T-Plus 16

The trio dropped the conversation, although Oliver was still in shock from what Emerson and Toast had said. Granted, that year the infamous duo of mad scientist and his engineering henchman had joined, waves upon waves of rumors had ebbed through the Station, disseminating into nonsensical statements by the time it had looped back up to where it started. From being geniuses that had graduated from the University of Olympus Mons to vagrants that had attracted some high ranking member of the UEA’s attention, the topic of their sudden assignment had been a conversation starter for many weeks. Oliver hadn’t expected that the closest to the truth had been a mix of the two most popular theories.

After the rumors ramped up enough to reach Station’s management, an official statement had been released about the legitimacy of their assignment here at the Station. The two of them had a series of credentials that outstripped some of the senior members that had been there since the beginning, and the rumors had waned out from then on. Even the Chief had been impressed with them when he viewed their records, but thinking back on it, Oliver wasn’t sure if the Chief was impressed with their achievements or if he was amused with their actual backgrounds.

A lot more things made more sense in hindsight, and he now doubted their reasoning of staying behind. Regardless, they were all stuck here for the time being. As he surfaced from his thoughts, Oliver almost slammed into Toast and Emerson, who had continued down the corridor in silence up until then. They were staring ahead, reaching for their pockets.

Oliver followed their gazes, also reaching for the pocket he kept his flashlight in. He hadn’t thought they would need too often since they managed to get the emergency power working again, but Daniel had predicted some unfortunate sections would still be like this.

The entire bend of the corridor was engulfed in darkness, although the lights along its edge allowed for some dim illumination. The trio flicked on their flashlights, peering around the bend of the wall to peek further in. Other than the usual sight of rubble piles, there wasn’t much else they could see.

The technician glanced at the walls beside them, reading the nearest location marker. They had just entered the area of Residential Sector 5A. To their immediate left was a hallway they could take them into the depths of the residential area, but their goal would be on the other side of this wall of darkness.

“Any luck?” Emerson asked from behind the two men.

Her flashlight was the weakest, so although she had armed herself with it, she hadn’t bothered expending the effort to turn it on.

Toast shook his head, flicking his flashlight off for the moment.

“I don’t see anything. You?” he said, turning to Oliver, who still had his light out.

“Nothing. But we already learned that rocks can lie the hard way,” he said, adjusting his backpack so it rested in front of him instead of on his back. “I’ll go see first.”

He creeped forward, inching toward the first pile of rubble his flashlight reached. It was just out of range from the nearest working floor lights, so he could only see what the narrow vision of his flashlight allowed. With the light to his back, he felt a lot more courageous than the last time he had to do this, but he still kept his eyes focused for any movement.

The most suspicious rocks were the few on top that bulged out from the rest of the pile. The closer he crept, the slower he stepped, and he prepared to sprint back to where the other two were waiting at a moment’s notice. Nothing. He neared enough to touch the edge of the pile, and he swept his flashlight up and down, catching no sign of movements but his own. After inching even closer, he stepped onto the pile, leveraging himself a bit. Still nothing. He stepped onto the pile. He grew more confident that this particular pile was safe. Probably.

His suspicions laid to rest for the moment, he stepped down, heading toward the next rubble that he could see from where he was. He saw a light flicker on where he had been standing, and he turned to see Toast had pointed his beam there. The scientist gave him a thumbs up, which he returned. He entrusted his back to Toast and continued onwards.

Using the same procedure as the first one, Oliver took one step at a time toward the next pile. Comparing the distance to the first one from where the light ended, the second pile was a bit further away, and the extra few seconds was enough for cold sweat to form on the back of his neck. He strained his eyes as he continued staring ahead.

He paused right before the foot of the second pile, sweeping his eyes across the grey rocks. Like before, there were no subtle, suspicious movements within the scope of their light. He crept one step closer, releasing the breath that he had pent up. He took another step forward, balancing his foot on the nearest outcropping. Once he shifted his weight onto it, he leaned forward to continue climbing upward to scout the other side. As he settled his other foot onto the edge of the rubble pile, he swept his lights around him once more.

