One in Twelve Thousandth Percent

Chapter 25:

We arrive in a semi-dark room. "Standard clearing procedure." Whoosh, immediately all eight of us are in motion. "North clear." "South clear." "East clear." "West clear." "Craft, the doors to the hallway are open. Clearing the hallway. Hall North clear." Cannon says. "Hall South clear." says Charity. "Good work, everyone. Let's get some lights in here. Cannon, Charity, let us know if anything comes down the hall." "Right!" They both reply.

After a few minutes of fiddling with the consoles, we're able to get auxiliary lights on in the room. "Looks like Paragon is suffering a similar problem Janus did with the lack of main power. I'll bet the entire engine room is gone." Misaki says, tapping a console. When the lights come on, I look around. "What's with us getting dropped in the middle of storage rooms?" We all chuckle. Misaki and Belle look in some crates. "Hon, these are all empty." I roll my eyes. "Alright, let's move."

Once we're in the hallway, the scenery is similar to that of Janus. The place is a wreck. Crumbled walls, missing walls with force fields in place, equipment and supplies littering the floors. "Looks like you were right, Mi. About the power situation." Belle says, looking at a console in the hall. "Reserve power only and even that's limited to maintaining the force fields. There isn't even any life support active." Cannon taps his space helmet. "Good thing we have these, huh?"

Charity opens a side door and looks inside the room. "Dr. Bray, how much air do we have in these things?" Belle laughs. "I'm far from being a doctor, but thanks for the ego boost. As long as they don't get damaged, we should have two hours on a fully charged unit." Charity laughs as well, closing the side door. "Sorry, I don't know what else to call you. Though you're smart enough to become a doctor at your age." Belle tries to open another side door, but it's locked. "You can just call me Belle. Everyone else does. Or Bray, my last name. Though keep in mind that my twin, Kazumi, shares the same last name."

When we get to the lift, we all groan. No power, no lift. Another climb down twenty floors. Misaki looks around. "No, I'm not climbing down another twenty floors again. Help me find something we can use." Cannon holds up a piece of metal wall. "Eh? Maybe?" Misaki frowns. "Okay, but how?" Kaz snaps. "Oh, what bout your Telekinesis? You make things float." Misaki looks worried. "Yeah, but that's a lot of weight on this thing. I don't know if I can do that or not." Charity looks up the lift shaft then points. "What about climbing up to the lift and using it somehow?"

"Right!" I run to the shaft and look up as well. "The lifts have a manual override in case of power failure. Then we can just use our powers on the brakes instead." Cannon whistles. "Damn, you four really are something else." I start climbing up, the others behind me. The lift is only up one floor so it's a quick climb. Once inside the lift, Misaki opens the wall panel. "Okay, here's the manual override. This unclips the lift from the automatic pulley system and this lever works the emergency brakes. Wait..." She leans in closer. "Oh, there are actually four levers, two on each side of the lift." Kazumi, Charity and Belle open the other panels and locate the levers.

I look up. "Cannon, I need a lift. I'm short." He chuckles at this and hoists me up so I can open the upper access panel. "What's the plan?" He asks. "Oh, and you're light as hell. Do you weigh anything at all?" I roll my eyes. "Of course, just not a lot. I'm maybe 100 pounds soaking wet?" He chuckles again. "No wonder you're so agile." Misaki looks up. "So, hon. What's the plan?" "Well, if the manual brakes for some reason fail, I can just transmute them into a permanent locked position. You okay holding me a while, Cannon?" He laughs. "Oh yeah, I bench double your weight regularly." "Gee, thanks for the compliment." I say in a deadpanned tone.

Misaki turns back to the panel. "Ready?"

"Ready!" Shouts everyone. "Okay, here we go." Misaki releases the auto pulley. SQUEEEALLLLL. The brakes start to loosen from the weight. Misaki looks around. "Huh, usually the weight of the lift would–" Then the brakes let free and the lift just... falls. "AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!" Everyone screams as we descend two... five... eight... twelve... fifteen floors almost instantly. "Brakes!" I shout. The girls wrench down on the brakes as hard as they can. SQEEEEEEEALLLLLLLL. The brakes grab the wires and slow down the lift. Goren calls out our floor number as we go down. "There, stop." The girls push down as hard as they can. The lift comes to a stop halfway past the door.