Yes, it's been a few months since I've updated. And no I've never forgotten to update especially with the little voice in my head constantly reminding me to find the time to sit down and write. I hope these chapters are long enough to make up for the longer waiting times. Enjoy!

Jerry's steak bar and grill was unusually crowded for a Tuesday evening. And just like every Tuesday at six pm, Carrie was at the front of the restaurant seating customers as the tables became available after they were cleaned and the condiments restocked.

I had the luxury of skipping the line, one of the perks of being a regular and predictable customer for the past eight years. Being friends the owner doesn't hurt either. If there was ever a line Carrie would tell me that my reserved table was ready and would seat me at my favorite spot by the window.

Even though the TV above the table was always too loud for my liking and the door leading to the kitchen would swing a little too close to the seats when it opened, nothing could beat the view on launch days. When the Kennedy Space Center across the river in Cape Canaveral had a rocket leave its launch pad the window had the perfect view for any space enthusiast.

Hannah was already sitting down in our booth with a whiskey in her hand. She and I went to grad school together almost ten years ago; I was dating her roommate at the time but after we broke up three months into the relationship she and I ended up becoming really good friends.

When our host saw me walk towards them he gave me a thumbs up before going back into the kitchen with my order. I didn't even have to tell him what I wanted; he knew that I wanted a New York strip, medium rare, with a side of buttered corn, mashed potatoes and a glass of Heineken. This was the same thing that I ordered every week.

As I sat down I saw that Hannah had several empty whiskey glasses to go along with her full one. Apparently she had gotten started early. "Pre-gaming huh?" I said.

She looked down and fidgeted with her glass.

"Hey, what's wrong?"

She took a sip from the glass, "Nothing, it was a rough day at work."

"How rough could it be?" I asked. "You have a government job, several minions under your thumb doing whatever you tell them. All you have to do is show up to get paid right? I mean, last month your entire office took a week off to go on an arctic cruise." No laugh, nothing.

"Oh come on." I said. "Who pissed in your cheerios?"

She let out a sigh. "You know about Doctor Falkner's microbes, the ones that were discovered earlier last year?"

"Yeah it's interesting stuff." I said. "Some organisms at the microscopic level that is able to feed just off of elemental nitrogen. What of it?"

"It's not just that, it's something much worse. But whatever, let's eat steak."

I snorted, "Hannah come on, what's bothering you so much?"

I could tell that she was mulling it over in her head. "Why not, you'll hear it from the president in about twelve hours anyway."

"Wait, the president?" I said, "As in, the president of the United States?"

She took another large sip that lasted a few seconds. "Well do you know about the EMUETSAT satellites?"

"Yeah, somewhat. They're European satellites that orbit around the poles and gather data about the atmosphere and-."

"And they monitor trace gasses like ozone, neon and methane." She said. "According to their data the atmosphere is starting to build up trace amounts of ammonia."

I shrugged. "Okay how much did it detect."

"It was measured at just under point one part per million."

"That's it? It's just one tenth of a part per million?" I said. "Is there more to it than that? That doesn't sound like a big deal."

"It's not just that. It's been monitored over the past several months and the amount of ammonia has been increasing."

"Okay, it's interesting but I don't see how that calls for four whiskeys before dinner."

"That's what I thought. But it's not just the amount that's increasing; the rate of the increase has been going up as well." She took another sip from her glass. "It's some sort of exponential gain that we were able to catch very, very early thanks to the satellite's incredibly sensitive equipment."

I leaned back in my chair, "I don't know Hannah, spotting some sort of exponential that early seems unlikely. Even if it's there what does that mean for the atmosphere?"

"We can start to smell ammonia at just one part per million, at twenty-five it can start to burn your eyes. Once it reaches fifty, OSHA says that workers can't be exposed to it for more than eight hours at a time."

"Well ammonia has a very short half-life are we even sure this is going to be a long-term thing?"

Hannah finished the last of the whiskey in her glass. "The ammonia is being created by the Falkner microbes. These single-cell organisms are ingesting nitrogen and releasing ammonia back into the atmosphere in large quantities."

