Moonage fashist

The singular droning ping of the scanner echoed out on the moonbase command module. A green dot appeared on the scanner, flickering into view for a moment and then was gone. 3485 tapped the scanner dial, tongue running over his dentures. He blinked a set of pale yellow eyes. Then leant back in his chair. His implant twinged as Dorris (Direct oversight risk reward interactive system). Came online, the sun’s rays blasted the solar collectors outside spurring her from a temporary hibernation cycle.

He felt the sharp edges of the program squirrel around in his brain, digging up half formed memories that even a factory reset couldn’t sponge. His face twitched as the program touched the edges of his nervous system, scanning for tension and strain. It said nothing while it worked, that’d be inefficient, burdening with 3485 with information that might distract from his role. 3485 dabbed the tears from his eyes as the pain receded, dorris knew all she needed, every imprint and reflex about the green dot had been archived, so 3485 did the best he could to try and forget the ordeal and sink back into his shift watching the scanner.

The shift ended ten hours later. The lights rose in the command module illuminating the grey and black floorboards and panels the made up the module. 3485 rose from his station and saw the other do likewise through narrowed eyes. They waited a moment for their eyes to adjust, the scanner looked so much dimmer in full light, harder to see the green dot which stuck the screen, had that always been there? He wondered blinking away the thought as his stomach began to rumble and mouth salivated.

A ringing in the room let him know it was time to report to the mess hall. He and the others filed out while a fresh group of units filed, 2365, 1393, 6798. Their numbers tattooed next to their neural interfaces.They watched him as they watched them, pale yellow eyes darting from number to number. Learning, thinking, forgetting. 1393 took up his station, he didn’t seem to notice the green dot, maybe he was defective?

3485 was allocated a portion of Nm#tvd. Standard focus unit ration. It was a fresh shipment from the fatherland, the cognitive stimulants were still ripe in this batch, they helped him numb his memory and focus on the radiant future they were building. The fatherland had taken to the stars and he was a part of the machine that was taking them there. A future free from from decay and impurity. He looked around at the crop of yellow eyed citizen’s. he saw himself in them as they saw him in themselves.

As one by one they finished their plates, their heads drooped while DORRIS checked their nutritional uptake and recent memories. 3485 set down his cutlery as DORRIS wondered in, he felt his stomach twist and contort as the nerves were plucked at, dorris lingered browsing through his recent memories, something important in the command module, 3485 clenched as dorris plucked up half remember fragments of thoughts, then receded from his mind.

He was left shivering and cold, teeth chattering. The others watched him with disgust, he could see the judgement in their yellow eyes. The bald heads glistening under the low hung lamps. He opened his mouth to speak, to tell them he wasn’t a deviating, that dorris had just been… his lips shut, better not impede their freedom with his thoughts, it was unbecoming of members of the father race, to speak out in pain, that would have been the true deviation. When he said nothing they slowly let their attention wander keen to get back to the important work of forgetting.

3485 retired to the cinema complex on level three, it was time for recreation. there he sat back in a dark room watching the screen. News cycles warning that the weakened liberty forces were ready to strike back at any moment but that the father land would crush them when they reared their heads. The lesser devolving mutants cast out from the homeland of father mars had taken up residence on a savage and wastelands of the blue planet, there they festered like a tumor for 200 years an insult to the homo superior, That was the fact.

On a small port on deck four the planet was visible, he had stared at it once and found the contrast of water and land distasteful, impure and utterly savage. Water belonged in a cup, life belong in cage, that was the way of things.

The lights came on in the cinema, the screen became harder to see and they each stood up. One stood aside from the rest, drawing stare of derision from all around, he dragged himself out the room moving like a puppet on a string under DORRIS’s command 1393, yes he had been an odd one. All knowing DORRIS must have found him out, he didn’t need to know, DORRIS would do it for him he could just get back to forgetting, While he watched with hateful eyes. Defective.

He left to retire to the dorm, walking along corridors of black and grey. The lights low, the screens bright. The sound of an airlock depressurising echoed out across level three,

“Why would they do that, shipment just came yesterday?” 3485 shook his head, there was still more to forget. He thought about the devolvers on the blue planet below, pigmented skin, hair, coloured hair. Lines of wire touching the skin. He felt sick to the pit of his stomach and swallowed to stop himself from regurgitating, he owed the father land for the bounty he had received, to throw it up would be a rejection of wotan’s body, the body of the born again messiah. 

He reached his alcove on deck two, opening up a side panel to pulled out a pair of wires, one for his neural implant, the other slotted nicely into an implant in his belly. He felt a twinge of pain as the implants in his arms, legs and torso synchronised with the central database.

He checked the side panel: 2% somatic deviation; muscle mass wastage, eye strain, cardio underperformance, other. 7% neurological deviation, excessive memory formation, other. 4 hours somatic reconstruction, ongoing neurological realignment on ad hoc application D.O.R.R.I.S. 3485 clicked the cold metallic side panel and pressurised the chamber, a pop in his ears signaled the processes was complete. the area scarcely bigger than himself filled with a thick bubbling grey ooze.

