Christia couldn't sleep.
After nearly an hour of pushing and pulling wreckage in front of the entrance, she'd felt it secure enough to allow herself some rest and curled beneath a small fort of boxes and blankets. It wasn't sturdy, but anyone who managed to get into the cafeteria wouldn't be able to find her.
Hopefully.
She had felt invulnerable, but once under the blankets and reaching for sleep, Sevastopol had begun to sound like a living thing; Groaning and creaking and shuddering. Christia couldn't tell which direction the noises came, or how far off they were, and certainly didn't want to imagine the cause.
Even worse than the distant pandemonium was the uncertainty. What would her next move be? Double-back to the transit station and try to find her parents?
Solomon's Habitation Tower belonged to nefarious survivors and synthetics, but what waited in the ruins of the Systech Spire?
Christia turned on her flashlight; the glow soothed her. Waste of batteries...
Just before Sevastopol's main comms had malfunctioned, mere hours before the lockdown, her father had told her of the station's imminent decommission. They were to leave for home in two weeks.
Earth. Green grass and natural air, daylight.
Ten years in the speckled void of deep space was far too long. She wouldn't miss it one bit.
Flashlight off, flashlight on, off...
"I'm going to die here," She whispered to herself solemnly.
Christia's eye's shot open as voices echoed just outside the fortified door.
"There isn't going to be anything left, man!" A man half-shouted. She put a hand over her mouth and fumbled for the gun.
"It doesn't matter. Either way, we have to go through here to get to the Marshall Bureau," A second voice quickly retorted.
"What do you expect to find there, exactly? Someone who knows what's going on? Someone who can kill that thing?"
Oh, God.
A noise, metal against metal. They were chipping away at the barrier.
"Shut the fuck up and help me, Woods."
"I say we take the transit to the the synthetic warehouse and figure out a way to call off those fuckers. They're beating people to death, man. When things fell apart, we had nine people in our group, Fitz. Nine. We're down to four now, and who knows if Alvarez and Stone will be alive by the time we get back?" More clanks and thumps. "Remember how much it took just to put a single Joe down? We shouldn't waste time here."
"Could be guns in there, Woods."
"That thing could be anywhere."
Christia's heartbeat rose with every word spoken between the men. She was trapped, and if they didn't quiet down, everything they had to fear on Sevastopol would come right down on their heads.
And what she had believed mere fantasy and hysteria was now looking to be true.
Conversation stopped, and the two men continued to move aside the debris. Christia wiped at her damp forehead and sat up on her haunches, slipping on her backpack once more and briskly tying back her long, dark hair.
She took a deep breath and lifted the edge of her blanket fort; they were barely twenty feet from her, nearly through the doorway; very little stood in their way now. The tallest of the two stood rigid and alert, a gun at the ready, while the other pushed a stack of hastily-packed suitcase to the side. Neither looked familiar, but it was very dark...
The distraught one, Woods, was right. There was no food left except for the can of pears and damp bag of bittersweet chocolate chips in her backpack.
Given the chance, they'd probably take everything she had. They'd probably hurt her.
"Fitz, what if there are people in here? Someone had to have blocked this off," Woods half-whispered, looking over his shoulder anxiously.
"Wasn't anything on the tracker, okay? If you're worried, check it again. We can step over the rest of this junk..." Fitz muttered. Christia watched as he climbed over what was left of her blockade.
How could she have been so naive as to think it would stop anyone who wanted in?
"Can we get some power in here, you think?"
Woods hesitated a moment before hopping over the metal and wires, gun held out with a frigid arm. "I don't know man, looks like things really went down in here. Serious damage. Shit, it's hot!"
The two moved further into the cafeteria, bickering quietly, as Christia listened uneasily from her small acropolis; they walked past her without incident.
She didn't know whether to keep herself hidden until they realized there was no way into the Marshall Bureau and left, or to simply sneak out from where they came in. The transit station wasn't far, and she had already spent days gathering supplies and preparing to go after her parents. Solomon's Habitation Tower was an empty, dangerous shell. There was nothing for her there.
Ping.
"Fitz! Fitz, there's something in here with us!" Woods hissed.
The motion tracker.
"Where?"
"Over there, by the debris!"
"Give me that fucking thing," Fitz whispered. Christia kept as still as she could, sweat dripping from her chin, vision blurring with tears.
"Why are you fucking with me, Woods?"
"What are you talking about, man?"
"There's nothing there," Fitz said angrily, "So how about you stop with the jokes and find a terminal."
Christia let out a relieved sigh, her hand relaxing every so slightly around the old revolver.
Ping.
The room fell deadly silent.
"See? I told you!" Woods seethed.
"Dummy up and go check it out."
Christia was ready to run.
"Why me, man? Why not you?"
"You're the one with the gun, asshole. Check it out."
Now.
The small girl dashed out from the fort, flashlight on and the barrel of her gun aimed at Fitz and Woods. The beam disoriented the pair for only a moment, and then Woods was aiming at her.
"What the fu-"
"Stay back! I-I'm warning you!" Christia rasped, the light moving around the men wildly as her hands trembled.
"Shouldn't play with guns, babe," Woods snorted, blue eyes wild and shining. He took a step towards her.
She was in trouble.
"Another step and I'll shoot you, I swear it!"
"Woods, put the gun down, she's just scared-"
"Hey, she pulled a gun on us, Fitz," He countered hotly. "Put down the gun and whatever else you got and maybe we'll let you off easy; how's that sound, sweet thing?"
"I don't think so."
"You don't even want to mess with us. I've tried being nice, now put the fucking gun down!" The blue-eyed Woods bellowed, anger twisting his pale face. He looked like an animal.
Fitz grabbed his ally from the back. "Keep it down!" He spat, "And put...the gun...do-"
A sound, a roar, completely inhuman, interrupted him.
Christia stared at the men, a whimper rising in her throat, and they stared back at her with a fear she knew mirrored her own.
Slowly, they lowered their guns. Fitz held up a hand, a sign of peace.
"Hide."