Enlisted

by Nathan Pedde

  “The vent is high up on the wall and near the airlock at the end of the hallway,” Elsie said.

  “How’s that possible?” Des asked.

  “I don't know.” Elsie said. “Maybe the corridor isn't level and drops downward.”

  “Crap,” Des said. “If we take the vent off, the noise will alert those three, and we’ll be trapped again.”

  “What choices do we have?” Elsie said.

  Des was silent for a moment. He hated the options before him. They had no connection to Cooley and Cryslis. They hadn’t sounded any type of alarm to them, which meant they didn’t know they’re in danger.

  “Oh shit,” Elsie said.

  A loud metal crash reverberated through the room.

  “What was that?” Des asked.

  “I only touched the bloody thing,” Elsie said. “The grate just fell off.”

  “Go. Get into the hallway.”

  Elsie slid herself out of the air vent and into the hallway before Des knew it. Des followed quickly behind. Des fell out of the air vent and landed on his hands. He pulled himself off the floor and onto his feet.

  “Where now?” Elsie asked.

  Des looked at his surroundings. The hallway was narrow and straight, it looked much like the rest of the Undercroft’s corridors in the sector.

  “Down this way,” Airnee’s voice boomed. “I told you I wasn’t playing a prank!”

  Des looked at Elsie.

  “Into the airlock,” Des said.

  “That’s a bad idea,” Elsie said. “I don’t want to get spaced.”

  “There should be space suits in there right?” Des asked.

  “For emergency purposes.”

  “I think this qualifies. We can beg forgiveness later.”

  “Fine.”

  Des ran into the airlock pre-chamber and shut the door behind him. He turned to the keypad of the door and started searching through menus. After a few moments, he found one he was looking for. He locked the door with a couple clicks and then locked the pad behind him.

  Elsie went straight to the lockers marked emergency supplies.

  “These are adult suits,” Elsie said. “This isn’t going to work for me.”

  Des looked at the locker, and the air suit was hung up on the hook.

  “They’re model seven’s,” Des said. “They have some auto-fit tech.”

  He put on the suit. It was a simple concept with a large zipper and seal down the front. The suit was reasonably large, but it managed to squeeze down to his size.

  A loud banging echoed on the other side of the door.

  “Come out of there,” Airnee said. “We’ll not hurt you.”

  Des ignored them and turned back to Elsie.

  “What about the camera?” Elsie said referring to her camera sitting abandoned on a bench.

  She was in her suit, but it wasn’t done up yet. The arms hung loosely on her shoulders.

  “Stuff it down the front of the suit,” Des said.

  “Okay.”

  Des put on his helmet, but the suit didn’t pressurize. A digital screen lit up on the helmet's display.

  “Emergency suit. Authorized use only,” the suit said in his ears. “Enter authorization code.”

  “Des O'Neal. Security agent,” Des said.

  “Voice authentication,” the suit said. “Send a message to the Security Office?”

  “Negative,” Des said. “Route all messages to secure line zelda alpha niner and hold until told otherwise.”

  “Acknowledged,” the suit replied.

  Des felt the suit pressurize around him.

  “You ready?” Des said to Elsie.

  “Yes. The suit didn’t want to pressurize, but it works now.”

  Des opened the airlock door. The airlock was a small room about the size of a small elevator. It was big enough for only five people in spacesuits to stand in.

  Elsie stood next to him as the airlock door slammed shut. Elsie grabbed hold of his hand. They looked out the window back into the station.

  “Keep hold of me,” Des said. “Let's not get separated.”

  “Is my comm to you good?” Elsie asked.

  “Comm's good. We’ll be able to talk to each other at least.”

  Elsie nodded. “I’m scared. I’ve never been out in space.”

  “Me neither,” Des said. “But each sector’s Undercroft is exactly the same as the one before.”

  “We float in space while the station rotates around and we go into another sector?”

  “I hope so.”

  Des gave Elsie an assuring smile and pushed a button. A red light flashed as the airlock de-pressurized.

