Chương 12: Ch. 11 - Life Support Stop

My eyes peeled open like they were stitched closed. It wasn't anything in particular that woke me up, but when I did, I practically jumped from my skin.

"Ah!" I yelled, backing up to the bed and hitting my head against the wall. Caddie was meters from my face in ball shape, staring. Or at least the pixelated eyes were staring at me.

"You have been idle for eight hours. Your form of energy restoration lacks efficiency," said Caddie. My head was pounding from a newfound headache. Or was it a migraine. Shoot, I didn't drink a whole lot of water and the stress had finally caught up to me. Still, waking up to a room where the lights are brighter, the sounds are louder and a head that needs a hole in it did not make for a pleasant morning. I pushed Caddie out of the way and waddled to the pantry that had the migraine meds.

They weren't a miracle cure, they just made it tolerable.

"That does not seem large enough to be nutritious. A balanced diet is essential for Delving…" The medicine was chalky on my tongue and a few steps to the sink were…We had no water. Another drought or rationing. Ugh. The hefty pill did not go down easy in a gulp.

"Since you are awake," said Caddie.

"I had some questions regarding human history. I noted that some humans in history were famous for the rage baiting they could perform on what you call the internet. Is there a reason for this? Financial maybe…or is it sexual in nature? I am confused and it is a wondrous feeling.

"What? Caddie, my head is pounding. I can't even look at you right now…" If companions could become sad, I had never heard about it. But his pixelated eyes drooped and a frown formed. Freaking puppy dog eyes.

"I'm not sure. I think they just liked doing it. Anonymity of it I guess. I'm no expert though, I didn't pay much attention in class and believe it or not, that wasn't a priority study. It was more the cultures we left along with science and math. Then for me it was another year of the academy learning to pilot."

"Interesting." His frown dissipated and was replaced with what you could mistake as a thinking emoji.

"I also noticed that the stores of data on this ship number in the petabytes. Small storage but efficiently packaged to be rudimentary data."

"Sure, Caddie." The medicine was slowly taking effect.

"Have you seen my mom?"

"She had not returned while you were sleeping." I grumbled, walked to the room and changed into the off duty jumpsuit. Gray with red stripes going diagonally. Everyone in the Bastille had a job. Some were just cushier that others. But Delvers had the most downtime between missions if we wanted once we came back. It was weird I wasn't contacted for a debrief but it was probably because they were going through the procedures of notifying next of kin for Jacob and Eric. I needed to get to Life Support today too.

"Are we headed somewhere?"

"First Life Support and then the clinic. It's not like mom to not come home but someone could've called out." Life Support wasn't too far, but it required going to D-Block to access. For every two blocks was a main center, shops, clinics, etc. The Bastille after all was meant to be temporary housing while tests were conducted on the new worlds atmosphere, flora and fauna. If found acceptable, they would start the process of landing it on the surface. If it wasn't they would stay in orbit indefinitely and die out.

If there was a chance of survival, then the Gathers were sent to establish a colony but it would've been a one way trip. It was why so many colonies were sent out. Call it good luck, call it bad luck, the Dungeon has been providing the resources necessary to keep going. It was supposed to die out at twenty-five years. Now it just seems like a permanent installation with the Dungeon. Life Support was the most ignored important building.

We had been in orbit so long that the people forget that it takes dedicated people to keep it going. Like Phil's sister. The entrance was in between a general goods store and a smut film seller. The "F" atop the metallic door flickered with on the nose authenticity. I did my best to avoid the dealers gaze but a brief nanosecond of eye contact was all he needed.

"Hey kid," said the smut dealer.

"I got the good stuff. All your predilections and kinks. You want some old Earth ones? Or maybe you want some animated ones? No a guy like you has discerning taste for flims? I got-" Caddie hovered to the dealer and his voice went dark. Each word like a practiced line.

"I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not puruse you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you." The dealer's eyes went wide, taking a step back.

"I'm sorry to bother you miss. Carry on," he said returning to his stall.

"I'm a him…" I trailed off as he scooped up his display and trotted off towards the blocks.

"What did you do to him?"

"I thought he was a movie buff, or 'Cinephile' as they had been known to be called. He was mentioning flims so I figured a popular one from Earth history would help find common ground."

"I don't think it did," I said, smirking.

"I think you may have chosen a really old movie."

"I will make note of that for future interactions with him." The doors to life support whooshed open to an airlock. A moment later, the second set of doors opened to the layers and layers of pipes and knobs and screens. This room should've been called ventilation, because each knob shifted where the fresh air from cultivation was sent and where to pull the recycled air from. A smattering of tubes and fans inside the tubes. It wasn't loud, even though it felt like it should've been.

It was warm though, and a bead of sweat was hitting dripped from my forehead already. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"A visitor," said a voice. A young woman in a green jumpsuit jumped from around the corner. It was clear at a glance who she was related to. Her light dark skin and green eyes were practically a mirror of her brother. Her hair was curly and loose to about her shoulders.

"Tell me you're here to get the paperwork for the paperwork that I submitted like three days ago? No, wait. You're off duty. Oh man. This sucks, just when I had an ounce of hope." She crossed her arms and pouted.

"Sorry about that, I'm a Delver and-""Oh a Delver! Do you know my brother Phil? He doesn't tell me much about how he is as a pilot. He's always sad and brooding like-" She pushed down her eyebrows to make herself more serious.

"I'm Phil. I'm always serious because I can't afford to make a mistake. Mistakes get people killed Sabrina. This isn't a joke, stop imitating me."

"I didn't know he was like that…"

"Stefano, it is not good to lie. Phil did sound almost exactly like that." Caddie zoomed around to hover just to the right of my head.

"Ah!" said Sabrina.

