Heavy eyelids.

A steel roof.

What?

Adrenaline, noradrenaline, ephedrine, creatin, a cocktail of proprietary chemicals shoot through your body. The world comes to focus in absolute clarity as your heart ramps up from twenty to two hundred and thirty beats per minute in a split second and your lungs quickly cycle their full 16-liter capacity.

Throw yourself to your feet and scan the room. Was on a table, surrounded by steel walls. The ship?

In front, an empty pod. Hand shoots to my stomach, below the ribs, left side. No pain. no blood, no blackened skin. Healed, how long has it been?

“Hello.”

Only wearing a hospital gown, no protection. The table is steel. Throw it to the ground and take cover. Peek. There’s an open door and someone behind it, the walls to the sides are better protection. Duck back under cover, grab the table and move it along. Ship walls are made to endure medium-caliber impactors and most high-temperature weapons.

“Hello, please calm down.”

Table legs are better than nothing, rip one off and hold it in your left hand. Tensile strength too low for full-strength strikes, best as a thrusting weapon.

They speak.

“Please put that down, I don’t mean you any harm.”

“Put your hands above your head, and lay on the floor now!”

“No.”

“Get on the ground and put your hand above your head!”

“No. You need to calm down. Look around, I got you out of that pod, you’ve been asleep for years.”

Years.

“Where are the rest?”

“Don’t know, all the cylinders were empty.”

“Any bodies?”

“No corpses, surprising, considering the battle scars all over the ship. Someone must have cleaned up.”

“Are you armed?”

“Take a quick look, if you want.” His voice trembled for a second, then calmed. “I’m not.”

Lie? Grip the table as a shield, hold the leg in a javelin throw. Peek, javelin arm leads. Hide. Not lying.

He’s sitting down on one of the barrack beds, a cafeteria dish on his side.

“Is that food?”

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“Home-cooked. It’s yours if you drop the table and come for it.”

“Poison?”

“Why would I wake you in the first place, then?”

…

“Alright.”

Inhale.

The drug cocktail stops pumping through my body. Muscles relax. Exhale.

I drop the table and its leg then step into the doorway. It’s the onboard barracks, one of them. Seems frozen in time, the beds are still made and everyone’s things are in the same places but there’s dust under the frames and none of the people and movement that once brought the space to life.

Or, at least, none of the people that are supposed to be here. He’s still sitting, on Jamison’s bed. Average height but short in comparison to her, of lightly pigmented complexion and wearing a well-fitted space suit of the sort blue-collar spacers like to use, the helmet of which is on the floor by him. A fairly athletic body, blunted by a young and smooth complexion. But he’s composed and the look in his eyes belies intelligence. Older than he seems?

The eyes are clearly augmented, with no iris of any sort, and overlarge pupils. On the forehead, above the eyebrows, protrude two small black nubs. Cameras.

There are ports, visible by their connection to his suit, on his arms and the back of this neck.

“Come eat, it’s still warm.”

He holds the dish out and I take it. Beans, rice, synth-meat in some sort of red sauce, zucchinis made in butter. A good portion. Delicious.

“Hungry, huh?”

“…”

“Ehm, my name is Alba! What’s yours?”

“… Call me Mars”

“Ha! Not sharing with the class? What’s the real one?”

I look him in the eyes and say nothing.

“Aha, right, shutting up.”

Back to the food.

“Homemade, huh? It's good.”

“If I couldn’t cook well id never eat! It’s just me, after all.”

Too quickly, the meal is finished.

“Thank you.”

“Least I could do.”

Turn and look him in the eye.

“Scavenger?”

“That’s me. But you must have other questions, what do you want to know?”

“What’s the date?”

“24 of the third, year 203.”

A long time, why did no one come back for me?

“No bodies, right?”

“None, cleaned up I suppose. No weapons in the armory either. Everything else seems untouched: Food stocks had a fair bit left. Nobody thought to take the medicine. The beds are even still made.”

“Where are we? The ship I mean.”

“A pretty big debris field. Old battlefield and scrapheap, far off the beaten path. The nearest station is in orbit around Europa, about a week away in my transport.”

“We leave now. Where’s your transport?”

“Sorry, I’m not taking you anywhere.”

I get up and stand closer to him, the height difference means he has to look up almost vertically to meet your eyes.

“We leave now. You don’t have a choice.”

His face remains calm and his arms at on the bed as he speaks.

“That wall has windows, there’s a button that lowers the radiation shielding, I’m sure you’re aware. Go ahead and open them. Look out.”

A trick?

“Get up, you can open them while I stay here.”

He gets up. Even while standing you tower over him. He walks to the wall and presses the button. Behind the windows you see debris, steel clouds of minuscule particulate interspersed with larger chunks, from the size of a head to that of a car. Importantly, the two rooms you’re in are floating alone, not connected to anything.

Quickly walk up to the window and look. The rest of the ship is gone. Beyond the doors leading out of the barracks, or the small room your pod was in, there’s nothing but debris.

“How much time do we have?”

“Oh, enough. There are also some oxygen tanks out there, stored. But don’t focus on that.”

“What do you want.”

“Nothing unreasonable, just equal footing on the negotiation. I’ve spent months preparing to wake you, you know? Gone to station and back twice. I’m willing to help you but I won’t let you commandeer everything in your favor. There has to be a give and take.”

“I could still break you over my knee right now, did your account for that?”

“Oh, I know. As I said, equal footing. To get out of here alive we both need to come to an agreement: The only space-rated suit around is the one I’m wearing; it certainly won’t fit you. At the same time, you hold my life in your hands and I don’t doubt you’re capable of violence. We are at the mercy of each other.”

“So, we make a deal?”

“We make a deal: I help you integrate to society, hide after whatever happened aboard that ship, find whoever you want to be found. Meanwhile, you help me back.”

“Let’s talk then.”