Moon Fall

Grace banged on the doorway as the Mimetic guard approached. Peiter howling in pain on the floor behind her.

“Hurry up! He needs a doctor!”

“What is the nature of the injury?” The Mimetic asked.

“He’s had rapid regression, I don’t know what’s wrong, he needs a doctor.” Grace shouted at the robot angrily. “Look up his file! He needs medical attention now!”

“Doctor Hollman, are you able to respond?”

Peiter breath came frantic, he could barely let a word out.

“Understood. Doctor Bucket, please stand away from the door. Please do not try to flee, force will be used if necessary.”

The robot pressed a pad on the door and the door wisked up into the ceiling. As the black suited robot stepped into the room he walked right passed the broken light fixture above the door, the cables having been pulled out and tied together. It suddenly sparked as the robot passed stopping the robot. It turned and inspected the damage.

When it turned around Peiter was on his feet whipping out the vial with his left hand. The clear liquid splashed on the robots chest.

“Analyzing substance. Substance unknown mixture, non flammable, determined non-leathal.” The robot looked up at the broken wires. “This substance will not harm this unit, it is determined that this is an attempt at escape, this will be noted and charged...”

Peiter spit out a stream of liquid from his mouth and when it made contact with the wet cloth on the robots chest, it exploded with a bright flash. The lights flickered as the robot fell back, a gaping hole in it’s chest. The chest area with the cloth and fake flesh burnt and smoked a sickeningly sweet smell. The robot twitched for a moment and tilted it’s head to the side and stopped moving.

Peiter wiped his mouth and smiled. “Let’s go.”

Grace’s eyes were still wide in shock as he passed. “How did you do that?.”

“Let’s talk and run, we have to get out of here.”

The hallway was dark with the lights flickering on and off. They ran to the end of the hall passing up a few doors. People shouted from a few cells. At the door Peiter gripped the black touch pad and yanked it off the wall.

As he worked on getting the door open Grace kept watch.

“So how did you do that?”

“When I was in Gilespie’s place, I found he’d been experimenting with some kind of yellowish solution. He had tanks of the stuff. When you mix it with whitewater it causes an explosive reaction. I was going to tell Alexi about it so I had a vial on me, that was the last of it though.” He grunted and pulled several clear flashing wires from the wall and there was a popping sound and the doors opened.

“Isn’t that dangerous? What if someone got tons of that stuff and dropped in a whitewater processing plant?”

“Too little solution and it fizzles. You’d need a decent amount of the stuff to cause any real explosion. I’m just glad you know how to reconstitute whitewater. Where’d you learn that?”

“Party trick I learned. If you tap any basic item that was made with whitewater with a flowing current long enough, the object will start to revert. It takes time and sometimes doesn’t work. I figured we had enough time though. I got lucky too, that’s the quickest I’ve ever been able to do that. Fun at parties when you turn a coworkers watch into whitewater.”

“Bet you are a real party animal.” He said as he passed through the doorway finding two mimetics on the floor. “They’re still rebooting. Explosion gives off an Electromagnetic pulse, I was hoping it would be strong enough to knock out any nearby mimetics too.”

Removing the robots cloths they changed cloths. Grace helped him as he lifted one of the guards chests and hefted him up and pressed the limp hand against the black pad.

“Access granted.”

“Open all cell doors, emergency protocol. Explosion in cell area, possible harmful gas leakage.”

Sirens went off the the flashing lights turned red.

“System reset, will take about two minutes to them to find out why they can’t get info from this section. We need to go now.”

Grace and Peiter stripped the bolted down the hallway and though an emergency exit, several other people ran through as doors opened to other cells in the complex. Shouts and the sound of shoes hitting the ground as people tried to escape were drowned out by the sirens.

“Processing is up ahead, if we can get inside I can get our PDA’s and then we can get out of here.”

Just as they made it to the emergency exit there was another quake that sent them both to the ground. Sliding across the floor Peiter was shocked to see part of the wall crack. Grace fell passed him and hit the door hard and fell to the floor with a grunt.

“You ok?”

Grace nodded. “I’m gonna have one hell of a bruise.” She reached up and pulled on the handle and the door opened.

The door came open and they both scampered down the stairs but stopped midway to look up at the image before them.

They had been taken to a holding facility near the presidents palace but on a lower teir. Looking up the hill Peiter could see the presidents Mansion and to the east he could see the great dome looking out over the plane below.

