Chapter 1 - Feels Like Forever #2
As I blink away a tornado of emotions, I straighten up until I’m standing for the first time in half an hour.
A heavy wave of dizziness swoops over me.
I barely manage to stay on my feet. But there’s no one here except for me and some very expensive equipment.
I’m hoping that onboard, this close to launch, all the crew members are busy.
Muscles protesting, I propel myself across the open expanse.
It feels like forever to round the port side.
At the last second, one of the droids moves into view, hauling an armful of tools.
I manage to skirt around it, rather than barrel directly into its wide body, but I almost slip on a small puddle of liquid in the process.
I’m forced to stop and catch my balance.
Its humanoid head sports an OLED display. It turns to track my movements—all six feet of it—and a scrolling dataset is wiped from the screen.
I pant, backing away from it slowly, feeling like prey. Terrified. Maybe they are programmed for security, and now I’m fucked.
The data is replaced with a human expression, limned in red. A virtual mouth curls into an almost painful smile.
But it doesn’t flag me as an intruder. No alarms go off. No lights flash. The droid just continues on its long legs.
Violently nauseous with relief, I run. Every breath knifes out of me like I’m coughing up shards of glass.
My pulse thunders in my ears, drowning out any other sound.
Practically launching myself up the ramp, I eat up the distance like my life depends on it, and I only stop moving when I skid into the huge cargo bay.
I have to pass through two sets of open, reinforced doors to do so, one set separating the outer airlock from the bay.
Sleek, metallic bulkheads lined with LED strips display modular shelving units, the same efficient kind we use at Telluria Global Engineering.
I also recognise the magnetic panels embedded beneath my feet.
I step over thick cargo straps, noting multiple touchscreens on the bulkheads.
So far so good, and no one is around to spot me.
A noise startles me, and I jump back, slotting into the gap between two suspended, robotic arms. They hang from tracks in the overhead. I crouch in their shadow, legs shaking so hard that it’s a relief to squat again.
A moment passes. I try to get my breathing under control. I press my hands to my pounding heart as if I can keep it in my chest by sheer will alone.
Another moment passes, and nothing ominous makes itself known. No one appears. And now that I’m focusing on my hearing, there is a low, buzzing hum all around me. A palm to the corrugated deck sends vibrations up my arm and into my teeth, an almost pleasant feeling.
From my hiding spot, I note the very subtle cameras dotted around the space. Dread swamps me, but it’s not like I can do anything about it. What are the odds anyone is checking the cameras right now?
It doesn’t matter anyway.
I bite my lip, glancing at the walkway between me and a wide, automatic door that must lead to the rest of the ship. A rushing sound roars in my ears, my hands are slick, my tongue heavy in my mouth—but I approach the door, completely exposed.
A panel to the side displays a touchpad, but there is a logo of a crossed-out key in the upper right corner. The door slides open with a soft hiss and a whoosh of air that blows my hair out of my face.
I can’t believe things are going my way.
Except I don’t know where to start the search.
I could make my way methodically from bottom to top, but I don’t have that kind of time, not whilst staying inconspicuous.
But I reckon, if the Midas is anything like Dominik’s mansion, there’s an arcade.
There’s nothing Vee loves more than gaming, and it’s an interest they share.
I’ll start there. I just have to find it first.
I scurry through the passageways like a mouse, head swivelling as I peer into cabin after cabin.
Some of them are locked, and I have no choice but to ignore those, but if my search ends in disappointment, I’ll circle back and try.
Twice, I have to duck out of the way of an approaching crew member, looking sleepy and annoyed.
Here, the cabins are presidential and oversized, and it’s easy to find a hiding place.
It helps that the crew don’t seem to be on alert and just sweep past.
My progress is slow, and I get increasingly more frustrated as I come up empty-handed.
The low humming has become interspersed with occasional beeps, jarring my nerves.
I move up to the higher decks and weave through passageways that house crew quarters and common areas with noticeably understated nameplates.
My heart feels like it’s going to give out.
I duck into the stairwell, which smells closed-up and echoes loudly, so I can climb up to another deck. Here I pass a pool, a gym, a professional looking kitchen.
Those doors further down the passageway could be guest suites. If there is an arcade on the Midas, it may be here. Despite how accessible space travel is, I’ve never done it; as a single mum, I just don’t have the time. I’ve never even been on a ship, but the layout so far seems practical.
I tell myself I’m close to finding Vee. Does he know what’s going on? I would never let him go to Mars, for fucks sake. Not without me, not alone. He knows that... right?
