T-Plus 13

Oliver's group made it back to the Bay with their prize in tow. The Engineering Bay was silent as they approached with none of the boisterous bickering from the past two days, and the only sign of people was the lights that remained on inside the Bay itself. Oliver dropped the tether off in the room they had cleared to store all the equipment they would need to repair the power, pointing toward the hangar entrance in the back.

He followed the others back there, adding his lights to theirs as they surveyed the hangar from the entrance. Oliver hadn’t been here since he had helped Emerson out of the locker that first night after the initial quakes. Everything had shifted since then, and many boxes and crates had cracked open and spilled their contents out on the hangar’s floor. The drones that had neatly lined the room had veered off away from their positions and were now askew and scattered in various places.

As the four journeyed through a path that was already cut out for them through the boxes, they saw three sets of beams flash around the wide hangar, pinpointing the three that had remained behind to organize this mess. The first one they reached was the Chief, recognizable by the frantically waving light.

“Chief!” Oliver hailed.

“Hah? Oh, Hensley, you’re back. How’d it go?”

“We got the tether, and some bad news.”

“It can wait. Since you four are back, help those girls with those boxes.”

The older technician pointed his flashlight at the far wall where a set of doors were located. They were closed at the moment, but Oliver recognized it as the hatch that exclusively for the engineers’ use for their excursions. From where the two other lights were coming from, the stay-at-home group had cut a path a quarter of the way there so far.

Soup and Toast were already picking their way there, catching up to Emerson and Zimmerman with the path they’d already created. Richardson was a step behind them, taking his time. Oliver stayed with the Chief, opening up the crate that sat next to them.

“And what do you think you’re doing?” the Chief asked, opening another crate nearby.

“I’m sure five people is enough to find a way over there,” Oliver said, already prying open another box that was stuck under a smaller container. “I’ll help you find those suits.”

“Suit yourself.”

“Har har,” Oliver said in response.

The two opened crates in silence, widening the path the others had created for ease of access later. Some crates were easy to open, requiring only to lift the lid and glance inside. Other crates required wit and finesse, in which the Chief ordered Oliver to go climb or lift the crates that were on top off, so he could check inside. Soon, both technicians were covered in dust and each open crate was followed by coughing or sneezing.

Oliver stood, stretching his back. The sounds coming from his spine as he straightened sounded like a rice krispie treat being run over by a car, or so Joey described it. It felt refreshing standing straight again after spending the time leaned over flipping lids and lifting heavy boxes.

He sat on one of the crates they had already checked. The Chief rested on one across from him, performing some stretching maneuvers to ease his old joints. The older technician gave a sigh as he surveyed the crates they still had to check. Oliver did the same, sweeping his light over the vast array of overturned crates. On a normal operational work day, they would leave this monotonous job to one of the interns or newer technicians.

“Been a while since I had to go scavenger hunting myself,” Oliver muttered, shrugging the sluggishness out of his shoulders.

"Talk about yourself," the Chief snorted, his posture as straight as a pole as he sat there. "So? What bad news did you bring back this time?"

"New alien evolution."

"Hensley, you need to stop bringing back bad news every time you go anywhere with those brats from 5C," the Chief cut off.

“What can I do?” Oliver sighed with a shrug.

It was a known fact within the Engineering Bay that anyone that went to visit Lab 5C’s occupants always came back with bad news. Whether that news be someone would be stuck in the clinic for an indefinite amount of time, a catastrophic accident involving toxic fumes made by 5C’s scientists that caused the whole floor to be evacuated, or when someone caught 5C racing drones again because they managed to cut the power for a whole month on the third floor. That “someone” being Oliver.

“So, talk, what’s this about a new evolution.”

“You don’t want to wait until the others are back?” Oliver asked, not really wanting to repeat himself multiple times.

“Superior’s privilege.”

Oliver sighed, relaying what they found out about the rock aliens in their brief encounter. The Chief only nodded in response, remaining silent as he processed the new information. He still hadn’t commented even after Oliver finished his report.

With yet another shrug, Oliver left him to his thoughts, pointing his light over to where the other group was still clearing their way over to the hatch. They were already halfway there. With the men’s help, their work pace had increased, and given another hour or so, they’d make it to their goal.