But there was no plane below. All he could see is a whirling storm contrasted against a star filled sky.

“Second Moon Fall. Oh god, it’s happening.” Peiter fell to the stairs, one hand on the railing.

The grand clouds stretched across the sky from east to west like brown and white swaths of paint on a canvas. If it weren’t for the chunks of white rock being tossed about the scene would have been serene. There was a rhythmic thumping and scartching as rock fragments hit the dome again and again.

“We need to get out of here!” Grace shouted over the drumming sound.

She grabbed his hand and pulled him to his feet. He stumbled over the manicured lawn of the Presidents mansion, people screaming in the distance and smoking rising from the city below.

“Peiter!” Someone shouted from far in the distance.

From a balcony above on the mansion’s west side, Alexi stood, his hands cupped around his mouth as he tried to say something. He shouted something but the sound of the dome cracking drowned out every other sound.

Peiter grabbed Grace and they ran down the road towards the entry gates.

The two large gates stood open, one side hanging from it’s lower hinge. Peiter went stright for the kiosk and called for a cab. The readout flashed on and off and for a second a display showed a map and an indicator flash before another quake hit and the screen went black. There were several loud thumping sounds as somewhere something exploded.

“What do we do?”

“We have to get out of...”

A familiar silver car pulled up, the read door opened.

“Greetings Doctor Hollman, I was parked in the Mansion parking lot when I recived a kiosk request with your prints. Did you enjoy your stay at the Capital Building?” Phil asked pleasantly.

“No! Get us out of here, the dome is cracking.” Grace and Peiter lept into the car and closed the door behind them.

“Checking.” The car sat there as a lamp post fell a few feet away.

“Phil! Let’s go, we need to get offworld.”

“System down, full indipendent protocols initiated. Please buckle up. Logic circuits fully online, determing course and corrections.” The car bolted forward and they scrambled for their safety belts.

“Where.... Woah!” Grace shouted but was cut off when a large object fell from the sky and landed a few feet away.

The glinting texture of the clear material identified itself as dome material.

“External pressure change hazardous, internal pressure sustainable for up to thirty minutes.”

“Phil, remember the data I sent to Garibaldi?”

“Regestering data path, indication confirmed, is this location preferred?”

“Yes. I have a shuttle there. Please get us there as fast as you can.”

“Location confirmed.” The car zipped around a corner causing the two in the back to slam against each other.

“Oof! Is this really happening?” Grace’s voice was full of dread as she looked out the window. “If we hadn’t been inside the pressure would have killed us. She pointed at the large opening in the dome above.

“Not initially, we’re up higher, the lower teirs should still have atmosphere for several hours. The atmospheric regulators work in overload in the cast of a dome breach. There would be a loud howling, hearing would be empared. We’ll need earplugs once we leave.”

A small compartment with two face masks and two sets of red earplugs with silver strings laying inside popped from the central console below the screen.

“Thank you Phil.” Grace said taking the earplugs and the mask.

“You are welcome Dr. Bucket. O2 content is rising the lower we go into the dome as Dr. Hollman just pointed out. I’d still hold onto the masks though, it’ll be very windy when you depart.”

“Phil, before we leave eject your A.I.P.”

“That isn’t necessary Dr. Hollman. I’m a limited AI, there are currently twelve of me in the current working area assisting others in danger. Once I drop you at your location I will try to find others.”

Peiter sat back and braced himself, his right hand hanging onto a handle near the upper window.

Outside they passed rubble from a fallen walkway, several dead bodies could be seen as the car turned and hummed down a sidewalk through a small hole in the blocked road. The path took them down into a substreet and into an emergency exit lanes. Several other cars zipped by packed with people already wearing their masks.

Phil sped past a few and turned onto a ramp leading back to the surface. The light was dimmer than it had been moments before, the storm was closer now and lower clouds in dark gray and black moved the closer to land the storm could be seen.

“Destination will be reached in five minutes.” Just as Phil spoke something collided with the side of the car sending it jerking to the side. The sound of something streaking across the glass could be heard as both occupants of the car watched a man’s decapitated body slid over the car and tumbled down the road behind them like a rag doll.

“Look out!” Peiter said as a large sign fell in front of the car.

The car collided with the sign and crashed through it and skid across the road and came to a halt under a bridge. Sparks flew around the car’s base and smoke erupted from the front console. Phil’s voice came in crackled and broken. The car’s LAI was trying to tell them something but was unable to.

