13 – Straight On 'Til Morning
He'd been here before, staring into the mouth of his rigid fear. Long ago, when he was a child.
Loren hesitated around it now just as he had back then, when his friends had been piling inside the tiny square of the air vent and urging him to follow. He swallowed the lump in his throat and pushed the long curls of his hair back into his bandana. The hole had seemed bigger all those years ago, although admittedly he had grown since then. Loren was tall for his eighteen years, all awkward long limbs and hair that seemed to have a life of its own.
In other words, he was exactly the wrong shape and size to be crawling through the tiny tunnels that had haunted his nightmares for years. But he had a job to do, and he had made a promise to see it through. Trust had been placed in him and no childhood phobia would make him betray that. He turned the box over in his pocket, the thing Julia had given him that seemed almost unremarkable. A memory of the pain in the Councillor's eyes made him wonder once again just how much difference this small treasure could truly make. There was only one way to find out.
The grate remained as loose as it had always been, though Loren knew no one had used the route for years. He pulled it off with ease, and shone his small flashlight into the tunnel. The light bounced infinitely off the metallic walls, creating reflections of reflections and making his chest feel ever tighter.
Gripping the flashlight between his teeth, he put his first uneasy arm inside. The other soon followed, then his head and his legs, as he tried not to imagine some great beast swallowing him whole. The medical bag on his back scraped the roof and he shivered with the urge to run. He crawled the first narrow corridor with his eyes closed, as if that would help. He opened them when he began to picture the walls shrinking in on him. Breathing heavily, he checked the Ark blueprints he had borrowed from engineering and folded himself carefully into the right corridor.
Distant sounds echoed through the shaft – usually the whir and hum of the Ark's internal workings, but every now and then he could hear voices. He stopped only to listen to the first conversation, afraid that he might be heard clambering clumsily through the walls. He eventually decided the voices were too far away, and he crawled on, licking at his dry lips with determination.
Emerging into a crossroads was almost a blessing, when the corridors went off into long stretches on three or sometimes four sides. He sat down, trying to get comfortable. If only the roof didn't touch his head and the floor didn't make his legs cramp painfully. He remained at the junction long enough to take a hasty drink from his rucksack, but his hands were shaking so violently that he spilt it and started to choke. He began picturing himself gasping for breath, hands clutching at his throat as all the air was sucked from the metallic tunnels and he was left to suffocate there, alone. Who would ever find him here? His vision narrowed and the walls and floor seemed to compress, to squash him like metallic jaws. He gave up then. He stuffed his things into his backpack and turned back the way he came. Then he remembered from the blueprint that his destination was closer now than the entrance would ever be again. The quickest way to escape this hell was to reach the end. He took one, two, steadying breaths, and crawled onwards, down the corridor to his left.
He went quicker now, his desperation mounting. He tried to move his arms and legs to a rhythm, but he kept on stumbling. The exit was up ahead and he was so caught up in his relief that he dropped his flashlight. For a dizzying moment, the light span around the metallic walls, then cut out completely. In the dark he felt painfully, hopelessly sick. He searched the floor with his hands, catching hold of the torch only to send it spinning away again with a terrible clatter. He followed the sound, fighting against his every instinct and crawled forward into the dark abyss. He found it, thanked whatever divine spirit was watching over him, and knocked it against his hand until the light flickered to life once more. The exit was closer than he anticipated. The torch revealed the metal grate that covered his way out. Putting it back between his teeth, he pulled the tiny socket screwdriver and got to work, jimmying away the screws the way he'd seen the older kids do all that time ago.
Flakes of rust came away with the grate as he pushed it outward. In his haste to escape, he went with it, tumbling forward to fall with an enormous crash to the ground. He spent a moment shaking on his hands and knees, taking deep, calming breaths. He could have kissed the ground.
The first thing that hit him was the cold. There was no sense in providing temperature control to an area no one used any more. Even the oxygen there was thinner – the fact that the section had any at all was by virtue of the fact that it was connected to one of the outer engineering bays.
Which made him think: with all of the noise he had made coming in, it wouldn't be long until someone nearby came to investigate. He had to work quickly. He touched the box in his pocket, as though for luck, and tried to focus his eyes in the darkness. If memory served him, there was a row of six tiny escape pods in this sector. He felt his way along the icy metal wall until he found the one he knew best.
The pod was small, perhaps only room enough for two. Loren could remember the days when eight teenagers used to cram inside there, each of them balanced in whatever precarious position they could find. It was the only place to enjoy some privacy away from the Ark's over-bearing rules and even stricter parents. The evidence of their time here was still littered around the pod – old cans and empty packets of smuggled junk food. The last few drops in an old bottle of moonshine had dried up and encrusted to the glass. Loren had been made to drink from that bottle, after he'd had a sudden panic attack from crawling through the tunnels. The others had thought it would calm him. He hadn't been able to keep food down for three days afterwards.
Brushing past the remnants of his memories, Loren sat down at the control panel and pulled out a manual. It was more like a cheat sheet, drawn in a rough hand by one of Aggie's friends in engineering. He didn't question Loren's need for the information, and why would he? When Loren Matthews asked for something, it could only be for a good, entirely legal, reason. How shocked people would be if they could see him now. Breaking and entering was hardly his usual hobby.
