As the next four minutes ticked by, the station slowly stopped spinning and all the astronauts felt the centrifugal force start to slowly decrease until at last, they began to float. Each time this happened, the station used numerous gyros to counter-act the orbital effects of the change in spin velocity. Reece remembered reading about the automated system, marveling at the mathematical equations it took to enable the station to keep its stable orbit.

During this time, Angel opened the compartment near the airlock and removed two EVA suits for them to wear. Angel went over the pre-walk safety checklist while the two of them donned the suits and positioned themselves at the inner bulkhead. Both the inner and outer bulkheads were just over a meter in diameter with a small rectangular window filled with a ten-centimeter-thick glass polymer.

They were each operated by a Control panel on the outer wall and on the outside of the station near the outer bulkhead. In case of electrical failure or short circuit, they each had a manual hand crank and a local lockout capability to disable the control panels. Each checked the other’s suit for rips, tears, or cracks and that they were properly wearing them. Once finished, Angel opened the bulkhead and they both entered the airlock by pulling themselves through the opening.

With their bulky EVA suits on, there wasn’t much room to spare across the bulkhead’s passage, but they both managed to squeeze through just fine. Once the bulkhead was closed and secured, they each attached their harnesses to clip-points within the airlock with a specialized safety rope. The airlock was only about two meters high and roughly circular, about three meters in diameter. Each checked the other’s harness and safety rope, making sure they both were secure.

While trying to somewhat suppress the feelings of excitement and anxiety surging through his body, Reece gave Angel the thumbs up. The veteran astronaut nodded and expertly opened the outer bulkhead to the empty blackness beyond. Angel exited the station first, pulling himself out of the airlock and attaching a second rope to an external clip-point. While Angel was waiting, Reece mimicked his movements and clipped in next to him. Angel indicated a button on his forearm panel, pushed it, and pointed at the same panel on Reece’s forearm. Reece also pressed the button and could hear Angel’s voice inside his EVA suit.

“Welcome to space,” said Angel as Reece took in the inky blackness speckled with countless pinpricks of light while an immense glow from below demanded his attention. Looking down, he saw the planet where he had lived his entire life from a vantage point that few would ever experience. At that moment, he felt truly fortunate for this amazing opportunity. Struck with awe, he floated there and watched while the moon slowly peaked out from behind Earth as the space station revolved around the planet. The sight made the whole experience even more amazing.

A blaring in his ear told him that his life support monitor had begun alarming. He looked at the readout on his arm and was informed that his oxygen levels had dipped. He chuckled to himself as he realized that he had simply forgotten to breathe due to the magnitude of the experience. Sucking in a deep breath, he continued to bask in the whole new world that had just been revealed to him. He felt the profound change in himself that he was sure the dream he had just experienced had only hinted.

He knew he had a job to do, but this was going to be the only first time he would walk in space and he was going to get the most of it. He looked to his left and saw the sun in all its glory, while his helmet’s visor instantly darkened to shield his eyes from its harmful ultraviolet rays. On Earth, it looked more like a light, where here it had more of the appearance of a ball of fire. The whole experience was incredibly surreal and just overwhelming. He didn’t know when, but as he felt the tickle of tears winding their way down his cheeks, he knew he had begun to silently weep at the experience. After giving him a long moment, Angel resumed speaking which finally snapped Reece out of his awestruck reverie.

“Uh, yeah...sorry about not mentioning the communications link between the suits. I know I’m a little old-fashioned, but I only trust people who’ve taken a leap of faith with me and a spacewalk is about the biggest leap of faith that a person can take. This particular comms link isn’t hooked into the main feed, so it isn’t monitored by Control or anyone else for that matter. Now we can speak freely.”

That sent Reece’s mind twirling through several different thoughts which culminated in; “What in the world is going on up here that Angel felt he couldn’t trust his fellow astronauts?” He decided to keep his response simple and unassuming. “Okay, why do you say that?”

