Hyper

[Location: Decontamination Depot t3rm1nu5 - A passage way inside the hydrogen fuel condenser facility]

The three guys headed through the hydrogen fuel condenser facility toward the security room with personal safety gear intact. As they walked, they kept an eye out for Tom just in case he happened to show up. Their boots clanked across the soot covered grating leading through the plant and clouds of hydrogen steam surrounded them like fog. As they arrived at the security room door, Charlie realized that Roy’s decomposing corpse was still lying dead across the console.

Charlie stopped them before opening the door and lifted one of his ear muffs. “Just a warning: this ain’t a pretty sight.”

Jack and Ruben glanced at each other and then Jack gave a quick nod to Charlie to open the door. As the three walked into the small room, the stench of Roy’s corpse surrounded them. Each paused for a second, trying to push away some of the nasty smelling vapors.

A decomposing human body gives off an oily, pungent smell that tends to stick in the back of your throat. Most of the smell comes up the corpse’s esophagus and out through the mouth as vital organs start to decay. Chemicals once embedded inside the skin also ooze from the pores and make the cold skin of the dead person a bit slimy.

Jack was the first to speak. “We have to move Roy out of the way before we can start to work on the console.” He pointed to two cabinet style doors that Roy’s knees were pressed against. “We need to get in there, the RAM board is in there.” He lifted the muffs from his ears and removed his helmet.

Charlie nodded toward Ruben. “You grab one of his arms and I’ll grab the other. Let’s lean him back in his chair and roll him outta here.”

The two men began to implement their plan as Jack stood back and watched. Some of the blood on Roy’s coveralls had already dried but more blood and brain liquid seeped from the open wounds in the back of his head as they moved him.

Once the two men had rolled Roy’s body out of the security room, Charlie thought it would be dishonorable to just leave it. There were safety lockers in various locations throughout the plant in case of fire or injury, and they were stocked with all sorts of emergency equipment. Charlie located one of the lockers and found a large wool fire blanket inside. He used the fire blanket to cover Roy’s corpse to provide him with some amount of dignity, even if he was already dead.

Charlie never really considered Roy a good friend, but the two had worked and lived together on D.D.315 for the last four years and had grown to know each other pretty well. Charlie felt it was his responsibility as the C.F.O. to take care of Roy’s body and ensure it was treated with respect and eventually sent to his family members on Mars.

When the two men returned to the security room, Jack was on his hands and knees in front of the console, had the cabinet doors open and was looking inside. “The schematics should be someplace in here…” He pulled a small flashlight from his belt and pointed it inside the cabinet.

“Here…” He pulled a laminated piece of paper from inside the cabinet, stood up, and began to inspect it. “This interconnection diagram identifies all of the circuit boards in the unit. It should show us…” He used his finger tip to trace a circuit. “This is the one…right here.” He tapped the diagram with his fingertip. “Circuit board JPAC1121 is the one we want.”

Charlie closed the door to block out some of the plant noise and removed his muffs.

Ruben jumped down to his knees and stuck his head into the cabinet as Jack called out instructions. “It should be next to the diode bridge.” Ruben rustled inside the cabinet and accidently banged his helmet on the side of the enclosure. “It looks like the three connectors are CN47, CN53, and CN13. You see it?”

Ruben emerged from the cabinet with his helmet tipped forward almost covering his eyes and with a green circuit board in his hand. He held it up for the other two guys to see. “Got it.”

“So what’s the next step?” Charlie asked.

Jack placed his helmet on his head and slid his muffs into place. “Ruben and I will take the board to the Elysian Fields so we can take a closer look at it. We should be able to connect it to our video system and suck the images off of it. It shouldn’t be that long.”

The three guys left the security room and closed the door behind them, the noise and the stench of the plant hitting them right in the face. Charlie said, “While you two are doing that I’ll work on securing Roy’s body. After I’m done, I’ll come by to see what you’ve found…sound good?”

Jack and Ruben nodded and turned to leave. “We’ll start workin’ on it. You gonna be okay by yourself?”

“Don’t worry about it. See ya in a couple minutes.”

“Okay…got it.” Then they headed off through the fog of the production facility toward their ship.

Charlie looked at Roy’s body sitting on the rolling desk chair covered by the fire blanket. He was no stranger to blood and guts. He had processed white tail deer numerous times after hunting and cleaned fish as well. He wasn’t really squeamish or afraid of blood, but in those situations it didn’t happen to be human blood—much less the blood of a co-worker. And being a member of The Deadly Three wasn’t a bloody job. A stinky one, but not a bloody one.

