Battle On The Marathon

by John Thornton

  “…. here. We have been trying to escape from the station,” a male voice said from Radha’s wristwatch speaker. “We have essential information!”

  I had not thought of the fact that being in a Marine Pressure Suit, the people would need to use some kind of communication to speak to us. Where was my mind? But Radha had anticipated that. She gestured to Bartlet who understood.

  “Step away from the bulkhead door and make no sudden movements,” Bartlet commanded, and did so again by speaking right into her wristwatch. Her words were transmitted to the people.

  “Children with guns?” a woman’s voice came from several of our wristwatches as we adjusted to the frequency Radha had established.

  “You are not the defense force?” the man said. He had his hands raised up over his head in the universal signal of surrender. “We must speak to some adult.”

  “Is anyone else in that station?” Bartlet asked. Her weapon did not waver.

  “No, we are the only survivors,” the woman replied.

  “Everyone stay away from that water! Kulm, get that door closed, but keep away from that poisonous goo. Get this place filtered!” Bartlet commanded. She had one hand over her nose, and the other was firmly aiming the gimp.

  Kulm replied, “I am on it.” He remotely sent a signal and the bulkhead door jiggled, rocked, and then, with a grinding noise slid shut. The pool of gunk was about a half-dozen centimeters deep and about ten meters long in the corridor. It was draining away, to somewhere. As it flowed out, it left slimy, shimmery, stains on whatever it had touched. “Pumps in here will drain this gunk away too. Air refreshers at maximum.”

  “Where are your supervisors?” the man barked. His attempted intimidation sounded weak and tiny coming through the speakers on my wristwatch. I know he intended it to sound tough and assertive, but it did not.

  “We are assessing this situation. I do not know who you are, but make no aggressive moves,” Bartlet replied. “Step out of that reeking water, and shed the suits. No games or tricks. Then we will talk more.”

  “What?” The man argued. “Now listen to me little girl…”

  “Shut up, and do as you are told!” Bartlet commanded. “I will apologize later, if I need to, but for now, until I know who is who, you will obey us.”

  Bartlet and the others kept their gimps aimed. I guess I did too.

  The man and woman followed her instructions, but the man grumbled a bunch about what was happening. As they stripped out of the MPSs, I got a better look at them. They were both in later middle age, about sixty or so. Neither was very fit looking, but were wrinkly, overweight, and flabby. He was mostly bald, with a ring of grayish scraggily hair around the edge of his head. Her gray hair was short and in a rough bob cut. They were careful as they shed the suits, and made sure not to touch the outsides which had been in contact with the foul waters. The suits remained upright, with their centers gaping open, like a clam set on its side.

  “Now, will you let us speak to your supervisors or chaperones?” the man demanded. He had stepped completely out of the suit, standing in a dry part of the floor, and was holding a conservation slate. He had only a loose shirt, shorts, and shoes on.

  “We will move out of this area to a more secure, and less stinky location,” Bartlet stated. “We have no idea what caused the flooding here, and you will be debriefed.”

  “Oh, he needs to keep his briefs on,” Brett said. “Please have him keep his briefs on.”

  The others laughed, but I was not sure it was so funny.

  “Why do you children have guns?” the man demanded.

  “Earle, stop being obnoxious!” the woman said. She too was holding a conservation slate, and was only wearing a floppy shirt, shorts, and shoes. I saw they were very careful not to step in the muck which had spilled into the corridor.

  “There is a storage room over here,” Matkaja called out. “Some crates which we can use as chairs. It is behind a pressure door, and has a back exit. I am not sure I trust those bulkheads to keep back that filth. If it came from the sea, the water pressure will be immense.”

  “Very good!” Bartlet stated. With her gimp still aimed at the older couple, she motioned. “Go to that room and we will figure out what is happening here.”

  “How dare children order me around? I have never been treated in such a manner,” Earle stated, but he did move in the dictated direction. “Sylvia, these toy soldier should not even be here.”