“Shit, now what?” Grace put on her mask and held fast to her earplugs.

Peiter sat up and pulled a eight inch panel off the inside of the car nearest the door. Inside there was a lever and he pulled it out and it snapped back up again. He pulled it down three times and the car righted itself with a thunk sound. The screen flipped up and a small steering wheel came out on a silver and gray column.

“Hold on, I haven’t driven in years.” He gripped the disk like wheel and pushed it forward with both hands.

“What?” Grace nearly shouted as the car lept forward.

Three wheels had come out from under the vehicle and were now moving the car forward.

“We’re about three miles away, I want you to look under that panel there for a black round cap. There are three silver clips around it, they pull up.”

“Phil’s AI Packet?” Grace asked pulling the panel on the floor loose.

“Yeah, He’s got readings from the entire last several hours. We need to save that. Plus I like Phil, he’s a good driver.”

Grace used her thumb under the silver wedges and popped them up and a four inch black tube pushed out from the floor and she grabbed it and put it in her pocket.

Out from under the bridge Peiter made a hard right onto a long ridge of the lower teir. From this vantage point they could see the broken holes in the dome and the storm out in the plateau region below. Off in the distance the light from the last moon had faded and the storm was turning black. Half the sky was black and the amount of sky with stars was vanishing steadily.

Peiter skidded through a park and ran over several bolted down benches. They ripped from the ground and skidded across the ground for several feet then lifted off the ground and flew off into a store front.

Grace pointed. “There! She pointed as she saw a shuttle take off in the distance. “Survivors!”

She said that just as they turned into the domestic spaceport. Jumping the curb the car rammed through the space a door had once been. The car swerved and he tried to right it as he came to an information kiosk. The car knocked over downed chairs and potted plants and came to an abrupt stop at the kiosk. The glass on the passenger door cracked but didn’t break.

Peiter put on his mask and tapped the side. “Can you hear me?”

A loud voice came through the speaker. “Hello! Thank you for using...”

“Override startup!” Peiter yelled angrily, his ears ringing. “Modify volume.”

Turning he saw Grace laying on her side, not moving. He flicked on her mask after linking with the masks internal network, shutting off her loud sales pitch start up pitch. “Grace.” He said, lightly shaking her shoulder. No response.

Leaning over her, he checked and didn’t see any cuts or abrasions. He tried to wake her by lightly grabbing her shoulders and shaking her. He could hear her breathing and looking again he noticed a rising welt on the side of her temple.

“Damn it.” He opened his door and pulled her out of the car.

Lifting her was easier than it would have been days ago, he felt his muscles strain as he lifted her in both arms. He listened to her breath as he carried her over some rubble and down a flight of stairs into the main terminal. There were hundreds of people huddled around three closed boarding dock doors. Several men in uniforms, all wearing masks with capital emblems on the side were passing out rounded air modules and filters and telling people to make orderly lines. More people came down the stairs behind him pushing passed him.

He walked over to a maintenance worker trying to fix a kiosk.

“Hey! Which way to the private terminals?”

The man turned and shook his head. “Terminals A through C were crushed through rubble and D Terminal is open to the atmosphere. Most of the shuttles there are toast.”

“Can you get to Terminal B from D?”

The man nodded. “Yes, at least you used to be able to. I don’t know if you can now.” He turned and pointed to a partially blocked hallway. “That goes straight to D, but the security doors are locked, you’d have to use the emergency exits and work your way around. All emergency exits have been unlocked but security doors have been on lock down to keep the port marginally atmosphere fixed till everyone evacuates.”

“Why are you working on this terminal.”

“Trying to bring up the terminal map, keep people informed of where they are, try to make them feel comfortable.”

“Do you have an extra PDA?”

The man dug into his pack next to the Kiosk and handed it to Peiter. “Good.” He took it in his left hand and entered his implant ID number. The data zipped through his brain and he set the PDA on the Kiosk.

“What are you doing?”

“Rerouting protocols, got a reporting program installing, kiosks in the area should reboot and be up in a few seconds.” The screens and walls around the terminal lit up showing maps and information of the area.”

“That’s administrative protocols, I don’t have access to that kind of bypass...”

“Was that all you had to do?”

“Pretty much.”

“You got family?”

“Nope, transferred here a year ago. Graduated TC and heard Whitehome would be a cushy first job.”

“Regrets?”

