Breaking Point

Chapter 8: Claustrophobic

Zaid learned a lot about the rippers.  The name "ripper" is short for Greater Hygiean Eurypterid.  The hallucinogenic venom they spray is refined from a mold that feeds on gamma radiation, something that explains why the one on Earth didn't have it.  It only comes from one of its tails. The spray can be dealt with by just not breathing it in, but he would have to avoid a direct sting, which meant he would have to watch his unarmored left leg, the one the ripper had pulled the armor from. The other tail stings with a more typical dendrotoxin, enough to cause shooting pain at the sting site but not powerful enough to paralyze a man.  The pincers are also capable of enough force to pry through armor but only if he pretty much allowed it.

Hyun-woo had given him a handful of quick-inject anti-psychotic drugs.  "If you get stung, you want to inject yourself immediately.  Anyone who gets stung, it would be better off if they died than what happens without the drugs."  Apparently there were a number of people impacted in this way in the Foundry sector, and now the sector was cut off, nobody allowed to access it.  Food from the Agriculture sector was transported by tram that passed through the Foundry sector, with stops in the Foundry disabled.  Hyun-woo refused to tell him about what happens, only that it's far too frightening to discuss.

The Command sector was designed much like other space-bound facilities -- a set of 'floors' that are concentric rings, each one spinning fast enough that the centrifugal force is comparable to Earth gravity.  Transfer between floors was only possible by elevators which slid the elevator cars into a slot on the next floor during the brief alignment window for the two floors.  The communications array was nestled at the center of the sector, where rotation sufficient for gravity was impractical.  Anyone who wanted to work in that area would have to be proficient at getting around in microgravity.

"Here we go," Zaid said to himself as he readied himself for the transfer from the center floor to the centroid.  The elevator went up, then suddenly jerked itself hard to the right and Zaid felt like he was free-falling backwards.  The door whooshed open.  Under the natural gravity of the asteroid, "back" was now down, however slight, and "forward" was "up."  Not that it mattered -- the gravity was so slight that any real sense of direction was miniscule.

Before him was a narrow upward hallway.  Too narrow.  He had to crouch a little bit to fit into the elevator, but he would essentially have to be crawling to fit through.  There wasn't much more room than from his shoulder to his opposite elbow.  The hallway was lined on every side with plates with a few light indicators, all dead, and small handles.  Computer server blades, Zaid realized.  The hall was a massive network of perhaps thousands of computers, packed tightly enough that a technician could barely open up a compartment and exchange a server blade.  Perhaps the space would be fairly tolerable for a person of normal stature, but this was cramped for Zaid.  It made him anxious.

He crawled his way up the shaft, helmet in place and biting down on his rebreather, knowing that any second a ripper could show up and spray him.  Between the tight hallway, the restricted field of view through his helmet, the absolute darkness and the way the rebreather limited how fast he could breathe, Zaid felt less sure of himself than ever.  He wanted to pull off the helmet and breathe normally but couldn't stop thinking of Hyun-woo's words -- A fate worse than death.

The hallway intersected other hallways, presumably lined with more servers.  There wasn't enough space for Zaid to turn and go down a different way.  He knew if he tried, he'd probably be stuck.  He had a communicator to contact Bitgaram, the engineer, if he needed help, but he knew it would be unsafe for anyone to come and help until he had killed all the rippers.  He preferred the silence anyway.

Dead end.  Zaid cursed in his mind.  "Bitgaram, this place is a maze.  So far I've gone nothing but straight since the elevator and it leads to a dead end.  Can you tell me where I should have turned?" he asked over the communicator.