As Ssunamrozedrah raced down the corridor to stop Lacy, the rest of us followed the android.
"I am surprised that you called us family," said Opvossu-Jesus. "In the laboratory, you made it quite clear that you wanted nothing to do with us."
"I'm sorry," I said. "I...was scared."
I didn't want to tell her the whole truth, that I was staying behind to protect the humans, that this was a suicide mission, and I was only lying to myself and everyone else to give them a chance to escape without being devoured or impregnated by a pack of Ss'sik'chtokiwij.
Mara put a hand on my shoulder plate. "It is a true sign of familial love when one learns to forgive, and accept the imperfections of one's relatives, to care for one another, despite their failure to live up to one's ideal expectations."
"I remember you telling the same thing to Sarah."
"That doesn't make it any less true."
Sarah never had a real mother, she just had this android. Since birth, Mara lied to her, pretended to be the girl's biological mother, and she believed it. The illusion kinda fell apart when Ernie's Ss'sik'chtokiwij mother ripped the android in half, and Sarah saw `mommy' spraying white coolant everywhere, her upper torso crawling around like losing half your body was no big deal.
The incident had taken place in the Hydroponics Center. This engineer guy named Brice was trying to help us escape from the aliens, but we got stopped at the elevator.
Brice was a cool guy.
He was somewhere above five feet, with a beard and long hair that made him look like Jesus, but Multiple Sclerosis robbed him of the use of his legs, so he always had to use a pair of odd looking wooden arm crutches or put his full weight on desks and such to move around.
He could fix anything, jury rig appliances to do things the designers never intended. One time, for Timmy's birthday, he built a space gun from a remote control, an old phone, and parts of a broken printer. It was meant to be a toy, but my brother found all sorts of unintended uses for it, interfering with the neighbor's entertainment devices, changing the channels on the public information kiosks, causing people's toasters and refrigerators to flicker on and off. Someone got mad and took it away, I forget who.
I remember coolant splattering on Brice's glasses, Ernie and Mara grabbing the big alien by the legs, dragging her down a staircase.
"Kids," Brice had said. "Let's get going while the going is good."
"But mommy-!" Sarah cried.
"Kid, you just saw milk spraying out her guts. As long as those things leave her hard drive alone, your mommy's going to be just fine. It's us carbon based lifeforms that are in deep shit. Now are you going to move your little butt, or am I going to have to fall over trying to kick it?"
He meant business. Ernie's sister had already punctured his left eye, and he wasn't going to lose another one.
We hurried through a plot of corn, climbing down into an underground irrigation maintenance tunnel.
It took some doing, but we found a way out a connecting electrical service box, bypassing the greenhouse and a bunch of Ss'sik'chtokiwij who were even now chowing down on our pet goats.
Despite all the death, we found we were hungry too, so we quietly made our way to the base's cafeteria as fast as we could.
We found live people in there. I forget who all was present, it's been so long, but I do remember Bob Hiskey, the gym/agricultural studies teacher/Block C-3 building maintenance guy, Jan Timberlake (Spanish class/building superintendent) some motor pool guys dad worked with, and other familiar faces I'd seen around the base, electricians, plumbers, sanitation...I think one lady was a whore, taught English to the big kids as her main job.
Brice tried to warn everyone about the aliens, but nobody believed him. The scientist guys apparently did a good job of keeping the whole thing under wraps.
"This is a dead rock!" I heard one of the electricians saying. "We haven't found a single alien microbe, other than the shit we brought in."
"Yeah?" Brice took off his glasses, lifted his eyepatch. "Then how do you explain this? You going to tell me that there's a bear running loose in the facility?"
"Knowing you, you probably just tore that up with some farm equipment."
"You know what, fuck you! I know what I saw!" Brice put his glasses back on. "But hey, your funeral. Don't let it be said that I didn't warn anyone."
We followed him as he hobbled toward the kitchen.
"Wait," said a power plant guy, probably that math teacher that kept giving me F's. "Where are you going?"
"What does it look like? We're getting lunch."
Math Guy blocked our passage. "Wait your turn like everyone else."
"Thanks, but I don't want to sit here and wait for a bunch of monsters to come take a bite out of my ass. Move, please."
The jumpsuited figure crossed his arms indignantly.
"Listen. Buddy. If I'm wrong, I'll give you half my paycheck. A thousand credits. It's yours."
"You lose that much playing Texas Hold `Em."
"The whole thing, then. Free access to the crops. Name your price. I promise, if I'm wrong, I'll never come in here again. I'm only asking for some supplies for a little journey."