Toast’s light had joined him where he was, although it could only reach the far corner of where he stood. Nothing moved within that light beam. Oliver moved closer to that light beam which he deemed a temporary safe zone as he pointed his light further into the dark section. He could see the light on the other side where they were working further past this area.

Oliver turned and waved at the others still waiting in the light, keeping his flashlight pointing straight ahead.

“This area is safe... probably.”

The other two approached at a much faster pace than he had done, catching up with his progress while dodging the larger sized rocks littering the corridor. As he waited for the sounds of their footsteps to come closer, he was already making progress toward the next section.

Toast took over his original lookout post, pointing his beam forward to some of the other shadowy piles and sweeping the light across the darkened area. As Oliver continued forward, keeping his own light trained on his target, he noticed the scientist’s light had paused at one point. He glanced back at the duo, seeing that Toast had climbed down from his perch.

“Is there something wrong?” he asked as he moved back toward them.

“There’s this grey mass on the floor just up ahead,” Toast described.

Emerson rolled her eyes beside him, voicing what Oliver had in his head. “The floor is grey and so is the rubble. Don’t tell me you caused a panic just to describe a rubble covered floor.”

The scientist crossed his arms with a huff, pouting at the doctor.

“No! It looked like bulbous shapes on the floor. You know, the alien kind.”

“I wish you would’ve just said there were rock aliens up ahead and be done with it,” Oliver said with a sigh, reaching his free hand into the other pocket where he kept the blowtorch.

Although it didn't do much against the evolved aliens’ rocky forms, it was better than nothing. Toast had also moved his backpack to his front, ready to sacrifice the devices they had just retrieved. Emerson had secured her bag more tightly, nodding to Oliver once she was ready.

The technician turned back to continue moving forward, climbing the already considered safe piles to get a glimpse of what Toast was talking about. With some poking and prodding and a bit more sweeping, he finally confirmed that Toast’s rampant imagination hadn’t cooked something up in the heat of the moment.

Right in the center of his and Toast’s combined light beams were what the scientist had described pretty accurately as “bulbuous grey shapes on the floor.” With only a cursory glance over them, they blended in with the piles of rubble that surrounded them, but if a longer look of scrutiny was directed at them, it became obvious that their ovular shapes didn’t match the rough and broken edges of all the pieces around them. If Oliver gave an opinion, they resembled spider eggs sacs, which made a very unpleasant feeling creep up his spine. He shook his head, tearing his gaze away from the light and turning to the others.

“Should we make a run for it?”

“Is there a better way by climbing around that area?” Emerson asked, urging them to point their lights around that particular spot.

Concentrating on only that section, he and Toast moved their lights in circular patterns, trying to see if there was anything else in that area that needed to be avoided. Other than the original that Toast spotted, Oliver counted about two more, smaller in size, nestled in tight corners where he had to squint a few times to make sure it wasn’t a trick of the light. With his and Toast’s discoveries combined, they found four of them, including the original egg sac structure.

With the main one as the epicenter, the other three were spread out at differing levels of the two rubble piles that sandwiched it. The most obvious one sat atop the furthest rubble pile. The second one was half hidden behind rubble, but Toast managed to pinpoint it by climbing down the other side of the rubble pile they were standing on. The last one was hidden in the shadow of the main one, partially attached to it. If they followed the wall they were already beside, the only one they would run into was the most obvious one that was two piles away, not counting any that were hidden in their blindspots.

“Although they seem to be interesting research topics,” Emerson said, wrinkling her nose in distaste, “we should probably get rid of the ones we come across. Just from their basic structure and placement, they’re probably related to our uninvited neighbors.”

“But what if they explode and spawn a bunch of alien babies like spider sacs do?” Toast asked, his eyes obviously sparkling with excitement at the thought of that actually happening.

