Creator1

The remaining team continued out of the corridor and into one of the maintenance bays. In the bay they found several people continuing to work. Several were welding frames, airing up tires, and performing general maintenance on the vehicles.

‘What are you doing!? You have to get out of here immediately!’ The supervisor instructed. The worker airing up a tire with a cart of nitrogen bottles shrugged.

‘Our supervisor said to ignore it, we have a schedule we have to maintain. These maintenance vehicles need to be up and running to carry supplies for other projects. Probably another safety drill anyways.’

‘This is not a safety drill, you all need to vacate to your rooms or the shops, like right now!’

‘Is there a problem here?’ The hanger supervisor approached, the two supervisors began shouting at each other, one pointing at the flashing yellow lights, the other gesturing towards the vehicles. As the two were shouting, Michael felt his stomach churn, he was starting to feel slightly lighter again.

He began to walk towards an exit, but his supervisor caught on.

‘Michael! Where are you going?’ He demanded, Michael didn’t realize that he knew his name. Michael turned around staring at the supervisor telepathically transmitting his fear to him.

‘I need to show you something, I think we can fix this.’ Michael murmured.

‘Just fucking tell me what the fix is then!’

‘I can’t. I have to show you.’ Michael pleaded.

Frustrated, the supervisor feverishly clunked over to Michael as they both headed for the door.

‘I had this same feeling in my gut right before I lost gravity earlier.’ Michael whispered, the third crew member of Michael’s team was following far behind now trying to catch up.

‘What are you on about?’ The supervisor asked, pulling Michael’s arm to stop him.

‘These guys aren’t going to listen to you no matter what you say, all I know is I saw what this did to the other guy, and I don’t want to be around when something else happens. And, I’m staying close to the walls!’ Michael retorted, recharting for the nearest wall.

‘The walls?’

They continued towards the door keeping close to the wall. As they walked, their bounces gradually got higher, ‘It’s changing again!’ Michael shouted. Just then, everything in the maintenance bay began to float. First, small objects, then larger ones, lastly the people and vehicles. It happened within seconds. The room was filled with noises of disoriented people and clanging of metal. One worker hadn’t noticed what was happening as they had a welding helmet one. He continued to weld, sending hundreds of molten sparks flying equally in all directions. Like a never ending and ever expanding sparkler it grew from several hundred shards to an uncountable amount.

‘Stop welding!’ The man’s supervisor called, waving his arms frantically as he floated to the ceiling.

Michael clung to the wall for stability, using the pipes he began to move along the wall and towards the door, the supervisor followed. Their third crew member was away from a wall and floating towards the ceiling.

‘I’ll push off the top! You go on!’ He called to the supervisor.

By now everything was floating and twirling in all sorts of directions. Mechanics flailed frantically to get to their nitrogen tanks. The tire they were inflating was floating away from the hose, making it tight and filled with compressed gas.

One of the mechanics managed to reach the nitrogen cart and pull himself to the hose. He gently tugged on the hose bringing the tire to him. The tire was roughly the half the size of his body. He hugged onto the tire, bringing it down to his eye level and began to disconnect the hose.

‘Wait! I don’t think the valve is on that tire!’

Michael reached the door. He turned and outstretched a hand to his supervisor who took it, they both waited for their third crew member who had just pushed off the ceiling and was heading down.

‘What!?’ But it was too late. The mechanic disconnected the hose. The tire did not have the Schrader valve in it. Within an instant 350 psi escaped from a space no larger than a pinpoint, the tire spun uncontrollably striking the mechanic in the face twice and knocking him unconscious sending him floating the opposite way. The tire spun chaotically and traveled fast moving toward the welder.

The sparks, scattered like stars across the hangar, collided with the escaping gas from the tire and an ignition began. The small clumps of spurted nitrogen began to burn in small spheres of blue flame, spreading rapidly.

The pressure returned almost immediately, everything began to fall. With gravity returned, the fire quickly spread to all nitrogen in the immediate area, the spheres of fire now turning into a streams as it was chased back to the hose, causing the entire tank to explode. Their companion’s gentle push from the ceiling to meet them had turned into a head first plummet to his demise.

The hanger was engulfed in flames, the two surviving crew members could hear screams and quickly made their way through the door, which closed almost immediately behind them.

‘EMERGENCY IN VEHICLE MAINTENANCE HANGER 3. ALL PERSONNEL PLEASE STAY AWAY FROM THE AREA. FIRE HAS BEEN DETECTED AND THE OUTPOST WILL BE INITIATING SELF PRESERVATION PROTOCOLS.’ The intercom announced.

Water began to flood the hanger from the pipes on the wall to begin fighting the fires. The two remained, looking at the destruction in the hanger through the door’s window that ran from the floor to ceiling. The fires still burning as the pipes began to fill the hanger with water. The supervisor who had argued with Levi appeared through the smoke within the main hanger, desperately sloshing through the water trying to make his way to the door.

The supervisor began typing away at the door panel.

‘THIS DOOR CANNOT BE OPEN. SELF PRESERVATION PROTOCOLS HAVE BEEN INITIATED.’

The supervisor scanned his badge.

‘organic material detected.’ He calmly stated.

‘THIS DOOR CANNOT BE OPEN. SELF PRESERVATION PROTOCOLS HAVE BEEN INITIATED.’

The maintenance supervisor was banging on the door, Levi scanned again.

‘Override protocol!’

‘SELF PRESERVATION PROTOCOL CANNOT BE OVERWRITTEN.’ The door responded.

‘Open the goddamn door!’

‘THIS DOOR CANNOT BE OPEN. SELF PRESERVATION PROTOCOLS HAVE BEEN INITIATED.’

He took a tool from his bag and began smashing the door panel in hopes of opening the door.

The supervisor was sobbing, the banging becoming weaker.

‘My knees! Please!’ sobbed the muffled voices of the supervisor. He buckled onto the ground. The pressure was increasing now, forcing the injured supervisor on his hands and knees in the water. His head hung down and dipped into the water, which continued to rise.

Michael pounded on the glass with his tools. ‘Hey! Keep your head up!’ Levi hadn’t stopped smashing the door controls and the door in general.

The supervisor on his hands and knees looked up, keeping his mouth barely above the rising water line. His whole body was quivering under the building pressure, eventually his head slumped into the water. The two continued desperately thrashing on the door. The supervisor, fully aware of what was happening turned his head as much as he could to look at the others as the gravity forced his whole body to the floor and underwater, drowning him.

‘We need to go.’ The supervisor said pulling on Michael.

As they walked towards their final room the station made an announcement.

‘SELF PRESERVATION PROTOCOL COMPLETE. ORGANIC MATERIAL DETECTED. OPENING DOOR.’

They could hear the door opening and the body being thudded through the threshold as the water rushed in, they ignored this without looking back again.

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