Math Guy frowned. "Journey back to a table, and we might bring the supplies out to you."
"Oh sure. Canned beets and water chestnuts, right? I'll do the shopping myself, thank you!"
"No. You will not."
Brice tried to sneak around him, but it didn't work.
I could tell Math Guy didn't want the negative stigma of being the guy who pushes over cripples because he only put a warning hand on Brice's chest. "Wait. Your. Turn."
Brice brushed him away. "Hands off, dickhead! Let us through!"
"I'm trying to be considerate here, as you should be considerate to others in this cafeteria by waiting your turn. I know you're handicapped, but I promise we'll be much more accommodating..." The schoolteacher in the man was trying very hard not to cuss in my presence. "And wait for someone to serve you!"
"Yeah, and in the meantime those big fuckers are going to come in here, see us sitting in the open without a care in the world, and think we're on the menu!"
"Again with your little green men! We haven't seen hair nor hide of your Martians since we arrived on this patch of dirt! What the hell have you been smoking, Pittman?"
Then he sniffed, smelled the alcohol that Brice had accidentally spilled all over himself during our escape. "Sorry, did I say smoking? I meant drinking. Hitting the sauce a little early today, aren't we?"
Brice looked embarrassed. "Seemed like the thing to do."
The teacher pantomimed boozing, eliciting chuckles from the others in the room.
"Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up. You've always been a damn prick."
"You look a little unsteady," Teacher Guy said, grabbing Brice's crutches. "Why don't you take a seat and let the alcohol wear off a little?"
"Why don't you burn in hell?"
"I thought Jews didn't believe in hell."
"That doesn't stop me from wanting you to go there. Maybe God will make an exception."
When Teacher Guy touched the metal part of Brice's crutches, he fell to the floor, spasming like he'd been tased.
I'd spotted Brice flipping something on the back just a moment before. Another one of his inventions, I guess.
The muttered cursings indicated that he would not be able to repeat this performance anytime soon.
So anyways, we were in, the other people being too polite to mess with a cripple and a bunch of hungry looking kids. Even the cooks tolerated us, allowing Brice to ransack the cupboards.
Brice scowled at a yellow can of processed meat. "An off brand? Seriously? They can't even carry Hormel? That's it, I've got to check what's in that shipment I ordered."
"Oh my God!" I heard a woman shouting. "What the fuck is that?"
Everyone was looking out, even the cooks.
"I'd barricade the door if I were you," Brice told them. "But hey, what do I know? I'm just the drunk cripple!"
What they had been looking at, Ernie told me later, was herself fighting her spiky haired sister Sanchirck on the upper balcony.
As I and Sarah stuffed our faces with hoagie sandwiches from the refrigerator, and Brice picked up canned pasta, beans and some other random things for later, I overheard people talking about the aliens falling into the sewer.
This was only one out of Ernie's immediate family. The mother and three other sisters were still at large.
When people in the cafeteria started screaming, Brice set about hacking the lock to the wine cellar.
I asked why, and I got the indignant answer, "You got a better idea?"
We didn't.
He plugged a little device into a card slot, and the door popped open. "Let's hope those things aren't this clever!"
The man almost took a plunge down the stairs, but we walked him down, then barricaded the door like Night of the Living Dead.
It was pretty much everything you'd want in a wine cellar. Refrigerated chilling racks, a collection of vintages, a small winery setup with stainless steel and oaken equipment...
A lot of people died upstairs.
Boom! Something exploded. An alien shrieked.
We heard banging sounds, screams, then nothing for a whole minute.
Knock knock.
"I have only a couple guesses about who you are!" Brice called up the stairs. "Either you're one of those bastard things that's trying to have us for lunch, or you're Bernie. Either way, you're not getting in!"
"My name...is Sydjea," said a raspy voice. "I am a friend."
"Right. And what, I'm just supposed to believe that?"
"Ernie...tell me about Jesus."
"That's great! Is one of you a rabbi?"
"I...don't know what that means."
"Go screw yourself, Sweatheehaw! Preferably somewhere five miles away from the door!"
"I...am sorry I destroyed your eye."
"Fuck you, Squidheehaw! As soon as I find a gun, I'm going to shove it up your asshole and pull the trigger, maybe scoop your brains out when I'm done so I can use your head as a candy dish! Now get away from the damn door, you ugly no good motherfucking space cockroach!"
"I...am sorry you feel that way. I was hoping there was something I could do to help you."