He calculated the time. With no interruptions or surprises, the group of four technicians who went down to the second floor should’ve already arrived at the other base. Hopefully, they could find the extra tethers. Worst that could happen is they would also run into a new alien evolution. Oliver stopped his train of thought. With his luck, they would.

The Chief ended his silent pondering, stepping off his seat and waved at Oliver to come back to reality from his own thoughts. Their break over, the two continued their task and opened more crates in the sea of debris.

“Hensley, I found some,” the Chief finally said some time later.

Oliver straightened from the crate he’d been rummaging through, looking over to where the Chief was waving his light. He closed his crate and climbed over the hill that was between the two of them, sliding down to stand beside where the Chief had about ten of his own crates wide open.

In half of the crates in front of them were their elusive space suits. White in color, slimmed down, and streamlined from the previous century’s designs, these suits’ best function was the ability to be folded and fit in crates to be stashed away easily when they weren’t in use. Even the headpiece was redesigned and looked closer to a motorcycle helmet than the images from their history books. Oliver had always wondered how the people from a century ago could stand walking around with a fish bowl over their heads, but no one was around to ask anymore.

The Chief pulled the closest suit out of its container, holding it up against Oliver. The suit fell past his boots, the end of the legs falling to the floor in a crumpled mess. Oliver pointed his light at the tag on its collar. It was a an extra large. More like extra long, Oliver muttered in his head as he turned his light toward the other suits.

They checked the other boxes. One held a small, two held mediums, and the last was a large. Oliver pulled out the large, one of the mediums, and then stared at the extra large still in the Chief’s hands.

“We have suits for me and Daniel. You think the intern can fit in that long one you’re holding?”

“He’ll just have to make do,” the Chief decided. “Otherwise, he can go find his own.”

Oliver agreed with a nod, glancing at the remaining sea of crates. Yeah, Joey could find his own if he didn’t want to wear the extra large one.

The two of them brought their spoils out of the hangar, draping them over the chairs in the room Oliver had dropped the tether in earlier. Oliver grabbed one of the chairs, falling into it and spinning around. He was glad to escape the stuffy air of the hangar. If he had to breathe in another mouthful of dust every time he opened one of the crates, he’d suffocate altogether. The Chief followed his example and took a seat across from him.

“Five minutes,” he declared, crossing his arms in a way only a superior to a subordinate could. “Then you go back in there.”

“Only five?” Oliver complained, leaning his head back on the back of the chair.

“Better five minutes than five hours of me kicking your ass in there,” the Chief retorted.

Oliver didn’t have an answer to that one. At exactly the five minutes marker, from what Oliver could tell, he headed back into the hangar. He followed the path already created, wondering whose brilliant idea it was to make the path in a zig-zagging pattern instead of just heading straight toward the hatch.

“Wait, Chief and I did,” he muttered to himself when he realized most of the zig-zagging was from the two of them branching out to check for suits.

Once he got past the area the two had been searching in, the rest of the way was straight toward the other group. On the final stretch of the journey, he hopped over one final crate and reunited with the other five who were still lifting and stacking boxes on top of each other to create a pathway.

“Finally cared to join us?” Emerson accused the moment he arrived.

“I found the suits,” Oliver said in his defense. “Or rather, I helped the Chief find the suits.”

“Uh huh.”

Emerson and Zimmerman were resting on crates a bit away from where the other three were moving boxes out of the way. Soup and Richardson would lift boxes from the path, and they would leave it to Toast to organize their efforts in a neat way. Although, Oliver didn’t think Toast could be associated with the word “neat,” and his expectations weren’t ruined.

Soup passed a crate over to Toast, who would toss it in a direction where there weren’t too many crates already before accepting another box from Richardson. Rinse and repeat. Oliver already had a headache watching the process. He approached them, snatching the box Toast was about to throw before it actually took air.

“Hey, some of these are actually delicate, you know.”

“After three quakes, they’re most likely already broken,” Toast said, accepting the next box from Soup.

Oliver sighed, setting his crate down gently, wincing when he heard the distant thud of Toast’s box. He should’ve brought earplugs with him. Or a mask. Or both.

