(John)

“Your mission and your purpose, above all other things, is to put Lanthanum Towers to rights.”

A single sheet of parchment lay on the heavy wooden table in the center of the room, lettered with that message in precise calligraphy that blended the solidity of majuscule and the elaboration of cursive. The left edge of the parchment was ragged, as if torn from a book. The entire surface of the table, including the mysterious note, was covered in a thin layer of dust. Nothing else lay on its broad, polished expanse.

For my own part, I felt just as out-of-place and rootless as the parchment. A minute or so before finding this bizarre instruction, I had awoken, sputtering and coughing, in a vat of warm pale green fluid with the consistency of half-set gelatin. I had clambered out because there seemed little else to do inside.

The vessel from which I had emerged was connected, via numerous glass pipes fitted with tarnished copper fittings, to a dozen or so heavy brass tanks strapped (I hoped securely) to the distant ceiling. Valves and pumps figured in the pipes, linked by drive-chains to another apparatus of gears and springs that occupied an intermediate level between the tanks and the floor. My own level housed a dozen or so vats identical to my own. Narrow catwalks served the entire system focused on a twist of circular stairs in one corner of the room . A bank of heavy wooden cabinets stood nearby, in a tall, neat row. The room was lit by pale crystals which hung on brackets on the walls.

My observations occupied my attention so completely that it was some minutes before I noticed the next curiosity. My own body was healthy, fit, and appeared from all available evidence to be no more than twenty-five years old. This was a surprise, because my memories told me that I had been well over forty. Nowhere on my body did I have more than a few days growth of hair or beard, but it didn’t feel like the stiff stubble left by shaving. Yet another mystery to add to my list.

Shortly after discovering the note, I heard a splash and a cough from across the room, and an arm appeared over the edge of another of the tanks. I hurried around the table to assist. The slime that covered both our bodies was slick and significantly hampered our efforts, but together we managed to get the mysterious figure free of the gelid confinement.

She was female, and as naked as I was. She realized this shortly after I did and wrapped her arms around herself in the manner common to a woman discovered deshabille; one arm across her breasts and one hand over her nether regions. “Where am I?” she gasped. “Who are you?” Her gaze danced around the room, returning to me every few moments. Her hair was unfashionably short and her body dripping with slime, but she possessed attractive features of face and body, and I found myself appreciating the sight in spite of the bizarre circumstances.

When presented with the naked body of an attractive woman, the natural inclination is to appreciate certain features which are covered in social situations, features which a gentlewoman only reveals to her husband. And yet, with those charms offered with no more concealment than her dainty hands could afford, when my gaze met hers, it refused to travel elsewhere. I was content to stare into her lovely eyes alone. It was some seconds before I was able to speak.

“I swear I mean you no harm,” I said. “I am as mystified as you are. I myself only awakened a few minutes ago.”

“Where are my clothes?” She spotted the cabinets at the far end of the room and threaded her way around the table toward them, watching me closely as she went.

“I’m sure I don’t know. I haven’t yet located anything for myself, either.” While she investigated, I ducked down to look under the table. Partly I was curious to find any clues as to our strange condition, but I also wanted to shield my eyes from the sight of the woman’s anatomy; the natural reaction my body was having to the situation would not improve her state of mind or her opinion of my innocence.

The space under the table held an assortment of tools and parts, apparently of the sort that would be used to maintain the equipment that hung in the air above us. There were all manner of wrenches and grippers, a few hammers, and various bits and bobs of copper and glass. There were hooks and racks to hold them in ordered arrangements, but the tools were tossed about haphazardly. Like the rest of the room, there was a general sense of neglect about them, with the copper items tinged with green and the iron shaded lightly with rust.

“There’s nothing here!” shouted the woman. She peered at me suspiciously from around the cabinet door, using it to shield her body. “There are hooks and hangers, but no clothes! Did you hide them?”

“I swear, I did not.”

She scowled. “A likely tale. You would say so whether you had or hadn’t.”

Her speech, I realized, carried an educated refinement that I found familiar and comforting. Whatever circumstances she had come from before her transportation to this bizarre place were likely to be similar to my own. I decided to endeavor to calm her distress in whatever way I was able. I crossed the room to assist in the search.

Inside one of the cabinets, I noticed a chain with a wooden handle hanging to about head height, connected to a nozzle at the end of a thin copper pipe. The door had gaps above and below, of about eight inches.

“Perhaps at least we can get clean.” I pulled gently on the chain, and a stream of water surged down. I held out my hand. The water seemed to be clear and fresh.

She looked dubiously at the apparatus. “It looks like a safety shower, the kind you’d use if you spilled chemicals on yourself.”

“Possibly.” I pointed to the floor. “There’s a drain there, though, so it’s not merely for emergencies. I think perhaps we were meant to be able to clean ourselves off.”

She looked up at the pipes. “How much water is there? This place doesn’t look terribly reliable.”

“I have no means of knowing.” I stepped away from the shower and turned my back. “Please take the first shower. If there’s any water left when you’re done, I’ll clean myself off then.”

She harrumphed, but I heard the door open, and her voice echoed from inside the enclosure. “You just want to see me without the slime. Don’t lie to me, I’ve seen where your eyes are going.” With a squeak the water started.

I raised my voice over the noise of the spray. “While I will not deny that you are quite comely, I must insist that I am not responsible for your state of undress. If I were, I would have reserved some clothing for myself, would I not?”

The water continued a while, and then ceased. “I guess I’ve been looking for someone to blame. I’m sorry…uh…I’m afraid I don’t remember your name.”

“John. John Fellmark.”

“Felicity Shields. I wish I could say I’m pleased to make your acquaintance…” I heard some dripping and squishing, and then footsteps on the flagstones behind me. “Your turn,” she said.

I turned to find her returned to her place behind a cabinet door. “I’ll look for something to wear while you get cleaned up.”

I nodded and stepped into the shower. I sluiced the hardening slime off my body as quickly as I could, not knowing how long the water would hold out. My ablutions were cut short when a sudden shriek cut through the noise of the running water. I looked out over the top of the door. Miss Shields was on the floor, sliding across the flagstones toward a far corner of the room.

“John! Something’s got me! HELP!”