T-Plus 16

It was a bit chilling to see his own bloodstain splattered on the Station’s cold floor. Injuries weren’t new, especially in his line of work, but seeing the evidence of his own mortality in front of him wasn’t the most pleasant experience. He squatted down beside it, following the trail that led to his room with his eyes.

“I didn’t think I had that much blood in my leg,” Oliver muttered, feeling the phantom pain pulse through both of his legs as he stared at the stain.

“Wonder if the other trio freaked out,” Toast laughed, patting Oliver’s shoulder.

“If anything, they’d be more on their guard seeing this,” Emerson snorted, shaking her head. “Let’s go.”

Following the stains, they headed into the narrower hallway that housed many of the original technicians that’d been invited in the beginning to build the Station. Oliver’s room was further back, tucked near the end of one of the deeper hallways, marked off by the blood trail that led straight to the door. With that in mind, the trio decided to scavenge Daniel’s room first since it was on the way in.

“You guys live in this section?” Toast asked, following Oliver with a bounce in his step. “Talk about ‘lucky’! You’re right next to the elevator! We live all the way in the back...”

“When we first started building the Station, the first ring we built was the resident ring,” Oliver explained as he guided them toward Daniel’s room. “Obviously, we’d build ours first. What’s the point of building them and living in the most inconvenient ones?”

As they continued their discussion on rooming issues, Oliver turned the first corner. Although he and Daniel were among the seniors that came to the Station earliest, there was still a gap between when Oliver arrived and when Daniel came. Daniel was part of the first group that came to coordinate and plan the Station’s infrastructure and nail out the details of the blueprints once they saw the exact situation they’d be in, while Oliver was part of the second group that came to help with the actual building and engineering. So even among their group, there was a bit of seniority involved, which came with its perks. One being that the first group had the rooms that were closer to the main corridor as a means of convenience.

With only one turn to make, Oliver stopped before one of the doors on the right. Toast and Emerson almost ran into him, not expecting that they would’ve already arrived at their destination. On the nameplate beside the door was Daniel’s name. Toast stared at it as Oliver fished out the corresponding key card from his backpack.

“Woah, talk about super nice!” he said as he walked the short distance between Daniel’s room and the main corridor again. “I bet he’s never late!”

“Nah, Daniel’s always late,” Oliver laughed, hearing the door unlock. He pushed the door aside, letting the other two in first.

Like his own room, Daniel’s was only a few cubic feet wide and only had the basic furniture installed. In the back, he also had his own wash closet like most other rooms. Scattered across the floor was a mess of his personal belongings, thrown around from the several quakes the Station endured. From shattered china cups to Daniel’s stash of unhealthy snacks that had shaken loose from their confinement to some of traditional Chinese decorations from his family that he kept on the shelves, everything had been smashed on the ground. Oliver remembered his friend telling him that he only kept the cheaper stuff in the Station for sentimentality’s sake, so nothing too important had broken. They picked their way through the debris, making sure not to step on anything and shattering more of Daniel’s belongings.

“I didn’t think Daniel had so much Earth stuff,” Toast said, picking up one of the pieces of porcelain on the floor.

“Most of them are from his family,” Oliver explained as he scrounged through the electronics that had piled up in the corner.

He set aside the smaller appliances like the alarm clock and focused on Daniel’s work appliances. Oliver picked up the tablet first, inspecting its interior. It looked unblemished, although there was a dent here and there. Whether it was from being thrown across the room or from Daniel’s general carelessness, he couldn’t tell, but it seemed like the tablet would be functional once it got some charge in it. He stuffed it into this backpack, picking up the next item.

Next was Daniel’s work laptop, although the technician had basically commandeered it for his own personal use. He attempted to power it on and noticed it was on its last leg of life, and powered it down again. It at least turned on, and that was better than nothing. He stored it into the backpack as well, intending to hand it back to its owner later.