Emerson frowned in obvious disgust this time, and Oliver was inclined to side with her on this one. A fountain spewing out mini-aliens was not a pleasant image. He blanched and shook his head, clapping Toast’s shoulder to dispel that image from his mind.

“Then we’ll just squash them like we do spiders.”

“Could we just not compare them with spiders?” Emerson asked as she gestured the two of them to lead the way.

She, like the two of them, was already ready to make a run for it. Her hands had become white from clenching onto the straps of her bag, her brows furrowed as she urged them onwards. With a nod, Oliver did as she bid and led the way around the center masses toward the other section of lit corridor.

Approaching it as cautiously as before while Toast kept his light pointed on the main suspicious egg-like sac, Oliver began the climb toward the next pile. He shuffled upwards, keeping his ears out for any viscous slithering or scraping that wasn’t from him or the others. Nothing yet. He made it to the top, one rubble pile closer to the light and the egg sac. The technician kept his light trained forward as he helped the other two reach where he was.

They were now in line with the egg-like mass that they had caught sight of on the other pile. Of course, there weren’t only two there. There were three in that center mass. The third was hidden in the shadow of another pile, only visible from their current vantage point. There were five of those suspicious structures in this section of the corridor alone.

“If they are alien things, where are the other aliens?” Toast asked, moving his flashlight around to see if they could find anything else. “Even they wouldn’t leave their egg things unattended, right?”

“Probably?” Emerson surmised, tilting her head. “We don’t know much about their kind, but most creatures wouldn’t abandon their next generation. Granted, these things are cannibals, so I wouldn’t put leaving their young to their own devices as a way to evolve past them.”

Oliver turned to Emerson at her words, his eyes wide.

“Wait. Evolve...? What if...?”

Emerson and Toast also paused in their conversation, their brains whirling with thoughts and calculations.

“It is probable,” Emerson eventually said, “that if these aren’t their young, then these can be their evolutionary states, like the chrysalis and cocoon forms of worms and caterpillars.”

“From their locations, I can probably say they’re going to become rock aliens,” Toast said with his hands on his hips. “I say we tip them over!”

Oliver glanced at Emerson, who shrugged. Her only words of advice were,

“The more we know about them, the better off we’ll be later.”

The technician could already see where this was going. Bracing himself, he started the climb up to the lone bulbous structure atop the next pile of rubble. Still keeping their eyes and ears pricked for activity, eventually the trio surrounded the egg sack from a distance.

“What do we do now?” Emerson asked, disgust evident on her face now that they were close enough to it to distinguish the faint veins that ran beneath its surface.

The skin layer was gray like the rubble and walls that surrounded them. Pink veins run just below the surface, branching out and encompassing the entirety of the ovular surface. It was held up by a small pedestal of rocks that basically just encircled the bottom and kept it from tipping over.

“If we’re going to tip it, we should tip it that way,” Oliver suggested, pointing at the lit corridor that was now ahead of them.

The other two nodded, and Oliver approached the egg first. No movements. He took a step closer, noticing that despite the veiny patterns, the surface of the egg seemed smooth. Now he was close enough to basically lean down and breathe on it. Still no suspicious movements. Bracing his feet against the floor, he shoved the egg from its position, expecting it to tilt and roll down the other side of the hill they were on. It did not.

Instead, grey tendrils extended out from the bottom, extending out to reach for the egg that was tilting sideways. Several more sprouted from beneath their feet, reaching for their legs as they danced out of the way. Oliver gave up on the egg-evolution thing and hurled himself off the hill toward the light with the others following not far behind.

They hit the ground with loud thuds, rolling to a stop. Once they stabilized, Oliver pointed his light behind them to see various rock aliens squeeze out from their hiding places within the rubble. As he swept his light over them in panic, he could already see some of them take aim to spit at them.

“Run!” he shouted as he hoisted the other two up, shoving them forward.