“Let’s go,” Molly told them. She pushed her way past her friends and back into the hallway, which suddenly seemed positively laden with fresh air. She tried not to think about what those people had gone through, what their last moments had been like. The crowded panic, the fearful silence, and then . . . the horrible rattling and crushing.
“Ssomethingss knocking,” Walter said from the room.
“I think that’s my knees,” Scottie said. “I don’t feel so good.”
“Ssssshhhh,” Walter hissed.
Molly stepped back by the door but didn’t dare look inside. She listen-ed around the corner for a sound, but could only hear her heartbeat in her ears. Scottie came out bent over and covering his mouth with the back of one hand.
“Damn, I think I heard it too,” Cat said.
“It’ss coming from the podss,” said Walter.
Molly steeled her nerves. Keeping her eyes low, she reentered the room. She stood there, perfectly still, holding her hands out to urge the others to be as quiet as possible.
There. A muffled pounding. Running to the nearest pod, she clanged up the steps and slapped on the egg-shaped compartment before press-ing her ear to it.
“You hear anything?” Cat asked, climbing up the steps.
“Someone yelling, I think. But these things open from within, so I don’t get why they’d need help.”
Cat ran up the steps of another pod and rubbed her hands across the hatch. “Are they damaged?”
“Doesn’t look—”
The pod twitched, rotating in its base. Molly stepped back. Walter hissed at the pod closest to him, which seemed to have moved in unison.
“Of course!” Molly ran down the steps and toward the control room.
“Of course, what?” Cat called out after her.
“A simulation is still running. Somebody must’ve—”
She stopped when she entered the control room. The remains of that very somebody were smeared all over the small booth. Their body lay crumbled in a heap in one corner, the spaceman’s flightsuit so flat it appeared empty. Molly looked away, but the sight was seared on her retina, overlaid onto so many other horrific images. She thought about the sacrifice this person had made and silently honored him.
The keyboard and screen were a mess, but she had to do something about the pod controls. She pulled the medkit over her shoulder and around in front, then groped inside for a gauze pad. Using the medical fabric to remove a smear off the screen made it impossible to imagine the mess as anything other than blood. The pad soaked it up dutifully.
CONTROLLER - GERALD “JONESY” RICKSON
PROGRAM - ZERO G MAINTAIN
E.T.C. - 1:42
ENEMY TYPE - NONE
ENEMY COUNT - 0
POD LINK - ALL
CONTINGENCY - DISABLED