Chapter 7: Alterna Space Center
"Where innovation and aspiration go to die."
Akikta stopped sprinting after his lungs felt ready to pop. He took in deep breaths of air and constantly checked behind him to make sure Subject 7 was nowhere in sight.
Akikta's legs trembled, his heart pounded hard, and he felt nauseous. Why did he keep running into that thing?!
"Oh, Great Spirit, please tell me I'm almost there..." The teen pleaded, not wanting to spend another second trapped in Alterna with that monster. Akikta regained his composure but was still way too tuckered out to observe his surroundings properly. "O...Orca, where am I now?" He asked, hoping to receive a somewhat positive response.
"You have now arrived at the Alterna Space Center." A long moment passed as Akikta processed O.R.C.A's response. His eyes widened in realization.
He looked around to see the many labels and symbols that confirmed O.R.C.A's statement.
"I guess that monster was good for something after all," Akikta commented, only to be spooked by the sudden noise of static.
"Hello? Anyone still there?" A muffled voice asked through Akikta's pocket. It was Sal. The voice was unmistakable. The connection was finally stable enough to allow for communication. Akikta wasted no time in swiping the radio out of his pocket.
"Sal? Sal, can you hear me?"
"Akikta? Phew, thought I lost you there for a second."
"Sorry. The power in this place isn't exactly the best..." The lights flickered abruptly upon mention of the power.
The boy shook his head before a distorted chewing noise came from the radio. "Sal, are you eating right now...?" Akikta questioned. It sounded as though Sal was devouring something crunchy.
"What? Oh, yeah. Sorry." Sal responded, his mouth audibly full. "It took a bit to reach you, and I got hungry. Trust me; I'd share if you were here!" A low growl came from Akikta's stomach. Damn, I'm starving...the sooner I can get out of here, the sooner I can eat. The munches and lip smacks that came from the radio reminded Akikta he hadn't eaten in a good while. With the power of food, Akikta motivated himself to continue onward.
The control room was a few floors up, but the elevators were down. "Stairs it is." He said quietly. Akikta didn't want to traverse all those flights of steps while listening to Sal pig out, so he got a conversation going. "What kind of food are you eating right now?"
"Oh man, have you ever tried these things called calamari rings? They're marvelous." From the sounds of it, Sal didn't slow down with his food. Not even when he spoke. Akikta was a little worried he might choke on that calamari, but he didn't want to be rude and remain silent.
"Calamari is my favorite seafood!"
"That so? Tell you what then, when you're out of Alterna, I'll give you an all-you-can-eat calamari dinner!"
"That...sounds really nice, actually."
"Oh, speaking of, when our connection dropped, I dispatched one of my own to your location. They're gonna drop something off to you. I'll explain more once you're out." Sal revealed, which filled Akikta with immeasurable joy. Knowing someone would be waiting for him at the end of all this relieved the teen greatly. At the same time, he felt guilty that Sal was worried enough to send someone else to him. Did he think Akikta was completely alone down in Alterna?
The thought made Akikta want to clear up a few things while the connection was still stable. "Sal, about being alone. There's something I gotta tell you... Something else is down here..." He started, only to receive static for a response.
A few audible words came from the radio, but Akikta could make no sense of them without context to the whole sentence. "Sal?" He asked, only for the connection to drop once again. Akikta sighed in frustration, tapping the side of the radio harshly a few times, but nothing happened. "Damn service."
He mumbled, returning the radio to his pocket. Akikta looked up to see he was now on the same floor as the control room. Thankfully, the conversation stalled him long enough to get to where he needed to be.
Akikta exited the stairwell and searched for a room labeled "control center." The floor was covered in a strange fur-like substance. At least, Akikta assumed it was fur. Strands of it were just that, fur. But large clumps pulsated like a heartbeat. As if it were alive... It creeped him out.
Even stranger were the golden orbs scattered around the clumps of hair. Akikta thought they were balls at first, but when he looked closer, he saw something moving around inside. These were eggs.
The figure inside looked like a surprisingly cute skeletal fish, though if these were supposed to be eggs, Akikta could only imagine what kind of creature they came from.
He found the door to the control center. It barely stayed on its hinges. Out of fear of it completely breaking off if he so much as grazed it, Akikta shimmied through the little space within the door and its frame.
Once he entered the large circular room, he became enveloped in blackness. It was too dark to see anything, but he's been here before. He remembered the room's layout vaguely.
Akikta fumbled for the light switch on the wall, and once he got them on, the sight of the place made him jump.
