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Fathom's Phantoms After-Effects

Theo padded down the empty hall; very few people on the Executive Deck were awake during third cycle and, of those who were few had an interested in taking a walk. During any normal circumstances the Wolf would have been in agreement but he finally had a project to keep him busy and he wasn't about to waste the opportunity. After counting off 100 paces, he paused and checked his PCD. "Carol... are you there?"

The Doe's voice came in clearly. "Yes, Theo; I can hear you. Can you hear me, Henry?"

The Hyena's reply was just as clear as Carol's. "Yea... you both come in just fine. How 'bout you, Marco?"

There was a long pause with no answer; the silence provided them the information they needed. The Wolf spoke up once the Weasel's absence from the confirmation was confirmed, "Ozzy... go to Marco's third check in point and tell him to get back to number two."

The Otter spoke up through the PCD. "Got it. On my way, Theo."

It took several minutes before Marco and Ozzy checked in again, and then, only to confirm that the Weasel hadn't received any of the messages. Although it might have been considered a failure during any other circumstance what it really accomplished in doing was getting them just a little more information... and that helped.

The Gens had spent hours in disarray and discontentment after Jen's transmissions ended. During that time Theo had wracked his brain trying to think of a way to keep everyone busy-- to keep HIMSELF busy so that they could feel useful. Exploring the most effective method to maintain contact with the short comm range their PCDs supplied was doing just that.

With any luck if the Comms didn't come back on their own then what they learned during what Ken called 'The Leapfrog Experiment' would come in handy. The Bat had shown a great amount of initiative and resourcefulness since the event that wiped out communications. Even before that, when he found a way to keep everyone going even after the HID ran dry Kenneth had proven that he'd grown into a solid employee and Theo promised himself that he'd put in a good word with Jen on the Bat's behalf.

Although 'The Leapfrog Experiment' had a complicated-sounding title to it the plan was very simple: Jen's Gens would spread out across the Executive Deck after connecting their PCDs to one another. Their comms would be set to broadcast all incoming and outgoing messages to all of the other connected PCDs within range. This meant that while standing in a row, they would conceivably be able to stretch their line of communication across a distance... and the experiment was to determine what that maximum distance would be.

Theo, on one end of the line had gone to one end of the Executive Deck main hall and the rest of the Gens had followed him. Then, with just a few steps at a time they slowly spread out and before they knew it they were able to reach from one end of the deck to the other. While that was an excellent start for the experiment they decided to try answering more complex problems such as what would happen with walls in the way... and that's when they began losing track of one another.

During the more advanced round of understanding the limited PCD communications they had all decided on several areas that they would explore-- Xavier suggested calling them 'Check-In Points' because, honestly enough, it was where they would go to check in. The first check-in for everyone turned out great, and that expanded their understanding of the communication grid they could use with their PCDs. During the second check-in several points were put into what Xavier decided to call the 'Black Out Zone'. Marco had laughed at the Borzoi's choice in phrasing, having said at the time "Leave it to a pilot to come up with nav lingo."

Xavier had fired back with "You know... 'nav' is navigation lingo too, Mark."

The banter normally would have resulted in a bunch of laughs and some friendly back pats, but, considering the agitated position in which the Gens found themselves things got just a little more tense. Theo had broken it up before it came to trash talking but he realized that, between the lack of HID, the aches and pains from the new stuff, and the absence of Jen the entire team was on a knife edge emotionally... and he wasn't just talking about the rest of the group-- he found himself slipping from time to time as well.

The Wolf realized that Trudy had been calling his name. "Theo?"

He replied to her inquiry over the PCD, "Here. Just... recording some info."

The mouse continued with what she was apparently wanting to say. "Are we ready for the fourth 'Check-In Point'?"

Theo nodded despite having his PCD's video off, "Yea... I think we're good to go. Everyone check in."

The Gens each called in their name and after all seven had announced their presence on their combined network Carol spoke up. "Fourth 'Check-In Point', everyone. Go to your assigned position and wait for me or Theo to call."

Sliding his own PCD back into his shirt pocket Theo adjusted his tie and went back up the side hallway toward his next destination. It was still late and most of the apartments had the glowing 'occupied' light shining over it. The Wolf's next destination was supposed to involve the 45 wing of the Executive Deck. He would find an empty apartment so he could enter it and try to broadcast from within.

Theo'd never personally been to the 45 wing... or most of the other wings for that matter save his own and the central portion of the deck that housed the Tram Center and elevators. Regardless he planned on following through because if he didn't how could he expect the rest of his team to do it? It took some time but he finally managed to locate an apartment without a light.

Ideally the wolf had hoped to find one that hadn't been assigned an occupant but he was running out of time before check-in; he'd used almost four of his five minutes. "Oh well... beggars can't be choosers."