"That's what they're doing with the nitrogen? Even if they are it doesn't seem like they would be the ones behind it; there are just not enough of them to have an atmosphere changing effect. You would need billions of these single-cell creatures to make enough gas to cause that much harm."

"There are billions of them." She said in a low voice. "The Falkner microbes mutated to make a new strain. This one lives in the lower mesosphere, that's thirty-one miles above our heads."

"Wait how does anything survive that high up? The air should be too thin for anything to breathe let alone reproduce."

"We're not sure how they survive that high up yet. And that's not all either."

"Please don't tell me it gets worse."

"It does; as they breed not only does the rate of ammonia production increases, the density of their groups will increase with it and the resulting clouds of the microbes will eventually become dense enough that a large percentage of sunlight wont make it to the surface."

She went to take another sip without realizing that her glass was already empty then she set it alongside all the others.

"How much of a decrease are we going to get?" I asked.

She pulled out a stack of papers from her book bag, they looked like a bunch of charts and graphs. She grabbed the one she wanted and slid it over to me.

The x-axis was labeled, "time" and the y-axis was labeled, "luminosity loss". The line was exponential for sure. She handed me another paper with another chart, the x-axis on this one was, "time" and the y-axis was "ammonia (ppm)" an abbreviation for parts per million.

"This can't be right." I said.

"It is right." She said. "The amount of light that reaches Earth's surface will drop by one full percent within the next nine years. In twenty years that number will be five percent. As for the ammonia, we'll hit the twenty-five parts per million in about seven years. And in twenty years it will be well over two hundred."

"This is bad."

"This is really bad."

"That would mean an ice age. Like, right away. An instant ice age."

"Yeah. If the toxic air doesn't kill us then all of the resulting famine will."

I started to raise my voice a little. "How can a new species just appear out of nowhere and change an entire atmosphere. Things don't happen this quickly; species take millions of years to evolve not months, come on you know that."

"No I don't know that. I used to know that, now I only know that there's we're going to be breathing a lot more ammonia in a few years." She said. "I don't know how they evolved this trait or what we can do about it but its happening."

"How?" I slouched a bit in my chair.

"The president addresses the nation tomorrow morning. I think they're coordinating with other world leaders to make the announcement at the same time."

The waiter came by with our food and dropped off my Heineken, "Here you go sir, your steak should be out shortly."

Hannah raised her glass and said. "I need another whiskey."

"Make it two." I added.

"Whoa." The memory popped into my head without warning. It wasn't like some flashback a character in a movie would have, it was more like: 'oh, that's right. I guess I've known about that all along.'

So, I'm from Florida or at least I lived there at some point in my life. I like steak and beer. I used to go to grad school with a girl named Hannah.

Now that I remember her I really wished she was here. I kind of wished that anyone was here really. I'm getting a little tired of having nobody to talk to.

But the conversation we were having about those microbes she was so worried about. I think that's the reason that I'm out here. No, I know it's the reason. After remembering that name a small terror starts creeping inside of me. And it's not some sudden feeling of dread either; it's more of a comfortable scare, something that's been there awhile.

I take a deep breath and let it out.

Alright, so I know why I'm here: find a solution to Falkner's microbes. I have a sense that they were called something else. "Falkner's microbes" was what they were originally called but there was a more common name for them that I just can't remember right now.

I wish my name came up in that memory but I'm sure that I'll remember it soon enough.

I ate the last mouthful of "Day 3: Meal 3", I think that its chicken flavored. This time it had some chunks inside of it instead of just being mush. Makes sense, I need to get my body started on more solid foods. Perhaps in a week I'll be able to eat regular food; I wonder if there's any steak onboard. A beer wouldn't be bad either.

I set the empty package down on the lab table next to my computer and stretched my back out while looking at the alien still trapped behind the glass wall. I've gotten more used to having it around; I still don't completely trust it but I'll have to open the door if I want to access the rest of the ship.

