Adam turned the object over in his hands and pulled on the adapter. It immediately gave way and unraveled with a dull whirring from inside, and he made the positive identification of it as a motor-driven dive reel. Identical to a winch, Adam surmised, it would be able to pull him back to safety should he ever become incapacitated while working on the far side of the airlock.
Or, he thought, use it within the station itself.
The anchor on the rear of the tool was a common fitting across the station, used for hold-downs, equipment mounts, and locks of all types. It was omnidirectional, requiring only one type of connector and allowing for maximum flexibility across all environments. He carried it to the tube connecting him to the upper laboratory level and spied a matching version in the ceiling above.
“This is what you meant about moving the fuel tanks, wasn’t it?” he asked Draco, letting a thin smile trace across his face.
“Possibly.”
Adam started up the ladder, carrying his prize in one hand while taking the rungs two at a time. “Be that way. I’ll prove it to you.”
He hit the landing and examined the fitting mounted along the spine of the pod. Like on the reel, it was milled from a sizeable block of metal and bolted in place, centered above the vertical connector.
The rotary lock fit perfectly, and with a solid twist, would no longer budge. Adam shook it, content with his plan, before grabbing hold of the line and stepping off from the landing. In the lower gravity, the motor acted as a brake, slowing his descent to a few feet per second, and he quickly landed on the floor as easily as if he had taken the ladder. Pleased with his discovery, Adam went for a second reel and installed it by the hydrogen draw to cover what would be the final leg of his ascent on a future fuel run.
“Impressive,” Draco remarked without provocation. “Just imagine what else remains to be discovered.”
“Thank you for the motivation,” Adam said with a grin. “All right, proof-of-concept time.”
Back in the docking bay, he pulled a fuel cell from one of the empty probes, dragging it to the tube as he had done before. Its attached mounting harness fit the hardware, and with Draco’s control, he was able to move between levels with a fraction of the effort he had expended by hand before. He switched between the lines and continued to the power station and retrieved the fueling cable.
“You’re going to fill it?” the station asked. “I don’t think that’s wise.”
“I can’t be sure it works otherwise. We have to test it for the weight,” Adam demanded. “Besides, we can easily launch an empty probe to bleed off the fuel safely.”
“If that is your plan, then yes, I can facilitate it on your behalf,” Draco confirmed.
“Good, because I wasn’t asking,” Adam said as he calmly filled the tank.
The small wrapped-fiber payload took on considerable weight from the fuel, enough that it caught Adam by surprise as he lumbered back to the tube with it in his arms. He set it at the edge before reattaching it to the winch and carefully guiding it down the hole. The motor evenly unwound and the tank slid downward until it stopped, hovering an inch above the next deck, evidently a safety mechanism on the part of the tool or the station itself. Adam transitioned between the tubes and brought it to the final level, then over to the docking bay.
“I’ll be the first to say,” he remarked, placing the tank on the central workstation, “that was much easier this way. Hell, I think I might just let it carry me whenever I need to go up to the draw.”
“I share in your enthusiasm, I assure you.”
“Glad we’re in agreement.” Adam smiled. It had been a productive day on Draco Station. A dangerous and time-consuming chore had been eliminated by his keen eye. He replaced the vessel in the open probe and tightened the fitting in place. A searing hiss erupted from the valve.
The general alarm blared from above. Adam jumped back in surprise, ripping his hand away from the metal contraption. “Talk to me!” he called out to the empty room.
“The primary seal in the probe’s fuel regulator has failed. Get it into containment to vent,” Draco commanded, the AI’s voice rising in a pre-programmed tone of urgency Adam had rarely heard. “Now!”
Across the room, the door on the probe launcher released with a pop and swung aside, leaving Adam to complete the task by hand amidst the screaming noise. He grabbed the assembly tight and lifted it up, wavering toward the sealed tube.
“Be gentle,” Draco advised amidst the blaring sirens.
Adam’s hands shook from the sudden rush. He reached the destination and tipped the probe on its side to rest it against the edge. The shock was enough to compromise the surviving threads of the pressure valve. It let go with a blinding flash of light and a deafening blast. The small metal assembly exploded out, tearing through Adam’s shoulder before pinging off the wall and rocketing down the bay.
The astronaut’s mind went blank. In a blink, he was on the ground beside the probe, a circle in his vision completely washed out, with a mass of blood seeping through his suit. His arm burned and Adam held it tight to keep the flow at bay. “Draco…” he managed. “Help.”
The bay’s alarms ceased. “The station’s integrity remains intact, and I’ll begin filtering the air. I can guide you, but you must do the work. Get up to the medical lab.”
“I can’t climb the ladder.”
“You must. You’d do more damage to yourself by staying down here or riding on the cable. Do it.”
There was no arguing; Adam got to his feet and on shaking legs, stumbled to the connecting tube. He looked up to find that the ladder inside appeared to go on forever. With a sigh and leaning on his one good arm, he made the trip, feeling the warm blood drain from his wound and slide down over his trailing hand. It hung limp behind him, searing in pain every time he dared to move. Reaching the landing, he pulled himself over the edge and collapsed face-first on the ground.
