Chapter 34: Hide

It had been three days since Cadonif arrived at the PVC base ship at Earth. After crying for a few hours, he’d realized that he shouldn’t relax and be caught and end up like Geenud. He’d hit rock bottom, and although it seemed like there was no hope, he couldn’t give up yet. His survival instincts told him to move on. He needed to focus on surviving and scouting his surroundings. In order to do that, he needed some nutrition to think. He’d searched for food and eventually came across a kitchen. When no one was present, he entered and stole some food.

He next traveled through the ducts to various rooms on the ship. It seemed the ducts connected most parts of it, so he could go anywhere without being caught, so long as he kept his crawling quiet. He was now noting the different rooms on the ship and their locations for future reference and searching for information on his surroundings and the mission of the ship here.

There seemed to be way too many guards on board for a large, intimidating ship in an unknown location. What was PVC doing orbiting this planet? The guards, workers, and small scouting ships indicated that they were periodically descending to the planet. In addition, the plethora of shipments of chemicals was strange. Were they researching life on the planet? Finding exotic creatures to add to their resorts as zoo animals? Whatever it was, Cadonif had a bad feeling about it. He needed to know more about it, and it wasn’t like he had anything better to do, considering he was trapped here indefinitely.

As Cadonif crawled, he approached yet another vent cover. He peered through it down below to see a dark room with rows and columns of tall, dark structures, equal in dimensions and decorated with small, colorful lights. Cadonif recognized it as the computing room. The navigation system’s computing power, as well as the passengers’, was on this server consisting of giant, interconnected computers. Cadonif knew that it stored all the data present on the ship as well. He’d hit the jackpot for his ‘reconnaissance’ mission.

Cadonif removed the vent: the ones on the ceiling didn’t have screws; they could easily be popped out. He dropped onto a computer unit below, and from there, onto the floor. The lights turned on as the thermal sensors discovered his presence. He wanted to turn them off, but didn’t know how to: Such convenient systems did not exist in the slums he grew up in. Unbeknownst to him, the actual method was to clap twice.

Cadonif looked around and discovered a console at the center of the room. He approached it and turned it on. A screen lit up. It was connected to the server and already logged in for the convenience of workers. He smiled. He finally had access to information.

He searched through the files until he found one that hinted at the mission’s purpose. It was a video. He played it.

Over the next few minutes, he watched in horror as the same video that Tocarris watched months ago, detailing the task of eliminating humans, played in front of his eyes. Even when after it was completed, he continued staring at the screen, expecting it to say it was a joke or at least for the project to have been discontinued. But eliminating humanity, an intelligent species living on this planet called Earth, was undeniably the purpose for which the scientists and other workers were currently working here on the PVC Shitchi-One Base ship. The video had explained it so casually that Cadonif hadn’t been sure whether it was serious or not. But remembering all the relevant work he witnessed confirmed it.

“No way,” Cadonif whispered in bewilderment. Billions of individuals of an intelligent, sentient species will be killed? Sure, they’re evil, but that’s still…

At that moment, he heard the door hiss open. He instinctively rolled over to hide behind a computer tower as two people entered the room.

“Hmmm? The lights are on?” He recognized the voice as that of the scientist boss lady. “Is someone in here? Don’t you know this room is restricted?” she shouted for anyone in the room to hear.

Cadonif didn’t dare make a noise. He crawled away from the console to behind computer towers farther away in hopes he wouldn’t be seen. The woman walked to the console and noticed that it was turned on and had been used recently.

“Hmmm… Loi, search that side of the room. I’ll search this side. Someone must be hiding in here.”

She split up with her worker. She went to the right side of the room while the man went to the left, where Cadonif was hiding, crouched behind a tower. They made their way through each row of computers, searching for someone hiding. Cadonif didn’t know what to do. For now, he moved around the tower sneakily to blind spots in the man’s field of view.

“I know you’re out there. Come out,” the woman called. “I don’t know why you’re here, but no need to worry—your punishment won’t be too harsh.”

Cadonif highly doubted he could persuade them to leave him alone. He made his way around the room in the safest way he could think of, from the weaving-patterned path the man was navigating along. The man, much to Cadonif’s luck, decided that playing hide and seek with someone who broke a minor rule wasn’t much of an obligation and wasn’t very thorough in his search.

Cadonif made his way farther and farther back the room as the man pushed forth. Climbing a tower wasn’t an option: it would be too noisy. At this rate, if Cadonif wanted to remain unnoticed, he’d have to cross the row the man was on without him noticing. He couldn’t delay it any longer. He chose the moment the man would turn a corner onto the next row. Cadonif would move from the aisle the man was about to search next to one he’d already completed.

Now, it was time to execute. Cadonif peered around the corner of a tall computer unit on the wall-facing side of the row of computers. The man, who looked strong and was wearing a suit, turned the corner. Cadonif immediately silently ran to a preselected tower. Then, he ran some more, passing more towers and aisles just to feel safe.

Loi, who thought he saw a flash of movement, turned to look at the end of his aisle. Not seeing anything, he shrugged and continued his search.

When both inspectors were complete in their comb of the room, the women sighed. “Let’s leave, Loi. Maybe there’s a bug in the thermal or light systems here. We’ll get the electrician to look at it.”

Cadonif heard footsteps fading. He peeked to see the man, Loi, leaving the room from the corner of his vision. The lights turned off. Cadonif sighed in relief and fell onto the floor.

Then, a thought came to him: Where’s the other one?

He turned around slowly, horrified to see the woman standing behind, her arms crossed and smiling down upon him.

“Found you!” she sang.