Darkness

Ch.4: Damage Control

~~~Earth~~~

It had been one hour and twenty minutes. That fact, the man at least knew, the rest was infuriatingly unclear. Hunched over his keyboard he worked furiously, troubleshooting the systems, studying the data, even at times turning to the security footage; all the while, a timer ticked away on his digital watch, adding minute after minute. He had turned it on nearly the moment she disappeared, and it would remain on until she was back. That was his resolve, that was how he decided he would cope: as long as it ticked away he would keep trying, and as long as he kept trying then the faintest sliver of hope still existed.

He glanced through the displays before him. The spot he took was directly in front of the long pane of glass separating him from the testing chamber. In an odd way it made him feel closer to her. Lights blinked across screens, the emergency alarms had been turned off ages ago, but the twist in his chest that their piercing sound produced had hardly faded.

One moment his daughter had been there, the next, she was gone.

The room was a mess, organization was immediately disregarded as soon as the situation slipped into one of urgency. Papers littered the floor. Folders, pens, calculators, and other devices were slowly amassing atop any available surface. What chairs hadn't found themselves overturned had been pushed wherever they were needed.

The room was used to the clutter though. Even on the best of days, any casual observer might have pointed out the patchy, unpolished appearance. But the company's budget had far greater priorities than appearances. The sacrifice was one that the team accepted eagerly, and was the reason they were able to access the technology and resources they had.

The control room, one of the company's greater prides, was an earnest reflection of the sentiment. The impressive collection of computers and equipment rested gingerly atop two long rows of second-hand, stained, and duct tape-ridden desks. They were sturdy though, and the use of tape was still largely cosmetic, merely covering the bare patches of plywood where the thin grey plastic had bubbled and peeled away. The equipment had required more room than the long desks could provide alone, so the team had been forced to double up for each row. The end result was too long, and in order to squeeze in a narrow path to the door, the entire setup was shifted off-center and flush with the right wall.

What the budget did in fact choose to splurge on was the three-inch-thick window of safety glass taking up most of the front wall, allowing a protected view of the test chamber. Not a scratch rested on the smooth surface. The company prided itself on its safety, making the events prior all the more jarring, as well as the largest disaster in its history.

There would be consequences, no doubt, but right now they were of little concern to anyone. Careers and jobs could be replaced; all he wanted was his daughter back. He could live with being forced to abandon his research or needing to scrape by just to provide for his family. He could even live with the very worst case, however unlikely as it was, of only seeing her from behind bars. But, what he could not live with was the idea of losing her forever.

Behind him, two of his colleagues sat alone, pouring over the piles, scribbling away ideas, checking and double-checking what math they could. Four others crowded around a monitor, quietly discussing the data. Every so often one would look up, eyes finding him. He had worked with some longer than others, but they all knew better than to try and comfort him, not with precious seconds ticking by. Across the test chamber was a squat rectangular window, darkly tinted. It was a second, much smaller, observation room for data collecting. He thought she would have been safe there, behind her own three-inch thick glass.

It should have been safe. Their prototype should have lacked the power, nothing at this magnitude ever happened before. Something interfered with it in a way no one was able to explain yet, as if some outside thing, or force, briefly overloaded the system.

The prototype had hiccupped. They had been able to see it coming, but just barely. Readings had gone off the charts, along with a bright flash that overwhelmed the chamber, and controls stopped responding. At the time, having no idea what would result, he sent the order to evacuate. His team's only hope was to take cover, but with any luck, others in the facility could get a head start.

He remembered the shock of hearing his daughter's voice from the hall. The reaction grew critical the moment he had yanked the door open.

They found out later that the resulting surge had a radius that stretched nearly halfway across the facility. The sensation as the wave passed was one that neither he nor anyone else was likely to forget. It felt like a shockwave of energy, briefly scrambling all his thoughts. He had nearly fallen when the nob he gripped seemingly blipped from existence, along with the entire door, hinges still intact. Someone behind him lost their chair, and in another room, a computer had crashed to the floor, no desk in sight.

For a single moment he had seen her, panicked and running towards him. Then she was gone.

One hour and thirty minutes.

For the first time since he started the timer he paused, fingers shaking as they hovered over the keyboard. He should have never agreed. He was her dad, it was his job to keep her safe. She could be anywhere, hurt or worse, and it was his fault. A coiled frustration burned in his gut despite reason: she had been almost within reach. It was irrational to think he could have held her, kept her where she was. But the taunting thought remained: maybe if he had just been faster. He blinked away tears.

A hand was placed on his shoulder, but he did little to react, instead his attention merely snapped back to his work, fingers resuming their frantic battle with the keys.

"The power's holding." The voice was calm, and he wasn't surprised that it belonged to Dr. Moore, she had been his close partner on the project for over a decade now.

"We'll have days if we need it," she said, "Roberts and Franklin say stability should hold as long as the power does. I'm getting similar numbers."

He forced a nod. The relief was short-lived, but welcome nonetheless. His team had time, but it was only the first hurdle of many.

One reading, in particular, had been his only source of strength thus far: there was a connection, a tether of sorts, faint, but unwavering. Their fail-safes managed to stabilize the reaction within milliseconds of the surge, and by some miracle, what had been taken, who had been taken, was still appearing on their instruments.

Retrieving objects was possible in their past experiments, but this was something far more complicated. There was no telling yet, just how much had been snatched, and to make matters worse, their systems were struggling to pinpoint a location for the readings. The data was nearly nonsensical. What had been taken could have been dropped anywhere, any location, at any height or depth. There was no way to narrow it down yet.

"Anyone else?" He asked.

"Headcount is ongoing, she's the only one we know for sure."

It would be a cold comfort to find that she was the only unfortunate one, but if not, his team would get them all back, safe and sound; there was simply no other option. There wasn't time to think about losing the faint tether, or failing and being forced to eventually cut the connection. And there certainly wasn't time to worry about whether the trip had even been survivable.

Right now he could only stare at the screen, and the numbers rolling across, and pray that her terrified face would not be the last thing he remembered of his daughter.