The "Drone" as I've come to call its species, was happy to just lie on the ground and watch me work. Why call it "Drone" and not a regular name? That's because I don't know any regular names for it and it wouldn't feel right to name it like I would a dog or another person. Now I'm sure scientist back on Earth have a scientific name for it but there isn't anything that I could find in the lab so until I have something better, I'm calling it a drone, just a mindless drone doing whatever it wants or whatever pops in my head.

I still don't know how it knows what I'm doing in another room. Does it use echolocation like a bat or dolphin? It's not making any sound that I can hear so it might have something like passive sonar or some low frequency that's not in my range of hearing. It would be an interesting experiment to run but I would need a vacuum environment to completely separate us so that no sound could make it to the drone. Then I would make some kind of movement and If it copied me then that would mean that it doesn't use sonar since no sound waves would be able to bounce off of me.

I looked above the door at the digital countdown timer. In red digits it says: "2 H. 32 M. 17 S." Still don't know what happens when it reaches zero but I'll find out soon enough. I still think the most likely thing that's going to happen would be the door opening but for all I know it could be a countdown to New Years. I doubt it's something like that but who knows.

I did have one good discovery this morning: while on one of my laptops I found a complete layout of the ship but it's a little weird for a space craft.

Above the layout, in the upper right corner of the screen was the name of the ship. I'm onboard the "Traveler".

Okay I guess I'm not the only one that has issues naming things. I mean come on, the Traveler? They couldn't come up with a cooler name? I can't really complain though, it keeps me safe and fed.

The interior starts as two large cylinders parallel to one another that are connected to one another with the tunnel the drone is staying in. The ladder that's inside that room leads to the pilot house, also known as the bridge or control room, and inside there is an airlock that should let me leave the ship.

I guess if I need to do any EVAs this is where my space suit would be. It's funny, I don't remember being trained on how to do an EVA but I know how to do them. I know that I've done them before.

Yeah I sort of remember; I've used the Orlan semi-ridged one-piece space suit. It's a Russian made suit designed so that the wearer could don and doff the suit without needing anyone else's help. I even know what it looks like! I can also picture the undergarment suit that I'm supposed to wear underneath. It's really only needed for temperature regulation though.

According to the map the space that I'm in is just labeled "Lab" underneath that is labeled "Dormitory". It's nice to know the official names of things. And underneath the dormitory is another space that I missed labeled "Primary Storage".

I went back to the dormitory this morning and found a floor panel that I didn't notice before. First thing that I pulled up were some real clothes. It wasn't anything fancy, just some long sleeve shirts, a few sets of leg covering, plenty of underwear along with socks and sneakers. And just like everything else on this ship, it was all brand new and packed inside of vacuum bags to save space. And based on how it feels I'll bet that everything is flame retardant.

There weren't any more rooms for me to explore underneath "Primary Storage". Below that were half of the fuel tanks, the other half were below the adjacent cylinder. And below the fuel tanks were the engines labeled "Spin Drives". Not sure what those are exactly.

On the other side of the ship, starting at the top was "Secondary Storage", nothing interesting about that. However, the room beneath it is what was strange to me. It was labeled "Biological Terrain Resource Storage"

Yeah it makes no sense.

Does this mean there's just a room full of dirt onboard? Just by going off of the name, whatever this room is storing it has to be used as a resource or maybe some kind of fuel. It's also alive hence the, "Biological" in the name; and it's also something that can cover the ground.

My first thought is coral. It's alive; it can cover kilometers of ocean floor. I'm sure that some cultures use it as a resource. My line of thinking is more like trying to find an answer to a trivia question than a serious guess. I'll just have to visit to see what's down there.

Attached to the biological terrain resource storage room was yet another airlock. But unlike the one in the pilot house, this one was oriented for when the ship was upright. This one was probably the one used when building the ship or loading it when it was at the launch pad. It just seems like the easier of the two.

And now that I actually know what the rest of the ship should look like, it's time that I actually see it in person. I'm just building up the courage to have the computer lady open the door to the hallway. Maybe I'll wait until after the countdown timer; like I said it may be the reason for the countdown in the first place.

