Bypass Gemini by Joseph Lallo

quick to build, easy to maintain. They were identical, about a dozen stories tall, maybe a few city blocks wide, and about a quarter mile long. They were arranged in a radial pattern around a massive circular landing pad, easily a half mile in diameter. Lining the roof of each building was the customary array of antennae and satellite dishes, along with a few rows of some sort of long, thin, articulated cylinder. They looked like telescopes, but it didn’t make sense that there would be so many, and that they would be so big. While he pondered them, three suddenly repositioned, pointing at the same point, somewhere high in the sky. Then there was a flair of light, just for an instant, leading from the end each cylinder off into the sky. They were lasers, the light had been caused by the beams vaporizing whatever dust had been floating in their way.
    So his host was the sort of person who kept a battery of lasers and fired them randomly in the air. That wasn’t a good sign.
    The bus slowed to a stop in front of the doorway of one of the three buildings. The door was in the center of the wall that faced the landing pad, and beside it the word “Lab” had been crudely spray-painted. The doors opened, letting in the icy air.
    “ End of the line. I was in the lab when I recorded this. I’m probably still there now. Busy. Just follow the green lights, but don’t bug me unless I’m done,” the recorded voice buzzed across the PA speakers.
    Lex grabbed his things and limped down the steps of the bus. Once he was out, the door snapped shut and the bizarre vehicle whisked off toward one of the other buildings. The injured pilot eyed “Lab” warily. He wasn’t terribly confident in the wisdom of entering a strange building on a strange planet after a surreal trip, but the alternative was sitting outside until the cold became lethal. He shrugged and stepped up to the door.
    “ Greetings, unknown person. You are new to this facility, please answer a few short questions before entry,” said a female voice, or rather, several of them.
    The speaker next to the door was clearly part of an automated system, but it had the characteristic screwed-up inflection and awkward pauses of a message assembled by slicing the words out of other messages. It sounded like the words had been sampled from announcements from at least three different people, all women.
    “ Please state your name.”
    “ Uh... Lex.”
    “ It sounded like you said... Alex... Is that right?”
    “ No. Alexander. Trevor Alexander.”
    “ It sounded like you said... AlexanderTrevorAlexander,” it droned, pronouncing the full name as one word and without pauses. The name was spoken in a fourth, clearly synthetic attempt at a female voice, “Is that right?”
    “ No. Trevor Alexander,” he groaned through clenched teeth.
    “ It sounded like you said... Trevor Alexander... Is that-”
    “ Yes.”
    “ Thank you, now please-”
    “ Listen, can I talk to a real person? Or at least a better computer?”
    “ Processing. I’m sorry, but the real person is busy doing very important things. And insulting the computer is not going to win you any friends,” the voices said, somehow managing to sound petulant despite the comment being assembled from unrelated ones.
    “ Uh...”
    The doors of the lab slid open and a green stripe illuminated along the wall of the hallway within.
    “ Please follow the green lights to workshop F. And you are officially on my S-list, Mr. Alexander.”
    Lex stood at the door, opening and closing his mouth as he tried to put his confusion to words. Finally, he shrugged.
    “ Why would things start making sense now?” he muttered.
    After a single step past the threshold, it felt as though someone had dropped a load of sandbags on top of him. He staggered and leaned heavily on the wall to keep his injured leg from collapsing. A second later the doors hissed shut behind him and nozzles doused him liberally with a fluid that stung viciously,