Precipice: The Beginning (19 page)

38

M
organ winced as he lifted himself up onto his side, watching another group of twelve or so miners shuffling past toward the cafeteria, their heads down. He wouldn’t even call them miners anymore. The term doesn’t apply when they’re no longer mining. Watching them walk past, their expressions reflecting the exhaustion and concern they’re trying so hard to conceal. No, not miners. They’d become prisoners. Their hands weren’t bound, but they were prisoners all the same. The guards standing on both sides of the double line, two more guards in back. Zap sticks clutched tightly in their hands; long batons that gave off an electric jolt at the tip. Both the guards and the miners were nervous, causally looking up at the dim lighting, all of them wondering what was going on, and how much longer would they have to endure it. If tension were a female singer, the bitch would have been screaming.

Morgan dropped back to the bed and lay still as the guards peeked in. A quick glance as they passed. Morgan did his best comatose act, lying perfectly still with his eyes tightly shut until he felt their eyes pass over him. Morgan had become quite good at playing possum. Once, back when he’d been a younger man in the service years before he’d ever met Travis, he’d been caught behind enemy lines. He could hear the enemy rushing through the jungle, their voices yelling back and forth. Morgan’s leg was torn and shattered, no way to run. He was bleeding badly. In less than a minute, he’d pulled himself beneath the bodies of fallen comrades and waited. His eyes closed, his check pressed to the damp earth. The blood of his friends dripped onto his face, rolling over his cheeks and into his eyes. He lay there for hours, holding his breath as they searched the wreckage and the nearby jungle. His eye burned from their blood, but he didn’t dare move. Minutes turned to an hour, their voices long since gone, but he couldn’t move an inch. He’d focused on his heartbeat and held it down, suppressed it almost to the point of stopping.

Morgan opened his eyes and was thankful to see the dim overhead lights of the med lab, and not the dead body of someone he called friend. Morgan turned his head and looked out to the hall, seeing nothing but a dark hallway.

“Christina?” Morgan whispered, looking from the hall to the back of Christina’s head.

When there was no response, Morgan lifted himself into a seated position, grunting a bit from the sharp pain in his shoulder. The flesh was black and blue but the wound was healing nicely. The broken bones in his shoulder were beginning to mend, but it still hurt like hell. But despite the intense pain, Morgan rolled his legs over the side of the bed. He sat a moment, catching his breath. Dozens of dangerous covert operations under his belt, and yet a simple move off a hospital bed had him winded. Age, it seemed, might have finally caught up with him. Still, Morgan pushed past the pain and stepped off the bed onto the floor, wincing from the freezing temperatures against the bare soles of his feet. This wasn’t a caring hospital where they gave you grippy socks with a robe that exposed your ass. Here, you were lucky to get an aspirin. But they weren’t up here to have creature comforts. They were here to look after each other. To keep the team alive, and that’s what got Morgan moving across the freezing floor. Inching the distance of ten feet to the sleeping backside of a young woman he’d come to look upon like a daughter.

“Christina?” Morgan took a seat beside her bed, placing a hand to her shoulder. “Can you hear me, dear?”

“Morgan?” Christina rolled onto her back, her eyes closed. She looked as if she wanted to cry.

“Yes.” He smiled, taking hold of her hand. A gentle squeeze as the bones beneath the flesh felt brittle. “I’ve been here the entire time. Just waiting for you to wake up and smile.”

Christina opened her eyes, smiling despite the fact she couldn’t make out his face. Just a pink blur looking down on her with a familiar voice. Smiling hurt her face, something she never thought could be possible, but there it was. Still, it felt better to smile than to lay there in the dark, wondering if what she was seeing was real. Far too many times in the past few days she’d opened her eyes to a blurred reality, different men looking down on her. Their faces mixing together into one ambiguous form giving her injections, taking blood pressure, or maybe just checking in on her. Was this real now? Was Morgan looking down on her from above, or was this a familiar voice leading her into the great beyond?

“How are you feeling?”

“Pretty damn terrible.” Christina’s smile faded as pain rippled through her. “I’ve definitely had some better days.”

“Haven’t we all.”