“Keep moving. You’re almost there.”
The stamped metal deck fluctuated in and out of focus before Adam’s eyes while he struggled forward. The hatch to the medical lab was only steps away, but with every passing second, his field of vision continued to narrow. His good hand was shaking along with his legs from the discharge of adrenaline. Shock was setting in; he only had minutes before he risked passing out, which would only delay his bloody demise.
I’ve got this, Adam told himself and forced his feet back under him, refusing to give in to the bloody fate, destined to be dried out and petrified by the time another human reached the station. “Draco, what am I looking for?”
“The first cabinet to the left has a weak opioid to dull the pain. Take the shot above the injury.”
“Okay…” Adam slurred as he ripped the door open and pulled the first needle he saw mounted in a red tray. It was tiny by the standards he remembered as a child, and when coupled with the throbbing of his lacerated skin, he barely felt it drive into his arm. He sighed in relief, feeling the gentle numbness flow over his body. “Now what.”
“Let me see the cut. How deep does it go?”
“It’s pretty bad,” Adam said, holding his arm toward the stations’ camera mounted in the wall, letting the AI perform its examination.
“It went through the skin, and I see evidence of muscular tearing, but there’s no arterial bleeding, which is a very good sign,” Draco replied. “I’ll have you stitch the skin back together, and then apply a clotting bandage to close off the wound.”
“Great.”
“There is a gun to apply the stitches in the next drawer. It uses fibrous staples to rejoin skin that has up to a quarter inch of separation. You’ll need to get the jaws to hit skin on both sides and starting from the outer edges, shoot one in every half inch.”
“This sounds really painful,” Adam said as he retrieved the gun and placed it on the counter along with a rolled-up bandage.
“Not as much as you’d think.”
There was something unsettling about the prospect
of a computer attempting to gauge the pain of medical operations on a scale that Adam would understand. He knew from his training that the absorption rate for the painkillers varied by the subject, and it wasn’t as if Draco had any nerves attached to his system that he had managed to tweak along the way. Regardless, Adam knew he didn’t have long if he didn’t fix the syrupy mess that had become the remnants of his shoulder.
Placing the gun along the end of the cut, he clenched his jaw and pulled the trigger, hearing a quick pop, a burst of pressure through his arm, and no real pain to speak of. He opened his eyes and saw that the tiny, bloody staple held its own, and quickly continued on to limit further damage. The sight brought a burst of relief, partially from the success, but also that it was only slightly more traumatizing than if he had performed the operation on a corpse.
Adam moved methodically, systematically wiping the area clean before applying each stitch, and quickly closed the largest area of the gash. He continued by doing the same on the three smaller lacerated branches which had spread from the first. “That doesn’t look quite so bad,” he admitted, wrapping the clotting bandage above the damaged skin and tightening it around his arm.
“As I said, but you didn’t believe me,” Draco replied.
He continued by cutting away the remains of his damaged suit and cleaning the outlying area. It was an odd sensation, he determined, to be vigorously scrubbing half-dried blood from his own arm and receiving zero sensation or feedback on the operation, but it left him free of the gruesome substance.
The suit was a lost cause, and Adam left it wadded in a damp mass by his feet, returning to the equipment bay to find another. Retracing his steps, he found the station to resemble the aftermath of a horror movie, with a layer of gruesome, bloody handprints clawing their way from the connecting tube and extending down the ladder, as if some intrepid space explorer had inadvertently loosed some alien menace to wreak boundless havoc. No, nothing that exciting, Adam thought, just my damned stupidity.
Below, things were just as bad if not worse, since the trails of bloody footprints led every which direction around the station. “I’m feeling really lightheaded,” he admitted to the air as he progressed.
“The blood loss will do that. I’ve adjusted your rations to best supply you to recover the missing fluids. If the feeling doesn’t alleviate itself, lie down before you drop like a rock and damage something else.”
“Thanks for the advice.” He didn’t know if the sensation was from the loss of blood, the onset of the shot, or the echoes of the adrenaline rush that had spiked when the regulator blew. Adam got the second uniform over his feet and around his shoulders, feeling more secured as the pressure clamped the bandaged wound in place. He got his specified rations and set about cleaning up his slimy trail with a sterilizing agent.
Whatever Draco said to him came out in mumbles as he worked, starting in the docking bay and tracing his footsteps forward. The initial terror had given way to a dull foreboding and the foolishness of his actions. A sense of shame hung over Adam’s head as he thought of the actions that led him to the current point and how he should have been more careful. Hell, had he filled the tank a quarter of the way, they could have found the malfunction without a major disaster. What-ifs poured down as quickly as he cleaned off the dark stains.
Each speck of blood was wiped away clean, leaving the station as new as it was when Adam first awoke. He wanted no memory of the event, going so far as to toss the broken regulator into the rear corner of the docking bay’s storage bin, which had landed a full pod away and nearly in the observatory. He hated the feeling, the sensation that he was wholly responsible for the act that could have killed him or compromised the entire space program.