Running his paw across the bar code identifying the occupant, Theo pulled out his PCD and scanned it quickly. "Lydia Parker, Programmer?"

The Wolf scanned it a second time; he couldn't think of many programmers that had a room on the Executive Deck. Shrugging, he realized that there wasn't a lot of time to consider that mystery and that it'd have to wait for later. Resolving to make a mental note about getting to the bottom of that curious finding Theo provided the override code required to open an unoccupied apartment... but nothing happened.

Surprised, the Wolf tried the override code a second time-- still nothing. Double-checking the code Theo tried one more time and, as with the first two attempts, the door refused to open. He was about to radio the rest of his group a message when his thoughts were interrupted by a transmission already on the line.

He recognized Captain Nida's voice immediately. "... and you're certain they're already here, Dr. Makowi?"

Although Theo couldn't recall having heard the second speaker's voice before he did place it as having an East Indian accent... possibly from Bangladesh, "Yes, Captain. I have every reason to believe that the station is already infested. I am catching up to a group heading to an evacuation shuttle right now."

If not for Captain Nida's recognizable voice Theo would have simply suspected that he had somehow picked up a transmission from some holo-vid. He didn't even think that Sigma-Echo had an evacuation shuttle... just escape pods. Even more of a concern, what could possibly have been in the station that warranted escaping-- or, for that matter, what could be considered an 'infestation'?

Captain Nida responded, heedless of Theo overhearing, "Do that, Doctor. We need you on board Sigma-Echo before Dr. Parker crosses over."

Crosses over? On board Sigma-Echo? Doctor Parker? The Wolf didn't understand what half of it meant but he was relieved to hear that whoever 'Dr. Makowi' was or wherever he was it wasn't on board Sigma-Echo; Theo did not much like the idea of an escape shuttle to get away from an infestation. A horrific idea suddenly snuck into his head: what if the infestation hitched a ride on the Doctor's shuttle and was brought to Sigma-Echo?!?! He had to warn somebody!

He jumped when a hand came down on his shoulder and Carol spoke his name loudly. "THEO!"

The Wolf lowered his PCD immediately. "Did you hear that?"

The Doe flicked an ear. "That's what WE'VE been asking YOU."

Theo shook his head. "No... no... I mean the transmission..."

Carol slowly lowered her ears, taking a step closer. "What transmission? The only transmissions we've been getting have been from one another. The Comms are down... remember?"

The Wolf looked down at the PCD in his paw. "It was from Captain Nida to some Doctor-or-other... she was talki--"

The Deer woman interrupted him by holding up her PCD and pressing a button. He began to hear a series of voices, all belonging to his fellow Gens, calling for him one after another before Carol mentioned she was going to go look for him at his fourth 'Check-In Point'. She turned off the replay, "And now here we are." she cocked her head to the side, giving him a concerned look. "Didn't you hear us calling?"

Theo shook his head. "No... I must have stepped into a 'Black-Out Zone' here for a minute or two because I--"

Carol looked straight at him. "We've been trying to get you to answer for five minutes, and it took me ten more to get here."

Theo was taken aback. "Can't be... it's barely been five minutes since we---"

He was interrupted by Marco speaking on the PCD. "Did you find him, Carol?"

The Deer raised hers to her muzzle. "Yea. He's fine. He might have had some hardware issues with his personal communicator."

The Wolf glanced down to his PCD then back to Carol. "It's... uh... working fine now."

He paused when he saw the time on the device; it didn't FEEL like he'd been there for almost a half hour. Glancing up at the Deer he blinked, feeling suddenly very ill-at-ease. "I think we're done with our experiment for tonight."

The Doe did little to hide the concern for him she wore clearly on her face. "Yea... I think that's probably a good idea."

* * * * * *

J'vir trudged along behind Wesley through the service tunnels of Sigma-Echo's Sub-Decks. The Gen rodent had once told him that the tunnels had been designed for use by the construction crew as it built the actual infrastructure of the station. The tunnels were small and cramped, apparently created that way to help keep atmosphere production requirements to a minimum. What J'vir particularly noticed about them was that any Human-sized traveler would be required to hunch over to travers them-- a problem neither he nor the particularly short Gerbil had to deal with.

Eventually, after what was just over a half hour, J'vir finally spoke up, asking a question that had been on his mind. "Why did not take the tram?"

Wesley didn't even bother turning around to answer, he simply spoke forward down the tunnel. "It's likely that they'll be overloaded due to panic-- or maybe even turned off so large numbers of commuters don't disrupt repairs. We're a lot better off using the service tunnels... believe me, J'vir."

The Voljoi was quiet for only a moment before he proposed another option. "Why did we not use standard corridors?"

The Gerbil sighed. "From where we were that would have taken over an hour... and that assumes we wouldn't run into any frantic fear mobs."

