The generator room was second in size only to the morgue amongst the spaces of their increasingly non-viable shelter. The place was dominated by two hulking generator sets; ‘C32s with all the trimmings’ if a half-remembered conversation with Andrew on the second day hadn’t just been the rambling results of a brief demonic possession. One of the pair of great yellow beasts growled hungrily as it chewed through its meal, the other still and silent in sleep. Besides the duo, a nearby storage closet full of generator food, and the growling - loud enough to make Millie miss downtown traffic - the room was barren.
From this sparse chamber came death, nefarious and invisible as it seeped free of gaps in the ventilation system. Andrew indicated the only visible sign of this approaching doom, one of the ‘trimmings’; a humble electronic monitor that displayed a number no less dire for its infinitesimally small size. The omen’s innocuousness made it seem all the more terrible.
They’d gathered in the hall just outside the generator, Paul having wheeled Millie in on the gurney. Andrew was casting glances at the generators as he spoke, he had a calm affect but the words were coming quickly enough to make a lie of it.
“Wherever the genny was venting must have either filled up, clogged, or got closed off by the quake - that’s in order of worst to best case. The carbon monoxide levels -” Andrew tapped the screen, which amongst other things displayed ‘5.4 ppm’. “- are climbing. It’s been sitting around just under one part-per-million for the last few days and that hadn’t changed when I checked a couple hours ago.”
Andrew looked at them all expectantly until Paul spoke up.
“Alright, what’s that mean?”
“It means that once that number gets high enough for long enough, we’ll get an alarm telling us we’re being poisoned, not just a number.”
“How long we got?” Questioned Millie.
Andrew nodded. “This is already more carbon monoxide than you want to breathe for a full day - and the bigger it gets the less time we have. Only reason I haven’t turned off the generator already is so we can get some other light sources ready to go, because until that number starts going down again this generator isn’t coming back on. In the worst case it may not even be enough: Gas could start flowing back into the room from wherever it was going before.”
Clasping his hands, Paul asked, “Will it? Start going down, I mean - the number.”
Andrew replied, expression firmly controlled “Unless we can figure out some way to start venting the exhaust again… no.”
It was a grim provocation into a sudden shift of priorities - starvation now a distant concern. Olivia moved back towards the morgue, the others having quickly learned there was little way to stop the woman doing as she saw fit.
“I could get some light off the phone in my bag.” Said Millie.
“There’s a hand-crank emergency light in the office, I’ll go grab that.” Added Paul.
“Right then, get going. I’ll start shutting it down.”
It didn’t take long for the group to reconvene. Paul and Millie grabbed their torches while Olivia was cobbling something together in the morgue. By the time the beast was slowly drifting to sleep, silence blanketing them as the generator’s growl lowered to a hum, they were all back outside the generator room, awaiting the fall of darkness. Olivia had returned with a makeshift lantern - a clever combination of engine oil, glassware from the lab, and some cotton bandages.
“Ready?” Said Andrew, hand inside the beast’s carapace.
At a round of nods, Andrew put the beast to rest and the lights in the basement blinked off in moments. Their world was distilled even further to the small cones and flickering bubbles of light around them. It made the basement seem even more claustrophobic, what little they had even less than it already was.
As they all moved about carefully in the dark, they navigated back to the morgue in a silent procession. Upon returning they gathered around what had become a familiar meeting place - one of the many stainless steel tables, unique only in its centrality.
“What now?” Asked Paul.
Andrew gestured at Olivia, “Can you make a few more of those? Even if we don’t suffocate, I don’t think we’ll be getting the lights back anytime soon.”
Olivia nodded in the darkness and proceeded to throw together some more improvised lanterns for when the need arose.
“So we gotta get some airflow, yeah?” Questioned Millie.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Andrew gestured back towards the generators, “I’ll be able to tell you in a bit what’s blocked up the ventilators depending on how the carbon monoxide levels change and with a little check of the gennies. I’ll get to work on that. You three get to using those big brains of yours to think us up a fix.”
“All my brainspace is old books and board games, man.”
“Well, best get to using it.”
Paul stood up and announced their intention to seek out potential areas where some small airflow could already be present. He grabbed one of the new lanterns and hoped to use the flickering of flames driven by slight airflows to divine invisible gaps in the walls if any existed. Olivia moved to finish up her lanterns and proceeded onto some task of chemistry that Millie could make no sense of and the woman, as usual, wasn’t inclined to explain.