Reality had reared its head up from a pit of private hell in a fiery rage to remind him of the gravity of his predicament. This wasn’t a pleasure cruise; this was the most inhospitable environment imaginable, and without the forethought of an army of scientists back home, he would have found himself decompressed and frozen on his first minute out of the tube.
Making the situation more perilous was that Adam had the station to himself. With even a second crew member, as designed, the risk behind his actions would decrease significantly. With each day, his relief drew closer, so long as he could survive in their absence. The day had taken its pound of flesh from him, literally. Adam was exhausted as he shuffled into the darkened living quarters.
The rack wasn’t so much inviting as it was a smooth horizontal surface, which he collapsed upon as if a corpse. Adam bothered not to pull the utility blanket across his body or shift enough to keep his feet from overhanging the side. “Draco, don’t wake me. Nothing in the morning,” Adam grumbled through a hoarse voice.
“As you wish, sir. Heal quickly.”
***
Adam’s hands shook relentlessly for hours, try as he might without success to remove the memory of the blast. The place wasn’t a home; it was a trap, a tomb, and an entirely hostile environment. He had gone lax in his thinking, having so much handed to him without his consideration or consent. For all the interest and enthusiasm, he had never felt so alone.
The living quarters were completely dark, but sleep refused to come. Adam curled himself up in the corner of his rack with the blanket wrapped tight across his head. A growing sense of fear gripped him without mercy, squeezing away all that he had gained over the months aboard Draco.
He drifted somewhere beyond consciousness, his mind affixed on the trip into the medical lab for the stitches. The row of containment pods that extended past his own called out to the astronaut, signifying his membership alongside a crew he’d never know. He was out of place and alone, somewhere that he didn’t belong without the means of escape.
With that, he felt the rustle of leaves beneath his feet. Adam looked down to find himself walking along a wooded path. Overgrown trees lined each side and separated the road from small fields and ancient forests in all directions. Birds called in the distance amidst the rush of a late-summer’s breeze. The analytical half of his brain rejected the vision outright, while the rest held on, content in the memory of where he had once made his home.
He rounded the crest of the hill to find it opened into a sprawling lawn, peppered with low bushes ahead of a rolling sea of greenery below. In the distance, a cluster of buildings could be seen, his hometown, the inhabitants going about their lives as the hills of the countryside looked down upon them. A church steeple, white and flawless, stood at the center of the street, flanked by the redbrick fire station and marble city hall, both of which fell short of its commanding height.
At the center of the field, his group of friends had gathered together around their fire pit and had begun to pull the smaller bits of brush and undergrowth to the ring of stones in preparation for the evening ahead. Adam was struck by the sight; he had dreamt forever of leaving the area, of going off for greater adventures, but why? He smiled, thinking of the memories they had built together. Becca caught his eye from the crew and waved.
Everything he wanted was standing right in front of him.
The vision passed into a fading echo as he tumbled from the rack and landed hard on the station’s floor. Adam felt an all-too-real bolt of pain surge through his body as he came to, the air ripped from his lungs with stinging ferocity. He cried out as much from the pain as from the loss of the memory, pounding his fist into the floor of the pod.
He kicked the blanket aside, cursing the station, and crawled up the side of the rack before getting up and striking out for the nearest connecting tube. The floor was ice against his bare feet, but the sensation hardly cracked the top five discomforts of the night. His eyes stung as he fought back tears amidst a quivering lip, making his way up to the stash of medical supplies across from his gestation pod. It also didn’t help that the surge had faded, leaving every muscle in his body screaming from fatigue.
Once inside, he tore the first cabinet open, pawing blindly through its contents with a buildi
ng rage.
“Adam, what are you doing?” Draco’s voice echoed through the dark and silent space.
“Going back under. I’ve had it. You win,” he said, searching for the toxic vial that would drive him back into his medically-induced coma. “I can’t take this shit anymore. I want my life back. Put me under.”
“That’s not how this works,” Draco replied.
Adam heard a symphonic pop, and the drawer before him slammed shut, powered by a hidden actuator. He tried the others, to find them automatically locked as well. He pulled harder and found the handles, as well as the doors themselves, refused to give way.
“What the hell? You’re supposed to listen to me, right?” Adam demanded. “Give me what I want. Put me out of my damned misery and grow yourself another sap. This life is a lemon and I want my money back!”
“Adam, listen to me. This is what you were meant to do; you just don’t realize it yet. If you were to return to Earth, you’d never find peace, just as if you’d continue living within the simulation. You’d reach the end as a battered and broken shell of a human, filled with nothing but regrets.”
Adam fell back and landed against the glass front of the gestation pod before sinking to his knees. “I’ve got nothing but regrets now. What difference would it make?” he mumbled, holding his head in his hands. “I miss home. I miss people. I’m not cut out for this.”
“Yes. You. Are,” Draco insisted, clearly enunciating each word. “I am not about to give up on you, and I’m not going to let you cause further injury to yourself. I’ve got the responsibility to train you and keep you alive until mission parameters dictate otherwise. This is part of growing up; I can tell you to don’t let it hurt you or get you down, but there’s little I can do to remove the sting of your biology.”
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