This was my fifth time attempting to escape, and while I was running along the prison wall, everything went to shit.
I had finally made it past the guardhouses, and when I rounded a corner, I ran straight into a group of three guards who had absolutely no business being there. We almost collided, but luckily, the windows closed before the rain that had just started could slick the ground (the guards were probably rotating to another position in the complex, but to my credit, they were taking a path I had never seen before).
“You seem to be in a hurry,” one of the guards said, “Do you have the credentials to be here?“
“Of course!” I said, flustered, trying to sound like I belonged there. “Here you go,” I handed them a keycard I had swiped off a guard, my hand shaking enough that I just about dropped it, “I just got this yesterday and I am excited to use it!” I was overselling it, but I was running on pure adrenaline; the only thoughts going through my mind were Oh shit, oh shit, not again.
The guard looked over the card, examining the card every possible way. I had learned from my previous tries, this time, I stole a keycard. The last time I was in a similar situation, I handed over a hand-made card that, when examined, was immediately found to be fake.
“So,” the guard said, handing the card over to the other two guards to double-check to make sure it was real, “What is your business being this far away from the prisoner tents?”
“Well,” I cleared my throat, hoping it would cover my glance at the sign on the wall, “The gym is over this way, right? I’ve just recently gotten access to it through my good behavior.”
The guard also glanced over at the sign (no wonder they were taking a path I had not seen before, they were new) and then back at me, “Yes, but why now? It’s getting close to curfew.”
Shit, I had forgotten about curfew, “I’m not planning on a massive workout session, just some simple lifts, that is all.”
The guard looked at me skeptically as if they never heard of quick workouts, “Next time, make sure you are not cutting it this close to curfew.”
The other two guards handed the card to the one I was talking to for one final look since it is odd for a prisoner to have a keycard. I thought this attempt was over since even if they believed my story, I had an obviously stolen card—my heart was racing even with all the training I had done—until one of them said, “Look’s all good, move along.”
The guard handed the card back to me, and containing my sigh of relief to the best of my ability, I started walking down the hall, not unlike a prisoner with their back to guards who could shoot them at any moment. Along the walk down the walled corridor, I noticed that some buildings in the distance had gutters along the outside. Odd, since gutters had been removed due to better technology existing.
I was fifteen meters away from the next turn in the hallway and still thinking about the gutters when I heard one of the guards say, “Wait, sir, I don’t know how I missed this until now, but I’m pretty sure that the card they had is Alex’s.” I started walking a little faster, hoping they would not notice. They did. A bullet whizzed right by my head, and I started running.
Ten meters from the turn. I heard the guards yelling at me, incomprehensible due to the loud pangs of their rifles.
Five meters to safety. More bullets whiz by; I think I was being fired at by all three of the guards at this point.
One meter to freedom. I am so close, so close to being done with this. Just a couple more steps—
I feel a sharp pain in the back of my neck. The world stops and disappears as the environment changes to the virtual room standard of pure white. I stood there, mad at how close I was to escaping those guards.
“God damn it! I was so close to getting out of that godforsaken prison.”
“You know,” a voice said from the roof, “Five more guards were running your way to assist the other guards when you got shot.”
“Can it, AT. There is no way there were guards that close to assist. I have the guard rotations and positions memorized.”
“Like how you knew you were going to run into those three guards?” AT said with a smirk.
“Hey, those guards were new, I have an excuse. Now could you please kindly open the door out of here?”
“If you insist,” AT said, faking a sigh while opening the door, “By the way, the mess hall is finally serving new food!”
“Let me guess, a ‘hamburger’ and a ‘salad’ in smoothie packs,” I chuckled while walking into the virtual room’s joint command center and locker, “God, could the next resupply please come any faster, I am dying for some solid food.”
“The supply rockets were scheduled to arrive last week, but they usually always arrive a week late so we should be getting them soon.” AT started the shutdown of the virtual room, allowing me to remove all the virtual gear I was wearing.
“And how do you know about this?” I asked while taking off the outside of the sensor suit.
“What, you don’t know that one of my five thousand jobs is being a cargo unloader?”
“Oh, right, forgot about that.” The virtual room finished its shutdown, turning it completely dark except for the light that was bleeding through from the command room. The command panel then folded itself up, giving me the final bit of room I needed to peel off the rest of the sensor suit.
“Besides,” AT said, “After you have finished your training, you will also have another five thousand jobs. I’ll finally be able to pester you even more than I already do!”
“Just because you said that, I’m going to specifically request to be put in every job that you don’t have,” I said while checking the time, “Oh shit, we are late to the mess hall.”
AT laughed, “Race you!”
——————
I always forget just how beautiful the views from the connecting halls are. During the construction of this station, someone had the genius idea of making sure everyone didn’t go insane from claustrophobia by making the roofs of all of the connecting hallways clear. Expansions to the station have made this preventative measure irrelevant, but the clear hallways have stayed (I’ve heard stories that when the base was first built, standing fully straight was a rarity). And I’m glad they’ve remained since I love to sit down in an obscure hallway, watching the asteroids go by, wondering how many of Pluto’s moons I will see.
Sadly, no sightseeing happened as AT and I barreled down the hallways. Even though we were late, we got our meal packs from outside the cafeteria right before the extras were sent to storage. Surprising since the robot cart’s stringent programming usually always leaves on time, no matter what. But I don’t care; I got my food.
