“I feel weird about it.”
“But you do talk to her in front of me,” Lange said.
“Lange, a thing came through the rip in space-time that is still open a short walk from where we’re standing and now we have to walk around in the dark trying to find it before it does enough damage to permanently prevent us from closing the breach. Is this really what you want to talk about?”
“I have,” Lange said at length, “no further comment.”
Jake couldn’t even see Lange without shining the flashlight in his face, but he knew Lange was smiling because he could feel himself smiling. Like Lange’s humor was catching or something. Ridiculous. He should check the oxygen levels once he got to the breaker room. He might already be losing his mind. Neither of them had any reason to smile.
Despite his advice to Emil about leaving all the doors open, Jake closed the bulkhead to the dock once they’d suited up and he’d picked up his tools. The last thing they needed was for all their air to leak out.
He checked the map on his tablet again. It was probably out of date by now, but it was better than nothing. Fifteen open circuits to fix, plus the pipes in the greenhouse—and those were just the problems he knew about.
And the ones he knew how to fix.
When they found the thing that had come through the breach, Jake had no idea what they were going to do. Ask it politely to leave? Kill it? They didn’t even know what it looked like.
“Let’s flip the breaker,” he said to Lange. “I know how to do that, at least.”
The power panel and the gravity generator were located in a small room off the gym, which was just down the hall. A short walk. He sent Eliza ahead. She lit her own way, a little rolling beacon, but he swept the beam of his flashlight through the darkness beside and behind her.
The asteroid that housed Facility 17 was enormous. Most of it was still an untouched lump of metal. The portion that had been carved out for human use included not only the greenhouse, but a gym with a full-size basketball court. Jake and Lange entered the empty court behind Eliza.
Jake thought of once having been in his middle school gym long after the rest of the basketball team had gone home. His dad had forgotten to pick him up after a game. He’d had to wait by the exit, staring at his feet while his impatient coach pressed the push bar of the door, not opening it, but ready, like Jake’s dad would show up any second. In the end, Jake and the coach had stood still so long that the motion-sensing lights had shut off.
Being forgotten was nothing new for Jake, and his time on the team hadn’t lasted, but that moment—the small window framing the half-lit, empty parking lot, the vast darkness of the gym—had endured. He’d never cared for crowds, but it was far worse to be in a place that should have been crowded, should have been bounding with people and noise and lights, but wasn’t.
At the half-court line, Eliza shuddered to a stop.
“Eliza?”
She beeped in recognition of her name, and her light had stayed on, so it couldn’t be a battery problem. The beam of his flashlight wove through the darkness. There was nothing blocking her way.
“Why can’t she move?” he asked Lange. No. Wait. Forcing himself to sound less panicked, he rephrased. “Can you move her?”
There was a long moment of silence. Lange was probably concentrating, which he always did with perfect stillness, no lip-biting or twitching involved.
“I could move her,” Lange finally said. “But she weighs more than she should.”
“The gravity generator’s glitching,” Jake said, relief at identifying the problem mixing with dread. He shone his flashlight at the door to the storage room where the huge machine was kept. Flipping the main breaker in that same room would cut the power to everything, the gravity generator included, and solve this problem. But they had to get there first. “It’s all the way across the court. Do you think the whole room has heavy gravity? What do you think we’re dealing with? One-point-five g? More?”
“I don’t think it’s enough to kill us immediately,” Lange said.
“Your bedside manner sucks.”
“I’ll try to deliver my future conjecture in a more reassuring tone,” Lange said. “I can’t calculate the g-force by feel, but my best guess is something in the range you suggested. Two g, perhaps. More importantly, I can’t manipulate something I can’t see—not if I don’t already know where it is. I don’t think it would work for you to describe the room and the gravity generator to me. We have to cross the gym to turn it off.”
“I will walk across the room,” Jake said. “You will stay right here and not risk falling and breaking your damn legs.”
