by T. C. Clover
trams, and I’ll help to coordinate the security camera footage. There are two-and-a-half square miles to cover, so the best thing we can do is to get started. You folks can wait in here or back at the hotel; I’ll call you when we know something.”
“We want to help with the search,” Fassim offered with a desperate gaze, turning her hands over with both palms upward.
“No, I’m not allowed to have anyone on the grounds that isn’t authorized to be there,” Jason answered in a prompt manner. “There are some real dangers out in the field here. This place is full of rocket fuel, ignition systems, and vehicles of all types. It’s best that we only have one missing person in potential danger. Please stay here and I’ll update you as soon as we know something. In the meantime, I need someone to get a piece of her clothing; we’re going to use some police dogs to track her down. They’ll be here within the hour.”
Jazzy glanced around at her co-stars with a feeling of helplessness. Given the fresh knowledge that their colleague was missing, the NASA conference room felt small and surreal to the actors. CKB, Stoney, and Richard were standing at the back of the room speaking to one another in whispers. The comedian decided that it was in the nature of men to speculate on a solution.
“I’ll go get something from her hotel room for the police dogs,” Fassim suggested as she stroked her orange headscarf in a display of nervous energy. “It should only take me forty minutes to get back from the hotel. No, wait, we have her shoes right here; the dogs can use those. Don’t mind me; I’m just tired.” The weary Muslim used her index fingers to massage the bridge of her nose.
“If it’s okay, I think we should wait here until they tell us something,” Jazzy suggested to Fassim and her male co-stars.
Everyone nodded in agreement and Jazzy glanced around the oak conference table at the padded chairs, searching for a place to get comfortable. Jason and the other NASA people vacated the room in a hurry. In their haste, they gave the impression that certain details were confidential to the television stars and their security staff.
Jason followed Brian Mahoney through the hallway during their journey to the security offices. Although there were over a hundred cameras on the property, finding someone could be a cumbersome task. He swore to himself as he considered the possibility of NASA executives seeing him and Litz fooling around in the shuttle bay. It would be even worse if they saw them during their multiple instances of naked fun. Brian was a short twenty-four-year-old man, but he had a rapid gait, and it was difficult for Jason to keep pace with him. The five-foot-three-inch technician was a bald man of African descent. He wore thick eyeglasses that went well with his plain white T-shirt and black trousers.
After three minutes of silent walking, the two NASA employees made their way into the security control room. There were six rows and twelve columns of monitors embedded in the far wall of the room. Each monitor had at least eighteen inches of diagonal viewing space. Three tall benches were positioned just eight feet behind the wall of monitors, and each had a comfy padded swivel chair. Jason elected to stand stoic behind the bench at the right side of the room. His colleague began turning on computer monitors and pulled up some software to search the archived video footage.
The astronaut felt useless after a moment, and his heart began to pound when he thought about someone abducting his new girlfriend. He inhaled with repressed emotions, deciding that it would be better to maintain his wits.
“Let’s start with the bathrooms,” Jason suggested in a state of fear as he abandoned his stoicism and took a seat to the right of Brian.
Litz awoke to the brilliant glow of the Houston sky at night. There were dozens of stars shining down on her, and she could feel cold metal beneath her back and legs. The early morning was deceptively chilly in Texas, and the small leather skirt provided little cover. Her legs were shaking and covered in goose bumps. She had cried herself to sleep, which caused makeup to run down the sides of her face in thick lines. The disoriented plumber held up her bare arms and saw smudges of something black all over them.