  I was unsure what to do, but I followed Bartlet’s lead. That was when I realized I had responded very differently in this real-life situation than I had in all the simulations. In the simulations, I had not hesitated so much, if at all. Yet, here I was second guessing everything that was happening. The simulations had seemed so life-like and realistic, but during those I realized that simulations were just decorative games, while reality was far more complex and nuanced.

  “We really must speak to some adults!” the woman was emphatic. “Connect us through.”

  “Making connections is part of our plan, but first I will find out what is happening. As soon as we get some space between us and that gunk, we will talk more. Now move!” Bartlet snapped.

  The two went into the storage room, and the rest of us followed.

  “Keep an eye on the corridor. If that bulkhead door opens, or someone else comes, let us know,” Bartlet commanded me. “Be ready to shut this door if that foul mess starts getting in here.”

  “Understood.” I positioned myself at the doorway. I could still hear all that was happening, but could also see down the corridor. The pool of water was nearly gone now, but the slimy, shimmering residue remained on the floor, and on the discarded Marine Pressure Suits. I was thinking about how those MPSs could be cleaned up and reused when the two older people began again demanding to be connected to someone else.

  “We must talk to an adult!” the man screamed. “Why are you so obstinate and insolent?”

  “Insults will not get you my cooperation,” Bartlet calmly replied. “Although how you can be so aggressive toward us, when we are armed and you are not, is rather amusing. So, first, tell us your names and what is happening here. I am Bartlet, and I am leading this squad of the militia.”

  “Things are beyond your grasp, little girl. I demand that we talk to someone appropriate! Your game playing here must…”

  The woman interrupted him, “I am Sylvia, and this is Earle. We are oceanographers. We live and work in Foreigner. Station 16 was cut off, and so I thank you. When we saw that the toxins were receding in that corridor, we thought we could make it across to where it had not yet flooded.”

  “You said something about being the only survivors. What happened?” Bartlet asked. “What is with that toxic sludge surrounded that station?”

  “It came about two, maybe three weeks ago, and we lost all communications,” Sylvia stated. “The rest of our team died when the first corrido flooded. Only the two of us were left alive.”

  “And the dogs,” Earle added with a shrug.

  “Dogs?” I called out.

  “We use dogs as test subjects on some of our experiments,” Earle responded. “Important scientific work, beyond the scope of your children.”

  “I am getting those dogs!” I yelled and slipped off my backpack. I rushed down the corridor.

  “Kalju, wait!” Bartlet called after me.

  I ran down to where the MPSs were slumped in the corridor. The smell was bad, but I stepped into the man’s suit. As I expected, it self-adjusted to my size. As I sealed it up, I activated its power system. It had only nineteen percent charge on it lufi amalgam batteries.

  A voice came over the speakers in the suit. It was Kulm. “Kalju, I will open the door for you, but be quick. I doubt that corridor will stay empty for long. How will you bring those dogs back?”

  “Huh?”

  “Use the other suit,” Radha advised. “Put it in slave mode, and it will follow you.”

  Bartlet’s voice cut in. “Kalju, go
check it out, but be careful. I will finish with these two illustrious scientists. Record everything you can.”

  I accessed some of the controls from inside the MPS. I linked it up to the other MPS, and as Radha had reminded me, I put it in slave mode. I could smell the man who had been in that MPS before, and his sweaty, body odor was in its own way as bad as the smells from the polluted fluids. For a moment, I wished I had chosen the woman’s suit. Maybe it would smell better? I flipped the filters to maximum, and a subsequent hum began.

  “The door will open now,” Kulm said. “I will remotely go with you; the others can handle these science clowns.”

  The bulkhead door did slide open, and the passageway beyond was clear. It sloped upward at a steeper angle than I expected. That explained some of the motions of the fluids which had come out before. The lights from the MPS lit up the corridor and I saw it was only about twenty meters long. The side walls were all shimmery and oily looking from the residue of the waters. Mechanical and utility works were melted away at various places, and some of the exposed wiring already looked rusted or corroded.

