Chapter V: A New Friend?

AN:

Hey there, Fan-fic-folks!

Fuck it. Saturday is update day now. I seem to be okay at getting two chapters up for then and I'm irritated every time I don't make Thursday so I'm changing the day to avert that irritation because I'm starting to get irritated by it too and it's too weird to deal with.

So, this is just a short one. I didn't have time to write more, but at least I'm on schedule. I literally finished this just before I uploaded it, and I've been writing a pretty decent amount of time this week, so this is currently the best I got. Hopefully it works for an introduction to the Haven (Official title pending) and a lead-in to the next part where they go find Joyce and David.

Also, new relevant game recommendation! It's called Echo, and it's kind of like Lost in Space meets that obnoxious neighbour game with a dash of HAL9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey. It's a stealth game where En is trying to get through this massive building called the Palace that learns her behaviours and creates mimics of her (called Echoes) that compensate for those behaviours. It's actually pretty good and the art is pretty as all hell. Four stars on Steam, too.

Thanks for reading and, as always, please review

"So, what did you call this place we're going to?"

Chloe doesn't look around. "I didn't. We never really gave it a name. Everyone kept arguing over it, so we just gave up. Guess we can try again when we get there, but if anyone starts to fucking bitch..."

I chuckle. "Then we'll bitch-slap them into agreeing with us."

She looks around then, and I swear the facelights flicker bemusedly at me. She always did like the 'Us against the Galaxy' stuff.

"Does that mean there'll be people there?"

Chloe shrugs. "Could fucking be. It's a hella good spot and I'm not the only person with a key. Guess we'll find out when we get there."

"But it does have... you know. Food and stuff, right?" A safe place is only half the problem, after all. We still need all the usual things that help to keep a human being alive."

"Should do, but..."

"-you guess we'll find out when we get there." I finish, and her facelights definitely flicker with amusement at that. It makes me smile. Chloe always did get too stressed when stuff went... well. Bad. It always made me happy when I could make that easier, even if it was just for a second.

"Yep. We just passed Dock 36, so we're getting close now, anyway." She points off into the distance, to a side alley tucked away behind another damn CommShack. "Should be about ten minutes walk that way."

I turn my head to catch Copse's eye. I had to peer a little, on account of all the people between us, but I met his eye eventually. I mouth the timeframe and point in the direction Chloe told me. He follows my finger to the alley, then looks back to me and nods. "Acknowledged."

Awesomesauce.

We make the trip in a little under ten minutes. Chloe seemed pleased at the good time, but any happiness she felt quickly disappeared as she caught sight of the carnage ahead.

A lot of the bodies were wearing maintenance suits.

We crept through the silence, something within us loath to disturb the cloak of quiet stillness across this entire area. It reeked with death and the harsh metallic scent of blood, but we barely noticed it.

Then I noticed that I hadn't noticed it and started to freak out a little about getting used to this kind of horror and bloodshed and-

Keep calm, Max. You can do this.

Chloe stopped at a random patch of panelling and dropped to her knees. I heard her muttering curses under her breath as she thocked her knuckles on the metal there. "Shit fuck fuckingdamn fuckdamn shit on a motherfucking quadricycle for a self-sealing stimbolt piece of-" She growled suddenly, slamming her fist into the wall with a louder mutter of "Where's the fucking button, that-"

Every single one of us tenses, expecting the echoing yell to have brought whatever did this back to add us to the slaughter, but... one second passes, then another, then another, and we relax.

"Oh."

She taps a bit of the wall and it drops back to reveal a recess, in which there was... a button and a small scanner. She pulls the key out and swipes it at the scanner, then quick-steps back from the wall.

There's a few beats of silence, and I start to wonder if something might be broken, or if we might be stuck here, out in the blood and the open.

Eight people sigh in relief when the panel flashes and slides upwards to reveal a crawlspace about two people wide and two feet tall. Chloe, I hope, knew it was going to happen, and Copse was busy keeping watch.

Chloe spins back to look at us, full of confidence and swagger like she never had any doubt about the outcome of this. "Right. So, we gotta crawl in. Did I mention that already? I guess not. Eh." After a pause, she adds "Anyone not good with cramped spaces?"

Everyone gives her a look that says claustrophobia is far easier to deal with than the chaos out here (also, we live on a space station), so she shrugs and gets in the crawlspace. We're all inside, and about ten feet in (how long is this crawlspace, jeez), before I remember something. "Uh, Chlo? What about the door? Aren't we just gonna-"

Chloe reaches out and taps a switch on the wall that I hadn't noticed and the door slides shut behind us. The headlights point back to me, and I know for a fucking fact that she's giving me the smuggest of smug grins. I just roll my eyes and mouth at her to keep crawling already. She chuckles and gets back to it.

We make three (or was it four?) turns and crawl for another few dozen feet and I feel totally lost by the time we make it back into open space again. I eye the space slightly... sceptically. "It's... a bit small, isn't it?"

Chloe puts a hand on my shoulder and turns me around.

"Wowzers."