“Yup.” The man nodded slipping on his pack. “I guess I’ll join the others.”

Peiter looked at the line of people and back to the maintenance man. “Look, I’ve got a shuttle, prepped and ready to leave. If you can help me get to the ship, you don’t have to wait in line.”

“You’re still going through terminal D?” The man asked incredulously.

Peiter checked the map and accessed the flight log. Garibaldi hadn’t accessed the shuttle and the initiated automatic start up, receiving an authentication ping, Peiter let out a breath. “Shuttles online, I just need to get there. There’s enough room, if you’re with us.”

The man tilted his head and leaned slightly to the side to look passed him to the long lines.

“Alright. Getting that kiosk up and running was my last job. Seeing as how I won’t have anything to fix soon, all the higher ups already shipped off world. Follow me.”

He turned and picked up a long black metal crowbar.

“What’s your name?”

“Dennis S. Shaw. Grade 2 Maintenance Technician.” He stepped pass a fallen beam and pushed open a door leading to a long empty hallway. Putting a hand on the door he stopped and pointed. “This is staff route to Terminal B, lower deck. We should be able to get to a connecting hall or terminal area still not damaged by the storm. We could try to get to the main promenade but with all the flying debris, we’d be in a shooting gallery. We’ll most likely hit a few security doors.” He pointed to Grace. “You plan on carrying her the whole way?”

“You got a med table? She took a knock to the head, helmet on but she’s been unconscious since.”

“There might be an emergency scanner in security section in B, it’s on the way.”

Peiter propped the door open with his back and made sure Grace was held tightly. “Let’s go.”

The two stayed close as Peiter couldn’t go very fast carrying Grace.

Dennis asked pushing a large slab of ceiling tile from the path. The whole complex rumbled and they both had a hard time standing. Leaning against the wall Peiter and Dennis help Grace by the feet and shoulder and scooted through a tight space.

“There’s a stairwell up ahead, it’ll lead us to the lower promenade.”

Peiter lifted her over his shoulder again and made his way up the stairwell. The door leading out opened to a apocalyptic scene. Half the Terminal was under rubble while the rest was open to the wind building up inside the dome. Peiter noticed more of the dome had cracked and fallen away, the storm was probably as little as fifty miles away.

“Look!” Dennis pointed to a part of the floor and wall had fallen away from the main hallway and there was still a small walkable path against the far wall to the stairwell leading to Terminal D. The rest of the building had toppled down to the teir below.

“Where’s the security booth?”

Dennis looked around and then to his PDA. He pointed towards a set of stairs heading up to a still untouched part of the Terminal. “We’re in luck, that section looks stable.” He turned his head, the reflection of the lights outside flickering against the flexible clear surface of his mask. “We can’t carry her over that.” he pointed to the small walk-able cliff side path.

“Right, let’s go.” Peiter headed across the ruined teir and up the large stairs with a large glass wall facing the dome still in tact. The wind died down as they made it to the upper promenade and around to the security booth. Dennis had been right, the wind was feirce and bits of rock and metal slamming into things without warning.

Peiter whipped out his PDA and pressed it to the access pad. He bypassed the security over ride in a few seconds but as he opened the door there was a siren that suddenly went off. The over ride wasn’t functioning properly as the power fluctuations kept resetting the locks with previous security patches.

“I don’t know how long I’ll be able to bypass the doors with all the power outages. There’s data corruption and resets that can’t reset that bypassing won’t work so things are get difficult.”

“Well there are two security bulkheads between us as Terminal D. We get her up and moving and we make this quick. We’ll be fine.” Dennis patted his shoulder and passed him. In the back was a med table designed for emergency uses. Dennis booted it’s systems up and the flat wall opened up to reveal a cuby that looked like a bunk bed in a wall.

Peiter placed Grace on the bed and ran a hand over the sensor. The med screens lit up and Dennis ran a scan.

“Looks like she’s fine, just knocked unconscious. I’m really not sure what to do from here, these things aren’t really designed to fix the things I fix.” He grinned slightly. “I mean they make computers smarter and faster right?”

Peiter reached into Grace’s pocket and pulled out the AIP and pulled a panel free and plugged in the device.

“LAI configuration non standard. System scanning. This unit is not configured for the function of this device, please advize.”

“Phil, it’s Dr. Hollman.”

“Hello Dr. Hollman. Am I to understand you removed my Packet from the mobile unit after I went offline?”