He did have one experience in the Army where a fellow soldier stepped on an I.E.D. and lost his leg to the hip. In that situation there was blood, but most of the wound was cauterized by the heat of the blast and blood loss was minimal. With no medical personnel in the area, Charlie had to cover the soldier’s stump with a plastic bag and secure it with white surgical tape from his first aid kit until a medi-vac flew in to remove the guy from battle. Charlie’s most vivid memory of the event was not the gore but the way the injured soldier handled himself during the ordeal. He remained calm and conscious the whole time. He gave Charlie a picture of his wife, wrote her phone number on the back, and asked him to contact her if he didn’t make it. Charlie agreed to contact her, but didn’t have to since the soldier made a full recovery and remained in the Army as a firearms instructor.

Charlie looked around and noticed a four wheeled cart used to hold compressed argon bottles about thirty feet away. It was sturdy and was easy to maneuver, which would make it a perfect gurney. He removed the bottles from the cart and wheeled it back to where Roy’s body was resting in the chair. Charlie kept the wool blanket in place, stuck his hands under Roy’s arm pits, and lifted him. Roy was not that large of a man but Charlie had to use all of his strength to get him from the chair to the cart.

As Charlie lowered his co-worker’s body onto the cart, the blanket moved slightly and exposed Roy’s face. By instinct, Charlie made eye contact with the corpse but immediately looked away.

Roy’s bright green eyes had lost all of their color, and taken on a more grayish hue. The pupils had narrowed and were nearly imperceptible. The glint of a spark that normally displays life and emotion, had disappeared. Even though they were pointed directly toward Charlie, it looked as if they were gazing off into the distance.

Charlie closed his eyes tightly and shook his head to try and erase the memory of Roy’s death stare from his mind, but no matter how hard he tried the vision continued to play over and over again in his memory. He opened his eyes, swallowed hard, holding back a sob and moved the blanket back into place.

He opened the security room door, kicked the chair inside and slammed the door. Charlie positioned himself behind the cart and started to push it forward. His plan was to find another shipping container that he could use as a make shift coffin. It worked well the first time so why not do the same thing?

As he walked, the nerves in his body tingled and his chest ached. Most people have some form of funeral procession after death. Friends and family members form a morbid parade behind the funeral car and make their way to the cemetery. It’s an honorable ceremony that takes the deceased through his old stomping grounds before dropping him at his final resting place. In this case, Roy would have no parade of loved ones. No honorable procession. Simply a ride on a metal cart, through a smelly hydrogen condensing facility, underneath a fire blanket.

It took him about fifteen minutes to go from the far end of the production facility to the shipping dock area. As Charlie had planned, he located an empty shipping container and rolled Roy’s body into it.

Sweating, Charlie took a few minutes to rest. He moved around another crate to build a make-shift chair and sat down. He removed his helmet and safety glasses and wiped the sweat from his forehead. His heart was pounding from both the exertion as well as the thought that a maniacal killer was walking around D.D.315. He closed his eyes for a second to think.

As he sat there, he fidgeted with the holster on his waist in an attempt to make it more comfortable. The belt of the holster that Ruben had given him earlier was a little too small and constantly dug into the side of his hip bone. He fiddled with it for a few minutes then gave up, removed it, and laid it in front of him.

After a minute or two he stood up, slipped his holster onto his shoulder, and moved his safety glasses and helmet into place. His plan was to head over to the cafeteria to get himself something cold to drink and then to the Elysian Fields to see how Jack and Ruben were making out.

The ever present stench of the plant greeted Charlie as he walked from the shipping docks to the production facility, heading toward the cafeteria. He noticed a cardboard box sitting on the floor next to the door of the hallway that led to the cafeteria. Wondering what might be inside, he bent down and opened it. He saw the defective circuit board that Roy had replaced on the drive unit earlier.

Charlie was always annoyed when Roy left parts just lying, but his irritation was quickly replaced with embarrassment as he realized he was frustrated with the actions of a dead man.

He slid the holster from his shoulder, dropped in into the box, folded the cover, and stuck it under his arm. As he entered the hallway leading to the cafeteria, he stopped cold in his tracks. Tom Salsbury was walking toward him, pushing a four wheeled cart holding the repulsor.

Charlie’s pulse quickened as he thought that he had most likely just run into the guy that burned Jozef to a cinder and used the back of Roy’s head as a pin cushion.

Should I run? Should I try and overpower him and take him into custody?

The two men made eye contact and Tom pulled the cart to a stop.

Play it cool and see what happens.

Tom tilted his head toward Charlie. “You seen Jack? The battery on my handheld went dead,” he tapped the communicator on the side of his head, “and nobody will answer me on this thing.”

Charlie focused on controlling his breathing to prevent himself from hyper-ventilating while he watched Tom’s every move for any sign of aggression. “Yeah…” He paused to swallow. “He’s on the ship…with Ruben.”

