by Aaron Bunce
“If I could reach you right now, I would grab ahold and crush your freaking neck.”
“Oh, come on now…”
“No. Stop. You know why. You used my memories of Ayo back there on Hyde. The knowledge that I was in love with him, that his death broke me…that I couldn’t save him. Only he ever called me Alex. You keep doing it, just to stab those knives in further and further. Why? Why do you torture me with him if he is not real? It is not fair. None of it is. So just stop. Let him be.”
“It is not like that,” Poole said, his voice a subtle tickle in her ear. But Lex couldn’t answer. Her mouth was too dry.
“Ayo is real. He lives as a splinter, a fragment that makes up my whole.”
“Just don’t. I don’t want to hear it.”
“No, I think you need to hear this. When I shut down back there on Hyde, that was the portion of Ayo that lives within you—a shadow, a reflection of who he was to you. He comes out occasionally because that splinter of personality is what binds you to me, and as our connection deepens, he gains strength as well. Ayo is the connection point. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I have suppressed him. I’m jealous of the bond that portion of me shares with you, the strength in the connection. I wanted it, to horde it all for myself…the camaraderie, the intimacy. But I see now how greedy and manipulative it was. Holding it back weakened us both. I…I…” Poole stammered, his voice uncharacteristically cracking. “You damn meat sacks have showed me so much—what it means to need someone. That companionship. The joy of simply seeing their face, hearing their voice, or making physical contact. I see it. Argh. And I hated myself for it, Lex. Hated it then, but craved it now. I understand why Jacoby has developed feelings for you. Because I have, too, and it fills me with so many confusing emotions.”
Lex sobbed, the news dousing her anger more than stoking it. It was everything she’d dwelt on since leaving the station, even going as far as to question her own sanity. Poole disappeared from the dark passage ahead. She couldn’t see him, but knew he was gone—that tingly, subtle pressure that formed inside her lifting.
It made sense that he would go. There was nothing else she could do, and he just admitted that he had been holding back what she wanted…no, needed most. She hated herself for being happy he left, especially with his pronouncement. Jacoby had feelings for her. That didn’t feel like news. Hell, she’d been growing fonder of him with each passing day. Despite her best efforts to squash them. It just wasn’t the time. Love couldn’t grow in a vacuum, especially watered with so much chaos.
“I hope Anna figures it out,” she whispered, her lips sticking together, “I hope you all make it. Find happiness, Jacoby.”
The coolant lines gurgled and bubbled, the insulation crackling loudly, but she didn’t know if it meant they were starting to cool down or get even hotter. It didn’t matter.
Her heart fluttered, that strange sensation bubbling out from her chest and up into her neck. Something moved in the darkness directly ahead–a shadow breaking from the others.
“Okay, why do I keep finding you on the ground?” The voice was definitively Ayo, loud and clear in the tight space. “Can you still move? Or are you sliding between medium-rare and well-done already? Should I get the steak sauce?”
Despite herself, Lex laughed, snorting against the ground. It wasn’t really slimy anymore, most of the moisture having evaporated. She lifted her head, then her hands, and pushed away from the ground.
“That’s my girl, Alex,” Ayo cooed.
“You’re not real.”
“What a horrible thing to say to a guy. Geez. I’m finally let out to actually talk to you after all this time, and what do I get? ‘You’re not real’. It is lovely to see you, too, Alex.”
“He said it. You’re just a fragment of him. The pieces of you that lives inside me. That is all.”
“That is all? Doesn’t that make me real enough? Do I need to be real to anyone but you? You loved me. I loved you. We never got the chance to tell each other. Ayo died. But I’m here with you now. I’ll never leave you, Alex. Unless you want me to. Here, I will go…” The darkness in the passage started to get emptier somehow, the heat returning.
“No. Wait. Stop. I don’t want you to go anywhere,” Lex gasped and irrationally swiped at the darkness, as if she could physically pull him back.
“Okay, good. There is that fight I wanted to see. Now, what is your status? Talk to me, soldier.”
