T-Plus 3

“Oliver?” “Hensley?”

Both voices called out to him, shock evident on their faces. Both of them stood, rushing toward him. Oliver noticed both of them were limping. He crossed over a crooked bench, arriving in their arms’ reach faster, pushing the two of them back down into their original seats. They stood anyways. Emerson was patting his shoulders, making sure he wasn’t hurt anywhere else since they’d last seen each other. Daniel was just staring, mouth agape, opening and closing it like a dying fish. Oliver patted their shoulders, fist-bumped Daniel, let Emerson check his status to her content, and dropped his backpack full of supplies with a thud before taking a seat beside Daniel. His feet could finally take their necessary break.

Emerson’s eyes had dark bags under them, something he was used to seeing when she pulled all-nighters in the clinic, but they were deeper and darker now. Her lab coat, of course, was long gone. Her sweater had small holes in the sleeves where some of the yarn had come undone. There were scuff marks on her slacks, and the boots he had let her borrow were gone and replaced by some of her own. A lot had happened.

“Where have you been?” Emerson asked first.

Oliver spread his hands, and mirrored her own question back at her. “What happened? How did you get here?”

Emerson massaged her knees, pursing her lips as she gathered her words. Eventually, she just sighed, ruffling her own blonde hair.

“Joey and I got cut off from you on the stairs, and we ran to the Elevator’s dock...”

***

The door cracked open one inch at a time. Esther could see flesh colored tendrils creep in through the crack, wedging themselves forward and forcing the barricade wider apart. Soon, she could even see one of the aliens wedge itself in. On top of its head another of its fellows was doing the same. Joey snapped out of it first, grasping her shoulder and dragging her backwards away from the doors and barricade.

“This is a dead end,” Esther said as the intern pulled her into the control room. He shut the door behind them, rushing to the control panel. “What are you thinking?”

“Isn’t there a super secret button that can lock that door?”

Esther rolled her eyes, swatting his hands away from the panel. This boy had seen too many action movies.

“There’s no power. Only the Elevator and this room’s lights work, and that’s because it runs on a different power system than the Station itself.”

Regardless, she glanced over the control panel herself. Other than the usual open and close gate buttons, the alarm button, and the light buttons, there wasn’t anything that would get them out of this predicament. She turned to survey the room they were in. Nothing had changed since she’d been in here last with Hensley and Vaughn. If anything, it was emptier. The boxes and chairs that used to line the panel and walls were gone, intermeshed in the barricade outside.

Now that the room was empty, she could actually see the base of the wall. In the corner, a huge vent cover was uncovered. Esther walked along the curve of the control panel, squatting down in front of it. This looked like the vents Hensley and his associates would go through when their usual maintenance routes were blocked. The screws on this one looked tight. She grabbed the bars and shook it. The cover rattled. Okay, so maybe there weren’t as tight as they looked.

“Doctor? What did you find?” Joey asked, coming over.

"Do you know where this leads?" she asked instead.

Joey squinted at the grate as he rubbed the back of his head. He squatted down beside her, giving the grate a shake. The intern pointed the flashlight into the crawl space, squinting into the din.

"I'm not sure. I haven't memorized all the vent spaces yet," he said. "But... they’re all supposed to lead to one place, I think.”

“And where would that be?”

“The main elevator shaft,” the intern said, pointing back out the way they came. “It’s the endpoint of all the vents.”

The elevator shaft? Emerson thought quickly. It was in the same shaft she and Hensley had climbed the maintenance ladder down to the first floor. The very one she had lost her shoe in. She pointed her own penlight into the narrow space. This was supposed to lead into that? There was at least a layer of dust in the inner area. No one had been in this section for a while.

She glanced out of the control room. The barricade hadn’t quite collapsed, but there were already a few aliens that had squeezed themselves through the crack. Their wall of security had been breached. Dust didn’t matter much anymore.

“Kick it down,” she ordered, gesturing at Joey.

He only nodded, slamming both of his feet against it. After several loud booms, the grate, with a dented center, fell in. Joey picked it up, sliding it out before crawling into the hole with his flashlight pointed forward. His shoulders slid into the vent with some room left over, but not much. He crawled forward until his entire body fit into the vent, feet and all.

“Do you know the general direction at least?” Esther asked, flicking glances over her shoulder at the door.

“Umm, that way?” Joey said, pointing his light in the general direction of the elevator. It was a dim ray in the darkness of the vent, but she could still see it around his shoulder.

“Don’t lead us into a room full of them,” Esther decided, giving up.

The intern nodded, sending up a dust cloud. Esther had gotten to her hands and knees as well, wincing as her legs touched the ground. Parts of her legs were pinching together. She looked up to breathe in a breath of dust. Esther coughed, spitting the dust out off her tongue.

“Oops. My bad, Doctor.”

Throwing him a glare he couldn’t see but feel, Esther nudged his boot for him to move forward. With the intern in the lead, they crawled into the depths of the Station’s vent systems.

***

Emerson continued to retell how she and Joey had traversed through the old vents, getting quite lost and crawling out into several storage rooms before finding their way out to the elevator shaft. From there they had used the maintenance ladder up to here, using each floor’s landing and the still hanging elevator as rest points. According to her, the elevator shaft was still clear of aliens. Good to hear they hadn’t found their way into the vents yet.

The technician turned his gaze from his best friend to the doctor, taking in the scene. Daniel had seen better days. His usually trimmed and geled black hair was scruffy and snagged, and looked closer to grey now with the layers of dust in it. His uniform, like Oliver’s, had turned into a picture of a muddy river. His orange armband, the same one Oliver had, was gone. There was a hole in his pants. Tightly wound bandages covered his skin, becoming the makeshift layer for the missing fabric.