“Say what?” asked Angel. He wasn’t going to make this easy.

Reece chose his next words carefully and delivered his question with an air of innocent confusion. “Well…did you have something you wanted to tell me that you didn’t want to be overheard?”

Angel smiled at him and motioned for him to follow. Angel started moving away using the ladder rungs that were positioned all over the outside of the station to use as handholds and tie-off points. About five meters over from the hatch, they came to a panel.

“This is the access panel for the carbon dioxide scrubbers. These are part of the backup system in case the plant life was to die for any reason. The system had malfunctioned last year, but I was able to restore it. It has enough air for about two months with no assistance from the fauna. What no one else knows is that there is a set of spare scrubbers that can be swapped in and will buy us another two months of air if necessary. Of course, this time would be extended with a smaller crew breathing the air.”

“Okay, either Angel is paranoid, or he knows something strange is going on with this crew and station,” thought Reece as he contemplated Angel’s odd explanation.

To Angel, he simply replied, “Alright, show me how it works.”

“Okay,” replied Angel with a smile.

For the next ten minutes, Angel went over the entire scrubber system with Reece. Once he had exhausted his knowledge of that system, he spent an hour on the rest of the life support modules that could only be accessed from the outside. There were very good reasons why each system had outside access, mainly due to the station’s design. It simply wasn’t physically possible to have inside access to each of the multitude of systems required to run all the station’s myriad functions. Luckily, only life-support’s backup systems required external access.

When Angel finally finished instructing Reece on the final life support system, water filtration, he looked over at Reece as if considering something. Just as Reece was going to say something, Angel spoke in a hushed tone and asked with an odd intensity,” Hey, do you wanna see something really freaky?”

Maybe because they were floating many kilometers above the planet or maybe because he was already on edge, a cold shiver ran down Reece’s spine as Angel spoke. It took Reece a moment to respond.

“Like what?” asked Reece tentatively, almost not wanting to know.

“Come on,” said Angel seriously. “You need to see this, but you can’t tell anyone what you saw or even that you saw anything. Deal?”

Reece narrowed his eyes, but the curiosity got the better of him. “Okay,” he replied even more nervously.

“Good,” said Angel, breathing his own sigh of relief. “Now, try not to freak out too much.”

Now that he had Reece good and scared, he motioned for him to follow and began making his way to the underside of the station to avoid the few windowed modules on the station and any prying eyes that may be peeking through at them. They came to a non-descript square panel and Angel indicated that they tie-off near it. Once they were both secured, Angel carefully undid several fasteners and slowly pried the panel open, revealing its secret within.

“Okay, so...this panel here isn’t one you normally need to access. This is one of those that was left over from the initial module assembly. Only if there’s a specific type of malfunction would you ever need to access one of these. This panel here gives access to part of the science module. Notice how it has motors attached to it like it can be opened and closed from inside the module,” explained Angel, as if nothing was out of the ordinary before he backed out of the way for Reece to look inside. “Now look inside and tell me what you see.”

Reece swallowed dryly and took the bait, peeking his head into the cavity that had just been uncovered. Inside, instead of the typical controls, cabling, and structural components that Reece had expected, was the back of a very thick glass polymer box. It looked much like a terrarium to hold pet lizards or snakes. Inside was what looked like a typical lab rat. Except this one was clearly dead, the entire bottom half was missing, as was the right eye and ear of the tiny critter.

What made this extraordinary was the fact that the rat was still ‘alive’, or at least it was still crawling around on its front claws. A few chunks of formerly white hair stuck out from it except for the places that were entirely missing the skin. The entire creature was covered in coagulated blood and viscera. Its remaining eye was a dark, cloudy red.

As it dragged itself around the cage, with its innards trailing behind, Reece noticed that it seemed to be trying to screech. It was especially eerie as there was no way that he could tell if it was making any kind of noise. It seemed to notice Reece’s movements as he leaned in to inspect the creature, and it launched itself at the cage wall. Failing to get through the thick polymer, it began uselessly biting the air and trying to claw its way to him despite the impossibility of the task.