No, there's no reason for me to keep putting this off. I'm here to find out a solution for the microbes and this drone is part of that solution and I need to figure out why. And I can't do any of that while only using half of the ship.

It's also possible that I'm on a time table. I could have been in that coma for quite some time and all of Earth is counting on me before things get too bad back home. I really hope that I'll figure this out in time.

I stood up from my desk and started making my way to the glass. "Alright, no more waiting around." I say towards the drone. "I'm going to let you out now and I'm going to assume that you're not going to attack me."

The drone shuffled, or floated I guess, closer to the door stopping about a foot away from the glass. I think it knows what I'm trying to do.

Did it understand what I just said?

I ignored the thought and tapped on the display on the side of the door and just like when I tried it two days ago nothing lit up. I inspected it a bit closer and I saw a small round indent on the side that was hardly noticeable. Pressing that made the screen light up.

The display had three different options on it; it had open and close like you would expect but it had a third one, isolate. It sounds like that function is used in case there's a breach in the ship and I need to isolate an entire room. You may think that just the door would make the entire room airtight but the door isn't the only way air can pass through a room. There's the ventilation, plumbing, even the power lines might have some small air gaps.

I took a deep breath and stared at the drone. "Here we go." I pressed the open button. And… nothing. I pressed the button again, still nothing.

An error message came up at the bottom of the screen that said, "AIR TIGHT DOOR SATUS: OPEN." I hit the close button and the thick metal door shut between us.

I hit the open button and the door opened back up with the glass wall still there. I closed it once more and looked on my side of the door for anything that would make the glass partition open as well. Maybe there's a manual latch that I have to engage but I can't find anything.

After opening and closing it again and again without any change. The drone started staring at me as though it's waiting for me to get my life together. Like, 'hey are you going to open this sometime today? I remember my first time opening a door.'

Asshole.

I look over to my impatient guest and said, "You wouldn't happen to know how to open this would you?"

The drone's body had vibrated slightly then reached up with two open claws and pressed them on the glass. With one quick motion it crushed the flat surface and the entire glass wall shattered into countless pieces.

I jumped back at the violent explosion and ended up tripping over myself. I was able to brake my fall with my arms but it still hurt because of the increased gravity; I may have even landed on some glass that slid underneath me.

Before I had a chance to check myself for cuts the drone started making its way towards me with open claws, floating over the shattered glass it just made.

I threw one of my hands up at it and nearly shouted at the alien coming straight towards me. "Whoa, stop!" I closed my eyes at the same time and expected the worse. Why did I think this was a good idea?

I stayed frozen like this for a few seconds and after I realized how not dead I was, I opened my eyes and lowered my hand. The drone stopped coming to me and just stayed floating just a few feet in front of me.

I got up and brushed the glass off of myself while keeping eye contact with it the entire time. I would prefer to keep my daily heart attacks to a minimum.

The lab floor is now covered in glass. It didn't just fall into one neat easy-to-clean pile. No, it just had to fan out until small pieces touched nearly every wall. Damn you slick floors.

"Did you really have to make such a mess?" I said to the drone. "Now I have to find a broom clean all this up." I could do that later. Right now I want to explore the rest of the ship before the ship's timer reaches zero and I have less than two hours to do so.

"Alright, stay here. I'm going to look around. Don't break anything else while I'm gone." The drone stared expressionless at me but it didn't follow me as I walked to the door, avoiding glass as much as I could with every step. "Why don't you be a good roommate and clean up after yourself since you don't pay rent." It's important to keep a sense of humor.

Let's see door number one goes to secondary storage with the 'biological terrain storage' in the room underneath it. Or, I could go up the ladder to the pilot house. Maybe I can find out exactly where I am from its navigation computers. That seems like the best course of action.

I climb up the rungs easily enough, I'm not struggling like I used to anymore. As soon as my hand touches the hatch the voice of the nanny bot fills the room from a speaker that I didn't even realize was there.

"To open hatch, please state your name."