"Uh, other than disabling the safeties on one of those industrial microwaves and setting it for roast with your head inside? Nope, I think we're good down here! Aren't we good, girls?"
I hesitantly nodded.
"You're a meanie," said Sarah.
"Try losing an eye to one of those things and see how mean it makes you."
Things got silent upstairs. We sat down on the floor and rested awhile.
"Some day, huh kids?"
Me and Sarah were hesitant to reply. We had no words.
"They've been stringing you along this whole time, haven't they?" he asked Sarah. "Telling you your mommy's not a machine?"
Sarah sniffed, wiped tears out of her eyes.
Brice hugged her. "I'm sorry. Your dad's a real-"
"Dad's dead."
"God. That's right. I'm sorry." He kissed her head, held her close. "Tell you what. When this is all over-"
The power abruptly cut out., the lights in the cooling rack going dark.
"Jesus. That's just what we need."
"What happened?" I asked.
"Probably just a brownout at the geothermal plant."
I would find out later that it was actually an electrical incident in the sewers.
The door to the cellar, being electrically locked, was not difficult to open from the exterior. A flimsy barricade set up by little girls and a man with MS really can't withstand that kind of pressure.
"I will not harm you," `Squid Yeehah' said. "Please. What can I do to protect you?"
"Shut the motherfucking door!" Brice shouted.
"In addition to that?"
The man handed me a taser from his bag. "Here. Throw this up to that thing."
I did. The door closed once more.
It turned out that a box I'd been sitting on contained fireworks. A whole bunch of M-80's. When Brice clicked on his lighter to take a look inside, he swore something awful because he had a lit cigarette dangling from his mouth.
But then his terror turned to excitement, and he drew a shuddering gasp like a teen that just learned he inherited a flashy sports car from a rich uncle. Brice put half the box in his satchel.
Armed with powerful explosives, and a new mad plan, Brice led us out of the cellar.
I found the source of the explosion, an obliterated microwave with aerosol cans in it, and a caved in gas cooking range. The chef and one of the staff guys had given their lives to detonate the whole mess, but I doubted it made much of an impact on the aliens.
The man clicked down a corridor to the cover on a maintenance duct. The plan was to climb it up to the roof and cut over to an underground cavern, but after a long difficult climb in that cramped little passageway, we found the tunnel blocked by an air processor.
Ernie's mother found us, ripped away the register right in front of us, leaving us all exposed.
When her head came in to bite me, Brice lit an M-80 and shouted "Eat this, you stupid bitch!" throwing it into her mouth.
It blew up, but Ernie's mother only seemed to get pissed off.
"That was a fucking M-80! It should have done something!"
The Ss'sik'chtokiwij clawed at me.
"Kids, back it up! The bitch is on the rag!"
As a claw shredded my pant leg, I saw Ernie leap up on her mother, zapping her with the taser. I guess she must have figured out her mom's nerve center, because the bigger Ss'sik'chtokiwij collapsed on the floor, convulsing for awhile.
"Brice! Get the kids to safety!" our alien friend shouted.
"Love to oblige!" Brice argued. "But we're blocked in by machinery!"
"Then get out of there! Hurry!"
"You know how fucking hard it was to get in here in the first place?"
"Mother's going to wake up! If you can come out, you need to come out now!"
"You want me out, Bernie? Then get your damn cockroach ass over here and help me down!"
The Ss'sik'chtokiwij stood on her hind legs, holding out her arms, but she was too short. Brice's weight knocked her to the floor.
"Gee, Bernie! You're about as cushiony as farm equipment!"
He groaned, staggering to a standing position. "I think this concrete is softer than your arms!"
I threw his stuff down to him, watching anxiously as Ernie tased her mother again, to keep her immobile.
"Okay, Bernie," Brice said. "Don't get any ideas, but I want you to hold me. I need to catch the girls somehow, so you've got to be my legs."
The alien obediently aided him.
"All right, kids! Hurry down before the thing wakes up!"
Sarah climbed out the opening, hanging from the edge.
She hesitated, staring down, glancing back at me.
"Go!" I urged.
Sarah swallowed, let herself drop.
I'm not great with heights, but I've been on a few scavenging trips with my parents where we got in space suits and jumped or climbed down a rock face to grab something to trade with. Plus, one time I ruined a shipment of cardboard boxes by doing some `stunt jumps' in the base's receiving warehouse, from about that same height, so I wasn't too scared.
When I got near our alien friend, I discovered he smelled like poo.