He awoke shortly after the neurological strain of the reconstruction procedure had been scrubbed from his short term memory, then checked the side panel: no somatic deviation, 3% neurological deviation. He gazed down at pigmentless skin, pure of as the fatherlands ice caps, his chest swelled with pride of his heritage. The read out clicked, neurological deviation, 2%. He pulled out the wires and tucked them back into the side panel and waited for a new uniform to be allocated. The previous having been dissolved along with the deviations in his body. He sat waiting, unsure of what needed forgetting, at a loss of what to do. Dorris would come by any moment and correct the matter, then he could get to work forgetting it ever happened.

The lights came on one alcove at a time as others reawakened from their procedures. Soon deck two lay strewn with citizens waiting for their leaders command. Hours past with them stood in a line waiting for Dorris to step in. time past without punctuation. The deviation crept in, slowly at first, a twitch here, A fidget there but after twenty eight hours an anomaly took place citizen 2365 took a single step forward, drawing the eyes of most his neighbours, though most worryingly, not all.

They stared at him with glaring yellow eyes willing him back into line, pushing out with the will of wotan’s sons. When dorris did not come 2365 simple left, walking down the corridor along a hallway of stares and silent derision. The sight made 3485 lurch with a strange twinge of hate he’d not felt before. After that the twitching and fidgeting got worse, 5673 found a hair growing on his arm and began screaming to get back into his pod only to find the alcoves unresponsive. He hammered on the door while one by one the citizened filed out to report for work, unable to wait for the order to proceed.

3485 reached the command module on deck on and slipped inside, the room held an odor, his thoughts ran through chewed up memories, looking for a comparative experience but none was forthcoming, the closest thing to it was a bodily smell, with all it’s flesh and sinew. There were citizens manning their stations. Dark fuzz had formed on their head and faces. Their skin had turned and unpleasant faint peachy colour, they looked up at him with eyes that were just a shade off yellow. 3485 leaned over unable to stifle his disgust, he dry heaved, coughing up nothing but spit and phlegm that fell from his mouth in thick viscous ropes. The sight of that made him heave again, and again until he could do so no more.

“Where is your uniform?” Asked 4536 sat at the scanner station. 3485 looked down at his form, the skin around his groin had begun to protrude, his chest had become polluted with a pair of tiny dots. It was almost enough to make him start retching again, he flushed a deep red and trembled as tears trailed down his face, it felt like dorris was there, but she wasn’t. This time the shame and hatred came from within and not from their leader.

A blip caught the eye of 3485, a dot on the scanner, the single dot had become three and they weren’t disappearing. He looked around unsure of how to proceed. The others all stared at him. here he was the outsider, they focused their disgust on him rising up from their stations with fists clenched eager to restore their status quo. At the sight of the gather mob 3485 felt a new emotion bud into his mind, it stung his senses making them sharper. His heart raced faster and his legs bustled with energy, he let the impulses them take the lead as he turned and moved down the corridor at a pace he thought obscene, one leg striding out in front of the other flapping his protruding skin one way the the other.

He ran through the mess hall, where a series of fist fights and brawls were ongoing, citizens lay nursing broke arms and ribs on the ground, others lay motionless in pools of blood dentures knocked clean out, while each fight’s victor proclaimed,

“I AM DORRIS!” drawing another citizen to come at them, fists raised. Each bout growing bloodier than than is predecessor as the citizens learned and remember how to hurt one another.

The sound of the marching command crew came echoing down the black grey and red corridors so 3485 kept moving, deck to deck eventually taking refugee in a service tunnel on deck three. Narrow and cramped it felt like his old alcove, he scratched at the support beams trying to find the wires that’d help remove his deviations. He’d stopped forgetting some time ago, memories began to creep back into his mind, things that had not happened on this station. Unable to hold still with his beating heart he crawled down to deck four the storage and loading bay.

Only the 1-series came down here but most of them were embroiled in the contest of dorris up in the mess hall. The air down on this deck was musky and tinted with the scent of rocket fuel. It was here he found 2365, he sat without uniform splayed out on a bright yellow cargo container, his eyes had turned a shade of blue while his lips had discoloured to a deep pink hue, 3485 felt a rousing hatred stir inside him, this 2365 had become was utterly contemptible, his skin blushed a deep red and he felt himself drawn to the inhuman creature by an insatiable drive. He reached out and grabbed his hand holding on tight.

The tears started up again. Rolling one by one neat and orderly down his cheek “there there” 2365 said sliding down off the container. He plucked up 3485’s freehand. And held it to his chest, smooth and supple. It didn’t burn like the alcove, nor did it sting like dorris, he felt a warmth flood over his body, the tears drying in his eyes.
“Yours are green,” 2365 said.
“Yours are B..b..blue,” 3485 stuttered feeling his dentures press against something in his jaw.
“You want to see something blue and green,” 2365 said. 3485 shook his head and stepped back. 2365 looked back at him still holding his hand. He was smiling, 3485 smiled back.

“Fine,” he said as 2365 lead him down to the only viewing port on the moonbase. From there he could see the primitives planet, a blue green marble floating in a dark sky. They stared out arm in arm watching the object from afar when the space in front began to shimmer, a rocket ship appeared bearing an insignia that was not that wotan's. They turned around, the airlock had begun to pressurise.

“AI disabled, beginning rescue”