The technician joined the train, passing the boxes down to the two women when they rejoined them. Soup and Richardson moved boxes, passed them down to Toast or Oliver, who passed them to Emerson and Zimmerman so they could pad the sides of the path. Five breaks later, more than enough coughing, and buckets of sweat later, they finally reached their goal: the hatch.

From far away, the hatch looked miniscule compared to the scale of the rest of the hangar. However, with the giant doors before them, that impression was completely reversed. It would take three people stacked on top of each other’s shoulders before they’d be able to touch the top of the hatch. The width was equivalent to five people spreading both of their arms out, their fingers touching each other. Oliver knew that for a fact. It was during the early days, when there wasn’t much to do yet, that he and some of the other tech boys had gotten together to measure with their bodies out of sheer boredom.

“This is a lot bigger than I was expecting,” Zimmerman said, tracing the hatch’s outline with her light.

“It needs to be,” Oliver explained. “We sometimes use this hatch to send the smaller drones out, after all.”

“Smaller drones?”

Oliver pointed at the main doors of the hangar some distance ahead of them with his light. He circled the edges of those doors, which took up the far wall.

“Yeah, that door’s for the normal drones. Although, that door can fit two drones side-by-side.”

“Ugh, talk about this later,” Emerson complained, already heading back. “I want a shower and a nap.”

The others didn’t complain, and their group picked their way back to the Engineering Bay. To their pleasant surprise, the group that’d gone downstairs had returned during their arduous labor. They were sitting with the Chief, their bodies draped over the chairs in sheer exhaustion. Some of them were sporting new injuries, the most obvious being the shard that was jutting out of Daniel’s shoulder.

Emerson was on him immediately, snapping orders at Soup and Toast to bring her the first-aid kit. The quiet room was awoken in seconds as everyone hurried to bring the doctor what she needed. Then there was silent as everyone watched Emerson remove the shard and addressed the wound before wrapping it tightly with thick gauze.

“Every single time,” she muttered as she tightened the gauze around Daniel’s shoulder. “Would it kill any of you to be more careful?”

Daniel laughed through his clenched teeth.

“I think it might actually would,” he joked.

“Alright, sit, the lot of you,” the Chief ordered, waving his hands at those still standing around.

He sighed, rubbing his face, organizing his thoughts as everyone got settled now that Daniel was pronounced in the clear. The Chief eventually shook his head, looking at each of them in the eyes.

“Jiang and his group brought back bad news. Hensley and his group also brought back bad news. Can’t I hear any good news tonight?”

“We cleared the way to the hatch,” Emerson said promptly.

“That was a rhetorical statement, Doctor,” the Chief sighed, shaking his head again. “Okay, enough of that, Hensley’s news first. They found a new alien evolution. We’ll name it the rock alien for now. Dr. Vaughn’s hypothesis is that they ate rocks to become the way they are. They have the outer appearance of rocks, and they spit rocks at high velocity at their targets. They have little mobility, and are easy to knock over.”

He paused, nodding at Daniel.

“Now, Jiang’s news. First, the alien nest on the second floor by the stairwell is still there, however their number has significantly decreased. Second, those we left on the second floor have gone missing. From Jiang’s testimony, there was a lot of blood left along with a mess. Highly likely there was an alien swarm, and some of them died. Third, as you could tell, Jiang’s group also encountered a new alien evolution. Unsure of what to call them at the moment, but like their rocky counterparts, they could spit some high velocity projectiles, and they move at the same speed as the slimeball aliens.”

“Could you tell what the aliens were made of?” Oliver asked, turning over to Daniel and his group.

Joey shook his head as did the other two technicians who’d gone with Daniel.

“I’m not sure. We were kinda busy running away.”

“They were white-ish?” Lucky supplied.

“Bone,” Emerson offered, holding up the shard that’d been in Daniel’s shoulder. “This is a bone shard. And if the hypothesis of the aliens’ evolution progressing by what they consume is correct, I’m sure everyone understands what this means?”

The room went silent with her reveal. The Chief only continued rubbing his face and sighing into his palms.

“They’ve eaten enough of us to evolve with bone structures,” he spat.