Brice wrinkled his nose. "Good God, Bernie! What have you been doing, swimming in a sewer!"
That's when the big Ss'sik'chtokiwij woke up and wrung Ernie's neck.
"One thing I've learned from survival films," Brice said. "When the big bear starts fighting with the wildcat, run like hell while they're busy duking it out. You won't get another chance."
I gave him a grim nod.
Brice and I dropped a bunch of lit M-80's as we left. I heard them exploding as we rushed away from that scene of violence.
I'd seen Life Support a couple times during `Job Day' at school. I knew a few things about how the equipment worked, like changing views of the weather patterns to read where the next storm would hit, getting approvals for shutting off power to people who can't meet the payment schedule, oh, and working the security monitors.
I helped Brice figure out the system, catching the speckly Hissandra and Ernie's mom as they came stomping up the back corridor. "Can we...trap them back there? Like Five Nights at Freddy's?"
He gave a tense chuckle. "I sure as hell hope so!"
Brice put a security lockdown on the room's outer door, rigging the wires so that it would never open again. "There! Like to see them get through that!"
I shivered. "I wouldn't."
"You and me both, kid."
We failed to notice the Ss'sik'chtokiwij slipping up the stairs until it was halfway to our door.
"Take Sarah and go," Brice hissed. "Get that vent open in the back corner and find a way out." He thrust a screwdriver into my hands.
"But-!" Sarah cried.
"Get the fuck out of here! Now!"
I rushed to the vent, fiddling with the fasteners on the air register.
Brice had given me one of those all-in-one combination screwdriver sets, but the panel in front of me was one of those hex key type things you need an Allen wrench for.
"Hurry up, damn you!" Brice shouted.
"It's not the right type!" I yelled back.
He rolled his eyes. "Oh for the love of God! Twist the damn bottom open! There should be a magnetic attachment that'll work on it!"
I figured the thing out, but then the guy who ran the station came in. I guess he'd left for the bathroom or something. "What the hell are you doing in here?"
Tall black guy, young, slack jawed, crazy hairstyle that looked like a fern.
"Um," Brice stammered. "Trying not do die. Yourself?"
The man sighed, crossed his arms. "You'd better not have messed up any of my computers. I'll have you in the brig so fast it'll make your head spin."
He glanced at me. "Don't you have a class to be in, missy?"
I opened my mouth to reply, but he noticed the screwdriver in my hand, put two and two together. "What are you doing to my vents?"
"This isn't a good time," Brice said. "But don't worry. We have no intention of camping out here."
"That's pretty much what all vandals say." He marched to his desk, calling the police with his radio phone. "Hello, Jim? This is -"
A bumpy bug body jumped over his desk, flaying him open. The man screamed, blood splattering the chair, the floor.
"What the hell kind of call sign is that?" said a voice on the other end of the phone.
I'd been working on opening the vent this whole time. I figured out the screwdriver thing, had two of the bolts removed.
Brice grabbed the phone, clicking the button. "Hello, this is Brice Pittman in Life Support. We need help. Send someone with guns immediately. Lives are in danger-"
The alien threw him to the floor.
"Save your War of the Worlds shit for Halloween, Pittman!" the voice on the phone replied.
"Knew that asshole wouldn't be of any help!" Brice muttered, fighting the alien away from his face. "You'd better get going, kids! Uncle Brice is a goner!"
I felt horrible for leaving him there, but the guy knew what he was doing. I got the vent open, and me and Sarah got crawling.
I'd played around in those ducts before, so I kind of knew where to go next. Well, until we got to the dead end near crew quarters. We had to get out, cutting through the communal shower area.
Sarah thought it would be a good idea to grab her phone and call for help, so we ran back to her apartment.
The moment we took it off the charger, the phone vibrated, flashing this text message:
I'M IN THE HALLWAY. COME QUICK.
Sarah frowned. "That's mom's number."
"Let's go," I urged.
"She's only a robot."
"Maybe we need a robot."
We rushed out, searching the upper floor landing for a few minutes. We found Mara's upper torso plugged into a wall outlet next to one of the doors.
"I am experiencing a critical system failure," the android gurgled to us with milk-like coolant bubbling out of her mouth. "I have detected several vital pieces of equipment in room 17B, and I need you children to carry me there."
I nodded, but Sarah said no. "You're just a machine with no legs. I'm going to find a real adult to help me."
Mara looked pained. "Please, honey. If not for me, do it for your father."
With a sigh, she helped me grab the robot, carrying her downstairs to the tool room.