Lex couldn’t deny the relief his voice inspired inside her, the gentle, cooling tickle it sent through her cramping, fevered muscles, and skin.
“I’m stuck in a pipe, a hot box, with obstacles ahead and a sealed, lead-lined door behind me. It’s a kill box.”
“At least you didn’t fall off a concourse this time. And there is no disfigured, flesh puppet growing new stabby arms. From the looks of it, your limbs are all still intact this time. So, what’s the issue. Break it down Air Cav style.”
“I just said it,” she snarled, her anger threatening to run away again. But this time she caught it and pulled back. He was right. She needed to keep fighting, keep thinking–to stay rational. That was the only way she’d find the way through.
“There is an X-brace blocking the path ahead. Burn-your balls-hot coolant pipes to either side. There isn’t room for me to fit through and I am not strong enough to bend or break it.”
“So, how is that stopping you? Why is a little thing like a piece of metal beating you?” he asked, his presence moving through the blockade ahead and over her. It felt like a wet blanket was pulled over her, an involuntary shiver coursing up her back.
Lex immediately felt her thoughts speed up, her control over anger and despair gaining the upper hand. He’s right. Don’t give up and die before it’s time.
“What do you need, soldier? Think about it for a second. What tool would flip this scenario and give you the advantage.”
“If only I could see what I was working with.” Lex sniffled for a second, struggling to look past the known obstacle.
“Do you remember that crash landing training op we did on Scratch Island?” Ayo asked, “We flew out, pulled our fuel cells, batteries–shit, practically everything except rifles and MRE’s–they left us with a crappy, half-dead radio, and then everyone left.”
“How can I forget,” she said, the idea of that lone, spot-in-the-ocean island they used for training inspiring a host of different emotions. “They dropped us off in the middle of the night. It was the wintertime…the shortest day of the year, I think, and on a night with absolutely no moon. That freaking sucked.”
Ayo laughed, quietly. “They blindfolded us until it was black, then we had to wait until we couldn’t hear the rotor wash from their birds before taking them off. It was supposed to simulate the concussive effects of crash-induced disorientation. We were scattered, confused, cold, and screaming to each other. Think back. It was you that kept her head and made it out of the wreck zone. Without you, we would have failed that training hands down. Think back.”
Lex’s mind careened back to that night–the stifling darkness, the bitter, biting wind. She remembered how quickly her fingers went numb, how hard the ground felt, but mostly how the deep, shifting dark tightened her chest and made it hard to breathe.
“Ah. It was disorienting. The darkness. I could hear you guys calling out, trying to home in on our voices, but I couldn’t find you. I must have crawled around in circles for an hour before I realized it. There was this cliff to one side, the Thicc Girl was on another, and then this sheer drop-off…”
“Good. Yeah, I’m starting to see it. Keep going. What happened? You were trapped next to the Thicc Girl. How did you get out?”
“I found a…no, I tripped over an emergency supply crate,” Lex said, forcing the scene to materialize deeper in her mind. It wasn’t hard, as it had been almost as dark then as it was for her now. “That damned cold. I remember crawling around, feeling with my hands until they went numb. We were laughing, shouting, and
telling jokes, but there wasn’t really anything funny about it. We were all so cold it hurt. Except Shawna. She kept talking about those stupid Minnesotan winters and how she’d go outside and jump through a hole in a frozen lake. You said something like, ‘anyone that talks about it so much clearly hasn’t really done it’. We all laughed. She cussed you out for like ten straight minutes.”
“What did you find. Focus in on that moment,” Ayo said.
“I, uh…” Lex focused, the dark clarifying in her mind. She smelled the wind, a hint of lithium grease and jet fuel. “I finally got tired of Shawna going on and on about arctic plunging, or whatever she called it, and pushed out past what I thought was this ridge of stone. The drop off felt huge on the other side, but when I tossed a rock over, I heard it hit right away. Felt so stupid. I crawled over and found solid ground, then fell through a scrubby plant, and stepped right on a supply crate. Tripped over it, actually, which of course I never admitted until now. There was a bandage inside, some all-strike matches, and a plastic case I couldn’t get open.”