“They got you too, huh,” Oliver said, motioning at it.

“Yeah,” Daniel laughed, patting his thigh. “I heard you got done in by them too.”

Oliver pulled up his pant legs, revealing the bandages underneath. Daniel nodded, stretching his injured leg out. He winced as his muscles flexed. Oliver dug into his backpack, pulling out the painkillers he had and handing them over.

“Take one.”

With a nod, his friend took his advice before continuing with his story.

“Viktor and I separated from the others and headed down the hall toward the Space Elevator, only to run into another set of them. Sticky things, I’m telling you. We ended up hiding out in one of the linen storage rooms for awhile. Had to barricade the door with every shelf in there, but hey, at least there was cloth and towels for my leg. We hung out there for a few days until my leg stopped bleeding everywhere. The barricade still held, and we weren’t going to test if those aliens were still outside, so we decided to be more creative on where to go.”

“Wait, isn’t one of the-”

Daniel clapped his hands with a nod. Emerson only rolled her eyes at the two men, grabbed Oliver’s backpack, and started sorting through the drugs he had raided from her clinic.

“Yup, one of the hidden rooms we built as a joke. I don’t know why no one had made that wall any thicker, but lucky for me and Viktor.”

"Was the ladder still in there? Or were the boys smart enough to bring it out?" Oliver asked, his lips stretching into a wacky grin at the memory.

It was one of the few things he and Daniel had snuck into the blueprint of the Station when they were still in the process of building it. Naturally, there would be small rooms that would form between actual rooms that acted as hidden storage rooms, only accessible through some unconventional means. The room a wall away from where Daniel and Soup had hidden in was one of them.

"Ladder was still there. Had to, remember? Both the vents that go through that room are up high. Some snacks one of the others left were still there too, although we’ve already eaten through them by now."

"Did you and Soup go through the vents all the way up here then?"

"Yeah. Almost forgot some of those existed, honestly. Had to wrack the cobwebs out of my head. We made our hideout here. I couldn't remember which vent system led to the labs. Pretty comfy actually. You know how we already kept cots around here for naps. There are hidden snack stashes in every other locker, nearby supplies, and an easily defendable entrance. Viktor eliminated all the aliens that got close, so the corridor and the other rooms are safe too. Dr. Emerson and Joey found Viktor when he had gone scouting."

"Where are Soup and Joey now?"

"They said they were going to check out the situation now that the shaking has stopped," Daniel explained. "Not sure how long ago. They'll be happy to see you."

"Hensley," Emerson said.

The two technicians broke out of their conversation. The doctor had gone through his hoard of medicines, and had lined up all the bottles beside her on the bench.

"Where's Vaughn?"

"Oh yeah, where is Lucas? They said he was with you," Daniel chimed in.

"We got stuck in Lab 5C," Oliver explained with a frustrated huff. "Aliens swarmed us. I thought I was a lost cause, so I sent Toast though the vents. I'm not sure where he is now either."

After a moment of silence, Oliver added, "Do we know where Bacon is?"

The other two shook their heads. Oliver massaged his knees. Two scientists they knew of were still unaccounted for. With the aliens out there making a mess of navigating anywhere, he wasn’t He shook his head. Nothing he could do about it right now.

The technician took a better survey of the room. All the lockers had been shoved aside, close to the door. The cots were brought in and arranged in rows for easy access. On a table against the wall, away from the vicinity of the door, was a pile of supplies. They ranged from food, snacks, water, batteries, lights, and medicine. Tossed below the table were extra blankets and towels. Beside those was an empty backpack. Emerson moved the sorted bottles of pills over to the already established piles.

There were only a handful of food and water bottles left. It wouldn’t last them past the week. They could rely on the water system for now, but he didn’t know how long that would last. Their lack of food was a bigger concern. Oliver counted the batteries. They had enough to change out another five sets before they ran out. As for medical supplies, his addition to the stack put out that worry. As long as none of them got into critical condition, he didn’t see a problem with what they had already.

“Now what?”

“If you’re hungry, eat something,” Daniel said, standing. “I’ll go get another cot. There should be a few more. Take a nap or something. Just chill, man.”

The other technician squeezed through the screen of lockers, taking his light with him. It was just him and Emerson again. Oliver scratched his head, turning toward the doctor, who was still arranging the pill bottles. She was turned away from him, focused on her work. Her penlight was on the desk, pointed at the bottles. She had tied her hair back properly, and was working with a quick pace. Before Oliver could clear his throat, she looked up.

“Are your legs still bleeding?”

He snapped to it, answering.

“Yeah. I got splinters in them earlier. I think I washed them out.”

“Let me see.”

She came over, penlight in hand, as he lifted his legs onto the bench for her to examine. Emerson stood over his legs, undoing the bandages. She ran her eyes over the open wounds. They seeped blood, although not as much as originally. She pulled a tweezer out of her pocket, and picked out the remaining splinters he missed. She brought over a bottle of saline water, poured it over his legs, and bandaged up his legs again. She pulled the knot tight, waving him away.

“Stop walking on them for a few days,” she advised. “They’ll heal, but only if you quit ripping them open every few hours.”

With her help, Oliver walked over to one of the cots and laid down. He wasn’t tired, but the doctor wasn’t having any of it.

“Don’t get up.”

“Emerson-”

Daniel came back with two extra cots in hand. The lockers rang as he smacked the cots into them, inching his way back in. He looked back and forth between them, the cots held at strange angles under his arms so he could fit through the tight entrance.

“Did I interrupt something again?”

“No.” “Interrupt what?”

“Nevermind.”