The looked like someone's basement workroom, a catch-all for anything extra from the entire base. Junk computer monitors, a heavy drill press, a lathe, shovels, pickaxes, and boxes full of electronic supplies, little wheeled carts loaded with light bulbs, bolts and tools.
Mara found all the equipment she needed, fixed herself back into working condition. Once she had a few cords plugged into the base of her skull, she was even able to use an intercom system to flash signals to Brice through the base's emergency lights and informational computers.
The man was in bad shape, his leg bleeding all over the place, but he made it, helping us barricade the room with a bunch of heavy tools and scrap construction materials. A Floorbot 850 was sent to scour Brice's blood off the floor, concealing our location.
The man had brought along his bag of kitchen supplies. It hadn't been that long since we'd eaten hoagies and ice cream, but it felt like forever, so he opened a can of baked beans, heating them up with a welding torch.
We ate in silence. Sarah's mother looked at her daughter apologetically, but my friend was just too angry to even make eye contact.
At last Sarah said, "You lied to me. Both you and dad."
"Honey...Lou and I wanted you to develop like a normal little girl. We agreed that if you knew, your emotional growth would be stunted by an obsession to find a flesh and blood mother."
"Like it isn't stunted now?" she practically shouted. "So who's my real mother?"
Mara only responded with, "That information is restricted."
"And what's that supposed to mean?" she demanded.
"My programming does not allow access to this information."
"Tell me!" Sarah cried, punching her, shoving her to the floor. "Tell me now!"
"Whoa, kid!" Brice said. "Don't damage the merchandise! Like her or not, we still need her technical skills."
Sarah grabbed the robot by the throat. "Tell me who my mother is!"
"Quiet, kid!" Brice hissed. "You want all those things to come in here and kill us?"
I frowned at her. "He's right. Plus, your mom's a robot. Beating her up isn't going to give you the secret password."
Sarah burst into tears.
"Honey..." Mara tried to console her, putting her hand on her shoulder, but Sarah only brushed her away.
"When were you going to tell me? Never? How old would I have had to be before you'd actually break down and tell me the truth? Or is that restricted information too?"
Mara had no answer to this. Another awkward silence followed.
"It wasn't something I could disclose," Mara said at last. "I wanted to be a real mother, just like I was a real wife to your father. If I couldn't fulfill that role, I didn't want to live. I'd rather they disassemble me and reformat my system."
Sarah gave her an icy stare. "You're not my mother," she croaked.
"Sarah, just because I'm an android doesn't mean I don't have any feelings."
Sarah sniffed. "I thought that was exactly what it meant."
Mara explained her soft logic system, how she could really love. "We really had some good times together. I really felt like part of a family. I experienced your loving. I felt joy when I saw your first steps, spoke your first words...and our wonderful little Christmas gatherings..."
Sarah's lip trembled as she listened, weeping at the mixture of betrayal and happy memories. "You're just a robot," she sobbed. "You're not my real mother. It was all just a big fat lie. You're just a thing with a messed up face and no legs! A real mother would have never survived that!"
"Are you saying you want me to die?"
Sarah swallowed. "No...It's just..."
She shook her head. "You don't even yell at me. Even now, when you're supposed to be the most hurt you've ever been in your whole life, and you're not even crying or yelling. You're too calm. A real mother wouldn't..." She was about to say `take things sitting down,' but Mara had no lower torso. "She wouldn't be so blah!"
"Would you like me to be more emotional?" the android asked.
Sarah was taken aback. "No...Maybe. I...I don't know."
"I...I don't know what to say."
"The kid's got a point," Brice said. "It wouldn't set well with me if I suddenly discovered my mother was a toaster."
Mara scowled. "I thought by now you understood that I have feelings that can be hurt."
"So does my Google GameDrive 720."
"Wow," Mara said sarcastically. "That's nice."
"There's entertainment, and there's reality. And when you confuse the two, it tends to be pathetic and sad."
"So now love is entertainment?"
"Actually yes. You'd be surprised at how many games there are about going out on dates. It really is sad. It must be lonely in Japan."
Mara looked like she'd been slapped.
I used to play a video game called Escape the Kennel. You used a microphone to tell little dogs what to do. The object of the game is to get them to the owner's house without getting hit by a car, stuck in a bear trap, or otherwise injured. The better you do at training your dog, the more golden collars you receive.