Halfway down the deck the humming beneath my feet, in the air around me, changes. A low, deep rumble reverberates through the ship. I freeze, followed by the blood in my veins. Seconds later, a mechanical whirring fires up, droning on in the background.
It takes all I have to keep it together.
Already, my vision is blurry from the exhaustion, limbs shaky and body aching.
Every step is agony. I’m walking on needles.
I never push myself this far, and I’m definitely borrowing spoons from the whole damn week.
But everything will be okay. I tell myself once, twice, as I hurry towards the unexplored cabins.
What was it Vee had told me the first time he’d hyperfixated on starships?
Even with the engines on, it can take like two hours for the ship to leave the ground.
The memory of his voice is the kick I need.
Balanced on a knife-edge, the only thing keeping me from really losing it is the thought of Dominik taking my baby away.
I thought we were done with this. Granted partial custody a few years ago, he got what he wanted. I thought I was done with this shit.
As I pass one of the expansive windows, I stumble to a halt.
The hangar now looks empty. From where I stand, the angle of the glass allows me to see both down to the floor and up at the ceiling.
A ceiling that is currently moving. I watch as a seam splits right down the middle, stopping midway and then branches to either side in a cross.
The two walls that had acted as doors are now closed.
As the four panels start to pull away from each other at the nexus, they gradually reveal a grey sky.
I watch, stunned, as the walls of the hangar slowly slide backwards and then into the ground.
They move as though they’re guided along runners, and if they’re making any noise at all, I certainly can’t hear it through the ship’s hull.
Now the Midas stands in an open space, and there are slots in the ground where the panels are housed.
There are faint, spherical outlines in the ground where columns, like the one I hid behind, were.
What little of the catwalks I can see in the corner of the window start to move out of view.
The hangar is now a launch site. I thought I had more time.
Spinning away from the window, my loafers almost slip on the impossibly smooth floor.
I start ripping open doors, no longer caring about stealth.
I might still have those two hours, I might not.
I’m learning all sorts of things about myself today.
I stumble into guest cabins, turn on my heel and head further down the passageway.
With the thickness of these bulkheads, there’s probably some serious soundproofing going on.
Even if Vee is in the arcade with the sound at his usual eardrum-piercing level, I might not hear it. He—
I suck in a sharp lungful of air.
I’m standing in the doorway of a small arcade. It’s gently curved, and a couple of Dreamframes—which cost an arm and a leg—perch around the room. It’s packed with a variety of games, and it’s all bright, neat and expensive.
There’s no one in here.
Disappointment rises in me, and I have to grit my teeth to hold back something that feels animalistic.
I love Vee to pieces, but he is the messiest person I’ve ever known.
If he’d been here at all, it’d show. The empty cabin raises more questions.
If he isn’t here, then where is he? And is he there willingly?
My son doesn’t sit still unless he has to.
The Midas is grounded, and crew members are still walking around, so what is he doing?
There are at least two more decks to explore. I hurry along to the stairwell, hoping that I might have better luck somewhere else.
Halfway up, I miss a step as a deep roar suddenly fills the air.
I slam onto my knee, and just about avoid shearing through my tongue.
Nothing can stop the scream of pain that rips from me, and only a few fingers hooked onto the grab rail prevent me from plummeting down the hard stairs.
A pressure on my body forces me forward, suffocating me as I’m pressed closer and closer into the cold metal.
Is the fucking ship—
Suddenly, it all stops. The roar falls back into a rumble.
The pressure eases up. And I was pushing so hard against it that the lack of force nearly flips me down the stairs a second time.
I bite back vomit, barely, as nausea rises.
Several areas of my body throb, and the pain is like nothing I’ve ever felt before.
Having never broken a bone, I’m suddenly scared that might be what the bolts of lightning shooting through me are.
Can I even walk?
Blood splashes onto the toe of my shoe, and I don’t know from where.
I feel woozy, and a heavy burden falls on my shoulders like curtains down.
Vee.
I repeat his name. I drag myself up.
Somehow, I limp my way to the top of the stairs. Even emerging onto the next floor at a much slower pace takes everything I have left. Briefly, just briefly, I allow myself to stop. Bending at the waist, I try to catch my breath. I’m not okay.
A pair of boots appears in my line of sight. My body tenses, and I snap up, only to be overcome by a wave of light-headedness I just can’t escape this time.
My gorge rises. My vision blurs. The deck swoops up to catch me.