“Hey Aret. Hey AT,” a rumbling voice said from inside the cafeteria, “Late, aren’t we? You should do better next time.”
“Oh, shut up Bhi,” I replied as I entered the cafeteria, “You were late yesterday, you have no right to tell other people to not be late.”
“Hey, I wasn’t late today so I have every right!”
“You know, Bhi,” AT said while they and I sat down at the table with Bhi, “I think this is the first time you have arrived before both Aret and I in, like, two weeks.”
Bhi laughed, “That’s because Aret is crazy and arrives here fifteen minutes early on normal days.”
“That was one time,” I chuckled, “Well, maybe two.”
The tables in the mess hall were able to seat everyone in the station if need be. But since most people grabbed food and then ate it in one minute because they were workaholics, the tables were always usually empty and it added this transitory feel to the place. I personally like it; it allows for the view to space to be relatively unblocked (which, while impressive, isn’t as beautiful as the views from some hallways). It also allowed for the three of us to be as loud as we wanted and only annoy a few people.
“Did you guys see the news about the Eugees?” Bhi asked after AT and I finished our liquid intimidation of actual food.
“No, I haven’t had time to read the news as of late.” I replied.
“Well, they sent another warning to us to back off and demilitarize everything. Which is completely deranged! Like, when we first met them, they demanded that we reduce the amount of weapons we had while they were posturing us with the biggest ship we had ever seen! And they’ve repeated this, over and over. And now, they ask that we fully demilitarize while they are seemingly doing the opposite. Like please, if you are building up your military, so are we! You know…”
At this point in Bhi’s rant, I tuned them out and pretended to listen to them rant about the Universal Alien Government (Or Eugees, as we shorten it) while I stared into space, looking for my favorite asteroids. I may love them as a friend, but, my god, they can rant for hours.
I was still staring off into space when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lieutenant Ray, the calmest and most level-headed person I know, full-on sprinting down the hallway towards the cargo dock. Bhi had stopped talking; it was that unusual. Without our voices, the mess hall became still and silent.
AT was the first to break the silence, “Should we follow them?”
We could now hear yelling coming from the dock, something so out of place that it shocked us all into silence again. We had never, and I mean never, heard anything this loud on the station. The loudest before this was when Ray had disciplined a group of new recruits (I may have been in that group) and that was with a megaphone. The yelling coming from down the hall didn’t seem enhanced.
“I think we have to,” I finally replied.
“Let’s go,” Bhi said while standing up, “And hope that we aren’t fucked.”
——————
The cargo dock was in pandemonium.
When I turned the corner to go into the cargo deck I was assaulted with sound. From the looks of it, almost everyone on the unloading team was there, as if something was supposed to arrive. Wait, the food resupply rocket. Has something happened to it? I shelved that question in my mind when I saw Lieutenant Ray start to climb up on some cargo containers with a megaphone.
Ray finished the climb then yelled through the megaphone, “Everyone, quiet, now! Kir, tell me what the hell is happening.”
Kir, the head of cargo and transport, replied, “The station on Triton messaged us. Our cargo rocket has disappeared.”
“Shit. How long until we run out of supplies?”
“3 weeks if we ration.”
It was so quiet so I could hear the cogs in everyone’s brain turning as they processed this information. AT was frozen beside me, eyes wide. Bhi wasn’t doing any better. Since no one else was asking the question I felt needed to be answered, I asked, “Are we going to evacuate then?”
Ray looked at me then back at Kir, “Did the message from Triton say anything else?”
“No. All it said was ‘Your cargo resupply has lost contact with our station and our sister station on Neptune’.”
“Message them back asking if they have the space for two hundred and fifty more people. If you don’t know how to send a message, find someone who does. Go!”
“On it,” Kir said, then sprinted out of the cargo hold towards the satellite substation.
The Lieutenant sighed, “Ok. Everyone, go back to your normal duties for now. Once the General and I come with a plan we will—” Their communication device chirped. Picking up, Ray seemed annoyed, but their expression suddenly dropped.
“Scratch that, everyone to the mess hall, now.” Ray whispered, sounding defeated. No one moved. “I said,” Ray repeated, louder, their voice almost cracking, “Everyone to the mess hall, NOW.”
Bhi, AT, and I bolted. We were the closest to the exit and did not want to get trampled. Arriving back at the mess hall, I noticed that everyone who wasn’t in the cargo dock was already there. The general, imposing as ever, was on a makeshift stage, right in front of where the transparent built-in screen on the mess hall windows is.
We sat down where we were just a couple of minutes ago, then unburdened with what we now know. Everyone else from the cargo dock was quickly filling in, and soon enough, everyone on the station was here, some dead silent in shock, some murmuring, wondering what the occasion was for.
The general cleared their throat, “Today marks the beginning of the end. Maybe even the fall of humanity. As of fifteen minutes ago, I have learned that the Universal Alien Government has taken its most direct action against us to date. I would say this is the start of war, but it has already ended. Taken October 14, 2357, 10:37 am, here is a picture from our moon base, now our largest city.”
We all stared at the seemingly empty patch of space. There was nothing there, nothing of note. I looked around seeing my confusion reflected on others. I studied the picture more, trying to figure out what the general was trying to show us when a timid voice from the crowd said, “Is there supposed to be something there?”
The general stared at them, not saying a single word. The expression on the general’s face made the final puzzle piece click: the Earth had disappeared, taken by the Universal Alien Government.