  “Step out in three, two, one,” Des said.

  The door flashed open. Des stepped out of the airlock. Elsie followed with her arms wrapped around him. The airlock flew away from Des. He floated in space with Elsie.

  Des turned his head, and Jupiter’s rings lit his helmet’s visor. The yellows and reds of the clouds of Jupiter made his jaw drop.

  “Elsie,” Des said. “Open your eyes and look at the view.”

  “Holy crap,” Elsie replied breathless. “It’s beautiful.”

  “Des!” A Cryslis’s voice screamed in his head from the Neuronet.

  “Ahh,” Des screamed, flinching.

  “What?” Elsie said.

  Des turned to Elsie. “It’s Cryslis on the Net.”

  Elsie nodded.

  “Oh, thank Jupiter,” Cryslis said relieved. “You’re safe. You went dark, and we have been trying to find you. Cooley is on his way to the Undercroft. Where are you?”

  “Umm…” Des said. “About that-”

  “I’ll use the tracking to find you,” Cryslis interrupted, then a moment later. “This system is screwed. It says you’re outside the station.”

  “We are outside the station,” Des said replied.

  “What?” Cryslis screamed.

  “Wait until I tell you what we found out,” Des said.

  “We have it. Elsie sent us an encryption package about three minutes ago.”

  “Really?” Des said. “Elsie, how did you send the data?”

  “I tried to send it before I suited up, but it failed. I set up a repeat. Just in case,” Elsie said.

  “Good thinking,” Des said.

  Des tried to move, but he couldn’t.

  “Well,” Cryslis said, “get back into the station before Station Security finds out. I don’t want to have to explain this mess.”

  “Cryslis, we do have a problem.”

  “Did you remember the jetpacks?” Cryslis asked.

  “They’re still in the airlock. But that’s only our temporary problem. Our main problem is the Mysterious Man almost had us.”

  “That's not good. But I’ll do what I can. It might take a bit.”

  “Des,” Elsie said. “Please tell Cryslis to hurry. I really need to pee.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Des and Elsie waited an hour before a security ship came by and picked them up. In that time, Des floated away from the station. Elsie still clawed onto his suit to stay with him. He enjoyed the experience as the sights were amazing.

  Elsie didn’t like the experience.

  When Des first stepped out of the airlock, he could see only the metal of the hull rushing by. By the time he spotted the station security ship moving toward him, the station shrunk into the distance. He could see the entirety of the outside of the station with Jupiter in the background. In the distance were two of the terraformed moons. Des wasn’t sure which two, but the sight was breathtaking.

  The security ship opened and a half squad of security personnel opened the back. They were dressed in armored suits equipped with jetpacks. Two floated over with tethers in their hands. They grabbed Des and Elsie, pulling them in. The entire operation took them forty minutes to when Des and Elsie floated in a corner in the security bay in the Station spindle.

  The station spindle was the central column running down th
e length of the colony station. It was where the hangers, security, administration, and the station control center were located. The entire spindle didn’t have any gravity due to the spindle’s location in the center of the station and the fact the station got its gravity due to centrifugal force.

  Station security wasn’t happy with them. Two guards stood watch at the door to their security room. They managed to stand on the floor, but not Des and Elsie. He couldn’t figure it out no matter how hard he tried.

  They waited a half hour before Cryslis and Captain Kusheeno entered the room. Neither of them looked happy. Kusheeno excused the two guards from the room.

  Once they left, he pulled a device out of his pocket. He turned it on, and it started to buzz.

  “You two have some explaining to do,” Kusheeno said.

  Des and Elsie told Kusheeno about the reason why they were down there and about the only lead they had. Des also told the captain they were caught by Airnee and Fred but managed to escape.

  “Did you see the Mysterious Man?” Kusheeno said.

  “Negative,” Des said. “Our concern was getting the information we had gathered out to Cryslis before they covered up the prints.”