If you really suck at the game, or if you intentionally tell the dog to kill themselves, you get something called Meanie Points. Enough of them, and you unlock a secret bonus room with a bunch of funny animations. Brice got a real kick out of the animation of the puppies in the chipper shredder. In his defense, it was entertaining.
"Brice has the highest Meanie Point score in Escape the Kennel," I said.
"You've won a million from me," Mara said without humor. "Want to keep going?"
The smile dropped off Brice's face. "No ma'am. I prefer my games to be entertaining."
Everyone sat in stony silence after that.
Brice took off his tourniquet, examining his wounds.
"I see you have serious injuries that require medical attention," said Mara. "May I provide assistance?"
"Sure. If you want a help a guy with a million Meanie Points under his belt."
Although still crying, Sarah slowly began to accept her robotic mother for what she was. Not as a real parent, but as a friend. "It explains a lot. You always acted a little weird. And your skin felt funny."
Mara smiled. "Nobody's perfect."
And as she stitched up Brice's leg, she told Sarah that same thing she told me, that you don't really love your family until you accept them, shortcomings and all.
Now, standing with a pack of aliens in the hallway of the Auriga, I reconsidered the meaning of those words.
Ss'sik'chtokiwij would never threaten to blow my skull open with a shotgun, unless possessed by an evil force. The human beings rushing to escape on the Betty, however, fully intended to shoot me full of holes at the drop of a hat.
Mara considered me her daughter, Big Bird, a good friend. Ernie, Ssunamrozedrah and Ripley cared enough about me to travel halfway across the galaxy and attempt my rescue, getting captured in the process. And the others...they were all daughters of my alien friend.
Like it or not, these alien weirdos were my family. I realized I need to do more than try to rescue them from their impending doom.
If I could save them, I could save a part of myself in the process. "We don't have much time. We'd better hurry."
With all the security doors released, we had little difficulty reaching the corridor in a reasonable amount of time.
"Are we going to save mother too?" asked the third unnamed Ss'sik'chtokiwij we had freed from the shadows, the one previously connected to Mary Jorden.
The stranger had a birthmark like a paisley print, kinda reminding me of an amoeba.
"I...don't know," I said. "She's...kind of busy. And big. She didn't look very mobile. She just told me to get her children out of here. She didn't say anything about herself."
"She sounds nice. I've never met her. Is she a nice Ss'sik'chtokiwij?"
I remembered nights where she'd curl her body against me, protecting me from enemies, human and alien. Some of the memories involved me being a human child at the time. "Yeah. But I'm not sure she would like the circumstances of your birth."
Paisley Head frowned. "What's wrong with my birth?"
"The death of human beings displease her," Ruth explained.
I put my claws on my hips. "It displeases me too. I wish I could just...fly all of you to some cattle ranch or something so you wouldn't kill people. Of course, you all being dead wouldn't make me too happy either. Let's keep going."
The tunnel had lots of locked security doors, all of them looking the same. "Where to now?"
"I was unable to get surveillance of this area," Big Bird said.
"Are you...able to...deduce which one Wren may have gone through?"
The android froze for a moment. "I am sorry. Every room in this area is restricted."
"Great," I muttered. "We're going to die."
"You're the one who knows the most about this man and his device," Ruth said. "It was your idea!"
"I know," I whimpered. "I'm sorry! I really don't know what to do!"
"We should go back," said Mary. "Board this `Betty', damn the humans that get in our way."
She tried to leave, but Ruth blocked her before she could get anywhere. "Wait. Newt, what did the man smell like?"
I frowned. "I don't know, cocaine and cheese doodles? Why's that important?"
"Humans have a scent trail. If you can find a door that smells of your...cocaine and cheese doodles, we may possibly not die."
"No pressure, huh?" I stammered.
I was only joking about what the man smelled like.
I had to make use of a part of my brain that never got any action, and in a hurry, like a guy who only took Spanish in high school being forced to negotiate with a dangerous Colombian warlord without an interpreter.
I wandered the hallways aimlessly, sniffing random door panels, but it was like random friend requests in social media. The name or face might seem kinda familiar, but a couple months later you look back at your list and say, "Who the hell is that?"
Sometimes you might unpeel the onion a bit, and find a picture of them with someone you know, but you don't always have time to do that.
Worse than that, I kept finding distracting unpleasant details, like how the guy using Room 114 didn't bother to wash his hands after using the men's room.
Blood. I recognized that, at least. They may have cleaned the flooring, but I caught traces of its coppery smell, that, and something that smelled of that decapitated frost giant, and dead Ss'sik'chtokiwij. "I think I got something."