“Yes, I had to switch to manual, I’m feeding you the information from my PDA. This should update you as to the situation.”

“Understood. Updating.” There was a second and Phil spoke. “Dr. Grace will be conscious in twenty seconds. I’m administering a light anesthetic and a quilian anti swelling agent. There has been some blunt trauma due to the crash, but she is in do danger of brain damage.”

“Thank you Phil.”

“Dr. Hollman?”

“Yes Phil?”

“Thank you.”

Peiter smiled. “You are very welcome.”

The seconds passed and there was a ding sound from the machine.

“You can unplug me now, Dr. Bucket has regained consciousness.”

“That’s it? Ding? What are you, a food timer?”

“My first application was in the food service industry.”

Before Dennis could say anything else Peiter pulled the small tube from the plug and placed it in his pocket and leaned in to see Grace blinking her eyes. She tried to touch her face but the mask was in the way. Peiter grabbed her hand before she tried to take the mask off.

“Not a good idea. Dome’s cracked, remember?”

Grace groaned. “I thought we took a sobriety pill.” Her voice was a little scratchy and she cleared her throat as she sat up.

“Thought you said she hit her head?” Dennis chided.

Peiter ignored that. “You hit your head in the car, when we crashed. We’re trying to get to the shuttle, can you stand?”

Grace nodded. When she stood up she looked at Dennis who stood a few inches shorter than her, meaning a good foot below Peiter. “Who’s this?”

“Dennis, he’s a mechanic, he’s helping us.” Peiter’s voice had a slight tinge of annoyance.

“Greetings ma’am.”

“Oh I’ve been around you too long Peter.”

“How so?”

“I’m being called Ma’am.”

“Ah, age joke. Got it. You’re fine.” He shook his head.

“How old are you?” Dennis asked curious as they walked out of the security booth.

“I was in my early sixties, that’s not very old.”

“Ah, regression. Knew you were a big wig.”

Peiter rolled his eyes. “Can we focus here?”

“Uh oh, grandpa’s gonna get out his cane.” Grace chuckled as they walked down the stairs and came to the small cut off. “Oh boy.”

“Well, let’s go kids. Grandpa needs to get to the shuttle.” Peiter made his way with his back against the wall. He scooted across the wall and didn’t look down at the long drop and the rubble and building tops below.

Grace went next and then Dennis. When they made it across the expanse they practically vaulted down the stairs and to the hallway. Passing several vending machines and benches they ran to the end of the hall and to the large security doors.

“Ok Doc, this is your territory.” Dennis took out his metal crowbar and ripped open an panel on the wall and pulled out his PDA and attached two wires he stripped with a small knife and connected them to the terminals. “There you go. Hard patched.”

“This will take a minute.”

As they stood there Grace grabbed her arms and started rubbing them. “Is it getting colder?”

“Atmosphere bleeding off faster than the system can replace it. There’s no way to keep the heat in for long and the outside temperature is usually several hundred degrees below Celsius.” Peiter pointed out as the emergency doors ground open with a loud bang.

“One more to go, we can pass under Terminal C, through there.” He pointed to a side door. “Long hallway, couple of bathrooms, staff changing room and meeting room, we pass those and we’re in D and then one more security door.”

“Well I don’t need to pee or change cloths.” Grace said looking at the security guard uniform she still wore. “Ok, a change of cloths would be nice.”

“We can change on the shuttle, worry about fashion later.” Peiter pulled the door open and Grace and Dennis walked through.

Just as they did so the whole complex shook and a large piece of the dome came crashing down, severing Terminal B from the rest of the Port.

“Well I didn’t like that Terminal anyway.” Dennis pointed out halfheartedly. “Always had trouble with the vending machines.

They all hurried through the doorway and into the hall. The hall was empty and dark, no electricity was available.

Their masks lit up two bulbs on either side of their temples. It lit up the passage well enough for them to traverse without any issues. Coming to the end of the hallway the door opened to the lower promenade of the D Terminal. Peiter stopped and looked at the missing port.

“Well so much for that second security door doc.”

“Shit!” Peiter growled. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

The entire port was gone, a long expanse before them of rubble and a large metal beam. It was one of the upper dome beams that had crashed down earlier.

“I just connected with the shuttle, it pinged a reponse! It has to be here.”

“Doc,” Dennis put a hand on his shoulder. “There’s nothing here. We’re screwed.”