"Mars! Wake up, you're going to be late for maintenance duty!" Jolted from his slumber, the young man called Mars jerked awake only to nearly knock himself unconscious by the low hanging ceiling above his bunk. Rubbing his head with a groan of pain, he leaned over the side to see his father staring at him intently. "You're C.O. said if you were late one more time, he'll have you scraping crap off the sewer lines until your skin stinks of it for the rest of your life!" He barked, heading towards the metal door and opening it with a metallic grind. "For the love of Altman, you're seventeen now. I shouldn't have to cover for you, you need to grow up." With a final glare, the door shut behind him. Leaving Mars in an empty, almost eerily quiet room. Resting his head against the pillow, Mars lie there staring at his pain inducing ceiling. "Yeah Dad, thanks for the happy birthday…"
After a lengthy shower, Mars was sure to get an earful from his commanding officer. It didn't matter though, wouldn't be the first time. Toweling off his short black hair, the young man began to get dressed. Standard issue boots, cargo pants and a black V neck. Finally pulling on his RIG jacket and rolling up his sleeves. Stepping out into the cold steel hallway, his boots striking the ground with resounding 'bangs', Mars began to make his trek to the engineering bay. "Mars! Are you heading to work?" Mrs. Hamilton asked, stepping out of her family's quarters. "Yeah, going to get my ear chewed off for being late though, but since I'm already in trouble, how's Suzy?" He asked curious about his little friend. "Just sent her off to the school, if you could even call it that. I swear sometimes I think you're her only friend, I wonder how well she's going to adjust once we leave Aegis VII."
Saying that instantly turned his mood sour, Mars had forgotten that the Hamilton's were heading home in less than two weeks. Suzy was only eight, but the two of them had become quick friends, and the thought that after two and a half years together, she would be leaving him behind was painful. She was like a little sister to him. "I'm sure she'll be fine, she's a tough girl." The young man said with a smile, masking his inner worries. "I hope you're right. Anyway, you better get going, don't want to get you into too much trouble." Mrs. Hamilton said, turning to input the lock code into her door. "Yeah, tell Suzy I'll see her after work. You of all people know how she hates not knowing how long she has to wait." Mars replied turning and jogging down the corridor. "Stay safe Mars! Good luck!" Mrs. Hamilton called after him as he rounded the corner.
XXXXXX
"Mars Jaeger! You are one lucky son of a bitch that I'm the supervisor today rather than Carsten. Being late again, he would have torn you a new one!" Marcus yelled across the busy engineering bay, ducking under a suspended crate to meet me at the door. "Hey Marcus, sorry for being late. Got a job for me?" I asked, waiting for him to finish helping a worker out with some scheduling. "Yeah, some people in the residential sector are complaining about an odd smell coming out of the vents. I'll upload the details to your RIG, take care of it." Nodding, I checked my holo-display for the directions. "By the way, did you hear about the thing one of the dig teams brought back yesterday? The Uni's are going nuts about it, half my crew won't stop going on and on about it."
"Yeah, the Unitologists think it's a second marker right?" I replied, looking out over the engineering bay. Pockets of men were chatting away, one or two were even praying. "That's right, crock of shit if you ask me. Anyway, be careful out there Mars, there was another murder last night." My head snapped back to him in alarm. "What?! You gotta be fuckin' kidding me, who?!" Marcus tapped away at a data pad giving the line workers some orders before replying. "Sean Marshall butchered his wife and friend with a Line Axe in the middle of the shopping plaza." I stared at him dumbfounded for a second, Sean was a maintenance crewman like me, if not a little bit more respected. I talked to him not even three days ago, he seemed so sane. "Did they figure out why?" I asked once I had collected my thoughts. "Nope, couldn't even question him either. Once he was done with them he took the axe and beheaded himself."
"Christ, what the hell is going on, that's the third incident this week." I said, completely sickened by what I had heard. "I have no idea, but best stay on your toes. No need to add to the body count." With those parting words I left engineering and began to make my way to residential. On my way I had noticed that many of the lights were off in some of the corridors, I'd have to ask Marcus about it when I got back from the job. Weird though that this many would blow out at the same timeframe, engineering checks the light systems once a day. "Mars…" Immediately I whirled around to search for the voice that had said my name, it had sounded so close yet all that was around me were the thick walls and my own shadow. "Maybe that midnight snack wasn't such a good idea, that sandwich was at the back of the fridge for a while." I commented to no one, trying to shrug off the bizarre occurrence.
XXXXXX
"And you said that the smell started last night?" I questioned the older man as I set up a step ladder to reach the vent grill. "Yes, and I could swear I could hear somethin' moving around up there late at night to. Maybe it was rats." Shaking my head as I unscrewed the grill from its cover, I threw my response over my shoulder. "You know as well as I do the colony doesn't have rats, everything is sterilized before it's brought down here. It's probably just the new filtration system getting settled." The old man didn't seem content with my answer, choosing to quietly grumble to himself about something. Hell, he might have just imagined the noises. One thing he wasn't imagining though was the smell, it was like someone had left some raw meat unattended up here for a few months. Once the grill was removed, I hauled myself up into the dark vent. The only lights in the pitch blackness were the small lights from the room below, and the smaller still luminescence from my RIG shining above me.
"Maintenance lights on…" Nothing, what the hell was with the lighting systems lately? Reaching into my tool belt, I retrieved a glowstick and cracked it against the wall. The green light pierced through the darkness for a few meters before hitting the edge of its reach, fading into the abyss once again. Slowly I began to crawl through the maze-like system of ducts, searching for the source of the pungent smell. Finally I rounded a corner to discover just what it was. "Uhh, Marcus? We have a situation." I said into my comms, crawling closer to the odd substance that had settled along the walls of the vent ahead of me. "What'd you find Mars? Anything to worry about?" Inspecting the flesh colored substance, it almost seemed to be moving or pulsing. "I don't know, maybe? There's some kind of organic growth in here. It might be a by-product of the new cleaning agents were pumping through here." Touching it with a gloved hand, it seemed to react to the stimulation. Recoiling away in fear… Or something else.
Suddenly, there was a chattering sound in front of me farther up the vent. I snapped up and stared into the unmoving darkness, unable to see what was making the noise. A feeling of fear and dread spread through my body as the sound became louder, almost as if it were only a few feet in front of my face. Quickly I pulled out a second glowstick, snapping it against the wall and tossing it into the darkness. It impacted against the fleshy substance with a squelch, and bounced farther into the vent. Nothing… Just a regular T intersection, the sound had stopped as well. "You okay there Mars? Something wrong?" Sighing in relief, I turned my attention back to the growth. "Yeah, I'm fine. What do you want me to do Marcus? I'm not equipped to burn this stuff off." I said, prodding it with the glowstick in my hand. "Mark your location and come back, James is near your location and he has the right gear." I started crawling the way I had come, following the route I had laid for myself, thankful as hell to get out of this damned vent.