ALICE - short story

ALICE

Alice was hidden beneath the gravity plating, listening to the heavy footsteps passing above. She didn't know why her mother had told her to stay hidden at all costs but the angry shouting and cursing from the men outside her hiding place made her feel glad that she had followed her instructions.

It was cold there. A leaky condenser pipe released a steady drip of icy water on to the floor beside her and the constant hiss of the gas within grated at her nerves. She was exhausted from doing nothing and the constant cold gummed up her mind and she struggled to think straight.

Her mother had said it would be worth it, to get out of the slum and make a life in the new colony. She had planned to come with Alice, too, but a guard had seen her just as they were closing the maintenance hatch. Her mother had pushed Alice ahead, pushed her tiny frame beneath the gravity plating, saying "Stay hidden, Alice! Don't let them find you!", and they hadn't, but they had taken her mother and she hadn't seen her since.

The last thing she heard was a man in a police uniform reading a script to her mother about her rights, and that she didn't have to say anything if she didn't want to.

The footsteps receded and silence took over once again. Alice peered out through the nest of wires to look outside the crawlspace. Twice, a crewman had been checking on those wires and she had almost been caught but she had just barely stayed quiet enough to blend in with her surroundings and avoid notice.

Alice noticed that it was darker than usual and the halls of the ship were lit only by a few smaller red lights. Was something happening?

She flinched as another set of footsteps raced past her hiding place, thankfully without stopping. The man moved with urgency and wore a uniform covered in scorch marks, carrying a toolbox that clinked and rattled. He shouted into a thing on his jacket as he ran.

"Secondary is out, too! I'm on my way now. Teams A and B are working on the primary. We've got about an hour until the CO2 becomes toxic..."

Alice thought he sounded scared. Now that the footsteps had quietened, she could hear the distant keening of alarms on the decks above and the disorganised, chaotic shouts of men in the midst of emergency. She wondered; was she safe?

She knew the term, 'CO2'. She had heard it before, during her lessons with her mother about space ships. She knew that a ship with too much CO2 wouldn't allow the people inside to breathe properly and they would die. Her mother had said that Alice would look after the people aboard a ship one day, that it would be her job, just as it was her mother's once upon a time, to make sure the CO2 was right and that the people could breathe. Alice wondered if she could help. She peered at the wires around her, hoping to spot an obvious issue, but she knew she didn't really have the skills or the knowledge.

She was pondering the meaning of the different wire colours and wondering how the electricity inside them worked when a loud noise startled her.

"What tha--?"

A chubby, grimy face peered into Alice's hiding spot, its features twisted in surprise. She froze in terror, unable to think, unable to move.

There was a scrape of metal and the hatch above her swung away from the wall. A moment later, the face appeared, looking down.

"Leave me alone!" Alice shouted.

"What? I 'aint gonna—Hey!" The man's face pulled back quickly as Alice tweaked at a nearby power coupling, tricking it into shorting out and showering the man in sparks.

"Oi! How the hell..." the man yelled in confusion. "Just.. shhh!" he held a finger to his lips, then spoke again, queter. "I'm not gonna do anythin' ta ya', I promise." He spoke calmly and with his palms raised in a gesture Alice thought was meant to look non-threatening. He glanced over his shoulder as if to check if someone were behind him.