Well that's very fucking inconvenient. I've only had one flash of memory so far and I haven't found anything with my name on it yet. As frustrating as it is, it makes sense that I'm not allowed up there yet; who ever made the ship wanted to make sure that I was well enough before letting me anywhere near the navigation systems. If I was still incoherent I could hit a button that could send me flying off far from where I'm supposed to go.

Where is the ship taking me anyway?

I climb back down the ladder and head towards the room labeled 'Storage 2'; I'm just going to call it my secondary storage. With a single press of a button on a similar touch screen the door opens up to a room full of crates.

When I say a room full of crates, I mean it's completely full. The only free space inside of here is a pathway about four feet wide from the door that leads to a large square hatch on the far side of the room. Aluminum containers the size of moving boxes are secured to each other on aluminum brackets and are stacked on top of one another so high that there's only a few feet of clearance at the ceiling.

None of the brackets are locked, I could easily unlatch them from one another and try lowering them but they look too heavy for me to do it on my own. It's strange, if I'm supposed to use what's inside of these crates shouldn't they be stacked so that I can open them on my own? Maybe I can make a pulley system to lower them to lower them.

I check the crates for labels or markings as I made my way to the hatch in the floor. Each box was had a label that marked which one it was in a series between A00 through A44. I know that there are forty-four of them because the very first was literally labeled, "A00/A44".

It looks like I have a lot of unpacking to do but where would I put everything? The ship is pretty cramped as it is and wouldn't everything that I need already

Maybe most of this is just extra food? I kind of doubt its water because I found out yesterday that the ship has a water reclaimer onboard. Any water waste that I produce or extra humidity in the air gets run through the machine and is either purified or distilled, and returns to the potable water supply.

I'm sure that I'll find a manifest somewhere on the computers, I'll just add it on my to-do list.

I started walking towards the hatch while glancing at each crate to see if anything like a packing list was attached, no such luck. As I got closer to the hatch it was apparent that this one was much larger than any others I've seen so far onboard. I don't have my measuring tape on me but if I had to make a guess I would say it's about an eight by eight foot square; that's about the size of the drone.

I guess that's how it got onboard. It was probably sedated, brought into the hallway, and then everything else was loaded. I still don't know why it didn't have its own nanny bot like I did; maybe its species is extremely resilient or it goes into a hibernation state?

Unlike the hatch leading into the lab I had to lift this one to open it. Stanchions were on both sides to keep it upright, all I had to do was lock them in place. I had to be very careful doing this; even though these hatches are mad out of aluminum, a relatively light metal, this is a fairly large hatch for one person to both lift and lock into place. Also the one and a half times' gravity isn't doing me any favors.

It took a few attempts to fit the stanchions in but I think they'll hold pretty well like they're supposed to. I took a few moments to catch my breath while peeking down into the room below. It was pitch-black just like the lab was when I first went in a few days ago. I'll bet the lights will turn on just the same when I climb down.

I stepped down the ladder being very careful not to lose my footing. The moment I reached the bottom LED lights turned on all around me, illuminating more boxes. Hooray, more work to do!

These boxes are different from the ones upstairs. First off, there are a whole lot less of them, probably around fifteen to twenty at first glance. They're also not stacked all the way up to the ceiling either, they're just double stacked coming up to chest height.

The last difference is the big black lettering stenciled on the front panels labeled, "Biological Terrain: Creep".

Creep, creep, creep, why does that sound familiar? I've heard this before but where from? I close my eyes and try to focus on the word. Maybe I'll get another flash of memory that'll tell me what this is.

And, nothing; not a single thing pops into my head. I guess I can't call up memories when I want to, that sucks. That means remembering everything is going to be a very slow process. I just hope that the important memories come up sooner rather than later; like my name!

I inspect the nearest crate, the lid is secured but it isn't locked. With a quick pop I opened the latches at the top and opened the container. Maybe if I took a look at what the creep is then it would jumpstart my memory.

I opened the container and immediately shut the lid and covered my nose with my shirt.

