Dear readers: I got part of the idea for this chapter from a reviewer's comment. Thanks! Keep them coming. 😊

CHAPTER 87 – STAYING PUT

Aaron turned his body around and quickly crawled towards the cafeteria table under which Elizabeth's hologram was now visible.

He ignored the swinging black cable which missed his head by only ten inches, and ignored the gasps from the crowd of on-lookers.

Although the few parents on the transporter had taken their own children from the room, the vast majority of diners had remained, and been joined by other passengers and crew members. It was like a tragedy that they couldn't turn away from. They watched with bated breath, praying that the small diapered boy wearing a onesie decorated with bears wasn't shocked to death.

Aaron didn't care about water or electricity, he just wanted to climb into his mother's arms. In his mind, she had finally come to get him.

One of his tiny palms slipped on the slick wet floor, causing him to fall down onto his belly. He lifted his head and looked towards his mother's image.

"Come here, Aaron. Come to mommy," she said in a pleasant encouraging voice as she held out her hands to him.

The small but determined boy pushed his pudgy belly off the floor and began crawling again. He reverted to his standard "bear crawl" of keeping his arms and legs straight as he propelled himself forward.

As Elizabeth watched from across the room, she realized it was an appropriate type of crawl given his outfit and that she had lately felt like a mama bear protecting a young cub.

Aaron was a foot from the table when Elizabeth's image disappeared into thin air.

"What happened?!" Jack shouted as he jerked his head around and looked at Elizabeth.

The crowd started murmuring in worry.

"Don't worry," Elizabeth answered hurriedly. "It's over. It was a short hologram," she explained as she clicked on her keyboard. "I have to start it again and loop it so it keeps going. I should have thought of that earlier."

She pushed the enter key.

"Come here," her pleasant and calm voice once again echoed from the gossamer image under the table. "Come here, sweetie."

Aaron crawled under the safety of the tabletop just before a sharp crack of electricity struck the area behind him, causing one observer to shriek and several others to swear in awe.

"Three seconds earlier, and that boy would have been toast," a man holding a mop exclaimed aloud.

"He's not out of the woods yet," a woman replied knowingly as she watched the cable's end hit the floor and slide about.

The wet floor around the table sizzled and sparkled with bursts of light.

"How many volts can a body that small take and still survive?" a passenger whispered to her husband.

"It's not the voltage," the man whispered back. "It's the current. The amperes. With his size, I'd say anything over ten milli-amps would be lethal. And there's definitely more than ten milli-amps coming out of that cable."

"Are you sure it would kill him?" the hushed voice asked.

"Well," the man answered, forgetting to lower his voice, "the defibrillators and CPR-breathing might bring him back. But he'd be really badly burned."

"Shut up!" ordered Jack.

"Thirty seconds, Jack."

"What?" Jack said as he turned to face Lieutenant Tempus.

Jack had been so busy concentrating on his son staying under the table and the loop of Elizabeth's hologram which had played more than a dozen times, that he hadn't realized that more than six minutes had passed.

Elizabeth was standing next to him, wringing her hands, and quietly muttering for Aaron to stay under the table. She was also irrationally demanding that the cable not send sparks of electricity in his direction as it swung around the room, hitting walls and the floor.

Aaron was wet, tired, discouraged, and crying quietly. Frustrated that Elizabeth hadn't picked him up, he had tried to grab hold of her body – which was smaller than normal- but his hand merely went through the image. Confused but not wanting to leave her, he had remained under the table, lured to stay there by his mother's picture and voice.

"Thirty seconds 'til power goes out," the lieutenant repeated. "Now, twenty-eight. You should get ready to get him. Best turn on your light."

When the electricity went off, the large room was plunged into darkness which was broken up by thin beams of light coming from headlights and flashlights.

Strobes moved towards the impotent cable which now hung limply. The man-made serpent was dead. Or at least asleep.

Jack sprinted past the crew members that were moving to cap the cable, and headed directly towards his son. When his light shone under the round table, his son's startled face was illuminated. The boy quickly closed his eyes, and turned his head away from the bright light.

"It's okay, sweetie. I'm sorry about all this," Jack said tenderly as he bent down and scooped his son into his arms. The little boy clung to him. "I'm so sorry. But daddy has you now. Everything's okay."

Careful not to hit his head on table, Jack shuffled backwards and stood up. "Let's go to mommy."

The words were barely out of his mouth, when Elizabeth, stumbling in the dark and slipping on the wet floor, reached the duo. She put her hands on her son, and Jack transferred the small boy into her arms.

Aaron had stopped crying, but Elizabeth's tears ran quietly down her cheeks.

Jack kept his arm around Elizabeth as the trio made their way through the cafeteria. Every so often, someone would pass along some information to Jack and let him know that a report would be filed, or tell Elizabeth that she was a smart thinker, or tell them how lucky their little boy had been.

