A week later than I had hoped, but here it is.
-----
While Jessica was bandaging my back I asked the kids to gather as much food and water as they could. Their pantry raid netted the expected bottled water, energy bars, and dog food. The bonus was a bag of fresh fruit, containing an assortment of oranges, bananas, apples and pears. I helped myself to an few oranges and made sure that the kids and Jessica ate some of the fruit. I didn't know how nutritionally complete the dog food was for the kids new bodies, nor how long they were kept without a proper diet. The packaging on the energy bars made claims of nutritional supplements, but I knew that an extended diet on them wasn't a good idea. Besides, both Jessica and I needed to bring our blood sugars back up to something approaching normal.
After the impromptu picnic we set out to find some method of transportation away from here. Armed with Gregory's keys, the locked doors at the end of the hallway provided little resistance. I was tempted to search for the identity of Gregory's employers, or anything that might help the eventual investigation of this place. But my own fear of sticking around too long and meeting them in person prevented me from doing more than sticking my head in a room that wasn't recognizable as a hanger. Jessica and the kids didn't seem to disagree with my methodology. The kids did little more than sniff at most doors, and Jessica followed behind me glancing inside and getting a whiff of the rooms as well.
I had just turned away from one more room filled with filing cabinets and medical textbooks when Jessica gave an short bark of surprise. I turned to see her gradually step into the room, eyes closed, breathing slowly through her nose. The kids raced around my legs and into the room to see what was wrong. Jessica heard them arrive. Opening her eyes, Jessica gave a short chuff of a command at the kids, then she returned to simply smelling the air. The kids were quick to catch on, and either more used to their senses of smell, or better able to distinguish between scents (most likely both), as they quickly zeroed into one of the larger boxes sitting in a corner.
Jessica had the box open and was looking inside before I was halfway across the room. A smile lit up her face as she pulled out a battered green backpack. She struggled with the opening it for a second before getting one of her claws into the hole on the zipper-tab. She gave a brief look inside the backpack to confirm the contents before attempting to sling it across her back. Unfortunately it no longer fit. She struggled with it for a minute, eliciting what almost sounded like subdued laughter from the kids, before giving up on it with a grumble. I took a moment to look inside the box and discovered that it was far from empty. The largest object by far was, thank heaven, my backpack. A quick investigation revealed it was missing some of my medical instruments, but the two most important items where there: my wallet, missing cash but containing my ID and other plastic, and my palm pilot, still functional.
The other contents of the box gave me pause, wallets and purses. Far too many of them. My hope of identifying the kids was muted by the knowledge that they were not the first, not by a long shot. I put them in my bag as well. At least their families would know how they died. Any other personal effects would have to be recovered later, we had already spent far to much time searching for a way out of here.
It didn't take too much longer to find the garage, and that truly is what it looked like. There were peg boards with various tools on the walls, boxes of parts shoved in corners, and (most importantly) a big black van parked in front of a small garage door. The van was obviously waved, it had sleek curves and lines that, combined with its color, gave it an air of power and stealth. The windows were tinted, almost to the point of matching the paint job. I didn't like the feeling I got off the van, vehicles shouldn't make you apprehensive. But seeing no alternate means of transportation I'd take what I could get. The number of keys I needed to try before I opened the door was much smaller, only three keys on the keychain looked like car keys. The interior was slightly less disturbing, the familiar kludge of laptop and navigation system was present in the front console, with wiring snaking back into the hole that used to be the stereo. The back of the van was carpeted in the same colors as front, black and grey. Instead of the normal front facing seats the back was largely open, with a row of bench seating along one side.
Jessica stuck her head in the back, and after a sniff or two, deemed it acceptable. The kids were as eager as I was to get leave, and didn't need anything more than Jessica opening the sliding side door before they were inside and on the floor looking back at us with expectation. That earned them an exasperated snort from Jessica as she closed the door. I climbed into the drivers seat as she took shotgun. Sitting down in the drivers seat reminded me of the mess that my back was underneath the mass of bandages, but it didn't hurt nearly as much as I thought it would. I didn't know wether to chalk that up to the general cacophony of aches and pains that made themselves known upon sitting down, or other things that I really didn't want to think to hard about at the time. Once everyone was inside and the doors were firmly closed I was able to get the van started up.