All the numbers and arrows of the manual swam before his eyes. He was a medic, not a pilot, and it took him a careful few minutes of matching hand-drawn impressions to the actual control panel in front of him. He tried to think of it like a human body – a rib here, a vein there – and the cheat sheet like one of the anatomy books he had studied for hours during his training. They never looked like the real thing either. Surprisingly, the method began to help. He flicked a switch and the panel lit up. A soft whir began somewhere in the background. Right outside the panoramic window was a set of closed metal doors. The first stage of the airlock. The door to the pod still sat open behind him. One set of doors to open, and one to close, then things got simple from there. Just one mighty long fall.
He turned a dial that he thought looked right. The pod made an angry sound in response. He panicked, switched it back down. Then he heard a thud from outside.
The entrance door to the docking bay was opening. Loren froze, waiting to see who would appear. At first, no one did. Then came the nose of an electric prod, and Loren knew the guards had found him.
He buckled his safety belt, hands shaking. He had to made this quick. He counted four sets of footsteps entering the docking bay. With his nose almost pressed flat to his cheat sheet, he searched for a scribble that might help him close those doors.
"This one!" A voice came, echoing around the abandoned section.
"Citizen," shouted another voice, more authoritative. "Come out with your hands raised."
Tossing the paper aside, Loren swapped logic for luck. He hammered some buttons. They lit, one by one, with painful slowness. The pod grew brighter still, illuminating him like a searchlight. The footsteps came quicker.
"This is your final warning! We will have to use force!"
Loren glanced over his shoulder just as that prod appeared at the door. A face came with it, hardened and furious. With trembling hands, Loren grabbed the first lever he could find and yanked it down. The door slid shut, and forced the guard backwards. His angry face appeared at the small window and Loren could hear the muffled sound of him shouting orders to the others.
He'd brought himself some time. He grabbed the crumpled sheet and found the air lock controls by laying the diagram flat on top of the panel. He flicked one, two switches, then one final button. The doors began to pull aside with a triumphant, drawn-out squeal.
The lights in the pod flickered and Loren realised that the guards were trying to cut the power. He willed the doors to go faster, to not let his luck run out just yet.
The lights cut out. The control panel went dead. At the same moment, the ejectors pushed the pod forward. Frenzied shouts followed him into the air lock. The doors began to close again and Loren let out a tense breath as the control panel flickered to life once more. He smiled as he spotted the scribble on his diagram that read 'reserve power'.
The hatch in front was all that separated him now from space and as he stared at them, he supressed his natural instinct to flee. Where could he go now anyway, but down? Everything was automated. His fate was set.
Suddenly he was staring into blackness. Stars danced before his eyes, taunting him onwards. The thrusters engaged, throwing him into space with a force that pushed him back against his uncomfortable chair. Then all was swept into a sweet, tense silence as the pod tilted dizzyingly towards its destination.
Through the long window, Earth rose slowly into view. It was odd, to be looking down on the planet with the knowledge that he was now falling towards it. Thanks to the simulated gravity, he could have believed he wasn't moving at all.
Nothing happened for a long time. It was agonizing. The stillness gave him too much time to think. He began to realize how small the pod was, and the belt soon felt as though it wanted to squeeze the life out of him.
There was a crackle of static. The radio was transmitting, an indistinct chatter that gradually became a voice as the pod honed in on the sound.
"…there? Please, Loren. Can you… me? Are you there? Please answer, please…"
It was his mother. The bastards had called her in to reason with him.
"I'm here, Mom. I'm fine," he answered, with a confidence he didn't feel. "Please try not to worry. There's something I have to do. I promise I'll be okay."
"Loren? Please speak to me."
"I'm here!"
"…hear me? If you can, please… back. You don't… do this."
She couldn't hear him. He couldn't answer the call. He pressed as many buttons as he could while the radio still had the signal. "Mom? Mom, are you there?"
Then there was silence. He realised he may have left her behind for good. Would Julia tell her what had become of him? If she didn't, the guards surely would. He hoped they'd be gentle about it. She didn't deserve to have her heart broken.
Earth absorbed all of his thoughts when it loomed large in the window. As it grew closer, the feeling of falling became harder to ignore. His speed picked up, or at least he could have sworn it had.
He checked the diagram again, used it to adjust the conditions for descent. He was entering the atmosphere and the risks were high. With one hand on the thruster controls, he sent a silent plea to whatever mysterious force had gotten him this far.
Let me feel the ground beneath my feet, he begged.
He pulled back the lever, and closed his eyes.
Then he opened them again. Nothing had happened. The thrusters were supposed to push him past the atmosphere, stop him burning up. Yet here he was, hurtling freefall to the ground, and the engines were as silent as the grave. He pulled the lever again, more desperately. He tried to consult the cheat sheet but the pod began to shake too much for him to read. Something hit the window and he realised with a jolt that it was part of the pod. It was falling to pieces. The ancient metal box accelerated sharply and Loren suddenly, somehow, found the sequence.
In a fiery trail, the pod pushed forward so forcefully that Loren's forehead connected with the control panel. The lights guttered out at last and Loren was left to fall screaming to the ground.
Earth met him in a rush of colour and smoke, but he was not awake to see it.