked like they belonged to someone who cared, and sympathized.
But how would I know? I only saw them for a moment.
I turn and walk back towards the buildings.
Giantess World