I stared out the windshield as the various systems that acted as navigation and control for the van booted and ran through self diagnostics. Some part of me hoped that the garage door opened straight into vacuum and we could vent the entire station simply by opening it. The saner side of my mind was quick to point out that we only had one van for transportation, and damaging it in explosive decompression would not be a good idea, especially since we were in it. The laptop that served as navigation finished booting and displayed our current location (home) as well as a minimalist overhead view of the garage. Various numbers that escaped my immediate understanding were displayed along the left side, but a helpful 'route' menu was available along the top of the screen. I quickly found out two things: 'earth orbit' was an acceptable destination, and it couldn't plot a course because the current location was 'unknown'. A few error messages scrolled across the bottom of the screen, complaining about 'star field not present'. Jessica, who had occupied herself trying to find a comfortable position for her tail and reading over my shoulder, was quick to point out the webcam on the dash and its current view of the garage door.
While I spent a few short moments feeling less than intelligent and reminding myself why I never attempted to pilot a ship before, Jessica found the controls to open the garage door. The trio of buttons were located on the ceiling, with helpful little symbols. Like most stylized pictograms I found the meaning obvious once their function was known, but attempting to derive function from the collection of shapes was hopeless. The button Jessica had pressed opened and closed the inner airlock door, while the other two buttons cycled air into or out of the airlock and operated the outer door respectively. The interior of the airlock was revealed as the door slid back on it's track. The airlock started its life as a cargo container, and it showed. The walls were corrugated steel, there where no windows, and the only detail or effort seemed to be centered around the seals for the doors. It totaled about 8' square and 20' long, large enough for the van, but a tighter fit than I would have liked.
Exodus was surprisingly uncomplicated; drive into airlock, press first button to close door behind us, press middle button to remove air from airlock, press last button to open door to space, leave. The only surprise came after leaving the airlock. As I drove out the airlock an asteroid drifted lazily by. All I could see out the windshield and windows were the dark ponderous shapes of asteroids. None of them were moving very fast, but they still scared me. An object that outmasses you by several orders of magnitude doesn't have to go very fast to hurt. I spent the next five minutes a tense bundle of nerves. I had never been very good at driving, having to add a third dimension to navigation didn't help matters any, to say nothing of being in an unfamiliar car. I pointed the car in the direction I saw the fewest asteroids and went as fast as I dared.
Once we were in open space I spared a moment to check on the kids. I shouldn't have worried, they were glued to the windows, tails wagging. I didn't know if it was the feeling of being free or just excitement at the few close calls we had with the asteroids, but they were enjoying themselves. Jessica released her death-grip on the armrest and shot me a tight smile, she also realized how easily that could have gone bad. It didn't take to long to pick out the sun, small though it was, and point ourselves in it's direction. The navigation computer made a few happy noises once the sun showed up in the webcams view. The 'Current Location: Unknown' messages was replaced with a much more promising 'Current Location: Calculating...'. After a few moments of of calculation a map popped up, showing our current position to be the inner edge of the asteroid belt (surprise surprise), and a nice green route to earth. I was able to get us pointed in the right direction and hit the cruise control. At our current speed, a little over .025c, the computer estimated our arrival in 14 hours or so.
"Wake me if anything comes up?" I asked Jessica. She gave me a brief nod and climbed over her seat to be with the kids in the back. Wether it was to let me sleep or keep the kids company I didn't know. And to be honest I didn't care. I was bone tired and aching all over, the adrenaline high that kept me awake and alert after the fight was quickly crashing. I wanted to do nothing more than tilt the seat back, curl up, and pass out. So I did.
-----
To be concluded in part 3. Which will most likely be delayed as well. Due to my presence next week at the Ruby on Rails Nerd Camp in Atlanta. I don't think I'll have a lot of free time for writing, but you never know.