This place was huge! Like, shuttle-hangar kind of huge, with spiralling towers of rooms and passageways scattered across the vast cavernous space. "How the hell did you guys manage to keep this place a secret?"

Chloe shrugs, helping Hester (I think that was the old woman's name?) up from the crawlspace. "No fucking clue, Maxie. We just sorta sealed it all off and nobody noticed. Pretty sure it was just disused storage before we got to it."

"Huh."

"Yep."

The rest of the group had filed out and were all eyeing the space with much the same wonder as I had. One of the adults was pointing things out to the kids and they were gasping every time something cool showed up. Which were mostly just drones but, hey, at least they were getting to be children for once. Putting people that young through situations like this was just... wrong. Like marring a beautiful photo with globs of misdeveloped colour. It just...

I sighed. Chloe promptly came over and slung an arm over my shoulder. "Great place, huh?"

"Hella great," I lean my head on her shoulder, clunking lightly against the suit. I can feel her chuckle. "But where's the shower?"

She hugs me closer. "Nerd."

Every time. I still don't understand how that's nerdy, and Chloe just laughs every time I ask her to explain it. I tune back in when I notice she'd kept talking. "-inda need to get to the tool-shed first. I really wanna get this thing off me. It fuckin' stinks in here."

Now it's my turn to chuckle. "Sure, we'll get your suit unsealed first. Then," I lean in, so none of the others can hear me. "Maybe you can join me in the shower?"

Chloe's entire body stutters for a moment as I walk off. I grin.

My grin disappears as people begin to appear out of the metalwork (AN: Like future woodwork? I dunno, I thought it worked.) to gasp and stare at us like we're new explorers arriving in an alien world on some sci-fi show. I stick up a hand and wave. "Hi."

A couple of them wave back, but most just stare. That's... weird. I tilt my head and call back over my shoulder. "Chloe? Copse? There's... um... people here."

Chloe, when she gets over the stuttering, strides past me to an older woman with a gun-metal grey afro that's wearing a slightly more expensive looking version of the maintenance suit Chloe has. Maybe she's a supervisor or something? I have no idea, but whoever she is Chloe is arguing with her. Loudly. "You try to force us back out there and we'll message every one of those Unitologist lunatics with the coordinates of your special secret hideout and instructions to bring as much explosive shit as they can. Got it?"

The woman nodded hurriedly then, with a glare back to Chloe, walked over to us with her arms wide. "Welcome to the Haven. I'm Temba. Chloe tells us you need a place to stay?"

Copse steps forward. "Yes ma'am. And we're willing to pull our weight to stay."

Temba's glare recedes from him, just a little, but all that meant was more glare at Chloe behind her. She gave a sharp little nod and swivelled on her heels to face Chloe again. "Come along and we'll get you settled in."

Copse follows with all the natural instinct of a military man, but I have to stop and blink in mild shock at the sheer... businesslike tone. As the others file past me, chattering excitedly about having a safe place to stay, and knocking me with their shoulders, I shake it off and hurry to catch up with the three at the head of the line. "The Station went to shit barely a few hours ago - I think, it's been kind of hard to keep track of the time - and you're acting like you've been here for months. How've you got this... organised, so quickly?"

Temba finally cracks a smile, and shrugs with one shoulder. "It's simple. We're engineers."

It took about an hour for our group to dissemble and head off to find whatever they need to settle in with. And for Chloe and I to... um... shower. What? It's been a stressful day. I needed to relax and it's not like they have any books here. Well, books that aren't engineering texts (or being used to hold up a coffee table in one of their four (fucking four!? how the hell did they get four dormitories in here (and a bar. these people have an actual functioning bar in here. what. (also, I might've gone too far with the parentheses here)) and they somehow filled the twenty bed capacity of two of them, nearly three with us being here now) charmingly upholstered dormitories... (ahem).

When all... business was seen to, the three of us went and found Temba.

When we asked her for volunteers to go up against a horde of monsters, she wasn't exactly enthusiastic.

"No."

"But-"

"No."

"Ple-"

"No."

"They-"

"No!"

The door squeaks as someone pushes it open. Their footsteps clack on the floor as they walk slowly in. We look up, mildly shocked at the interruption, and our jaws drop as a woman appears. She's wearing shades, jeans, some truly bizarre footwear, and a faded leather jacket. She reaches up, shaking her feathered blonde hair as she takes off the shades and folds them up before tucking one of the arms into her shirt. "One of your friends says you're lookin' to go kick some monster ass."

Chloe nods mutely.

The woman grins. "Awesome. I'm Ricky, but my friends call me Mac."

Temba frowns, viciously.

"So, Ricky?"

"Mac." She corrects without looking back as we stride forward toward Joyce and David's place. Chloe is eyeing her with mild to moderate awe.

I think I might be jealous.

"Mac, what do you... do?"

She smirks. "I'm an engineer. That means I make problems work for me."

"Oh."

My response feels a little... useless. Plus, I think Chloe might be swooning a little.

Fucking. Ugh.