21:09
It was not easy for me to try to understand what happened. It’s been quite a while since I had that dream. Since we had to power down the entire unit, Perseus’ warpgates will cease operations until the Injectors are up and running again. The staff who were assigned there have been scattered everywhere. Most of the management staff got transfered to other nearby stations, like Hercules or Hector.
As for the rest of us technical staff, a few were stationed elsewhere, but the rest, including my crew and I have been put on indefinite unpaid leave. With no steady income at hand, I had to look for jobs on other stations. Pablo got a friend to take me in, so instead of Chief, I am now just foreman in a warpgate hangar bay at Hector, a station orbiting Deimos.
*[Deimos is one of the martian moons]
A few days after the Injection Chamber incident, I poured over news reports trying to investigate what really happened that day. Media claims that Perseus’ failure was due to a sudden power surge, but for us who actually went there, we knew that wasn’t the case. There was absolutely no mention of the Injection Chamber, nor the blue crystal.
The media got muffled. There hasn’t been anymore reports on it ever since. It’s been two months. I thought I had forgotten all about it and went on with my normal life.
“Hey Chief, the Turks like how you fixed their ship. They might be specifically asking for you, next time!”“Oh, uh, thanks?”
Yep, despite being ‘demoted’ somewhat, these guys aren’t exactly strangers to me. I’ve met them a couple times when I was still working at Perseus. We often see each at Pablo’s, and they called me Chief, back then. It’s kinda nice that they’re still calling me Chief now, even if I am no longer that.
I just finished working on a damaged robot arm on a shuttle. Perhaps I should take a break and get myself some coffee. I reached for the doorknob and suddenly, my left hand started shivering. The trembling wrist was getting uncontrollable, and it suddenly felt,…cold.
A wave of fear suddenly washed itself over me. What, what’s going on? The shivering stopped. I looked at my palm. There was a faint blue tint on the skin. It was getting itchy. In a split second, the whole hand was covered by a layer of thin blue hairs. Like, a carpet of a blue crystals.
What? Why has it gone numb? What’s happening?
All of a sudden, sharp blue crystals started to emerge from my palm! And another patch at the back of my hand! Between my fingers! My hand soon became like the head of a mace, with sharp blue crystal spikes.
Hey, isn’t this what happened to the protoplasma tubes? But my blood doesnt have any protoplas- wait, what?
And everything went pitch black.
*****************************
“Hey, bud. Been a while, eh?”
“It’s you again. What do you want from me?”
“Have you heard of something called ‘friend’?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re my friend. Can I be your friend?”
“I’m… I’m really confused.”
“I’ll take that as a ‘yes’.”
“What?”
“See, friends help each other.”
“Normal friends, do. You, I’m sure, aren’t quite so.”
“Of course I’m not. I’m not even human.”
“…what are you, then?”
“I don’t know what my name is, but I do know that I am the essence of a civilisation. However, I exist only in this form.”
“But I can’t even see you. In fact, I can’t even see myself. It’s totally dark in here. I can only hear your voice and my own.”
“My presence is in your subconcious. I can read your emotions, but fear not, I don’t have the power to bend your will, nor do I intend to.”
“That’s reassuring.”
“Looks like you’ve come to accept my presence. That’s good. I’ll visit again, I need you to help me with something.”
“Huh? Wait, I still-”
*****************************
My buttocks hurt. Oh, I just fell off the couch.
“One of the boys said you passed out at the pantry door.”
“Tuck? Wha-what are you doing here? I thought you went to Hercules?”
“Yeah, with Bob. We’re courier boys, now. He’s getting the papers signed for a cargo we just sent here.”
“Oh, I see.” I put a hand over my forehead.
“Huh, my hands! The crystals! Gone!”
“Chief?”
I called out to one of the hangar boys.
“Hey, Ron! Was there anything weird on my left hand when I fainted?”
“Huh? Don’t think so. It looks just like how it was. You just went and dropped down on the floor like a dead goose.”
Tuck gave me that weird look again. I could only look at my hand in sheer confusion.
“Ya know, Chief. You’ve been actin’ real strange since Perseus went down.”
“The crystals.”
“The wha?”
“Remember the blue crystals in the Injections Chamber, Tuck? I think that thing did something to me.”
“Huh?”
“You guys got anymore deliveries?”
“Uh.. we got one more stock to send to the civil block here. We’re practically free after that.”
“Call me up, I need to tell you guys something.”
“Uh, okay.”
The media got censored, and now the crystal’s voice wants me to help it. I can only count on my guys right now. I just hope they didn’t get censored, too. I went to change out of my hangar suit, and I could only look at the small plastic pack in my locker drawer.
The blue crystal dust was giving off a dim glow.
What do you want from me?
[To Be Continued]
Previously:
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