The Callisto Protocol

CH/\PTER 02: Error

"Hey, port and starboard are both registering errors," Max called as Jacob stepped into the next area of the ship.

"I'll check 'em both," he replied.

Jacob moved down the passenger area. In the rare event that they were transporting people, these twin rows of seats would accommodate them. They were also supposed to be pretty handy to have in a crash situation, but he'd thankfully not dealt with that. Or, at least, not as a pilot. He stepped out into the living area, pausing for just a moment to look around.

He'd spent a lot of time here. Having bought the junker five years ago and fixed it up, he'd more or less adopted it as his home. Not that that meant a whole lot to him. Jacob knew that, on some level, he'd miss it, much as he had trained himself out of getting attached to things. He'd miss his squalid little bunk room where there was barely enough space to sleep, let alone move around. He'd miss the galley especially.

He and Max had killed a ton of time at that table. Playing cards, getting drunk while catching up on what passed for television nowadays, talking about the good old days. Jacob laughed a little bitterly at that thought. Yeah, they were so good, those old days. The days of starving, running from dickheads who called themselves 'security', busting ass in some minimum wage job just to keep your head above water, drowning slowly in poverty while the handful of rich douchebags drowned in caviar and fine liquor.

Jacob moved deeper into the ship. Here was Max's nook. He'd always been a book nerd and had packed the shelves above the couch here with them. Jacob never saw the point. Besides the fact that he didn't really seem to have a mind or attention span for reading, you could get ten thousand books on an eReader, and that shelf could hold, what, a hundred at most?

He sighed softly and trudged on. Shit, he'd even miss the bathroom. It so well-designed. As a man who lived his life on the run, he appreciated that. Even if he wasn't on the run from the law anymore, he was always running from something, it seemed, even now.

Only that was about to come to an end.

Jacob realized that he was lingering and stepped forward up to the door at the back of the living area. He hit the button and stepped past the threshold as the door snapped open. Into the cargo bay. There was a time not too long ago that he liked coming back here. It had a calming effect on him, walking among the crates, checking the security straps, just existing, really.

It was different now.

Thanks to the lack of maintenance, the cargo bay now held an air of distinct menace. Standing at the catwalk that looked over the whole bay, Jacob saw only a kind of misty gloom. They were leaking steam from too many places now and it had a cast a haze over everything. Over half the lights in the bay were either broken or turned off to save power. Consequently, the bay now looked like something out of a horror vid.

With a soft sigh, Jacob turned left and marched down the catwalk. Reaching the end, he walked down the stairs and descended into the crate maze. The place smelled now, too. Sweat and oil and something else he couldn't quite place. As he reached the first turn in the maze, he sighed heavily, finding his path blocked by a pair of crates that had toppled over, probably sometime when they'd been taking off, or maybe when the Black Iron guys had been stomping around. Bastards had made them lock themselves in their bunk rooms and demanded unrestricted access to the whole ship while they loaded their special cargo.

Jacob hopped over them and moved towards the special cargo zone. He felt an urge to straighten up as he walked over, seeing a bunch of random crap laying around, piled up along the walls. Cabling, a few empty oxygen canisters, a bloated duffel bag (what was even in that? He'd have to check it before selling or pitching everything), a scattering of loose nuts and bolts and other bits of metal. He ignored it. Much as he liked keeping a neat home, (when he could be bothered, it came and it went), he knew it wouldn't matter.