Millie was left alone with an encroaching sense of impotence and little else to do but get back to thinking. She half remembered the diatribe The Voice had entered regarding ‘Forms’, even as most of it had been lost to the immediacy of current circumstances, the tone had been too grand and abstract to offer the immediate solution they clearly needed. This was a game that would reward resourcefulness and improvisation more than it would a well considered strategy. The domain her dad had played in - but that was no excuse to ignore the fundamentals.
Own the field, know your resources, focus on the objectives. Or as her father would put: control the place, the play, the point. The problem was they’d all known these for a while, they’d been living it for nearly a week, and though the core problems were more urgent the circumstances on the board hadn’t changed. If they focused only on what was readily apparent, they’d discover nothing that wouldn’t have been considered already. They needed a new place to control, or new resources to draw from.
Millie was drawn back into the world by the heavy grunt of Andrew sitting heavily on a desk next to her gurney. He had one of Olivia’s new makeshift lanterns and a ham sandwich.
“Here, eat. It’ll help you with all that thinking.” Andrew said softly, as he passed her one half of the sandwich. “We need to get through the perishables anyhow.”
Millie nodded gratefully as she grabbed her half of the sandwich. Despite her hunger, she ended up just nibbling at it pensively.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Queried Andrew.
“Ain't worth that much. How about a game?”
“Pft, really? Even now?”
“I dunno man. It calms me down, helps me focus.”
Andrew let out a defeat sigh and rummaged through the bag hanging off Millie’s gurney, “I guess if it’s a matter of life and death I can stomach a beating.”
“I don’t know where this faith in me comes from. Right now I'm stuck wondering if maybe we should just be happy we’re going out from carbon monoxide rather than starving. I hear it ain't a bad way to go.” Said Millie, still pensive as she set up the board Andrew passed her.
“You’re thinking of dioxide, not monoxide. You’ll get real sick before you go out from monoxide.”
“Alright, I’m gonna guess firefighter.”
“What? Oh. Yeah actually.” Andrew nodded, smiling slightly. “Wildlands firefighter, hotshot crew. What gave it away?”
“A bunch of little things. Hotshot crew?” Continued Millie, enjoying the distraction as she passed Andrew the pouch of little black stones.
“A bunch of loons with a deathwish.” Chuckled Andrew, unable to hide the swell of pride from his voice. “Basically firefighter special forces.”
Millie rolled her eyes as she plucked out her first stone. “Ooh, so you’re some sort of badass then?”
“Yup. Certified.” Andrew grinned as he toyed with one of his stones. “So, uh, what’re the rules?”
“Oh, it’s real easy.” Said Millie, with a mischievous grin. “We each take turns putting stones on the board at those little intersections. Encase an area and you capture it, and any of the other guy’s pieces inside. Captured pieces get removed. Whoever controls the most space and has the most pieces left wins. And no endless capture-back repetitions like an asshole.”
“That’s it? Seems too simple.” Said Andrew quizzically, staring at the board as he casually tossed and caught his bag of stones with one hand in an easy rhythm.
Millie’s grin grew very toothy, “Yeah don’t worry man, easiest ga- shit!”.
A particularly strong quake shook them free of the conversation, and their seats. Andrew barely kept the lantern from falling and himself on the edge of the table. In so doing he failed to catch both Millie and the bag of go rocks he’d been juggling and they both spilled across the floor, the latter with a surprised yelp. There was little pride left to damage, and not many more places her body could be bruised, but she really couldn’t have fallen with less dignity if she’d tried.
As her eyes opened to the dim light cast by Paul’s lantern she saw the field of go stones scattered around her. As the earth shuddered and moved so did they, dancing out an uneven rhythm on the cracked terrazzo tiling. The stones were vibrating towards the same point as the quake emphasized what must have been a near-imperceptible divet that had formed in the floor near the center of the morgue.
Andrew shook Millie’s shoulder gently as concern tinged his voice, “Hey? You hurt? Can I help you up?”
“Holy shit…” whispered Millie, unusually reverent.
Andrew spoke, more concerned than before, “Is it bad? What’s up?”
“No man.” Replied Millie, eyes flashing with delight. “What’s down.”