"Gah fuck!" I shouted and started hacking at the same time. One of the most horrendous smells I've ever experienced filled the room; it was like a mix of burnt rubber and fresh vomit. My make-shift mask didn't help at all, the smell seeped through the material every time I took a breath and my eyes began to water.

I took off my shirt and used the whole thing to breathe through instead of just the thin layer of material under the collar. It helps but it's not completely successful, I'll have to be quick if I want to get a look at the creep and avoid puking at the same time.

After taking a few deep breaths, I opened the container just enough to see inside. If I can get a good look at this "creep" while only letting some of the fumes out then I'll be happy.

The first thing that I notice when the lid came up was the heat wave that smacked me, it's like when you open up an oven and the hot air rushes out. And I'm not exaggerating when I say that it's like an oven; this substance is pouring out boatloads of heat, enough that back up a little out of instinct.

And as for the hot-ass contents of the container: it looks similar to light gray purplish playdough, except it looks like it has a semi-gloss sheen to it. It's not a one solid texture either; there are rough patches, smooth areas, even some web-like patterns scattered around. I honestly can't tell if this stuff is in a solid or liquid state.

I'm kind of tempted to reach in and grab a sample but I don't have anything to hold a sample, plus I'm not wearing any gloves. The first rule of any lab is safety first after all.

The smell is starting to get through my shirt; I'll have to come back down with a Petri dish later so I can take a look at it under a microscope. But I do need to head back up to the lab; it's been a while since I've looked at the countdown I want to see what happens when it reaches zero.

Climbing back up the ladders isn't anywhere near as exhausting as they were when I woke up a few days ago. It obviously takes more effort than a normal ladder back on Earth because of the higher gravity but I think I'm just about back to full strength.

Being careful of each step yet again, I made it out of the lower storage area and back into the forest of even more storage containers. After squeezing through the boxes, and hitting my shin on one of the brackets along the way I made it back to the air lock where a neat pile of shattered glass sat in the very center of the lab.

My roommate is standing or levitating is the more accurate word, over it and staring at me. I'm not sure if it's waiting for me to tell it what to do next or maybe it wants me to say good job. I'm kind of just dumb struck that the drone took me literally; I guess that it can't tell when I'm joking.

Wait a minute; the drone did exactly what I instructed it to do. It took what I said and interpreted it as a direct command, a direct verbal command. Not imitations of me, not a monkey see monkey do or any kind of mental instructions like I've done before. This was strictly me saying something and it follow what I said.

The drone understands English. This life form was able to understand human language and comprehend somewhat vague instructions. All I said was to 'clean up after yourself', I never taught it to stack or pile anything together. And it understood that I was referring to the glass as a mess and it needed to be cleaned.

This species must be more intelligent than I thought.

"Good job!" I said.

No reaction from the drone whatsoever. Just another blank stare; maybe I'm giving it too much personality.

I look up at the countdown timer display, I must have really lost track of the time since I'm down to less than six minutes.

I fill that time by helping the drone with the rest of the glass. There are rolls of thick and thin trash bags in one of the cabinets and the nanny bot down below disposed of the bag for me. All I did was take the trash to the dormitory, say "garbage" then one of the arms took it to a side panel for disposal. Or it could be storing all my trash to jettison all at once instead of one bag at a time.

I made it back to the lab with less than a minute on the clock; twenty-three seconds actually but who's counting?

If I'm being honest, I've been counting. For the past three days I've been doing a lot of counting and speculating. I've been counting medical supplies, lab equipment; I even took a few hours to guess how much food I have based on the volume of a meal pack and how much storage space the nanny bot has access to. And I've been trying not to think about how far away from Earth I might be.

I stare at the clock as the last few seconds tick down. If the timer actually was for the glass divider that used to separate me and the drone then I'm just working myself up for no reason. Whatever its for, I'm about to find out in three… two… one.

And that's when the all the lights went out.

I have a very good idea of how I want to pace everything and where the plot will take me but if there is anything ya'll want to see more of please let me know. And if there's anything that I miss in my editing please let me know about that as well so I can go back and correct it.