“Yes, the case. What happened next?”
“Shawna was close, but so were you. I could hear you calling out, catcalling each other. I remember what you two were saying to each other and, thinking you two had a thing going on. It made me jealous as hell. Of course, I didn’t find out she was gay until after the crash. After she was gone. I…” Lex fumbled with the memories, Ayo’s voice tickling deep inside her mind. No, it wasn’t his voice, but some strange, shifting pressure…perhaps tied to his voice.
“And…”
“I fumbled the plastic case open and found a pair of NVGs inside. It took me minutes to figure out what they were, that’s how numb my hands and brain were. Nothing was funny anymore. Everything was cold and dark, numb bleeding into pain. We just needed to find each other, then crack open the other safety crates. We had everything we needed to survive the night inside those.”
“You had the goggles, but I had the cutters to break the seals. We each had a piece of the puzzle, but needed to find each other. You couldn’t open the cases but could see. I couldn’t see, but had the means to open the supplies. Find me, Alex. Listen to my voice.”
“But it’s so cold, so dark. I couldn’t…” it felt real now, the howling wind, the strength and feeling sapped from her hands. “I can’t find the switch. The NVG’s, they aren’t like our usual goggles. I can’t feel a switch.”
“Keep moving, Alex. If you move, you will stay warm. Move your legs and move towards me. Keep moving your fingers. You can do this.”
“Okay. I hear you ahead. I’m moving,” Lex said and kicked her feet, waving one numb hand out before her to feel for obstacles. She fumbled the goggles onto her head and searched them with the other hand. “Keep talking. I can’t find you if I can’t hear you.”
“I’m here, Alex. Listen to me. Reach out. I’m close now.”
That strange, creeping, sliding pressure intensified in her head and felt almost as if a massive, mucus-covered slug was pushing between the lobes of her brain. It shifted and moved as he spoke, like some morbid compass embedded in her skull.
“The stupid goggles were…are broken. The battery. It has to be the battery.” Then her fingers slid across something on the smooth plastic case–an almost completely imperceptible button that clicked under the pressure. The pressure shifted once again in her head, only this time a deep-seated twinge bit into her brain. The pain shot forward and into her eyes, blossoming into a momentary flash of blinding white light.
“Oh, damn, what was that?” she hissed and rubbed her eyes.
“Focus, Alex. Find me. I’m right here. Right in front of you. Search the darkness, peel it open.”
She pulled her hands away, the flash having faded as quickly as it came. Only it wasn’t dark anymore. A weak, green glow kissed her vision and faint outlines appeared.
“You got them on. Great. Find me.”
“Yes,” Lex whispered and in response, the green glow gained intensity. A circular shape appeared, and she blinked–once, twice, the night vision gaining strength and intensifying again.
Ayo’s face seemed to pull out of the darkness–his dark, gently-curving eyebrows, his wide nose, and the perpetual hint of a shadowy mustache.
“You did it, Alex. You had it in you all along.”
Her heart soared at the sight of him, but everything changed. She wasn’t cold, wasn’t on Scratch Island, and the Thicc Girl wasn’t behind her.
“I’m not in a…wait. So, this is…” she stammered, struggling as her mind made the transition, jarringly pushing her from the memory. She was in a dark, maintenance passage, she was hot, and somehow, she could see Ayo laying just ahead and facing her–they were in space, on the Betty…Erik…they were careening towards Titan. She needed to get through the passage and do her damned job.
“What happened?”
“We found the connection and unlocked a tool you can use to move forward, to survive. That is how it works.”
“I have night vision?”
Ayo nodded. “Uncanny night vision. The like of history’s most effective predators, only now you don’t need goggles or a power supply.”
Lex watched his face, his lips moving in time with his voice. Oh, how she missed the way he talked. And marveled…she could see the X-brace now, the fire retardant-covered titanium practically gleaming in her green-tinged vision. The whole space was there–shiny, insulation-coated coolant lines, the smaller pipes crisscrossing the space, the floor, and walls. Everything.