The last was Daniel’s visors, the ones he used when he didn’t feel like porting his tablet or his laptop around or when the situation called for both of his hands. Using the Wifi connection, he’d connect to the Station’s system and view whatever materials he needed for the project he was working on. Unfortunately, the pair of visors in his hands currently had snapped under the pressure of all the items that had fallen on it and were now utterly useless.

“Did you find any?” Emerson asked, peering over his shoulder to examine the broken visors in his hands.

“Yeah, his tablet and laptop,” Oliver answered, setting the visor pieces aside.

“Is there anything else we need from Jiang’s room?”

Oliver stood, dusting his hands and shaking his head. Shifting some of the other piles gathered on the ground, he checked over what else could be useful. Seeing nothing of interest, he opted to open up the storage unit off to the side and stashed some of Daniel’s clothes into a side pocket of his backpack, a private request his friend had whispered to him before they left.

After another circle around the room, Oliver stood beside the door, ready to leave. The other two had made their own circles around the room, and after finding nothing else, they gathered beside the technician again. With a nod, they returned to the hallway, locking the door behind them again.

With Oliver in the lead, they headed further into the resident area, walking straight toward the last few branching hallways. His dried blood trail guided their path, its smeared and hurried traces glaring from the floor. He took a right turn, passing several rooms before stopping to stand before a very familiar door. A small pool of blood was around the door, evidence from when he’d taken time the first time to open the door. He scoffed to himself, at least there wasn’t anything chasing them this time.

Fetching his own key card from his pocket, he pushed open the door, entering the room they hadn’t been in since they’d been quarantined on the Station. Much like Daniel’s room, his own had been thrown into disarray with all of his models tossed on the ground, destroying hours of work and wasting lots of his pocket money. Some of the other decorations he’d casually placed had been tossed in the pile, disappearing beneath the shifted furniture.

He headed straight for his work laptop that was peeking out from behind the flipped coffee table. Unlike Daniel’s, his had a number of dents from being dropped from its original position. He tried powering it on only to find it was either out of battery like the other electronics or something was wrong. He hoped it was just out of battery and stashed it with the rest.

Oliver turned to see what the others had found. Only Emerson was in the room. The sound of water in the wash closet gave away Toast’s position, and Oliver spied the open box of instant coffee that rested on the clear spot on his bed. He pointed at the cheering sounds in the wash closet.

“Toast?”

Emerson nodded, rolling her eyes as she picked up one of his broken plastic models from the floor. She inspected it closely, turning it this way and that. Oliver glanced at her hands, trying not to grow visibly flustered as he turned away to look for other necessary items. The model she was holding in her hands was the one he had planned on gifting her as a farewell present. It had broken apart, becoming a few of the many pieces among the debris that littered the floor of his room.

“Did you make all of these?” she asked, bringing him out of his trance.

He gave her a quick glance, nodding in response to her question as he shoved aside the coffee table that had been thrown against the wall.

“It would’ve been nice to see them all in one piece,” she said before setting the piece she had in her hands aside.

Hearing movement, he looked up to see Emerson squatting beside him, sorting through the mess on the floor with him. She organized the broken model parts with him, cleaning until they could see a part of the floor. At this point, Toast came out from the wash closet holding a steaming mug of coffee. Oliver and Emerson stared at him, brows raised in disgust.

“Clearly that’s my instant coffee and you don’t even make a mug for me?” Oliver complained.

The scientist only plopped himself on the bed, not bothering to address the two envious stares as he enjoyed the fresh coffee. Oliver smelled the scent and couldn’t stand it anymore, rifling through his cabinets and floors for another intact coffee mug. Finding two nestled in a few fallen towels and one of his pillows, he ducked into the wash closet to see his battery powered water heater resting on the side of the sink, still half full with water. He split what was left between the two mugs, concocting some coffee with his private stash before handing one of the mugs over to Emerson so they could enjoy their own rush of caffeine.