Christina gritted her teeth until the pain subsided, fading into the background but never fully disappearing. Only once in her life had she felt such an intense throbbing. Ten years ago when she’d shattered a molar during a mission while snacking on some almonds. She’d had to endure that agonizing pain while sneaking through dense jungles and staying silent. But that was her job, and she was good at what she did.

“My eyes must be in worst condition than I’d thought. I still can’t see anything.”

“It’s not your eyes, dear.” Morgan looked back over his shoulder, fearing the footsteps of an approaching guard. He hunkered down and waited for the footsteps to pass. “I guess there’s no reason to look in here.” Morgan felt comfortable enough to stand.

“Why are the lights off?” Christina tilted her head back and looked out to the hall, seeing the dim red lighting in place of the constant bright halogens they were accustomed to. “Where’s the medical staff?” Christina rolled onto her side as she broke out in a coughing fit, her lungs burning.

“Here.” Morgan turned and rushed to the sink, filling a glass of water and returning to Christina. He held the glass to her lips, gripping it with both hands to steady it. “Hold on, take it slow.” Morgan tipped the glass to her lips and let the water roll into her mouth. “Breathe slow. Nice and slow.” He let out a groan as pain erupted in his arm.

“Okay,” Christina said in between breaths. She focused on her breathing and willed away the tightness in her throat. “My throat is so dry.” Christina took a long sip.

“You know, for a while there, we thought you weren’t going to make it.”

“What did happen?”

“There was an accident.” Morgan pulled away, running a hand through his hair. “The shaft caved in and you inhaled some Martian soil. Plus there was some slight decompression.” Morgan’s eyes filled with tears. “We almost lost you there, kid.”

Morgan ducked down as footsteps drifted in from the hall. Christina rose up and looked over his shoulder as the guards led the miners back from the cafeteria to their rooms. To their locked cells. The guards walked with their heads down, looking tired and worn out. They all gave off a sense of dread.

“What the hell is going on here?”

“I don’t know, but it looks bad.” Morgan leaned in close, taking the empty cup from her hands. “It’s been like this for a few days now, maybe a week. It’s kind of hard to keep track of time from these beds.”

“Has something happened?”

“I don’t know. But whatever it is, it’s serious.” Morgan looked up at the dark lights. “If they’re running on auxiliary power, there’s more to this than a training exercise. Too much at stake to test the system for this long, not way out here.”

Christina lowered her head back to the bed, overcome with dizziness. Her forehead broke out in a cool sweat.

“I just need some rest. I’m sorry.” Christina closed her eyes and sighed. “I’m just so tired.”

“It’s okay. Just rest up.” Morgan wiped the sweat from her forehead. “Nothing we can do about it now anyway.”

Morgan sat with her a while, holding her hand. In a normal world, he would have gotten her some help, someone to check her temperature. A fucking doctor. But this wasn’t a normal world and there didn’t appear to be a doctor on call. Extremely odd for a medical facility. Morgan wondered when was the last time someone had been in to check on them. Were they stuck in there? Morgan stood and hurried back to his bed, lying down quickly as a single pair of footfalls headed toward them from the hall. Morgan lay on his right side, his good side, pretending to be asleep. He listened as the footfalls came to a halt inside the doorway. Morgan wanted to turn his head and look, to take a peek at the mystery man watching them from the doorway. Why weren’t they bothering to check the vital signs of their two patients? The silence stretched out past the causal glance to an uncomfortable staring. But the tension eased as the footfalls began moving off toward the cafeteria.

39

D
r. Zatzkin tapped the bottom of the powdered coffee mate, shaking what little he could into his morning cup of coffee. This morning there was little more than a light dusting. He set the empty canister down on the table beside the pot with a huff, shaking his head. Had they been flung so far from Earth that they couldn’t even get a semi-decent cup of coffee? Nothing but black coffee now? Had they fallen so far off the grid? Dr. Zatzkin cracked a smile, taking a seat at a small table against the window. His mental rant had come off quite dramatic, but a little entertainment would do this place some good. He was beginning to feel a little too isolated lately, running on auxiliary power as instructed by the main facility. Why they’d been forced down to dim lighting and rations had not been explained. No one ever seemed to fill them in on anything. Just because they were a long walk away didn’t mean they weren’t curious. They were scientists for crying out loud. Who’s more curious than them?