  “When you were in the air ducts, didn’t you think to just wait?” Cryslis said. “We were enroute to help?”

  “Yes,” Des said. “But we had given no indication we were in trouble and had no idea you knew where we were. So, we took our own safety into consideration.”

  “Granted,” Cryslis said. “Cooley saw the two targets enter via a live feed from the construction companies video cameras. When you didn’t respond, we scrambled.”

  “That all is moot,” Kusheeno said. “Why did you forget the jetpacks?”

  “Oversight and lack of training,” Elsie chimed.

  Cryslis and Kusheeno were silent for a moment and paced around the room.

  “How are you walking and I’m not?” Des asked.

  “Special shoes,” Kusheeno said. “But don’t change the subject. What are we going to do with you two?”

  “Let us go?” Des said. “We can catch the bugger.”

  “I’m not going to make any note of this in any record, but the classified one,” Kusheeno said. “Please stop doing crazy things. You’re supposed to make my life easier, not give me more gray hair.”

  Des and Elsie nodded.

  “What are we doing with the data?” Des asked.

  “Cooley is running it right now,” Cryslis said. “As soon as we know anything, we can start moving.”

  Des’s school day went by at a snail's pace, as usual. His grades were posted as well as everyone else’s too. His grades improved somewhat. They were listed at seventy-five percent, up from seventy-two.

  “Looks like things are turning around,” Alix said from beside him.

  “It looks like it,” Des replied. “I’m glad this might get my brother and my uncle off my back.”

  “Family, am I right?”

  Des chuckled.

  “What are you doing after class?” Alix asked.

  “Studying,” Des said.

  “But we have no tests for two weeks,” Alix said.

  “That’s why I almost failed my previous tests. I better study now while I’ve the time. Before things come up later.”

  Des left the grades board and walked down the hallway. He kept looking for Elsie to talk to her about the night before. She didn’t show up to class. She also didn’t answer her phone. She did respond on the Neuronet. But it was a short blurb. She went silent a moment later.

  After class, Des headed home and settled into his room to start studying. Des, thankfully, didn’t have to go to work. After jumping out of an airlock and into space, Cryslis gave him a day off from working.

  Des hadn’t seen Sheemo at home. He knew Sheemo was in the warehouse helping Cooley work on the shoe prints and the scanners. Des didn’t understand everything involved in what they were doing. He was biding his time until he got orders to run into danger.

  After a few hours of trying to study, he heard Elsie’s voice over the Neuronet.

  “You busy?” Elsie called.

  “Studying,” Des replied.

  “I’ll be by in a couple minutes,” Elsie said. “Get ready, you’re taking me out for ice cream.”

  “Ice cream?”

  “Yes. It’s what normal boys and girls do together. Silly.”

  “Are you asking me out on a date?”

  “Call it whatever,” Elsie said. “We have a job to do.”

  For a hopeful moment, Des thought Elsie was trying to ask him out on a real date. But it wasn’t so. Des was disappointed for some reason. He forced those thoughts away. Des changed his shirt into something out of the clean pile and washed his face. Even though it was a non-date, he still wanted to look decent.

  He left his uncles house and waited outside. Walking up the road was Elsie. She was wearing a skirt, a printed blouse and a purse slung over her shoulder. She looked relaxed. When she got closer, Des noticed her shirt hid a large bruise on her arm.

  “Sweet Jupiter,” Des said when she got to him, “is that from those ro-”

  “Yes,” Elsie said. “But I’m fine.”

  “What’s the plan?” Des said.

  “Let's walk to the station. Your brother and Cooley have managed to get the scanner to work.”

  “Finally.”

  “The boots from the safehouse and the Undercroft are a match.”

  “It can tell that?” Des asked.

  “It matches tread wear,” Elsie said. “The wear matches to ninety-three percent. Considering the age between the two samples, I’d say it’s a match.”

  “Do we know who the boots belong to?”

  “Not a single clue. It's not like there is a database for every pair of shoes people own.”