J'vir went quiet after that, following obediently after Jeremiah's second in command. When everything was categorized and measured the job he'd found on the station was an improvement over the one he'd had back in settled space. Despite the occasional long hike and long work hours it was something he really could find himself enjoying; he went back to his quarters at the end of every shift feeling as though he'd contributed. Granted, at times like extended marches through service tunnels he usually also ended the day with aches in his legs and lower back; Voljoi were not meant for activities that required such endurance.

Wesley stopped as the tunnel terminated into a large vertical shaft complete with a ladder. "Here we go."

J'vir scowled in displeasure when he saw how unbelievably high the ladder stretched. "That must be well over 3000 meters."

The Gerbil didn't miss a beat; he climbed right onto the ladder and began ascending. "Almost two miles, actually... but fortunately we're only headed up three floors and it'll let out right into the bottom floor of Agroponics."

Relief flooded the Voljoi, who, hearing that their trip was almost to an end, eagerly hopped onto the ladder and followed after his supervisor with abandon-- he was forced to temper his excitement however when he slowed down enough due to having trouble negotiating the wide gaps between rungs. "The journey will doubtlessly be the most difficult part of our activities today."

Once they had ascended to the indicated spot the Gerbil stretched out on the ladder and pressed an access panel; a small pressure gate slid open, revealing access out of the service tunnels. Wesley quickly shifted his weight from the ladder and through the hatch before turning around and offering out a paw. "Come on... we don't have all shift."

J'vir climbed up the several more rungs until he was even with his supervisor and then accepted the help. The hatch turned out to be a lot larger than he'd expected, which made sense if engineers wearing EVA suits were expected to use it to enter the primary halls of Sigma-Echo. Climbing through, the Voljoi paused long enough to dust himself off and look around; when Wesley said that they were going into the bottom floor of Agroponics he was speaking literally.

The dimly lit sub-corridor was directly beneath the primary walkway for Agroponics; in fact, the deck's floor acted as the sub-level's ceiling. Despite the shadowy, dreary surroundings, J'vir had no trouble seeing; most Voljoi worlds were graced with softer stars. Glancing around, the worker took in the sights. The area was lit by the segments of lighting that came down through the grated ceiling, but also from the veritable field of system lights and power indicators.

His assessment of the surroundings ended up being interrupted by Wesley. "Alright... come on already, we need to head up to the ground floor."

J'vir looked after the Gerbil, who was already making his way to what looked like an old fashioned collapsible ladder. Rather than wait to see Wesley struggle with it, the Voljoi joined him and helped pull it off the wall. "We will manage better in unison."

Wesley didn't seem the least displeased at him taking the initiative. "Damn right... and get the hatch while you're at it-- the latch is a C-slide to the left."

It had taken a few weeks for J'vir to learn the laborer lingo but he'd become familiar to it and knew exactly what he was seeking; the trap door above them was secured by a simple metal bar that went through the grating; it was shaped like the Human letter 'C', and was reachable from both above and below. J'vir gripped it and gave it a quick jiggle until he figured out how it moved. From there, the Voljoi unlatched it and opened the panel before helping his supervisor set up the ladder.

Wesley put his foot on the first rung. "Alright... hold it steady. I'm going up first. When you follow up you can leave the ladder in place, but make sure you close the trap door-- it's a safety hazard."

"Yes sir."

As he promised, J'vir ascended the ladder after his supervisor and closed the trap door, "Do you want me to secure the latch as well?"

The Gerbil answered casually. "Nah. It's not really a security issue and it'd just create more work for us when we're on our way out. We'll latch it closed when we're done here and back down below in the access area."

J'vir had been among the Humans long enough that he almost had the inclination to groan. "You mean to say that we are going back down through the service tunnels?"

Wesley's response was very matter of fact. "Of course... what works, works."

The Voljoi nodded and simply fell into line behind his supervisor, following the Gerbil over to a collection of monitoring screens. If Wesley knew of J'vir's displeasure it certainly didn't stop him from doing his job. "It looks like we might have a few systems out of alignment... get over to monitor two and give me the readings."

Unlike most of the rest of the team, J'vir hadn't had any real engineering training and had received most of what he needed to know on-the-job. The computer part, however, was not one of those. "I am uncertain as to what I am inspecting."

Wesley sighed. "All of the text is going to be green... if something isn't, that's what I need to know about."

J'vir gave a confident nod; it was an easy task. "Understood."

The Voljoi waited patiently as his screen remained blank. Wesley continued typing rapidly on his own terminal, mumbling to himself, "Good... good... that's fine... good... no problems here... okay... looks like we're good there too... alright... ready, J'vir?"

"I am, yes."

