A blaring alarm and flashing lights scrambled my
"flight" reflex so hard I immediately sprang forward and smacked my
hip on the nearest table.
"Caustic," Marx spat. Huge, metallic gates slowly
slid over every windowed surface around the perimeter. Marx grabbed my hand and
started ducking and dodging his way toward the door as the sliding gates
slammed faster and faster.
"What's going on?" I yelled as the floor pitched
gradually—inexorably. We were now fighting our way uphill on a smooth surface,
dodging loose items as they slid in our direction.
"Gotta... Make... It!" Marx grunted, squeezing my
hand so hard the sweat was beginning to build. The floor slowly tilted back to
flat, sending us tumbling forward, but we were too late. We arrived at the
entrance just as the gate covered its last couple inches. The alarm ceased, and
my head rang in the sudden silence.
"IS THIS NORMAL?" I yelled before my brain
registered that I was yelling.
Marx didn't seem to care. He stared at the solid gate, as we
sat in the dimly-lit cafeteria that looked as if a tornado had ripped through
it. The bolted-in chairs and tables were still in place, but the stack of trays
at the back of the room, the swinging lamps suspended from the ceiling, and the
massive bins of food packages had spilled all around the room.
He winced as he stood, favoring his left leg. He hobbled
over to me and put out his hand.
"Are you okay?" He asked.
I had recovered my hearing, so I nodded and whispered,
"I'm fine." I don't know what it is about big spaces and the urge to
speak softly, but I definitely did just then. My hip still smarted—I was going
to have a bruise for sure, but no bones broken and no cuts or anything, so all
things considered, I was pretty darn good!
"What happened?" I asked, as Marx seemed to be
staring at the gate in front of us and waiting for something.
He crawled over to a display screen in the corner. No matter
what combination of buttons he pressed, the screen remained dark.
Marx shook his head. “The blast doors are sealed, the
console’s out—the temporary disruption of the stability engines… All of it
means only one thing.”
“What does it mean?” I didn’t like the way this was heading.
Marx looked me dead in the eye and pronounced it like a
death sentence.
“Lockdown.”
Of all the situations I could have been preparing for over
the course of my life, lockdown wasn't one of them. Sure, we had those drills
in grade school where the teacher turned the lights off and we all had to
huddle in the corner and make absolutely no noise.
But this wasn't a school building; it wasn't even earth.
There wasn't a whole group of people; the threat might not even be one that
responded to either silence or noise. It could be a monster, or another ship
that rammed into us outside those steel doors. I had no protocol for that.
Marx, meanwhile, had resorted to his old technician habits:
he had pried the front panel off the console and dragged the motherboard into
the open. He twisted wires and untangled others, checking the screen for any
activity as he worked.
I watched him mutter at the wires, while the screen above us
didn't even flicker.
I sighed as I leaned against the blast door. "Can you
get it working again?"
He pursed his lips. "Sometimes, yes; if it's a
technical blackout, I can override the system in just this one console and at
least be able to open the door and get us to a room with other people who might
know more of what's going on." He tried another connection, with no
success.
He tossed the wires aside with a sigh. "Looks like…
whatever hit the ship just before the lockdown must have torn the outer siding
somehow, or damaged an airlock. Whatever it is, the ship's defense systems
detect exposure to outer space elements and lock everything down until the
breach is repaired." He gave me a sidelong glance. "There's no
override for that one." He chuckled and shifted his position, but the
noise stopped with a hiss.
"What's the matter?" I asked.
The young technician shrugged. "Ah, it's my leg,"
he gestured. "There's no blood, but I think I wrenched it pretty bad when
the ship tilted." He reached for the toggle of a zipper on his pant leg,
just above the knee, and unzipped it. Sliding the extra material off gave us a
clear view of his leg. No breaks in the skin, sure, but the entire calf was one
big purple mass. I couldn't tell if it was actual bleeding under the skin, or
just a really big bruise.
I shook my head. "We need to get you help.”
[…]
Marx was slumped against the dismantled console. I was too
busy trying to see if I could hear anything through the metal door to know if
he was awake or not.
Steady thumps reached my ear. I brightened.
"Marx!" I wiggled his hand. "I can hear
somebody!" Raising my voice and leaning as close as I dared, I yelled,
"HEY! WE'RE IN HERE! HEY! HEELLLP!" I even banged on the door for
good measure. "HELP US! (bang, bang, bang) WE'RE TRAPPED! HELP! (bang,
bang, bang) WE CAN'T GET OUT! (bang, bang, bang) HEEELLLLLP!"
My voice gave out and I realized that Marx was muttering my
name.
"Laura."
The poor guy was in bad shape. His face
had gone pale. I checked his leg again. The purple looked like it was spreading
up past his knee. Sweat poured down his face, but his skin felt clammy to my
touch.
"We need to help the bruising, and possibly ruptured
blood vessels," I decided. "Is there ice somewhere in here?"
With all the other stuff I'd seen that should have been normal but ended up
weird, I had to ask.
Marx clenched his jaw like he was in a lot of pain.
"Yeah," he grunted. "White panel, that way." He indicated
the wall over by the toppled pile of trays.
I wasn't going to risk him passing out or dying in the time
it would take me to find the thing and come back. I crouched next to him.
"Here," I said, hooking my arm under his. "Let's get you over
there."
He cringed, even crying out when the pain was too much. He
didn't even let his bruised leg touch the ground. I couldn't support him enough
for us both to move.
"Even just standing here, it hurts because of
gravity," he told me.
I shook my head. "We need something to completely
immobilize it so you don't—"
A familiar whining buzz interrupted me, and my thoughts
immediately catalogued exactly where I was, what I wore, and what I was doing. Funny how a buzzing alarm will do that to you.
A squarish red security bot rounded the corner. Recalling my experience with
it, I smiled.
"I have an idea!" I told Marx, and I reached up
and took his keycard off his shoulder.
"Are you caustic? What the frell do you think you're doing?" He
seethed.
"Oh, chill! Just trust me!" I slipped the keycard
into his pocket, just as I had done for myself when we first met.
The security bot bleeped, and the words "HALT!
SCANNING... HALT! SCANNING..." Scrolled across its surface.
Just as I expected, Marx's body went rigid, and I could let
him go, as a bright red laser held him in place, hovering just centimeters off
the ground.
"Is that better?" I asked him.
He could only blink in response.
"Once for yes, and twice for no."
He blinked once. I was pretty proud of myself. I walked
freely over to the wall, and the bot dragged Marx along behind me.
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