Litz decided to retrace her steps from the party, remembering that Jason had waved to her before she went to the bathroom. When she got to a stall and sat down on the toilet, her forehead broke out in a profuse sweat. The memories of her family tragedies began to surface, and a panic attack ensued. She took off her shoes due to the sensation of heat. Her body was dripping with perspiration and it felt like something terrible was happening. Litz recollected running out of the bathroom as fast as she could manage. It seemed like all of the darkness was chasing her through the hallways, and she couldn’t escape. There were memories of her father’s heart attack and the subsequent car crash that killed him and her little brother. She saw the death of her mother played in a sadistic loop as if Satan was the emcee of her memories. This sickening display eventually gave way to her time at the boarding school and the abusive teenagers that persecuted her there. Litz recalled spending several years with her head buried in books, learning about all manner of philosophy and engineering. But the teenagers went too far one day and the abuse was unbearable. She escaped the boarding school and spent several days on the streets until she found a predatory drug dealer. The fifteen-year-old accepted his offer to take a joyride, and she abandoned the pervert at the first gas station.
Litz remembered how powerful the black Chevrolet Corvette felt under her rear end. It was the first time she had taken power back from the universe. But it ended when the car hit a patch of ice in Park City, Utah and crashed into a riverbed. The young woman was so high on cocaine and drunk on whiskey that she decided to go rock climbing in the snow. Although the boarding school had taken the students out and taught them to climb with the proper safety equipment – that was not her concern. She wanted to scale the cliff and show its broad face of authority that it could not win. After ascending seventy-five feet onto the ledge of the prominent rock formation, Litz Eliza Rack took a leap of faith and landed in the outstretched branches of a large pine tree. It was as though she was caught by her mother in midair, and told never to give up fighting for her beliefs.
“I love you, mom,” Litz said to the calming air of the Texas sky. “I miss you!”
In the distance, there came the repetitive sounds of dogs barking. Litz raised her head somewhat but decided to put it back down when a throbbing pain erupted through her right eye. The young woman felt severe dryness in her throat and closed her eyes for a moment to quell the pain.
“Litz! Litz!” Jason’s voice called out from the distance. “Oh my God! She’s in the flame trench. Litz, hang on we’re coming.”
“Flame trench?” Litz repeated as she rolled onto her side and felt her right hand snag on a steel cable.
The agitated woman started to wrestle with the cable and twisted sideways to get it away from her face. Litz felt the steel drop out from underneath her body. She grabbed the cable tight as her bare feet and legs dangled into a vast dark space.
“Oh my God!” The television star exclaimed in terror as her hands tried to get a stronger hold on the cable.
She kicked in desperation at the air and reached out with the ends of her toes to find a foothold, but there was nothing beneath her other than blackness. The black smudges on her arms were greasy, and she was slipping off of the cable a few inches at a time. Litz wrapped her left arm around the cable and felt a sliver of steel repay her with a deep wound. The panicked woman cried out and stopped kicking her legs. She realized that her poor upper body strength was the only way to prevent a treacherous fall.
“Litz, don’t let go, you’re fifty feet over a concrete channel,” Jason reported through heaving breaths. “I’m almost there, sweetheart, just hold onto that cable.”
Litz could see that the horizontal cable was part of a walkway that went across a massive concrete channel. She had been lying on her back at the center of the maintenance catwalk, which had three len
gths of cable on either side to prevent workers from falling.
Her breaths came out in desperate gasps as she clung to the safety cable for life. But the greasy substance on her hands and arms was causing the cable to slip away, regardless of how Litz tried to maintain her grip. She could hear Jason’s heavy footsteps ambling across the walkway as her left wrist began to slip over the top of the cable. The middle-aged astronaut dove hard, and Litz felt his body crash into the steel floor of the catwalk. He grunted to indicate a fresh injury and reached out to help the television star.
“Careful, my hands are covered in something slippery,” Litz pleaded with the astronaut as his efforts caused her to slide faster.
Litz felt her body dropping and saw Jason lunge with his arms toward her from the catwalk. He managed to grab her underneath both arms, but his body was hanging halfway off of the walkway. She began to tremble, noticing that he was hanging upside down beneath her and wondered if they were falling. Her arms wrapped tight around his abdomen, and Litz prepared for the precious final seconds of her life.
“What are you doing?” Jason protested in earnest at her reckless actions. “Climb up my legs and get back on the