The screen began shooting line after line of words past him, almost too fast for him to read. Despite the fact that he was only looking for variance in the color of the text the Voljoi entertained himself by reading the basically non-sensical words as they went by' all of it was green, "I can confirm that this is all--"

He was silenced when a full line of yellow text zipped rapidly passed. "Correction-- there was yellow on one line of--."

Wesley interrupted him. "Got it."

All of the text on the monitor froze and began to slowly cycle backwards until the yellow line of letters and numbers reappeared. "Are you able to ascertain the problem?"

Wesley nodded. "Yeah... looks like the Agitator got a g-force fault... makes sense, I guess. I'll mark that for later and we'll keep doing the diagnostic so we'll know everything that needs fixing before we get started... you ready to continue?"

J'vir nodded. "I am."

Despite it being a new experience for the Voljoi it turned out to be exceedingly simple... and not at all unpleasant. He started to get a little bit of a rush each time he saw a color other than green... which happened three more times: two more yellow, and a red. The red ended up causing Wesley some grief, and that ended the Voljoi's optimistic view of things... especially when the Gerbil sighed, "Well that's not good."

J'vir looked at the red line. "Why? What is it?"

"We'll need to reboot the system. It's not a big deal... just time consuming. Let's get started on that before the rest of the work so we can at least get everything done while we wait for the system to come back online."

The Voljoi nodded again. "Of course. You are the supervisor."

As it turned out, 'we' ended up being Wesley, and J'vir spent several minutes sitting on a collection of water pipes while his supervisor worked on resetting the system. It was at least five minutes into the procedure when the Gerbil spoke up. "So... what Dmitri said about what you did before Sigma-Echo...?"

J'vir sat up a little straighter; it was an unpleasant topic for discussion and he hoped strongly that he would be able to dissuade the Gen from continuing it. "I would prefer that we not speak about it please, Mr. Wesley."

The Gerbil nodded simply. "Sure... I understand. And what's wrong with 'Mr. Parson', huh? You Voljoi are always so big about using first names."

The social differences between races was much more preferable for J'vir, and he eagerly continued that line of discussion. "Among the Voljoi it is very common for members of the same family to work in a specific field, therefore it is far easier to use a first name rather than a family name when referencing one's peers."

Wesley shrugged. "Well... you're here now, so get used to saying it the right way."

"Of course. I will work on it, Mr. Parson."

The Gerbil pressed one more button and the monitor went blank, "Alright... we're good to get started on that Agitator... should be a pretty quick fix."

J'vir nodded. "Lead the way."

The two walked to the metal stairway that led up to the top of the three floor Agroponics deck and Wesley brought him to a large industrial-looking machine complete with gears and pistons and hydraulics and any of a number of other things J'vir didn't recognize. The Gerbil began opening up the access panel to the machine before asking, "So... you were really a janitor?"

The Voljoi sighed, not particularly liking the topic. "Can we talk about something else, Mr. Parson?"

His supervisor paused then turned to look at him for a few moments before shrugging. "Sure... if it makes you uncomfortable I guess it'd be rude to ask you for information about something you don't want to share."

J'vir nodded. "Yes. It does. Thank you."

The Gerbil looked back to the mechanism and began running his fingers along the parts. "I'm still not sure what the big deal is..."

The Voljoi cleared his throat uncomfortably, hoping the topic would be put to rest quickly. "Among my people it is not considered socially acceptable to change your profession and, while I understand we are not here among my people I am still a Voljoi, and grew up in the culture."

Wesley gave a slight tug on one of the mechanism's inner workings, finally seeming to return to the task rather than J'vir's past. "Well... everything looks fine here... I think I can just do a simple calibration and we'll be good to go. Let me just get-- woah!"

The Gerbil's self-narration was relatively unremarkable right up until the exclamation, and J'vir caught Wesley as he fell back and away from the device. They both watched as a long, sinewy, ethereal eel-like ghost-creature rose up from the metal. J'vir's gaze went right to the mechanism, which glowed red-hot at the thing's touch. "What IS it?"

Wesley got to his feet and stepped further away from it, "Hell if I know... I'm not a biologist... or a psychic... or whatever the hell would know what that is."

The ghost-like eel emerged the rest of the way from the mechanism. J'vir estimated that it was close to a meter in length... or maybe a little over-- it was hard to tell by the way it undulated and 'swam' through the air. It remained hovering for a few moments directly above the Agitator but, suddenly, it lunged forward with surprising speed.

J'vir let out a cry of alarm and raised his arms to defend himself, but the eel-creature was aiming at Wesley. The Gerbil didn't even bother screaming, tensing up a sheer moment before the thing collided with him but, rather than any impact the creature slid seamlessly right into his chest. The Voljoi turned to look at his supervisor who simply stood there for a second. Wesley lett out a faint whistle before his eyes popped right out of their sockets by the force of escaping steam. At that point J'vir let baser instinct overcome curiosity and he and ran.