T-Plus 17

  With two others by her side on the return route to Vaughn’s room, much of the tension and suspense brought by the eerie silent corridor was dispersed. The three sets of footsteps created a psychological barrier of safety, the soft footfalls echoing off the walls and reassuring Esther that she wasn’t alone. Johnson lagged behind the two women, wary of their surroundings and constantly on alert. He wasn’t one for words, and from what she had observed, only Lucky managed to draw out more than a short sentence from him. Bacon kept apace with Esther’s strides, almost reminiscent of a normal work day. The two often ended up walking side-by-side in a hurry, mostly due to Bacon calling on the medic station to give first aid to whoever just caused an accident in Lab 5C. It was almost like that.

  However, unlike those times, the usually easy-going assistant’s shoulders were tense, and she constantly checked over her shoulders and kept an eye on the shadows created by the hunkering haphazard stacks of rubble and debris. Her hand always hovered around her pockets where Esther knew she stored her taser along with one of the alien corpse bottles from Vaughn. Living and surving by herself had made the assistant cautious and guarded.

  From her experience and knowledge of this floor’s dangers, Bacon led the way around certain areas. Although the main corridor was generally safe from water aliens, the rock and metal aliens’ natural hiding places were among the debris. Bacon had taken the time to mark out the dangerous rooms within the residential corridors with Caution: Wet signs or makeshift barriers as warnings. When Esther had scouted out the area around Vaugn’s room before running into the others, she had seen a few scattered in the hallways.

  Reaching Vaughn’s room after Bacon checked on some of her warning signs, all but one which she deemed as undisturbed, Esther knocked on the door. The muffled sounds of someone shuffling around could be heard through the barrier between them, and a quiet voice called her name in a questioning manner.

“Yes, it’s me. Open the door,” she confirmed with another knock.

  A moment after, the lock clicked and the door slid open to reveal Vaughn’s dishevled appearance. He had taken off his signature lab coat, and she caught a glimpse of it hanging on the coat hanger above his cot in the far corner of the room. He had changed out of the obnoxious pink Hawaiian shirt and silver tie into a simpler patterned button-up. Simpler being a beige image of palm trees on the bottom edge of his brown shirt.

“I’m glad my eyes won’t be soiled with your wilder taste in clothing anymore,” Esther said dryly as she waved her hands at Bacon and Johnson.

  She stepped inside with Johnson, letting the two members of Lab 5C that hadn’t seen each other since they all initially separated have their moment. As Vaughn’s incredulous voice whispered Bacon’s name out in the hallway, Esther walked over to where Hensley was out cold on the couch. The senior technician’s brows were scrunched together in pain, and the sheets that had been draped on him before she left were tossed to the ground. Even now as she approached his side, he was tossing in his sleep from the pain. Due to the amount of pillows and support she had around his injured leg, it hadn’t slipped off and caused more problems. The antibiotics she’d left for him on the coffee table had been taken, so he had been woken up in the time she’d gone over to the other sector.

  Seeing his coworker out of sorts, Johnson finally opened his mouth to ask a question.

“What happened?”

“An accumulation of fatigue and continuous run-ins with aliens on the way here,” Esther explained, placing the back of her hand against Hensley’s forehead.

  It wasn’t the most precise method, but her thermometer had been left behind in her room. Not that it mattered, the technician’s body temperature was obviously out of sorts and noticeable by touch. However, it had lessened by a small degree since she left.

  She stood, gesturing for Johnson to help her.

“I’m going to grab our supplies. If you could, wake him and help him out of here. We’ll go back to Bacon’s room. It’s easier to care for him and Lucky if I don’t have to keep going back and forth while monitoring their situations.”

  The silent technician nodded, leaning over to gently shake the sleeping technician awake. She gathered up the men’s bags, handing one over to Johnson while shouldering one herself. As they adjusted the straps, Hensley woke with difficulty. He was rubbing the sleepiness out of his eyes, making sure to keep his leg still propped up against the other arm rest. It took him a few moments to recompose himself, and another few moments to register Johnson’s presence.

“Johnson?” Hensley muttered, staring up at the hunkering technician. “Where’s Lucky? And... that Navigator, Zimmerman?”

  The two outside had gotten over their initial excited conversation, rejoining them inside. Hensley’s attention turned from the other technician to the lab assistant he hadn’t seen since the very beginning.

“Bacon! You-You’re alive! I mean, you’re fine! You’re... here? What are you doing here?”

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  The assistant’s eyes lit up as she greeted him back.

“Dr. Toast has told me that Mr. Soup is also well?”

“Last we know, he’s on the second floor doing the same thing we’re doing,” Hensley affirmed as he attempted to get off the couch.

  Johnson helped him while Vaughn supported him from the other side. With their help, the technician got off the couch, limping forward and keeping the majority weight off his bad foot. Esther pointed out a few more supplies they would need, and Bacon grabbed those, hugging them in her arms. Anything else wasn’t immediately necessary, and they could probably come back for them later.