“My coordination has improved considerably in the past few days.” There was a tiny huff in the darkness, its sound caught and amplified by the microphone built into Lange’s helmet. “But you’re right. It would be a foolish risk.”
Lange thought Jake was right and wasn’t gonna be a stubborn asshole about it? Shit. The universe was all fucked up. Good thing Lange couldn’t see the look on Jake’s face. “Carrying twice your own weight would be a feat even if you were in the best shape of your life. I’m… well, it’s not gonna be pretty.”
“I am familiar with the concept of gravity.”
“Yeah, I know,” Jake said, wishing his helmet wasn’t preventing him from covering his face with his hands. It turned out the only thing worse than accidentally explaining gravity to a famous physicist was trying to explain your feelings to that very same physicist. “I just—I’m watching out for you, not insulting you. You get that, right?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, well, I’m going now,” Jake said, caught off guard by Lange’s earnest answer. God, what were they doing, talking about this when the world was falling apart.
Jake walked toward the spot where Eliza had gone still, his suit and his pack and the flashlight in his hand all weighing what they usually did. The magnetized soles of his boots tapped against the wood. He’d feel silly if they’d had that whole conversation for nothing and they could’ve just walked across the court.
As he passed the free throw line, something started to drag at him, pulling at his legs every time he lifted them, making his shoes thunk down heavier. By the time he’d made it to the center circle where Eliza was, he was panting. Cutting diagonally across the remainder of the court would get him to the door, but just like when he and Lange had navigated the distorted lab, the distance felt overwhelming.
His suit, the oxygen tank, the tools he was carrying, his fucking body—everything weighed too much. A hundred and ten extra kilos, maybe more. Even his blood was too heavy, and he could feel his heart frantically try to keep up his circulation. The dizziness lurking at the edges of his consciousness threatened to overwhelm him. He wanted to halt, to lie down, anything to get away from it, but if he did that, the gravity would just press him down into the floor. He’d be even more trapped.
There was nothing for it but to keep walking. Jake’s legs resisted every lift and slammed down into every landing. Unaccustomed to this weight, his muscles no longer had the strength to control his movements, so the downward arc of each step nearly careened out of control. He wobbled, and his warning to Lange about falls and broken bones came back to him. That could happen to Jake, too. He tried to slow his already glacial pace.
“McCreery,” Lange said, and the normal volume of his voice came as a shock. Jake had been walking for ages, but very little distance separated them. “Let me help.”
“Don’t come over here, that won’t do any good.”
“That is not what I intended to propose,” Lange said.
“Oh.” Jake panted. Even his brain was too heavy. He should have realized. “Telekinesis. Yeah, sure, why not. Do it. Throw me over there.”
“I would prefer not to throw you,” Lange said. “The likelihood that you will land poorly and break bones is too high, as you yourself pointed out. Also, I’m not certain I can lift you.”
“You’ve
done it in normal gravity. And you held the heat shield together. That was way heavier than me,” Jake said, and then remembered Lange’s bloody, sweaty face after they’d landed. “On second thought, scratch that.”
“I wasn’t worried about accidentally murdering the heat shield with telekinesis. You are not a ceramic panel.”
“Yeah, I’m significantly easier to squish to death,” Jake agreed. “What do you have in mind?”
“You’ll have to keep walking. I will try to aid you where I can. This might not be… pretty, as you said.”
“Hey, whatever gets us there,” Jake said, a breathless laugh following the words.
Lange pointed his flashlight directly at Jake, just in case it wasn’t clear that he meant to scrutinize every movement Jake made. Jesus.
Jake raised his knee to take a step and his leg jerked up far faster and higher than he’d intended. It was easier than it should have been, but it wasn’t a relief. Jake was already a little seasick, and being puppeteered via telekinesis made it worse. His foot came down to the ground more lightly, but no less abruptly, and then he raised his other leg. Maybe the motion was a little smoother the second time, but it was still weird as fuck.