Feeling a bit uneasy, his stomach gurgling from indigestion and stress, he stood from the table and walked over to the orange juice dispenser. He took a plastic cup off the rack and held it beneath the nozzle, waiting patiently for a few drops followed by a hiss of air.

“Oh come on.” Dr. Zatzkin tapped the juice release nozzle with his finger to no avail.

“Out of juice?” Dr. Keller shook his head as he entered the room, looking at the machine as if wishful thinking were a useful tool.

“We’ll have to wait until the next rotation for juice now.”

“That’s very wishful thinking.” Dr. Keller shook his head with a smirk.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“The supply ship is still in the facility hangar awaiting clearance to depart.”

He looked up from Dr. Keller’s shaggy facial hair to the dim lighting. It occurred to him that they hadn’t been issued their usual barrage of test schedules and performance reviews from the facility in Virginia. An odd thing really.

“Excuse me,” Dr. Zatzkin said to Dr. Keller, speaking more to himself as he pushed passed the plump physicist on his way out of the cafeteria.

He turned down the hallway on his left and walked briskly, his white coat trailing out behind him like a cape. There were questions swarming about his mind, collecting like flies in the tangled webbing of his mind. Questions that were his job to have answers for as head of the research facility. Dr. Zatzkin briefly looked out the window to the red planet’s surface; his mind occupied with concern. Usually he walked the structure with a calm, casual pace, taking in every landmark as he passed. Today it was a red blur on his way into the communications room.

“Morning Dr. Zatzkin.”

“Good morning, Steven.” Dr. Zatzkin gave the technician a brief smile. “Have we had any transmissions from Earth?” He crossed his hands behind his back.

“Nothing in the last thirty-six hours.”

“I see.” Dr. Zatzkin bounced on the balls of his feet, hoping to conceal his nervousness from this man. “Doesn’t that seem a bit unusual to you?”

“No, not really.” Steven placed a hand to his chin, rubbing out a thought. “I just figured it was part of their test. Like the lights.”

“Will you do me a favor? Can you call them for me?”

“Sure. Just wait a few minutes for the satellite link and the delay of the signal.” Steven swiveled in his chair with purpose, turning dials and flipping switches, placing a thin receiver in his ear. He squinted his eyes and focused, holding up a finger as if queuing the other side. A few minutes passed and his finger slowly lowered, dropping limp to his side altogether. His focus replaced with puzzlement.

“What is it?”

“There’s a good link, but no one is answering.”

“What do you mean, no one is answering? This is a direct uplink to the main facility in Virginia. A direct call to TransWorld.”

“I know, but no one’s home.”

A moment sat between them, heavy and uncomfortable. In their dumbfounded silence you could hear the many subtle noises of the structure. The air vents feeding through the filters, the coolant systems clicking on and recycling every thirty seconds, and the almost inaudible clicking of the sand being blown against the glass from the harsh winds outside.

“Okay, this is fine.” Dr. Zatzkin nodded along with his rational thinking. “They’re just testing our resilience in case we were ever cut off, that’s all.” Dr. Zatzkin looked passed the worried face of the technician to the instruments, their design and function so foreign to him. “Try this. Contact the space station to see if they have an active line of communication.”

The technician was happy to oblige, turning in his chair to enter his commands into the system, clicking enter with a smile that immediately deflated as a small box popped up on the screen.

“It says that communication to the station has been blocked.”

“Can’t you run a bypass or something?”

“No, it’s password protected.”

“By who?”

The technician leaned forward as he searched through the system, leaning back with an answer. “Andrews.”

The name ran a shiver down Dr. Zatzkin’s spine. Thinking that their temporary isolation might not be a training exercise at all but something far more serious. What did Andrews know? More importantly, what did Andrews want to keep everyone from seeing?

“Do me a favor, keep a continual call in to TransWorld. Someone will get annoyed enough to pick up on their end.”

“I’ll stay on it.”

Dr. Zatzkin nodded to the young man and left the room, walking the hall at a slow pace with his head down, mulling over the troubling thought that their fates may now be resting in the hands of a young technician. A man that looked as if most of his time was spent playing computer games or maybe playing with himself. What else did he have to do day in and day out in that tiny room? But regardless of how he spent his day, Dr. Zatzkin could only hope he gets a response from his pages.