“Now use the tools at your disposal and get moving before those pipes heat up again and cook you for good.”
Lex didn’t need to be told twice. She hiked up on her elbows and attacked the brace, moving her eyes and blinking, the penetrating nature of her vision growing stronger as she focused.
She traced the braces and found the vertical piece that blocked her passage before. It was stout but not as strong as the brace itself and seemed to house some sort of sensor. A heavily insulated cable extended out of the sensor module’s top and traced the structure up and to the ceiling, disappearing from view.
“It’s not structural at all,” she whispered and dropped her eyes to the ground. A knob shone in her vision, and she immediately attacked it, her fingers brushing against a retainer on the back side.
“Are you freaking kidding me?” Lex pulled the retainer free, slid the pin out, and the sensor bracket lifted out of the way. She never would have seen it in the dark, never would have figured it out, and it would have cost her everything.
“See, you just needed to see the problem,” Ayo said, only now he was behind her. “Get moving. Your team is counting on you.”
-2:48 Until Entry
“Where are you two?” Lana screamed, her voice echoing from an overhead panel.
“We’re right here,” Soraya said as they approached.
“Did you feel that? He cycled the reactor, which means those coolant lines would have gotten hella-hot. I hope Lex is okay. But bigger problems for us. Here, Anna, hold this…” She stood on the galley bench, her head and shoulders inside the empty service panel above. Her hand dropped suddenly, clutching a sizable mass of looped cables. “Grab these!”
Anna grabbed the bundle, the connectors rattling and raining down all around her.
“Okay. So…goes to the terminal, which means we just have to reconnect them. That should give us data all the way back to where we spliced into the lines in the maintenance passage. Now, we’ll need to…hey, Anna, go to the battery corridor and close all the relays there and reopen the main. We’ll need to draw on the reactor and don’t want the batteries to charge.”
“Got it.”
“No, not you,” Lana snapped as Soraya moved to follow, “I need you here. Hold those. No, not those. The other ‘those’. Yeah, that’s them. Okay. Now start plugging the male end of each into the female part of the harness. I color coded each one. And thank God for my OCD, right?”
“What a
re they?”
“They’re the…the…data and coms wiring for all the flight thingies the NavCom uses when it’s plugged in.”
“Is that the technical term?”
“Just shush up and snap stuff together.”
“How am I supposed to see what harnesses go together, if you’re hogging the light?”
“Are you serious? Here…”
Anna slid through the half-open door and into the battery corridor, silently thanking her luck that Soraya got to stay with Lana. That sounded like the real treat.
She moved to the wall, shining her light on the battery relays. All three were gone. “They’re gone because Erik took them with the NavCom. Shit! I knew that.”
She moved to the main and tried to flip it open, but without the relays present, the magnetic switch sprang closed again. Every time. Turning, Anna ran back through the half-open door and into the galley.
“You done? We’re done,” Lana said, shining the flashlight right in her face.
“I can’t open the main, he’s got the relays, remember.”
“What? Seriously? Yes. That’s right. Um, okay…think, Lana. There’s power to that, but we’ve got splices to undo down there, and no idea about how those look…”
Anna looked to Soraya as her former SysOps supervisor took a step towards the bridge, came to a halting stop, turned, and ran past them and skidded to a stop right outside the aft maintenance door. Her weak light flickered against the wall and then clicked off.
Jacoby moved up to Lana from the darkness. His larger silhouette just that, a dark outline. It didn’t surprise her that he’d stayed out of the way, either. Anna knew his aversion to computers, wiring in particular. He probably thought he would just get in the way–another set of clumsy hands that needed to be guided by someone who knew what they were doing. He was right. It would just slow everyone down.
Anna glanced at Soraya, the worry lines around her eyes and mouth confirmation that–even if she wasn’t worried about the same thing–she’d at least come to the same conclusion. Things were not going well.
