Sea of Stars(36)

 Someone near me screams, “Alameeda!”

 Kyon comes crashing out of the hidden circle, black smoke swirling in a disturbed burst around him. He murders three soldiers with precision shots before they even know he’s there, but he never stops moving in my direction. Behind him, some of his men come into view, killing Brigadets as they trail him, protecting his flank. Kyon bashes heavy tables out of his path. I’m frozen in fear for a few moments, and then I turn, desperately searching for a way to escape. I plow forward, squirming between the soldiers who are now wholly engaged in the firefight with their enemies. I glance over my shoulder. Kyon is only steps behind me, killing everyone in his path. Because I’m watching him, I miss the hovering service-bot bussing a table of dirty dishes in front of me. Plates shatter onto the floor when I crash into it. The robot holds its ground by forcing me sideways. I smash into the dirty-dish receptacle embedded in the wall, almost falling into its conveyor chute.

 With Kyon bearing down on me, he points an accusing finger as he promises, “You will learn to obey me!”

 I turn away from him, frantically squeezing myself headfirst into the small dish chute in the wall. It’s a conveyor system used to transport dirty dishes to a place called the dishery. My shoulders barely fit within the chrome-lined space; it’s so tight that I have to round my back so the sensors along the walls and ceiling won’t abrade me. As I enter, thousands of tiny little round air holes beneath me propel me forward into the darkness of the sloping tunnel. It feels as if I’m floating on a magic carpet of air as I glide along, my hair lifting and pushing and slapping me in the face.

 From behind me, Kyon’s stern voice calls out my name in frustration. Reaching his long arm in, he grasps the toe of my boot, but I kick back as hard as I can and it slips from his fingers, allowing me to slide away. “Kricket!” Kyon howls my name again, eliciting terror in my frantic heart.

 Though I continue moving away from him, I’m too shaken to feel any relief. It takes me a second to realize that choking sobs are racking my body while I move at a steady pace for a bit in the near absence of light. Twisting and turning, I’m gently rolled along the dish corridor, a passenger in the aftermath of a monstrous tea party. Up ahead, light flickers and before long I’m unceremoniously shifted onto an adjoining air-powered conveyor where I’m whisked off at a much faster pace. This corridor leads to an open factorylike area. With a gasping sigh, I’m able to sit up and move my arms as the conveyor of air flows into another enormous one. A menagerie of stained dining settings and sticky utensils surround me that range from chintz to futuristic elegance. I spy the matte-black harbinger that I’d stolen from Kyon among the rabble of dinnerware. Reaching for it, I take the heavy weapon in my hand and stuff it under my shirt against the waistband of my pants. Looking over the side of the conveyor, a Penrose-stairs-like maze of conveyor lines come and go in a seemingly infinite paradox of wine-resin stemware and kitsch plates. I shiver at the size of this facility and desperately search around for a way out.

 Ahead of me, robotic arms line both sides of my conveyor. Nimble metal claws select drinking glasses, tumblers, mugs, and flutes from the chaos of floating china, sorting them into racks that get transferred to a different conveyor line. Unable to find a way off this river of air sweeping me forward, I throw my arms around my head and duck as I come abreast of the surgically extracting arms. A scanner passes over me, but nothing else happens. The robots continue to select only the drinking glasses from the mess and leave me be.

 I breathe a sigh of relief, but it’s short-lived, because rows of bristly rollers line the conveyor ahead of me. Thrusting back and forth and side to side, the bristles roll over the plates and cutlery, scraping away excess food. The food is pushed off to troughs on the sides of the conveyors and shuttled away onto different conveyors.

 As I near the brushes, I scrunch up my face, covering my head with my arms once more. The first brush pushes me flat into a lieback position. The bristles bounce over me, scrubbing my skin with delicate, crumb-encrusted fingers. When I pass by them all, I sit up again on the cloud of air, exhaling a deep breath.

 I’m propelled into the next section with significantly more force than the previous ones. Pushing forward, I travel under an arching tunnel of metal jets that shower me. Hot water drips from my chin, as I’m thoroughly soaked. A sharp hiss draws my attention to my right side. Steam rolls from a glass tunnel on an adjacent air-conveyor line. A roiling cloud of steam blasts from it, the temperature of which is enough to sizzle butter. Endless streams of crated glasses trundle into the car-wash-like tunnel, which soaps, lathers, rinses, and sanitizes them. The current temperature reading on the side of the mechanism is equal to a whopping 180 degrees. I shudder, grateful that I didn’t fall onto the skin-melting conveyor with the glassware. But the conveyor I’m on rounds a turn, and I’m met with the same type of hellfire dishwasher ahead of me.