Tom huffed. “What are they doin’ on the ship? They shoulda been doing something, like helping me repair this piece of junk repulsor.” He shook his head and wrinkled his lips. “Assholes. Always dumpin’ shit on me.”

Charlie continued to study Tom’s behavior for any evidence that he was a maniacal murderer. “I’m not sure what they’re doin’.” Charlie swallowed hard again.

If Tom had committed the crimes he obviously would have known about Jozef and Roy’s deaths, but as he stood there he provided no evidence that indicated he knew what had happened.

Charlie began to size Tom up. Charlie was a pretty big guy—about six feet tall and two hundred pounds—and had learned hand-to-hand combat in the Army. But he wasn’t sure if he could fully protect himself if Tom got physically aggressive. Tom was about ten years younger than Charlie, about two inches taller and maybe twenty pounds heavier. But Charlie knew all of that was unimportant because of the stun rifle Tom had on his back and the side arm he had on his hip.

If I’m gonna bring this guy in, I’m gonna need help. Just wait for the right time.

Tom snorted. “Well fuck. Jozef was supposed to be the one fixing this damn thing but I got shafted into doing it while the rest of the guys are screwing around.” He stopped for a second and then pointed at Charlie. “And by the way, you got a serious problem in that high power lab. The place reeks; it smells like a burnt steak back there.” Tom winced. “A rat or something musta got across two phases and fried himself. Anyways, I’m just sayin.”

Charlie remembered the nasty smell inside the heavy lab and was a little confused as to what to say, but he let the words stumble out. “Yeah…yeah. We’re tryin’ to do something about that. You’re right…something musta got across two phases. Well, I’m heading to the cafeteria to get something to drink.”

Tom glanced at the box under Charlie’s arm. “What’s in there?”

Charlie caught his breath as his body froze; because he knew if Tom saw Ruben’s side arm, there would be questions and that’s not what Charlie was interested in right now. “Aw…Roy just left some garbage in the dock area.” Charlie watched Tom’s face to see if what he was saying was believable. “Can’t stand crap just lying around.” He chuckled, hoping the answer he provided was good enough.

Tom shrugged. “Well, I’m gonna head back to the ship. I’ll make that dumb-ass Ruben install this mo-fo so I can grab a nap before we get outta here.” Tom smiled and started to push the cart forward then stopped. “Almost forgot. You got a rotary mill around here?” He pointed toward a bus bar on the repulsor that was damaged. “Jozef fucked this thing up when he pulled it out. I need a little bit of aluminum stock and a mill to drill a couple holes.”

Charlie nodded. “Yeah, we got a tool shop. Gotta lathe, mill, cut-off, and a bunch of different stock. You’ll find something in there to fix that.” He pointed. “It’s on the other side of the cafeteria, past the offices before you get to the docking area.”

Tom nodded and began to push the cart again, and then stopped. “Hey, and what the fuck is Ford’s problem? He gets on the handheld and starts orderin’ me around? That little shit’s got a fuckin’ Napoleon complex.”

Charlie didn’t reply, nervously chuckled, and started to walk away but Tom stopped him and said. “Lemme tell you somethin’ about ole Jack Ford.” His dark eyes glanced side to side. “When Elixer put our crew together, he was pissed—and I mean pissed—that he wasn’t in command. Bein’ a college boy and all, he thought he should be runnin’ things.”

Charlie noticed the distinct smell of onions on Tom’s breath as he leaned in and tapped Charlie on the chest with the back of his hand. “And let me tell you, he hates that fuckin’ Ukrainian asshole. Hell, I hate the bastard too, but Jack wants to kill that som-bitch.”

As Charlie stood there listening, he could feel his heart beating in his ears as he began to make sense of what Tom was telling him. “Kill him? Really? Why do you say that?”

“About a week after we left Earth, we were doing some routine maintenance on the ship—checking hatches and shit like that—and it was Jozef’s turn to check the waste ejection hatch. Stinky job. Well, he opens the access panel on the waste bay and climbs in…then he walks to the back of the bay and does a leak test on the door. While he’s doin’ the test, our ole buddy Jack Ford turns on the system to eject the garbage into space. Alarms start goin’ off and Jozef shits his pants thinkin’ he’s gonna get sucked out into space with the rest of the garbage. The control system realized the access panel was off and shut down the process before anything happened. Ford gave some lame-ass excuse why he tried to dump the waste while Jozef was in there, but it was all bullshit. I know why he did it: he did it to get rid of the Urkrainian asshole and become head honcho of the ship. Know what I mean?”

The wheels in Charlie’s mind started turning in an entirely new direction. The person he thought was the least likely suspect on his list of murderers might actually be the number one suspect. Still thinking, the words slid from Charlie’s mouth. “Yeah…yeah, I know what you mean.”