"A companion! How neat!" She clasped Caddie in her hands like she was holding a globe.

"So interesting!"

"Unhand me!" Caddie cried, shaking free from her grasp. He reformed into an earing, slamming against my ear.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare him," said Sabrina. Her gaze was fixed directly on my ear.

"Does that hurt?"

"No, it doesn't." My foot tapped with anxiety and my tone changed.

"Sabrina, I guess I should tell you what happened. In the dungeon."

"You sound like my brother. Wait…is he okay? Did he get hurt?" There was a pain and curiosity in her words.

"He's alive," I said. She sighed in relief like she had been holding her breath for a long time.

"He decided to stay in the Dungeon. As an adviser." A long moment passed like she was weighing my words. A beeping screen caught her attention that she fixed with a few taps. She was mumbling to herself as she corrected whatever life threatening problem she was dealing with.

"That makes me happy." Her genuinely earnest answer caught me by surprise. It almost sounded like relief when she said it.

"You're happy?" I found myself asking.

"Yes. He had been miserable for a long time. He talked about his house in the Dungeon almost everyday he was home. I told him he didn't have to stay for me, to make his own happiness. And now, I'm glad he did." A tear streamed down her face that she swiped away with a radiant smile.

"Maybe one day I'll visit him." How Life Support was one of the most ignored sections in this colony I didn't understand. But it was people like Sabrina that kept this place going.

"Maybe," I said.

"Also, I'm here to give seeds to cultivation. I can't go in there, but you with your credentials can."

"Seeds! Holy smokes, that's amazing!" she cried. All the emotion of her brother having vanished.

"Do you know what kind? I go in there off-duty to help water the biomes. It's so big that they need all the help they can get. You know my brother has a green thumb. It's cause our parents both work in Cultivation. I work here though because plants die with me if I touch them, so I just water them. But Phil, oh man he could plant a mango tree in desert sand. Oh. I'm rambling."

"No it's fine. I'm not sure what kind of seeds. I just see them as seeds, but Caddie probably knows."

"I do not," he said.

"I was not allowed access to human records on botany and agriculture. I have to cross reference what your species knows versus what can be found in the Cradle."

"The shop guy said they weren't harmful or carnivorous. Mentioned something about crops and CO2 coefficients. That's more your guys specialty." Caddie reformed momentarily to let me access the seed bag. As soon as it was pulled out, he reclapsed onto my ear. The bag was hefty with about a hundred seeds mixed in. Sabrina took the seeds into her hands and lunged at me.

"Oh thank you. Thank you. Thank you!" She pushed off and peeked inside.

"So many. Oh man, Mom and Dad are going to flip."

"Well, I have somewhere else to go. It was nice to meet you Sabrina. I'll stop by anytime I have more." She gave a quirky salute and skipped around the corner and out of view.

"I hated her," said Caddie.

"Her hands were too warm. She could've melted my internals."

"Nah. She's cool."

"IS that a joke? Here? I will mark this down for your performance evaluation with your boss." I stepped outside and began heading towards the clinic.

"Who is my boss?"

"Casandra, clearly. I must take notes on how best to control you." The clinic itself required me going back to B-Block. Then it's a couple turns passed narrow corridors to get to the main center. Small shops littered this shared space with the clinic at the far end. A few people were playing cards stopped to wave. I waved back as I kept going, nodding at the ones who saw me pass through. I felt like a local celebrity since my mom was the head nurse. At one point or another, they all had to use the clinic.

Inside was pandemonium, a stark juxtaposition to the outside. But it wasn't the influx of patients, it was everything else. The Black suits were all over inside, with a single gold suit holding a clip board. The staff and some locals were on the other side, protecting where I was trying to go. I pushed past and towards the back. The mix of talking and screaming was not doing any favors to my still lingering migraine.

"They can't do this," said one nurse.

"This is bull crap!" yelled another. I squeezed past the crowd and into the back thanks to those that recognized me. The doors closed and it wasn't quieter in the treatment area. Perla, mom's second in charge of the clinic was running towards me.

"Hey, honey," she said.

"Come with me. Your mom is busy. Can I get you a water?" I hadn't realized I was so parched.

"Yes please. I thought we had a drought or something."

"No, it's worse than that." She led me to mom's office and brought a full glass. I downed it faster than the alcohol when I graduated.

"What's going on?" I asked. Perla stepped to the side just my mom was entering. Her eyes were baggy from lack of sleep.

"Any news?" she asked Perla.

"They haven't budged. Some of the people aren't getting involved and its making it harder to make a case. Especially with the water shut off for A and B block. They think the clinic is a small price to pay to get the water back."

"That's so short sighted," said mom.

"Hey, Mijo. One sec." I nodded. She pulled Perla aside as they whispered to each other.

"Stefano," said Caddie.

"Your heart rate increased twenty percent from resting. I can amplify their conversation and relay what is being said. Would you like that." I didn't say a word and my body acted on it's own. I simply nodded.

"Very well."

"We can't afford it," said Perla.

"They need to feed their families, so they can't afford to give us any to pay the fine."

"What about the other clinics? Or Daniel's old buddies?" said mom.

"I checked. Your husband's old squad mates are in the dungeon in the middle floors. And the other clinics are salivating because it means more business for them."

"Do you think they did this knowing they were in the middle floors?"

"I don't know, Casandra. What about your son? Can't he-""NO!" Didn't need Caddie to amplify that. Her voice came back down to a whisper.

"No. Not with a reset so close to happening. We need the credits but going in now is not an option. He doesn't even have a squad Perla. It's just a few days without water before they are back. We've gone longer." I got up and put myself in between the conversation.

"I'm going, Mom. I'll be quick." Before she could refuse or stop me, I was careening towards Central and towards the hangar.