We were gathered around in the pressure chamber placing on our protective suits.
‘No weapons,’ Aeniah warned the guardsman to her right. ‘I don’t want anyone bringing anything with them that they can use to kill each other, if they go insane.’
In silence we pinched the seals on our suits together, turned the systems on and felt the warm breeze of the Eternis Corporation Dura-Enviro-System.
With the final checks finished we made our way towards the pressure doors.
With a flick from Aeniah the door turned, burst, rolled and disappeared and we made our way into darkness.
Movement was difficult in the darkness but we kept walking, hands out for stability. Night vision was no use in the absolute darkness of the station. Our visor screens swiped to thermal but there was no reading. Nothing living had been here in a long time. The air had become stagnant and an acrid taste worked its way along my pallet. It must have been my imagination, the suit’s seal indicator was all green.
As the corridor between the ship and the station widened we came to the realisation that we had emerged into one of the docking platforms of Ascension. We all turned to Aeniah who had been the only one with the foresight to switch on her suits torches. A feeling of embarrassment worked its way throughout the group. The nerves had gotten to all of us.
‘Idiots,’ she muttered over the comms.
Soon everyone had activated their torches, but little could be seen. It appeared that the room we were in was of such large proportions that the beams from our weak torches could not reach from one end of the room to the other. Instead they faded infinitely to a point and no further.
‘Get me the Remote-Drone-Unit,’ Aeniah stated.
‘Confirmed, CIC will acquire RDU for Aeniah’ said a nameless character somewhere in the darkness.
A creaking came to me audibly. I spun, searching with my torches, but could see nothing. Again I heard it from the same area. It creaked again and then no more.
Something was out there.
Something was watching us.
I could feel its eyes burning holes into me.
Something grabbed my shoulder.
‘Are you okay,’ asked Aeniah in a comforting voice. Well for her it was comforting but in reality it felt cold and stilted.
‘Fine. It’s just...nothing,’ I managed. I was certain that I was going crazy. I felt as though I was seeing things, first in my room and now here. I wondered if what they had done to me could have caused me to go a little crazy, but I thought better of it. I certainly didn’t feel crazy. I was probably the only sane person here. I was the only one that didn’t want to be here.
Aeniah just nodded and turned to a faint blue light.
‘About time Sean,’ she said to the light.
‘My apologies Aeniah, I needed to be transferred to this device. The process takes a little while.’
‘Computer?’ I inquired, recognising instantly the unflappable voice of the ship.
‘Yes George I am the computer. Aeniah calls me by my original name for the purpose of continuity.’
‘You knew each other from before?’ I asked. If they had been able to see my eyebrows, they would have been raised.
‘Of course, Aeniah and I have a longstanding past...’
‘Enough,’ Aeniah huffed, ‘you need to get me some bloody systems online before I throw your perfectly spherical ass into a power distributer.’
The blue light turned and revealed a small sphere no bigger that a fist suspended in the air as if by magic. The blue light at the front appeared to function, I supposed, as an eye.
‘It is difficult. So little has been left responsive. I can perhaps get the systems to boot independently of the network. This would allow access to lighting and door controls, but with the AI down there is little chance of other systems being capable of functioning. Do you want me to execute this plan?’ Sean enquired.
‘That would be lovely,’ replied Aeniah dryly, ‘and whilst you’re at it how about giving this place a little heat.’
Sean didn't wait for Aeniah to finished talking. A faint holo appeared somewhere in the distance. Then another, and another, until images made of light resolved in front of us. The language was unfamiliar. It was not written in symbol characters but some sort of fluid squiggle. It dragged itself from one end to the other and did not appear to move in columns.
A piercing pain hit my head. The words seemed so familiar, they meaning seemed to be washing closer to me. In the same instant they were back as they were before and the headache subsided. I was becoming convinced that I was crazy. I drew in my breath sharply, I had to stay sane enough to do my job.
Aeniah moved towards the holo. Scanning the texts and images she pointed with her finger and said, ‘this way.’
She moved forwards with purpose. We followed behind her in formation. Well they were in formation, I was simply in a position that I thought made sense.
We arrived at a larger holo, something that appeared to be a console. Aeniah and Sean seemed to spend an eternity analysing it. My thoughts turned to Adrian. He was lying there alone on a slab, in a tank, under some surgical equipment, being worked on. I felt guilty for having forgotten about him in the excitement of the moment. I thought back to the early days when we had walked along the hills talking of what could have been, what might have been. Back then the world had been easy. It had all happened so fast. I remember the pain, the anguish; I saw the sorrow in his eyes. I had tried to help, I really did. But I kept seeing his eyes, his face, like I could see into his soul, or at least the pieces I had taken from him.
‘George!’ screamed Aeniah’s voice. ‘Get your ass to that waypoint or you and I are going to have a serious falling out.’
I moved towards the location that was flashing on my wrist screen. The waypoint was labelled door aperture opening. Aeniah and I were side by side as we moved towards the door. Crossing the threshold we did not know what to expect. The unease we felt was being shared between us. Feeding one another’s apprehension we moved forwards into the unknown.
A violent slashing sound pierced the silence of the station. We spun in unison and our torches illuminated a freshly closed door. The door we had just been through.
‘Tactical this is Aeniah, what the fuck just happened Tactical...tactical?’
We were alone. Aeniah, the faint blue light and I. We were alone.