Questions, comments, constructive criticism?-Terry
------
"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." - Antoine de Saint Exupery
"Luge strategy? Lie flat and try not to die." - Carmen Boyle (Olympic Luge Gold Medal winner - 1996)
Mary Sue's theme music
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy
-----
While Jessica was bandaging my back I asked the kids to gather as much food and water as they could. Their pantry raid netted the expected bottled water, energy bars, and dog food. The bonus was a bag of fresh fruit, containing an assortment of oranges, bananas, apples and pears. I helped myself to an few oranges and made sure that the kids and Jessica ate some of the fruit. I didn't know how nutritionally complete the dog food was for the kids new bodies, nor how long they were kept without a proper diet. The packaging on the energy bars made claims of nutritional supplements, but I knew that an extended diet on them wasn't a good idea. Besides, both Jessica and I needed to bring our blood sugars back up to something approaching normal.
After the impromptu picnic we set out to find some method of transportation away from here. Armed with Gregory's keys, the locked doors at the end of the hallway provided little resistance. I was tempted to search for the identity of Gregory's employers, or anything that might help the eventual investigation of this place. But my own fear of sticking around too long and meeting them in person prevented me from doing more than sticking my head in a room that wasn't recognizable as a hanger. Jessica and the kids didn't seem to disagree with my methodology. The kids did little more than sniff at most doors, and Jessica followed behind me glancing inside and getting a whiff of the rooms as well.
I had just turned away from one more room filled with filing cabinets and medical textbooks when Jessica gave an short bark of surprise. I turned to see her gradually step into the room, eyes closed, breathing slowly through her nose. The kids raced around my legs and into the room to see what was wrong. Jessica heard them arrive. Opening her eyes, Jessica gave a short chuff of a command at the kids, then she returned to simply smelling the air. The kids were quick to catch on, and either more used to their senses of smell, or better able to distinguish between scents (most likely both), as they quickly zeroed into one of the larger boxes sitting in a corner.
Jessica had the box open and was looking inside before I was halfway across the room. A smile lit up her face as she pulled out a battered green backpack. She struggled with the opening it for a second before getting one of her claws into the hole on the zipper-tab. She gave a brief look inside the backpack to confirm the contents before attempting to sling it across her back. Unfortunately it no longer fit. She struggled with it for a minute, eliciting what almost sounded like subdued laughter from the kids, before giving up on it with a grumble. I took a moment to look inside the box and discovered that it was far from empty. The largest object by far was, thank heaven, my backpack. A quick investigation revealed it was missing some of my medical instruments, but the two most important items where there: my wallet, missing cash but containing my ID and other plastic, and my palm pilot, still functional.
The other contents of the box gave me pause, wallets and purses. Far too many of them. My hope of identifying the kids was muted by the knowledge that they were not the first, not by a long shot. I put them in my bag as well. At least their families would know how they died. Any other personal effects would have to be recovered later, we had already spent far to much time searching for a way out of here.
It didn't take too much longer to find the garage, and that truly is what it looked like. There were peg boards with various tools on the walls, boxes of parts shoved in corners, and (most importantly) a big black van parked in front of a small garage door. The van was obviously waved, it had sleek curves and lines that, combined with its color, gave it an air of power and stealth. The windows were tinted, almost to the point of matching the paint job. I didn't like the feeling I got off the van, vehicles shouldn't make you apprehensive. But seeing no alternate means of transportation I'd take what I could get. The number of keys I needed to try before I opened the door was much smaller, only three keys on the keychain looked like car keys. The interior was slightly less disturbing, the familiar kludge of laptop and navigation system was present in the front console, with wiring snaking back into the hole that used to be the stereo. The back of the van was carpeted in the same colors as front, black and grey. Instead of the normal front facing seats the back was largely open, with a row of bench seating along one side.
Jessica stuck her head in the back, and after a sniff or two, deemed it acceptable. The kids were as eager as I was to get leave, and didn't need anything more than Jessica opening the sliding side door before they were inside and on the floor looking back at us with expectation. That earned them an exasperated snort from Jessica as she closed the door. I climbed into the drivers seat as she took shotgun. Sitting down in the drivers seat reminded me of the mess that my back was underneath the mass of bandages, but it didn't hurt nearly as much as I thought it would. I didn't know wether to chalk that up to the general cacophony of aches and pains that made themselves known upon sitting down, or other things that I really didn't want to think to hard about at the time. Once everyone was inside and the doors were firmly closed I was able to get the van started up.