The hallway was eerie. Lit only by Jack's flashlight and tiny dots of emergency battery-operated lights which lined the floor it seemed unusually quiet and still.

They passed the elevator which was not an option with no power to move it, and headed to the stairwell.

"Careful, watch your step. Want me to carry him?" Jack asked in the darkness.

"No, I've got him," Elizabeth said confidently as she used one hand to hold onto the banister and the other to keep her son protectively snuggled to her chest. "Just keep the flashlight on the steps so I can see them."

They were halfway up a flight of steps when the lights suddenly came on. Illuminating the sterile stairwell.

"They must have gotten the cable capped off and found no other problems," Jack announced as the family stopped briefly and then began walking again.

They looked like a refugee family having swum to shore after a shipwreck. Wet, bedraggled, emotionally exhausted, and traumatized, they arrived on their level.

Jack stopped walking and held open the door. "Do me a favor? Take him back to our room and get him settled down. I'll be back in ten minutes."

"Where are you going?" Elizabeth asked in surprise.

"Don't worry. I just have to take care of something."

"Jack!" she exclaimed as he started back down the steps.

"Ten minutes," he repeated as he hurried away.

"There you go sweetie. All that crying made you tired," Elizabeth said quietly as she covered her son's legs and stomach with his favorite blanket.

He lay on his back, his tired eyes fighting to stay open, and then surrendering to exhaustion from his ordeal.

Elizabeth stood beside his berth watching as his thumb fell from his mouth, a sure sign that he was comfortably asleep.

She would have liked to have held him longer, to keep his tiny innocent body against hers, to keep him safe, to somehow alleviate her guilt that he had faced the danger alone. But her clothes were still wet, and he needed warmth and a place to relax, not a chilly wet mother. She had changed his diaper and his clothes, kissed him a thousand times, and allowed him the comfort of a soft mattress.

Elizabeth kicked off her shoes and then looked towards the cabin door as it slid open.

"Shh," she said and motioned with her finger to her lips. "He's asleep."

Jack strained his neck to look at his son. "He's out like a light. He'll sleep through anything."

"What is all that stuff?" Elizabeth looked at that bags in Jack's hands as he set them down on her desk.

"Food. Drinks. The diapers from the laundry. His teething toy. Abigail found it in the cafeteria. A deck of cards. More food and drinks," Jack answered as he began taking items out of the three bags he had carried into the room.

"What for?" Elizabeth's face scrunched in confusion.

Jack moved two feet across the room and gave her a quick kiss. "We are not leaving this room again. It's too dangerous. I'm tired of automatic doors letting him escape, and gravity going out, and irresponsible medics, and exploding water pipes, and electric cables trying to kill our boy."

Elizabeth gave him an incredulous look. "So what? We're going to stay in here for the next three months?"

"Why not?" Jack countered. "We've got everything we need. Beds, a bathroom, food and drink. I can always get Abigail to deliver more. We can wash diapers in the sink or send them out to laundry. You can breast feed Aaron."

"What about your job?" a smiling Elizabeth crossed her arms against her chest and challenged him.

"I'll quit."

"You can't quit," she scoffed. "We're on a transporter in outer space. You have to wait until we get somewhere. And then we'd just have to get on another transporter for a four-month trip home."

"Then I'll call in sick," he replied with a shrug as he continued to take items out of the bags and pile them on the small desk. "I've got sick-leave built up."

"You're not sick."

"I'm sick of this transporter. That counts."

"What about my job?" she asked with a laugh.

"It's just voluntary until we get to Coal Valley. And besides, learning is over-rated. The kids can just play more now."

"Do you realize how small this room is?" she asked as she decided to overlook Jack's simple description of her beloved profession.

Jack set an apple onto the desk, which he had now already covered with juice boxes, water bottles, crackers, and packaged meals, and looked around at his sterile surroundings. "It's cozy. I like cozy."

Elizabeth chuckled. "And you don't think we'll get bored? In this tiny cozy room."

Jack gave her a mischievous smile. "At last count, we still had protection. I'm thinking we can keep ourselves busy."

Elizabeth laughed again. "We don't have enough for three months if we stay in here together and uninterrupted."

"I don't care. I want to forget about everything outside these walls."

"For three months?"

"Okay. Maybe not three months, but I'm not ready to go out there again. This ship is dangerous," he said in surprise. "It's like a war zone out there."

Elizabeth put a finger to her lips and her thumb under her chin as she pretended to pensively consider the situation.

"Did you bring me a chocolate croissant in one of those bags?"

"Of course. I know my wife," he answered with a grin.

"Well then. I guess we're staying in here," she agreed with a smile.

"How much protection did you say we still have?" she asked as she began to take off her wet clothes.

Up Next: Chapter 88