When Avelyn waved, Laurey did nothing. A simple thing it would have been, to have raised her hand, waved back, perhaps with a smile or a wink. Winking. Yeah, the last time went so well.
When Avelyn waved, it caught in Laurey’s mind like a fish hook. It tripped up thoughts that came after, questions of motive and judgement met with riposte and counter in a spiralling descent, down the forever lines reflections when two mirrors meet, an infinite loop. Her mind turned to static fuzz.
When Avelyn waved, Laurey forced herself to wave back, the victor of her own private battle.
She was exhausted. She did not notice the red half-moons dug into the meat of her palms.
It seemed she was fritzing more and more lately, and the thought did little to comfort her. A killer migraine was gathering, black clouds blotting out the horizon. Still, there was a good chance that wouldn’t be an issue if the military cordon was on shoot-to-kill orders. Seemed like a lot of faith to put in stealth systems, especially when the blockade was supposedly to deal with the covert sort. This was life in the rebellion then, where all you needed were guts and grit, where their lives were expendable. At least there was no change there. The world she had known seemed sterile in comparison. Clinical.
Bland.
Whilst some drifted out of the room, Laurey hung back, and was rewarded with Amy’s little speech. She gave the odd-ball two thumbs way up as Amy swept her smile across the room. There was one who was special.
From besides Natasha, Laurey said, “I’m gonna trust your call on this one. You’re the captain afterall, captain. Just make sure we’re not the fire to the Ascendancy’s frying pan for these kids.”
With that, Laurey saluted, then paused at the door, looking back to the platinum-blonde girl. Should they really leave them with cigarettes? Given how teens were, the whole ship could end covered in a smog and tinted yellow. Eh, fuck it. She wasn’t their mum.
“I’ll be in the workshop or… about. If anyone needs me, shoot me a note,” she jiggled her omnitool as she left.
Before the workshop there was another stop Laurey needed to make. Down a ladder, along past the kitchen, another ladder, a narrow walkway, dimly lit and humming with the life energy of the ship and its systems that squeezed in and pressed down. A roomba bumped against her foot, and then went off, whirring quietly to itself.
Laurey went to the first of the doors in this forgotten corner of the ship and the screen awoke, green light staining the air. Words began to appear in blocky letters.
Escape Shuttle 01
Systems Online
Diagnostic Report…
It scrawled off a list of checkpoints and dates they’d been signed off on, oxygen, tools, food, water, medical supplies, then spewed out a report of its systems. Laurey slid open a panel under the screen and lifted her right finger towards it. There was a whisper, and the skin seemed to shatter like glass, webbed instantly with cracks. The fragments pulled back, held on mechanical spider-limbs, revealing a slender and intricate work of engineering. She inserted it into the panel, wires fine as webbing winding their way in. Into…
There was a jolt as Laurey’s world fell away.
One time on J-Heim Beta there had been a snowstorm. There always was. Laurey was watching it with… With… He said something.
“It is dizzying, all these pale things, like a tumbling field of stars.”
That’s how it always was. The world falling away in a tumbling field of stars.
Then it came back, a grateful breath, and Laurey was in. In two worlds at once. Overlaid with reality was the abstraction her mind had created of the computer’s language, electron pushing pulled apart and rearranged by a brain that mostly wasn’t hers.
Alone she hunched in a room, whilst sweet laughter drifted down from somewhere above, whilst the murmur of conversation and the trap of boots on metal mixed with the heartbeat of the freighter and made it truly alive. Alone in her pit, she felt it. Only half in the world, the pain was muted.
The roomba bumped against the other end of the trench, paused, and came back, still whirring.
In her other world she sifted through files, sorted blocks and validated that the system was as fine as it said it was. Moving from one to the next with mechanical detachedness, she did the same for all. It would not do to have loose nails in their coffins.
Potential coffins.
Finished, her head ached and the world seemed far away, as it always did after coming back. It’d go soon. The migraine she’d seen coming, well, Laurey could feel the change in pressure, hairs stood on edge… soon.
Up a ladder, along a corridor -
Her vision started to blur, the lights in her head grew brighter, and those outside hurt. She paused and resisted the urge to vomit. Her shirt was ruined enough already.
She saw a kid skulking about. The one who reminded her of a snake, coiled, watching, as though he was just waiting for a fight.
“Yo, bucko, you seen the Doc?” One hand was massaging her temple. It did nothing.
@FalloutJack
Ti