  “Kulm, are you seeing this? That sludge was eating away at the services and utilities in here. No wonder we could not make connections,” I said.

  “Right,” Kulm replied. “I am only reading you now because we put two more of our macroactinide capacitor enhancers together and I am beaming you a tight signal. Be ready to haul your butt out of there fast.”

  The other MPS trotted behind me, moving in its own mechanical and clumsy manner. As I checked the slave unit, it had twenty seven percent power. Again, I wished I had chosen that suit.

  The next bulkhead door responded to Kulm’s remote command, but it did not open all the way. It only made it about two thirds open, and then jammed shut. I moved inside.

  Oceanography Station 16 was a mess. Those two scientists were not at all neat or tidy people. Trash was covering tables, chairs, and workbenches. Display screens we on and they showed various images from places in Foreigner’s seas. Some were deep and dark, and others were closer to the surface where the sky tube’s light lit up the waters.

  “Ask those people where the dogs are,” I sent out.

  Kulm replied, “There is a testing lab in the backroom, with cages. Our new friend, Earle, here says you are wasting your time. He says the dogs are just animals, but I am with you Kalju. Please bring them back.”

  I could almost hear him say, Marie, when he spoke. Maybe I just made that up out of my active imagination, but I doubt it. I slipped out of my MPS, set it to power-down to save energy. The slave unit was parked next to mine. At least it was still following instructions. I flipped it to power-down as well.

  The station was cold, and had a stale odor of old food and urine. I began opening the few doors that which connected to that main area. The bulkhead doors refused to open, and I assumed the corridors behind them were flooded. One pressure door opened and revealed a tube transport hub. Both the hatches were flashing warning messages in brilliant red color. I assumed those sections of the tube system were flooded with the foul waters. My thoughts briefly wandered to how anyone would ever be able to clean that out. Maybe by making an opening to space and allowing the whole system to be depressurized by vacuum, but that seemed extreme.

  In the back of the station, another pressure door opened to a room with cold, stainless steel fixtures, countertop, and various testing equipment. Even there, stacks of things were piled on the workspaces. I did find the cages which held two dogs. The poor animals looked half-starved, and terrified. I walked over to the cages, and the first dog rolled onto her side, and showed her belly to me. She was mostly black, with a gray muzzle and white colored fur on her feet. I thought of her as Socks. The other dog was barking at me, acting all tough, but as I extended out my hand to the side of the cage, he sniffed my fingers, then licked them, and wagged his tail. He was mostly rust colored, and had a dark brown blaze on his face.

  “Okay, Toughie and Socks. You two are coming with me.”

  I opened Socks’ cage and picked her up. She licked my face. I walked back to that second MPS and opened its front. I had to be careful for the outside was still coated in the junk from the foul water. I could see some deterioration of the exterior mechanisms. Socks would fit inside, and she only hesitated a bit as she leaped in and curled around. She looked back at me with her big eyes, and I felt she trusted me. I sealed up the MPS and as I returned to the other cage, I looked back. Socks was looking at me from the small viewport of the MPS. She must have been standing on her hind legs.

  “Toughie, I am getting you out of here.”

  As I opened the cage door, Toughie jumped down and ran away for a minute. I feared he would just flee. I called out to him, and he hunched his back, and dropped some turds behind him.

  “Holding it in all that time? What a good dog. I doubt you can make this place any more messy anyway. Your poop will not make it smell any worse, that is for sure.”

  When Toughie finished, I called to him, and he ran after me. We went back to the slave MPS, and as I opened it up, again being very careful to avoid touching the exterior, Toughie jumped inside. He took up the other side of the suit, and licked Socks on her face. I took out some food supplies I had kept in a pocket and gave each dog a treat.