It didn’t feel like anything—or rather, it didn’t feel like being touched. Lange was, presumably, pulling on Jake the same way he had been in the cabin kitchen, but the hypergravity made it hard to pay attention to any lesser sensation. Walking got a little easier but remained awkward, that was all.
“Thank fuck, we’re almost there,” Jake said out loud when they crossed the boundary line, and it was strange to think and say we when his was the only body in motion, but he absolutely could not think about the intimacy he had allowed Lange. He had a goal. Later, there’d be time to get philosophical. Or freaked out. Or horny. Nope.
There, that was the door.
The electronic door’s circuit must still be working, because the door recognized his touch. It slid open at half-speed, all of its mechanisms grinding in protest at the extra weight. Jake was unspeakably grateful for its functioning.
He wasn’t too exhausted to do a thorough check of the storage room with his flashlight before stepping inside. The gravity generator took up most of the space, a huge, square metal beast of a machine that came up to his waist.
Its once smooth surface was pitted with holes and streaked with rust.
He ran his flashlight over it again, unable to make sense of the sight. There was no discernible pattern to the damage. It looked like someone had poured corrosive acid over the top—except then he would have expected the liquid to run down the front of the machine in drips. Instead, the rough patches made irregular, loosely connected splotches.
Every exposed pipe and cable in the room was covered in them.
The room was empty, at least. He knelt down in front of the gravity generator—lowered himself with a groan, since as soon as he’d stepped into the room, Lange had stopped helping him—and entered the sequence of commands necessary to turn it off.
The change was instant. His lungs released. In the absence of hypergravity, the frenetic throb of his heart felt absurd. Jake would have floated off the floor if not for his magnetized boots.
Standing up too rapidly—fuck, he weighed nothing—and turning toward the breaker box on the wall nearly caused him to pass out. He switched off the power to the whole facility and then just stood there in the dark, one hand braced against the wall for reassurance, waiting for his pulse to slow.
“McCreery?”
Lange couldn’t see him, but must have felt the change.
Still blinking away dizziness, Jake called, “I’m okay. You should come see this, though. Eliza, come here.”
It was a relief when Eliza rolled into the room, unharmed. Lange followed her, the beam of his flashlight announcing his arrival. It had taken Jake an hour to cross the gym and they’d done it in seconds.
Lange halted not in front of the corroded generator but in front of Jake. He held his flashlight aloft and peered into Jake’s face. “That drastic change in gravity put a great deal of stress on your body.”
“Thanks, I’ll take that into account next time.”
Lange lowered the flashlight and continued to gaze at Jake. “Are you going to faint? If so, I can carry you.”
Jake’s cardiovascular system had been through enough in the past hour. He didn’t need this—whatever it was, this useless fluttery feeling. And he shouldn’t be feeling anything over Lange exhibiting basic human decency.
His voice low and raspy like something was stuck in his throat, Jake said, “Think you missed your moment, but I appreciate the offer. I actually called you in here to discuss that.”
He swung his flashlight so it pointed at the rust-cankered generator.
“That’s not good,” Lange said.
“Uh huh,” Jake said. He crouched down in front of the machine and opened the roll of tools he’d lugged all the way here. “I think we’ve gotta take it apart and see how far down the damage goes. For it to glitch like it did, something must be messed up inside. I need to see what it looks like.”
“You have a hypothesis about what caused this,” Lange said.
“Not much of one,” Jake said. “But I’m guessing you have one, too.”
“I do.”
“Good. We’ll compare notes. It’s just another puzzle,” Jake said. “Except for the part where if we don’t solve it, we die and maybe all of reality goes with us.”
For a long moment, there was only the tiny sound of Jake’s screwdriver tapping and twisting screw heads.
Then, with his usual crisp detachment, Lange said, “Your bedside manner sucks.”