I stared out the windshield as the various systems that acted as navigation and control for the van booted and ran through self diagnostics. Some part of me hoped that the garage door opened straight into vacuum and we could vent the entire station simply by opening it. The saner side of my mind was quick to point out that we only had one van for transportation, and damaging it in explosive decompression would not be a good idea, especially since we were in it. The laptop that served as navigation finished booting and displayed our current location (home) as well as a minimalist overhead view of the garage. Various numbers that escaped my immediate understanding were displayed along the left side, but a helpful 'route' menu was available along the top of the screen. I quickly found out two things: 'earth orbit' was an acceptable destination, and it couldn't plot a course because the current location was 'unknown'. A few error messages scrolled across the bottom of the screen, complaining about 'star field not present'. Jessica, who had occupied herself trying to find a comfortable position for her tail and reading over my shoulder, was quick to point out the webcam on the dash and its current view of the garage door.
While I spent a few short moments feeling less than intelligent and reminding myself why I never attempted to pilot a ship before, Jessica found the controls to open the garage door. The trio of buttons were located on the ceiling, with helpful little symbols. Like most stylized pictograms I found the meaning obvious once their function was known, but attempting to derive function from the collection of shapes was hopeless. The button Jessica had pressed opened and closed the inner airlock door, while the other two buttons cycled air into or out of the airlock and operated the outer door respectively. The interior of the airlock was revealed as the door slid back on it's track. The airlock started its life as a cargo container, and it showed. The walls were corrugated steel, there where no windows, and the only detail or effort seemed to be centered around the seals for the doors. It totaled about 8' square and 20' long, large enough for the van, but a tighter fit than I would have liked.
Exodus was surprisingly uncomplicated; drive into airlock, press first button to close door behind us, press middle button to remove air from airlock, press last button to open door to space, leave. The only surprise came after leaving the airlock. As I drove out the airlock an asteroid drifted lazily by. All I could see out the windshield and windows were the dark ponderous shapes of asteroids. None of them were moving very fast, but they still scared me. An object that outmasses you by several orders of magnitude doesn't have to go very fast to hurt. I spent the next five minutes a tense bundle of nerves. I had never been very good at driving, having to add a third dimension to navigation didn't help matters any, to say nothing of being in an unfamiliar car. I pointed the car in the direction I saw the fewest asteroids and went as fast as I dared.
Once we were in open space I spared a moment to check on the kids. I shouldn't have worried, they were glued to the windows, tails wagging. I didn't know if it was the feeling of being free or just excitement at the few close calls we had with the asteroids, but they were enjoying themselves. Jessica released her death-grip on the armrest and shot me a tight smile, she also realized how easily that could have gone bad. It didn't take to long to pick out the sun, small though it was, and point ourselves in it's direction. The navigation computer made a few happy noises once the sun showed up in the webcams view. The 'Current Location: Unknown' messages was replaced with a much more promising 'Current Location: Calculating...'. After a few moments of of calculation a map popped up, showing our current position to be the inner edge of the asteroid belt (surprise surprise), and a nice green route to earth. I was able to get us pointed in the right direction and hit the cruise control. At our current speed, a little over .025c, the computer estimated our arrival in 14 hours or so.
"Wake me if anything comes up?" I asked Jessica. She gave me a brief nod and climbed over her seat to be with the kids in the back. Wether it was to let me sleep or keep the kids company I didn't know. And to be honest I didn't care. I was bone tired and aching all over, the adrenaline high that kept me awake and alert after the fight was quickly crashing. I wanted to do nothing more than tilt the seat back, curl up, and pass out. So I did.
-----
To be concluded in part 3. Which will most likely be delayed as well. Due to my presence next week at the Ruby on Rails Nerd Camp in Atlanta. I don't think I'll have a lot of free time for writing, but you never know.
Questions, comments, constructive criticism?-Terry
------
"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." - Antoine de Saint Exupery
"Luge strategy? Lie flat and try not to die." - Carmen Boyle (Olympic Luge Gold Medal winner - 1996)
Mary Sue's theme music
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy