Whumper smiled to himself as Whumpee struggled to focus their gaze. Their eyes refused to stay opened and on Whumper.
Not only were they tired from the past couple of hours of straight taunting, they were tired from whatever Whumper had injected them with. After getting the idea from a friend, he decided to try it out on Whumpee. He was very pleased with the results.
“So, what was all that you were saying earlier?” He asked with a knowing grin. “You said you were going to hit me, stab me, strangle me, get me back. Anything else you plan on doing?”
Whumpee’s lips didn’t move to form a response. Only a small exhale could be heard. The chains attached to their wrists and ankles holding them down to the bed didn’t rattle. He could see their eyes slowly starting to shut. Grabbing their chin, he forced their head up. “I’m talking to you Whumpee.”
Their eyes opened more before slowly closing. He hummed. “I thought you had things to say Whumpee. Why’re you so quiet now?”
Whumper yanked on one chain, forcing their glassy eyes to briefly lock with his. This was something he could get used to seeing. He smirked.
“You look so much better like this. You think I enjoy you thrashing around all the time? Nah, I don’t. I like you better this way.” He hummed. “Too incoherent to talk or even open your eyes. I wish I could keep you like this forever…”
I think I am in trouble. I did a second bloat for the day yesterday, just before bed, and I am still stretched tight. I can hardly move yet. I am not quite ready to meet my day right this second, but holy moly. Maybe after another bit of sleep, I will have a bit more wiggle room. I mean, there is nothing to grab or even poke yet. It is stretched good and tight. I don't even know if I can roll over in bed yet.
"Please hold," the voice said and Kass sighed, "you are being transferred to an operator."
Kass brought her ship into a holding pattern around the 3-Heron dockyard and pulled up her scopes while she waited, zooming in on the collapsed section. It was small, a thin scar less than ten metres across. Something had slipped through Central-1's grid and impacted on the side of the station in a million-to-one, unforeseeable accident. According to the report, all four of the workers the station had in there at the time were killed instantly.
"2171-SD, come in please." This was a new voice - human, not synthesised, officious and, based on his decision to use her shuttle code and not her name, busy and rude.
"Go for 2171-SD," she replied, after an unnecessarily long pause.
"We weren't expecting you so soon," he said.
"Safin-Daniels ensures immediate response to high-priority clients like the Central Network," January rattled off, quoting verbatim from the pamphlet Central Network's upper management would have been given thirty years ago when they took out their insurance. It was a very reliable pamphlet.
"Well, yes but… It's just that we haven't cleared the site yet," he said, starting to sound a bit apologetic. "Search and Rescue only finished an hour ago and there are still dead bodies down there." He whispered the words like he was afraid of them, and January wondered where it was on the station he lived that he hadn't seen a corpse before.
"The fresher the better," January muttered before hitting the comms switch again. "That's not a problem, Central-1. If you could clear me for a berth and have someone direct me, that would be great."
There was a pause before the amber light on her HUD turned green and she could guide the ship out of the holding pattern and into the docking hub, letting the autopilot take over for the tricky landing manouevre while she buttoned up her jumpsuit and checked her hair in the dull reflective surface of the metal wall.
The man who met her at the last junction before the sealed off maintenance section looked exactly how she expected after hearing his voice on the radio: short and sweaty in an expensive suit and uncomfortable expression. His name was Salder, and he was anxious for her to finish as soon as possible. Apart from the pop-up pressure seal that divided the wrecked portion of the room, Supply and Utility Maintenance access hatch 73 looked just like any other - a functional, bare metal structure welded to the next functional, bare metal structure in a long chain that allowed entrance to the warren of tunnels that riddled the station. They looked exactly like the SUM hatches on Central-5, where January had been last month, and Luna-7, where she had found explosives residue that exposed the Cassarn Syndicate's insurance fraud. The first thing she noticed were the three body bags.
"Where's the fourth?" she asked. "The report said four men died, I only see three."
Salder pointed to the unzipped empty body bag. "Perhaps you'd better take a look."
January frowned, but did what he said and lifted the flap of the black bag. "Ah," she said, about the severed leg sitting there.
"That's all they managed to find," Salder said. He was resolutely looking the other way, and January thought about kicking him with the severed leg for a second. She put the thought, however tempting, out of her mind and looked at the sealed section. It was a pretty open-and-shut case. As much as she'd like to ruin more of Salder's day, it was a textbook act-of-God meteor incident. She was getting back to her feet when she heard a soft crackling sound. She paused, and it stopped for a moment, and then came back.
"If you'd care to - "
" Shush ," January hissed, waving a hand at Salder until he closed his mouth.
There it was again: crackle, silence, crackle, silence.
"You hear that?" she asked.
"No?" Salder said, looking at her dumbly. January shushed him again and followed the sound, stepping as softly as she could on the rubberised floor so she didn't drown it out.
"There!"
The sound was spilling from an almost-closed zip on one of the body bags, and January knelt to open it properly. The man inside was, of course, stone dead, but his radio wasn't. She grabbed it from the hook on his belt and clicked down the push-to-talk.
"Hello?"
The crackle changed in intensity, and if she listened carefully she could make out what could be a voice. The radio was damaged, probably by the crushing force of the metal walls slamming together that had killed its owner, but maybe one of the others still worked. The first body she checked had lost his radio along with most of his right side, but the second one was intact. It had been switched off, presumably by the SAR crew, but as soon as she turned it on she heard him: the missing three quarters of the man who was supposed to be dead.
"Do you copy?" he asked. January could tell his voice was hoarse even through the tinny radio speaker.
"I read you," she said. "Where are you?"
"Not really sure," he said. "Last I remember I was near the airlock, but I think the crash threw me around a bit and I was unconscious for… I guess a while."
January checked her watch. He had been trapped for seven hours, which was more than enough time for him to bleed to death from his injuries, but other than his scratchy voice he didn't even sound hurt.
"Are you… injured?" she asked, looking over at his severed leg.
"My leg hurts."
"The left one?" January asked.
"Yeah, how'd you know?"
"Call it intuition," January said. There must be something pressing up against the remains of his leg, stemming the bleeding enough for him to stay alive. Salder looked a little green. "My name's Kass," she said.
"Bennett," he said. That was Bennett Anto, the maintenance co-ordinator. "Did any of my guys make it out? I've been trying to contact them since I woke up, but you answered so I guess…"
"Sorry," January offered. Bennett didn't reply for a moment.
"I can't move, Kass." His voice sounded different now. Choked. Afraid.
"That's alright, Bennett," she said, as reassuringly as she could. "We'll send someone in to cut you out.
"I don't think you will," he said. "There's something I haven't told you."
"What's that?"
"There's a support strut that sheared in the crash. Every couple of seconds it shifts a few centimetres. I probably only have about a minute and a half left before it hits me."
"Shit," January breathed. She knew the specifications: each support strut weighed half a ton and was made of galvanised steel.
"Yeah."
"You can't move?"
"No. The best I've got is deciding which side of my head it goes through."
There was no time to send a crew in, especially when they didn't know where he was. Likewise, there was no way to stop the strut. If they could place a shaped charge in the right place, they might be able to redirect it - except they didn't have the time. There was nothing they could do except stand there and wait. Salder turned to leave, but January grabbed his arm.
"Don't you dare," she said. He swallowed. All the colour drained out of his face, but he nodded.
"I'm sorry, Bennett," January said. "I don't think there's anything we can do."
"I know," he said. "I've known since I saw it start moving. 'I will see my fate, and I will greet it, and I will not be afraid.'"
January paused and frowned. "What is that?" she asked Salder. "Is that scripture?"
He nodded. "Neo-Latin Revivalist," he said. "There's a whole mess of them down a couple levels."
January clicked the push-to-talk button again. "I respect that," she said, a little weakly. Religion and the faithful always made her a little uneasy. In her world, a life was forfeit so easily: an acetylene torch left on, a loose wire, industrial sabotage, a locked door left open, poor pressure seal maintenance… the list of sad and empty ways to die was endless. To find meaning in any of it felt so forced and unnatural to her.
"Just one problem," Bennett said. "I'm still shit-scared."
"Easier said than done, right?"
"I guess," he said. "I thought I could accept this in silence, you know? Be a stoic." His voice was getting strained, and he was speaking faster. January guessed the steel strut had moved again and gritted her teeth. "I only picked up the radio to say goodbye to my guys, but… well, you know. I think I'd be a screaming wreck right now if I was still alone."
January didn't know what to say to that. She glanced over at Salder, sweating uselessly next to her. She thought about handing the radio over to him but the idea of hearing someone from the executive class telling a doomed man he was thankful for his service made her feel a bit sick.
"I'm sorry they couldn't save you," she said, in the end.
"That's alright. Just one of those things."
There was a long pause. Salder wiped the sweat from his brow with a monogrammed handkerchief. January tried desperately to think of something reassuring to say in the last few seconds of a fellow human being's life and came up empty.
"Okay," Bennett said, his voice tight with fear. "Next time it moves, I'm gone. So, I guess I'll sign off now."
"No," January said quickly. He needed someone with him, she was sure of that. "Leave it transmitting. I'll be here for… for the end."
There was silence for a moment, and then the radio crackled as Bennett held down the push-to-talk.
"Thanks," he murmurred.
January said nothing, and waited.
It took four seconds. There was a brief scrape of metal on metal, and then silence as Bennett's lifeless finger slipped from the button. It was over.
Slowly, Kass January lowered the radio, and blinked tears from her eyes.
The kitten fell asleep on my lumbar cushion, then rolled off of it and is currently wedged between me and the back of my chair, and I haven't been up long enough to be limber enough to retrieve her without actually getting up, which will possibly send her tumbling into my seat and then into the floor.
Whumpee coughed. Everything hurt. It hurt so much he couldn’t even move. How sick he felt didn’t make it much better. He felt glued to the bed and cold. Even with the four blankets layered on top of him, he still felt like he was going to freeze to death.
Caretaker finally came into the room, a bag in his hand and a coat on. “Sorry I took so long. Traffic was no joke today.” He seemed out of breath as if he’d been running. Placing the bag down, he reached inside and pulled out a medicine bottle. He left the room to rinse out the small plastic cup that went with it. He poured the medicine into it and helped Whumpee sit upright to take it. Afterwards, he helped him drink some water. Laying Whumpee back down and tucking him back in, Caretaker shrugged his coat off as he turned to leave.
“Stay.” Whumpee croaked. “Please.”
Caretaker turned back around. Based on the urgency in Whumpee’s voice, he couldn’t ignore the request. He hung his coat on the footboard of the bed and lied down next to him. He pulled Whumpee into his arms, the blankets still wrapped around him.
“It hurts…” Whumpee whined.
“I know, I know. I got you a different medicine so it won’t hurt so much and your fever will die down. It’s going to be over soon though, okay?” Caretaker placed a kiss on his forehead. “I promise.”
i can feel wires in my skin i need to get this mask off but i can't move head hurts too much i can hear people running around i don't want to die i need to move but i can't please someone don't leave me here....