12
Distraction
Compared with McCreery, Solomon had exerted himself minimally, but his body was nevertheless exhibiting signs of stress: sweat, a rapid pulse, and a constriction in his chest that didn’t correspond to any change in the environment. These were fear responses, he knew, but they were exaggerated. The damage to the gravity generator called for unease, not panic. Whatever had done that hadn’t been present. As far as he could determine, Solomon was not now and had not recently been subject to a physical threat.
It was absurd that his body would yield to this overreaction simply because he’d momentarily lost sight of McCreery. The door had dragged itself open and McCreery had disappeared into the darkness and some prehistoric stratum of Solomon’s brain had fired all its neurons in whatever pattern meant he is going to die. That had set all this nonsense in motion.
It was true that harm could have come to McCreery, either while he’d pushed himself through that zone of hypergravity or while he’d vanished into the storage room. But none had. He was fine now, walking at Solomon’s side toward the lab where they’d meet the others. And because McCreery was fine, there was no reason that Sol should want to reach for him, to touch the small of his back or grip his shoulder, to make sure he was still there. Obviously he was.
Solomon extended his arm through the darkness behind McCreery’s back, his fingers splayed open. He tried to imagine bridging the short distance between them, making contact, and couldn’t. Slowly his hand curled in on itself. He withdrew.
This was a distraction. Solomon ought to be thinking of what he would report to the six remaining residents of Facility 17. They were standing in a loose circle in the lab, each holding a flashlight, and if not for the spacesuits and the modern laboratory, the scene might have resembled an occult ritual.
The second thing he noticed was that none of them were wearing helmets. They were all breathing the air.
“Lange, Jake, you made it back. Thanks for dealing with the power. You can take your helmets off, the air’s free of contaminants. Better conserve the oxygen in case we really need it later,” Singh said. Emil. That was what McCreery called him. Solomon should, too.
Dax nodded. “The six of us have had hours or possibly days of exposure and we’re all in good health. The pipes and the wiring, not so much, b
ut at least we can breathe.”
Solomon removed his helmet but hung on to it, lest it float away. The lab benches, he noted, had been cleared of notebooks and test tubes and anything not bolted down.
The short, serious woman spoke next. Miriam. Her name was Miriam. He remembered that.
“Did you see it?” she asked.
In the bluish glow created by all the flashlights, Jake looked pale. Paler than normal. Solomon curled his fingers into a fist at his side, willing himself to stop having these foolish reactions.
Jake was shaking his head. “We saw the damage it left behind in the gravity generator, but we didn’t see anything, uh, alive.”
“It damaged the gravity generator?” she asked. “This sounds more and more like sabotage.”
“That’s conjecture,” Solomon said.
“Something destroys all our pipes and wiring and you think me saying ‘sabotage’ is conjecture?”
Her thick, dark brows arched high above her eyes. She’d put her arms on her hips, where there was a belt outside her spacesuit and a truncheon hanging by her thigh. Belatedly, Solomon remembered that Miriam’s role on the team was as a security officer of sorts. She was thinking in terms of threats.
But so was he. And she was doing it wrong.
“It’s not human,” Solomon said. “Don’t ascribe human motives to it.”
“Things that aren’t human can still hurt and kill us,” she said. “I don’t really care about why they’re doing it. We need to discuss how we’re going to kill this thing when we eventually run into it.”
“We don’t even know what it is,” Solomon said. “What if it doesn’t intend to harm us?”
“That’s a hell of a leap to make,” she said. “Have you looked around?”
“Hey, okay, let’s not do this,” Emil said. “I want to be clear on a few things before we continue this conversation. It seems like we all agree there is something alien in the facility with us. That residue we collected is likely biological in nature, although it doesn’t resemble anything any of us have ever seen. It is of the utmost importance that we not transport whatever it is back to Earth, which means until we’re more sure of what we’re dealing with, nobody can leave—and nobody else should come here, not even via the Nowhere.”
Nowhere Else Page 13