Savoring the watered down, powdery version of coffee that couldn’t be helped, he looked up to see the other two doing the same. He nodded to himself. It was a good time for a break. Two rooms looted, three maybe working appliances, and no trouble so far, it was quite the successful run they had going. Oliver set his mug down, shrugging his shoulders back. He pulled out the other key cards he was given, glancing at the names on them. Pocketing his own and Daniel’s again, he looked at Soup’s, Joey’s, Richardson’s, and the Chief’s.

“Whose room are we going to next?” Toast asked, noticing what he was doing.

“The Chief’s is nearby, so we should check his room first before going toward the back where your rooms are.”

“Where’s the Chief’s room? Is it in this section too?” Emerson asked.

Oliver shook his head, pointing in the direction of the Space Elevator.

“No, it’s in section 6. It’s where all the technician interns live, so Joey’s room is over there too.”

“Why does the Chief live over there?” Toast asked after taking another sip of his coffee-flavored water.

“He said it was to keep an eye on the new ones and to make sure they didn’t cause any trouble,” Oliver explained. “The other chiefs live over there too. I think they just enjoy being beside the young ones because it makes them feel younger.”

They only nodded, continuing to finish their drinks in silence. Once he got to the bottom of his own, he grabbed the remaining box of instant coffee and handed it to Toast, so he could place it into his own backpack. The supply they had in the Bay had dwindled to nothing a few days ago, so this was better than nothing.

“We should check the Elevator’s control panel to see if Triton sent something up,” Emerson suggested as they made to leave. “You said we’ll pass by it, right?”

Oliver nodded, beckoning them to follow him out to the main corridor again. They walked beside the bloodtrail, returning to where it originated. Back down the corridor they went, passing by the stairs upward. A few more steps and the trio reached the Space Elevator.

This room hadn’t escaped the chaos that happened, and a variety of crates and boxes had shifted and slid all over the first room. Equipment had spilled out from their cases, jumbling together with everything, making it a wirey jungle. With light steps, Oliver led the way up the stairs to the security room. According to Emerson, she and Joey had been the last ones in here when they had originally gotten separated on the first floor. The opening to the vent they had taken to escape had slid and disappeared somewhere, and the vent itself had twisted in on itself as most of the others had.

“Do you remember if there was a message last time you were here?” Oliver asked as he approached the counter housing a multitude of buttons.

The doctor shook her head, gesturing to the mess outside.

“We were busy with something else, if you don’t remember. There was no time to see if Triton said anything.”

“Oh, right.”

Oliver pressed a few buttons, keying in his security code. With a few more taps, he accessed the emergency messages. One of the first ones he saw was the notification that the Station was now quarantined, the same message they had seen the last time he’d been here. There were several more messages after that, sent in the past few weeks when they’d been elsewhere on the Station. Toast and Emerson peered over his shoulder, squinting at the screen beside him.

“Did they actually expect that we’d see these?” Toast complained, noting the dates on the message. “We could’ve been dead already!”

The first of the new messages came one or two days after the first day. The second came a week ago. The third arrived just yesterday. He opened the first message, scanning its contents ful of dreary bureaucratic wording. To sum it up, it was a repeat of the original message, giving their reasons behind why the Station was now in quarantine.

“Well, that’s a useless message,” Toast sneered, shaking his head.

The second message that arrived a week ago only extended the expected time they would be in quarantine. There was no news on if Triton was sending help or supplies any time soon.

“One week and still nothing?” Emerson whispered. “Kuznetsov wasn’t kidding when he said the government would be slow to respond.”

The third message from yesterday finally stated a different statement. Triton finally came to a consensus.

“They’re ending the forced quarantine?” Toast read. “What does that mean? So are they saying we can use the Elevator to go back?”

“Does it say nothing else?” Emerson asked, leaning forward as Oliver scrolled the message down.

“Nothing. It only says that they’ll send a follow up message....” He checked the date and time they had stamped at the end of the notice. “...tomorrow.”