  “You are such good dogs. Why anyone would leave you here, I do not understand. Dumb bastards.”

  I resealed the dogs’ MPS, powered it up, and then got back into the one I used. It now had only five percent energy reserve. Its power unit should not have been dropping energy as fast as it did, but I figured the gunk on the exterior was ruining the suit. I was thankful I did not have to wade through anything foul. The slimy junk on the floor of the slopping corridor would be bad enough.

  “Kulm, I have the dogs in the slave unit, and we are heading back,” I reported. There was a lot of static and while Kulm did reply, I was unable to make out his words.

  I headed back. The door to the station would not close, no matter what I entered on the color control pad. I tried calling to Kulm, but the static was so bad, I doubt he heard me. If he did respond, I heard nothing. So, I left that door alone. The slave unit followed me along, but power levels were dropping in both of the MPSs fast. There were pits developing in the slanted floor of the corridor. They were ringed by oily rainbows of residue. It might have been pretty in a different context. All I thought about was that it was corrosive and toxic.

  Reaching the bulkhead door, which was standing open, I saw that Kulm was up some ways in the corridor. He was waving frantically, and pointing at his ear.

  I walked up and out from where the slimy goo had touched the floor. As I was worried about the dog’s paws, I made sure the deck area was as clear as possible. When I got there, I shed the MPS just as the power level was flashing a red “Critical” warning in the popup display.

  “Kalju, we need to go now!” Kulm yelled, as soon as my suit was even partially off. “The others have already headed out. More of that toxic mess is coming in from various corridors. The pressure gradients are too high, and systems are failing. I have all the pumps working to keep this one clear, but I am not sure how long they will keep going.”

  “Get the dogs out!” I yelled back, as I shed the MPS.

  Kulm was already doing that and both Socks and Toughie had leaped out. They were wagging their tails happily as Kulm squatted down and petted them. All were careful to stay well away from the stained parts of the floor.

  “So, what is with this gunky polluted water?” I asked as I grabbed up my backpack.

  “Nasty stuff. Strange story,” Kulm replied. “The clowns are liars.”

  We ran up the corridor, away from the bulkhead door. The dogs were happily trotting along with us. The bulkhead door was sputtering and trying to close, but it looked jammed and canted in its frame.

  “Those two clowns claim to know nothing about where the noxious water originated, but they are liars. Shifty eyes and avoided answering questions. We
found them some basic jumpsuits, and we will extract them with us, but I do not trust them,” Kulm answered. “Lying idiots.”

  “Who would leave a dog to die like that?” I agreed.

  “I know that is true! That was bad, but they also said something had killed every architeuthis and every mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni in Foreigner’s sea. They were going to use the dogs as test subjects to find out what did that,” Kulm stated.

  “Both the giant and colossal squid? Two whole species extinct?” I asked in wonder. “They should have been monitored closely, and with the suspended animation genomes, any whole species should never have been wiped out. Proper care of the biome would enhance species viability, not allow any species to die out. Let alone two similar species. All dead?”

  “That is their claim. I know those clowns are lying. They claim to have recordings from orca conversations. Sure, orcas are smart and talkative. You and I both know that. People have understood orcas and other sea animals for decades. But can you believe they are blaming the orcas? Those nutty scientists said that the orcas are talking about some wild monster. That monster is flooding the corridors and killing all the squids. I think these clowns just got really sloppy and messed up their jobs. I think they botched up and dumped toxins somewhere and are trying to cover it all up. Making up orca conversations to blame some sea monsters! Using poor orcas as some support for a fairytale. Nonsense. Sounds like some of the fiction we read at the academy, only these jokers are trying to pass it off as real. Must be covering their own crimes. I hope they go to prison,” Kulm replied. He also tossed the dogs some of his food. “At least maybe we found out what this was all about. Some incompetent imbeciles failing their jobs and ruining Foreigner’s ecosystem. Bad deal, but maybe that was what this was all about.”