Sprawled on the floor, over consoles, and in chairs were several decayed skeletons, all of which were still in their white lab coat uniforms. No doubt, these guys were the head scientists of Alterna, or what was left of them anyway. Akikta was surprised at how well-preserved the bones and clothes were. Had it really been over twelve thousand years?
He crept past the dead, not wanting to wake them like he's seen happen in those horror movies. He approached the main terminal. Across from it was another skeleton on a chair slumped over, perpetually looking upward with something small clutched in its hands.
Akikta peeked over, getting close enough to see whatever the item was, but still keeping at a reasonable distance.
His eyes widened. It was a photo of himself as a small child. Akikta's gaze quickly shifted to the nametag on the scientist's shirt. He inhaled sharply and quickly turned away.
It was the corpse of his father. A fact he wished he had remained ignorant to. Akikta placed a hand on his head as he felt the tears coming out. Why was he constantly reminded that his family was dead?
Why did he have to be the one to survive...
Akikta slammed both hands onto the terminal before him—the upbeat chimes of O.R.C.A activating played before the screens turned on one by one.
Akikta looked up, a bit surprised there was still enough power to operate any of the consoles, let alone all of them. He dug a hand under his mask to wipe away the tears that had formed and focused.
The chimes of O.R.C.A reminded Akikta of the time he snuck into the Alterna Space Center and snagged his father's credentials. He did it to play a small prank on the man, partly because his friends dared him to. Of course, Akikta eventually returned the credentials when they were noticed missing. Only after memorizing them, that is.
He never would've guessed they would come in handy for a situation like this.
Akikta typed on the terminal, filling in the needed information. From there, it was a breeze. He navigated through the various tabs and screens, but eventually got distracted when he accidentally navigated to the security footage.
It displayed the Spirit Lifter launching upward. Akikta's eyes narrowed at what he was seeing. On the Spirit Lifter was some brown blob. He clicked a few more buttons to enhance and zoom in on the entity. "Is...is that a bear?" He questioned.
"Yes. That is Mr. Grizz." O.R.C.A answered. Akikta remembered the mention of Mr. Grizz a few hours ago, but never thought the AI was being serious. This Mr. Grizz fellow didn't look like the bears he read about. Then again, it has been thousands of years, so he guessed land animals were bound to evolve and change.
Considering what he already knew, this had to be footage from around a month ago. Akikta grew curious about the bear and rewound the footage further.
He unintentionally switched to a new camera during the rewind, giving him a nice view of eight new faces. Six of the eight appeared to be human. He was shocked. Though, if Mr. Sal was alive, then, of course, that meant other humans were alive too.
Though, these six individuals looked a little weird. For one, their hair was glossy in appearance. They must've applied an unnecessary amount of hair gel on them. One of them even had suckers akin to a cephalopod on their head for whatever reason, probably a hair accessory of some kind.
Two, most of them were wearing eye masks for whatever reason, like they were in some hero cartoon show.
And three, all of them, except one, had pointy ears. Akikta recalled fantasy books mentioning elves having pointed ears. Did Sal have pointy ears?
Anyway, the main point that confused Akikta was the other two individuals. One was big compared to the others and did not look human. It looked more like a manta ray. This manta ray was smart enough to use its two flippers as feet, and its face looked pretty goofy.
The second individual was a lot smaller than the manta ray. Actually, it was the smallest creature there. It resembled a fish more than anything else, though its eyes looked like they were about ready to pop out of its head. It followed closely behind one of the other humans like some sort of pet.
The footage had no audio, but the weird-looking humans, even the manta ray, seemed to be conversing with one another. Trying to process any of that hurt Akikta's head, so he stopped reviewing the footage.
He refocused his attention on rerouting the power. However, a pop-up would halt Akikta's process when he tried to do so. "What?!"
The teen blurted out. The pop-up stated that the systems for rerouting Alterna's power were switched to a new primary link. Akikta brought up an outdated map of Alterna on screen, only to see it had been moved to a district dubbed Holdout Zone 7. "What- I WAS JUST THERE!" He shouted, forgetting about the corpses all around him.
Akikta kicked the terminal out of anger and stormed off into the hallway. He couldn't believe he had wasted all that time coming to the Alterna Space Center. "Can this day get any worse..." The lights abruptly flickered.
Schlop, schlep, schlop, were the noises that came from down the hall as if to respond to Akikta's rhetorical question. He turned to face the source of the noise, only to have white orbs attached to a black mass gaze right back at him. "...Oh..."