  Esther ushered them out into the hallway, letting the door close and lock with a click behind her. Now their group had swelled to four and a half, the half being the injured Hensley. Their journey back to the other sector was slower than the one to Vaughn’s room, but it was livelier.

  Vaughn and Bacon traded their experiences, their voices carrying further down the corridor than their footsteps. Hensley joined in on their conversation sparingly, his voice was strained, but she could tell he was using it as a momentary distraction as Johnson helped him hobble along. Vaughn and his assistant took the lead with the two technicians behind them. Esther trailed behind, counting off her fingers what was left on their agenda once they returned to Lucky and Audrey’s side.

  Without running into any unexpected aliens or incidents, the five of them approached Bacon’s room. The assistant keyed them in, sliding the door aside. Before the door even finished sliding into place, Audrey was already there to greet them, her face lighting up at the sight of the five of them.

“Dr. Emerson! Miss Anna! Johnson!” she greeted, pausing in shock when she noticed the other two they had retrieved. “Mr. Hensley? Dr. Vaughn?”

  Realizing she was blocking the door, the Navigator scurried out of the way and allowed Johnson to set Oliver down on one of the couches. Once the technician was seated, Emerson rushed over to Lucky with the new medicines she had grabbed from her room. She checked Lucky’s arm first, applied antibiotics after noticing the relentless fever she was still sporting, and changed her bandages yet again, making sure to keep a constant pressure on her upper arm. If they weren’t too late, this technician’s situation should improve within a day or two, three if her immune system couldn’t fight back quickly, and more after that, and Lucky would have to return her name.

  Once Lucky was tended to, Emerson turned to check on Hensley. His situation was much better, and as long as he didn’t throw his injured foot around recklessly, it would heal with time. Although, she did hand him a handful of painkillers with directions on how many and when to take them. She had looted a few bottles of water from her room, handing one over to the technician. The others she kept on the side for the others to drink sparingly. With the water aliens in the Station’s reservoir, turning on the faucet was suicidal, and they were going to run out of water before their rations.

  While she had been dealing with the injured, the others had gathered around Hensley on the couches, keeping their voices down to not disturb Lucky’s rest. As she put away her medical supplies and joined them, they were discussing how they were going to break out of their current situation. Once she sat down on the empty spot on the couch they had saved for her, they had just gotten to discussing the new variation of alien that had caused Lucky’s dire condition.

“I was wondering when we’d get an alien that’d eaten through the beams that are everywhere,” Vaughn said with a nod, taking the new information in stride.

  If anything, he seemed to be the calmest upon hearing their latest predicament. The scientist looked over at his assistant, asking a few more questions to sort out the information.

“You know there’s only one, or did you only see one?”

  Bacon exchanged looks with Audrey and Johnson before she gave an answer, her tone wavering with uncertainty.

“The emergency lights were on, but the lights in that area were dim, so I’m not sure on the complete number. For sure there was one, the light reflected off its body and blinded Lucky for a moment, which resulted in her injury. There might have been a few more further back, but we retreated before we got too far after Lucky went down,” Bacon explained with the other two nodding their confirmation.

“There were at least a handful, maybe two handfuls, of aliens in that part of the corridor,” Johnson supplemented, finding more words now that he had another familiar coworker with him. “I had my flashlight on, so I could see a bit further. There was maybe another handful behind what we could see.”

“So at least five to ten aliens, at most fifteen or so, one for sure a new metal neighbor. So either we go through the unknown, or we can go back the way we came, which we can confirm an unidentified amount of water aliens, a now empty rock alien nest, and a really large rock alien nest,” Vaughn said, listing out their two options. He paused, adding a third, “Or we can wait here for the others to come find us, so maybe we can finally win a game of numbers.”

“We’re going to run out of water before the others find us here,” Esther denied, crossing out the last option. “I say go back the way we came, at least we already know what we’d get into.”

“But,” Vaughn argued, “when we passed through that first rock alien nest, we ran into those eggs. We still don’t know how fast they evolve, so for all we know, they could have hatched while we’ve been here. And since we found, four, er, three now, there could be possibly three evolved aliens over there versus the one confirmed here.”

“Or,” Hensley intercepted, leaning forward as he shifted his legs around on the pillow they were elevated on, “we can send scouts down both ways to get a better understanding. If you don’t go too far, you can still glean information without things getting too dicey.”

“Okay, so the usual question,” Vaughn said, nodding to the suggestion. “Who’s going?”

  Unlike usual, Hensley didn’t immediately volunteer like usual, with good reason. If he had dared open his mouth, Esther would’ve interrupted and argued against it. Instead, Bacon, Vaughn, Johnson, and, surprisingly enough, Audrey volunteered to go scout their options. With two injured members, Esther would serve as their anchor alongside whoever wasn’t chosen in their meeting.

  In the end, it was decided that Vaugh and Johnson would do the reconnaissance while the three women would stay behind and loot the nearby rooms for more supplies for their indefinite stay.