Reece immediately looked over at Angel, “What the fuck!?!”

“I know, right?” laughed Angel nervously. “I don’t know what in Inti’s name is going on here. Ever since I found this thing, I’ve kept my eyes and ears open. I know that both current biologists and Commander Taylor are involved in something sinister. And for all I know, there may be others as well.”

“If that’s true, how do you know that I’m not one of them?” asked Reece in shock and confusion. “And again...what the fuck? Is that a freakin’ zombie rat!?!"

“Well, as far as you’re concerned, I didn’t know for sure,” answered Angel. “But I think I’m a pretty good judge of character, and I don’t think any of us are going to be able to sit on the sidelines for long.”

“What do you mean...and who’s Inti?” asked Reece.

“Inti...Incan god of the sun, dude... Anyways, I recently heard Aldo speaking with someone on the ground and he was talking like something very big was about to happen. He said that everything was almost prepared. Now...Aldo was wearing a headset, so I could only hear his side of the conversation...and not very well. After all, I was listening through one of the maintenance panels for the power distribution system. Luckily, Aldo has a distinctive voice and he sounded excited and was probably speaking louder than he intended."

"But here’s the scary thing," continued Angel. "The last thing he said was that he would begin house-cleaning soon but would need help to finish the job. And the way he said it was chilling, my new friend. I’ll be leaving soon, and Aldo’s coming along. That’s why I think something will happen in the next couple of days. But even if nothing happens, I still think you need to watch your ass up here. I’ve heard enough to know something is off on this station. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. But hey, you don’t have to take my word for it. Just be careful and keep your eyes and ears open. I like you, so I hope it turns out to be something that isn’t too bad and I’m just making a mountain out of a molehill.”

Reece’s heart sank and his blood ran cold at the thought of something sinister happening on the station. He was really hoping his first mission would be a typical one. A normal tour on the station came with a great many risks as it was. With whatever this rat-thing was, and with what Angel was telling him, he had a good number of additional things to worry about now.

“Well, it looks like I’d better learn everything I can about this station. At this point, that is all I can do,” replied Reece as he decided to just roll with it for now. “Please, do your best to train me on everything you can before you leave... officially and otherwise.”

“Okay,” replied Angel with a relieved smile on his face. “Perhaps there’s hope for you yet.”

With an hour and a half left in their spacewalk, Angel closed the panel over the horrific sight of the struggling rat and went back to training Reece on his maintenance responsibilities as well as all the little idiosyncrasies with the station and ways to use them to his advantage if necessary. Reece did his best to change gears and pay attention to his temporary mentor while pushing away the fears and plaguing questions that floated through his consciousness. By the end of the spacewalk, Reece had a pretty good idea of his job. He was especially glad for the months of training he had completed on the ground. That had given him a good understanding of exactly how all the systems on board the station worked. Now, Angel had given him a solid working knowledge of the systems, common issues with them, and a few bugs that he needed to be aware of, not to mention a quick primer on zombie rats.

“Thanks, Angel. You know, you’re very good at training; especially considering the circumstances. You ever think about becoming an instructor?” asked Reece when he had finally collected himself. “By the way, I’ll be keeping everything you’ve told me about this zombie rat plot to myself. Trust me... I’ll be staying vigilant. But what about you, you’re leaving in two days, right? Are you going to report any of this when you reach the ground?”

Angel looked at Reece and slumped his shoulders in defeat.

“Nah, I’m no hero. Besides, if this is as big as I think it is, they’d probably just cover it up if I tried to report it. The public these days doesn’t know who to trust. I could contact a reporter, but even they don’t have the public’s trust anymore since information has been so completely politicized. And I don’t really know enough to make any substantial claims anyways.”