  Des walked beside Elsie as the reached the elevated train station. The station was empty. They scanned their cards and entered the train, which was mostly devoid of people. Des looked over at the other track and saw most of the people were traveling the other way.

  “But you were right,” Elsie said.

  “Right about what?”

  “The person is a kid, and he goes to our school.”

  “How?”

  “Sheemo used his scanner to crack another layer of the scrambled signal. We also managed to filter out all the signals, but one. We now know where he was at each attack. He’s been hidden for so long, he’s gotten lazy.”

  “How do we know it’s a he?” Des asked.

  Elsie reached into her purse and pulled out her phone. She pressed a button, and the screen flashed on. A picture of a pair of flashy sneakers appeared on the phone.

  “These are the shoes,” Elsie said. “They’re a boy’s brand. No girl would want to wear this.”

  “No boy either,” Des said. “Those are way to flashy for me.”

  “Do you know anyone who owns these?”

  “I’ve seen them before.”

  “So have I and I don't like it one bit.”

  The train screeched to a halt, and more people got on the train. Soon they were crowded in, and Des didn’t feel like risking talking about sensitive topics.

  They reached the Old Market Stop. Elsie motioned for them to get off. They exited the station and entered the market. It spread out around the station in the space of three football fields. The market consisted of a few hundred small stalls with merchants selling various items, from Station souvenirs to a recruiter for the Marines. Des saw a booth selling different colored dyed shirts and one sold plastic clothing. Elsie grabbed hold of Des’s hand and pulled it to a different booth.

  “Buy me ice cream,” Elsie said.

  Des shrugged his shoulders and did so. They sat at a table near the edge of the patio. Des watched people walk by the table. He tried to imagine their stories on what they were going through. Were they as stressed as he was to succeed in the war? Or had they given up?

  Elsie pulled out an ugly plastic
device. She handed it to him.

  “That’s the scanner,” Elsie said. “It’s all set up. Just put it on your lap and turn it on.”

  Des followed instructions and did so.

  “Where were you today?” Des asked Elsie.

  “Well…” Elsie said. “When my parents found out I was mugged while walking home from study group the other day, she dragged me to the hospital. I had to undergo all these tests. It’s all kinda embarrassing.”

  Des finished his ice cream in silence. The device pinged. A match was found. Des looked at the screen, and an arrow pointed in the direction of where the person was.

  “Look at these lovebirds,” a familiar person called from where the arrow was pointing to.

  Des tensed and looked up. Standing next to the table was Alix.

  “I didn’t mean to scare you,” Alix said.

  “I was lost in my own thoughts,” Des replied.

  “Now I know why you didn’t want to hang out,” Alix said. “I didn’t know you and Elsie were a thing.”

  “We’re not a thing,” Elsie said. “We’re study partners.”

  “Right,” Alix said, rolling his eyes. “Study partners.”

  “What do you want?” Elsie asked.

  “I saw you two eating ice cream, so I decided to come by and visit,” Alix said.

  “Really?”

  Alix pulled up a chair. “You see, I haven’t hung out with Des as much in the last little bit, but I keep seeing you two together, whispering.”

  “We’re study partners,” Des said, his voice tense.

  “Out holding hands, eating ice cream,” Alix said.

  Elsie hmphed and set her ice cream spoon on the table hard, the metallic echoed in the market.

  “What do you want, Alix,” Elsie said.

  “I’m jealous I’ve lost my friend,” Alix said, eyes narrowed at Elsie.

  Des noticed a man walking up behind Alix. The man turned into view.

  “Hey, Alix,” Airnee said. “That’s where you went to. The boss told you not to wander off. Who are your friends?”

  A look of recognition slid across Airnee’s face.

  “These are school friends of mine,” Alix said.

  Airnee pulled Alix away from and said a couple words quietly to Alix.

  Des thought of Elsie, Cooley, and Cryslis, he whispered quietly knowing it would be loud in their ears. “Target is Alix. Transferring confirmation.”