“I hear ya,” replied Reece in sympathy as he considered the unfortunate truth of the man’s words.

“I’ll tell you what though,” replied Angel, “I am looking at becoming an instructor after this tour, and I’ll continue to pay attention to what goes on around me. Maybe...if there is an opening, I’ll be able to say or do something. If not, that’s okay too. I’ll still be able to train the next batch of engineers and maybe some of those will go on to become astronauts. Hopefully, the next generation will do better than us. Our politics have gotten out of hand. Maybe not so bad as the past...remember all the smog and unregulated pollution?”

“Are you talking about government corruption?”

“Partly, it just seems like our society’s moral compass has gone awry a while ago, you know what I mean? I normally keep my head down and do my job, but it still gets to me sometimes. And, only a few years ago...all this corruption led to a division within our country which allows for all kinds of sinister crap. Just like what I just showed you. I wonder how much of this can go on before it starts affecting all of us. The garbage crisis wasn’t that long ago.

You’d think we would have learned something from that mess. I was fairly young at the time, but I remember heaps of garbage piled up everywhere before the government instituted mandatory recycling. And, even then...nothing was done. It wasn’t until the Turkish flu wiped out a third of the Earth’s population that we collectively decided to do something about it. Everyone is looking one way at the latest scandalous headline while elsewhere, this whole planet is being screwed over and no one seems to notice.”

Reece couldn’t deny what Angel was talking about. In fact, part of the reason he wanted to be an engineer was because of how straightforward it was. It’s not like there were two sides on how a capacitor worked or what the definition of 'current draw' was. Engineering was as close to politics-free as you could get for a profession. As things in the country seemed to get worse, he sometimes felt guilty for not joining the fight, but he always doubted if he could have changed anything.

“Huh, it sounds like you’ve given this a lot of thought,” Reece replied after the moment of introspection.

“Heh, yeah. Sorry for getting up on my soapbox. Let’s get back inside and I’ll go through a couple more systems after lunch.”

“No worries,” replied Reece. “At least you care. That’s more than can be said for some folks. Most people are just trying to get by, but some just don’t seem to give two shits so long as they get theirs. So, good on you.”

“Thanks, man,” replied Angel, somewhat placated. “Let’s get that lunch now.”

“Sure thing. Sounds good to me.”

Angel started working his way back towards the EVA port module while chatting to Reece about the airlocks. It was one of five external portals on the station and the only one not set up for vehicular docking. The others were dual-purpose if necessary, but this was the only one expressly built for EVAs. The others were only to be used in the event of an equipment malfunction with the EVA-only airlock. Reece figured that was why the station rarely had four shuttles docked at any given time. They’d lose airlock redundancy and would have to send a shuttle back to earth in order to perform any external work if the EVA airlock malfunctioned, including having to repair the airlock itself. Things could get interesting if that happened.

Once back inside and with the airlock secured, Angel got on the intercom.

“EVA complete. Go ahead and put us back in 'spin cycle'.”

A voice came over the intercom in response. It sounded like Aika, the networks technician.

“About time. Did you two have fun out there? You’re lucky my diagnostics tests don’t require gravity, or I’d be pissed. On that note, I’d avoid the biologists for a while. They ARE pissed that it took you guys so long.”

“Sorry, my dear. There were a lot of things to go over. You don’t want me leaving you up here with an engineer who’s only half-assed trained, do you?”

“Good point,” she acknowledged just before she flipped the intercom to broadcast. “Everyone, we’re ready to re-engage the gravity system. Call it off by the numbers.”

Once everyone had responded that they were all set, the station’s gravity loop motors began to whine as the station resumed its spin. Within ten minutes, gravity had been fully restored and the two men had removed and stored their EVA suits in the nearby storage locker.

“It takes the station longer to get going than it does to slow down, in case you hadn’t noticed,” Angel informed Reece. “Now, let’s go and get something to eat. We were out there a long time, and I’m starving.”