Beep

Chapter Nine

So, the days moved like clockwork. Wake up, talk to Evans, eat, talk to Evans, talk to one of my friends occasionally, talk to Evans some more... basically a lot of talking to Evans.

"I found something today." He said one morning. I was still a little tired from staying up with him until three last night, but I did my best to stay focused. I yawned as I asked,
"What did you find?"
"Jared's video logs. I had forgotten about them considering everything that's happened in the past few weeks, but he used to make one everyday. It could tell me something about what happened."
"So, let's watch some."
"Ooh, this gives me a chance to show off my new skills." He clicked around with the mouse for a second and suddenly an image of a brown haired, grey eyed, dishevelled looking man appeared on my screen.
"Is this Jared?" I asked.
"Yup. I learned how to do this using the manual I found in his room, now we can both watch the video."
"Great, get it started."
"Okay, so this is the video from the twenty first, the day before the airlock security footage stops." As it started to play, things seemed generally normal.
"Mars vacation log number one hundred and twelve." The man began. "As the four month mark of our journey approaches, I'm looking forward now more than ever to our arrival on Mars. I'm having a great time on the ship sure, but now I realize that being seasick is a hundred times easier than being space-sick." I laughed at that, so did Evans. "I'm used to it now of course, but I'm so eager to stand on ground that isn't moving. Despite that, things on the ship are still great. Janis suggested that we start doing regular game nights; she really wants us to play this weird foreign game she likes, Gagalon, or something like that. I think it could be fun. Um, other than that-" Suddenly a girl with black hair, blue bangs that pointed at the end and way too much eyeliner jumped into the frame.
"Video bomb!" She yelled. I could hear Evans laughing at that.
"That's so Blair." He commented, the tiniest hint of sadness in his voice.
"Uh, anyways," Jared continued. "as you can tell everyone's very excited, probably because we're all switching to vacation time next week. So, that's about it for today. Kind of a boring log I know, hopefully I'll have something more interesting to talk about tomorrow. Okay, Jared over and out." Then the video ended.
"So wait, you- at least at that time- were four months into your mission to Mars?" I inquired.
"Apparently." He replied.
"Evans, my ship is four months into our journey. Do you know what this means?" His eyes went wide as the realization hit him. 
"I can come meet you." He muttered.
'Exactly!" I squealed.
"Wait, I want to figure out what's happening on my ship first, I don't want to bring whatever happened here to you."
"Aww..." I took a second to let the blush on my cheeks fade. "But he looked so frazzled, his hair was all messy and his eyes wild, there must have been something else going on, something he didn't say."
"No, that's just Jared, sadly. He was always like that." He let out a sigh. "Hold on, I'll pull up the video from the next day, the day the security footage stops." He did so within seconds and Jared once again appeared on this screen, this time looking even more flustered.
"Mars vacation log number one hundred and thirteen. We just can't take it anymore! As I've mentioned in previous logs, a horrible squeaking noise originating from the airlock has been periodically coming and disappearing for a week now. Janis and I are worried there might be a problem with the airlock, despite the diagnostics coming up clean. Blair and Evans on the other hand are just annoyed. In any case, I think I'm going to go check down there, no matter how nervous the chance of getting sucked out into the vacuum of space makes me. You can't live your whole life in fear, can you? So that's it for today, or maybe I'll record more after I've checked on the airlock, I don't yet. But for now, Jared over and out."
"I remember that now." Evans remarked, as if having a total epiphany. "I remember the squeaking and how we kept asking ISAC what was wrong and how he kept assuring us it was nothing. It wasn't nothing though, obviously. This is definitely what caused them to go missing. They went down to check the airlock and, just like he said, got sucked out into space. But why didn't I go? And why was there a problem in the first place? And why didn't ISAC know about?" All of this was starting to sound eerily familiar.
"You have to get that computer fixed, Evans. It really is your only hope at finding out anything you want to know, everything else is proving to be too vague."
"I'm trying to, you know that. But I wonder if there's anything in that manual of his about restoring deleted files... you know what, I think I'm going to look into that right now actually. Do you mind if I hang up for a bit and call you back later?"
"Not at all."
"Great, so I'll call you when anything interesting pops up."
"Okay, bye."
"Bye." He hung up then.
"I love you, Evans."

I quickly got up and immediately went off to find Raymond. After finding out that Evans's friends died just trying to fix something broken... it made me feel very lucky that my friend hadn't met with the same fate. I found him in the hallway just outside his room and grabbed him into a bear hug without warning. "Um... hey, Andy." He said awkwardly.
"Thank you, for not dying."
"Uh, o-okay. You're welcome, I guess." I chuckled at his reaction.
"I'm sorry, I just felt the need to show a little gratitude to those I care about."
"Did something happen?" He inquired, sounding concerned.
"No, that's the whole point."

    ***

That night, as I laid in bed, I started to hear voices coming from just outside my room. It was Iris, Raymond and Turner of course. Although I tried to zone in on what they were saying, I couldn't quite make it out. The only part I caught was, "Should we see if Andy wants to come?" It was Iris's voice. It was late and I was exhausted, so I considered yelling out 'no', but I was even too tired for that. I heard one of the boys respond with 'let her sleep' or something like that, which suited me just fine. Although, I made a mental note to interrogate them tomorrow morning.

Well, I slept way passed the morning, only beginning to attempt to get up at noon. Though when I remembered last night, it was like a spark of energy. I hopped out of bed and straight to my closet. "What do you think today ISAC, silver, silver or silver?" I asked quickly.
"That is the twenty sixth time you've said that this trip."
"At least I'm consistent."

I headed straight to the kitchen, determined to get them to fess up to everything. "Let's just make this easy, fess up to whatever you guys did last night." I said as I stepped through the door. But I was surprised to find the room empty. Then I remembered that even though I'd just woken up it wasn't actually morning, so they were probably hanging out in the main room. I went over there next, entering the same way. "Let's just make this easy-" I was cut off by the sight of the empty room in front of me. Now my heart started to race. "Oh no." I whispered under my breath. I sprinted back into the hallway our rooms were in and checked through each one, they were no where to be found. By the time I got back to the main room I was going hysterical. "ISAC!" I screamed. "Where. Are. They?"
"Andromeda..." His voice was so small.
"Did you do this? I thought we had a deal. Even ignoring that, this is way to far! How could you be such a monster?!"
"I didn't do this, Andromeda. Even you accusing me of it disgusts me."
"Then what happened?" I demanded. "There's no way you don't know."
"I do know."
"Then tell me."
"I'm trying to!" I stepped back and took a breath.
"Go on." I urged.
"Iris and Turner were jealous of Raymond's spacewalk and so they decided to go out and do one together. So they did and at first it was fine, but then..." God, i know computers don't have emotions, but he was as damn close to it as possible. "Turner started to run out of oxygen, he must have been wearing the same suit Raymond used to go out and check on the antenna. I watched them scramble to try and get back inside, but their chords had gotten knotted together from all the flips and tricks they had been doing, they were stuck. Not wanting her brother to die, Iris sacrificed her own oxygen. What she didn't realize was that it was already too late. So she died trying to save her already dead brother." I felt like I was going to throw up and I desperately wanted him to stop talking, but I hadn't even gotten the whole story yet.
"What about Raymond?" I questioned.
"Raymond... it was too much for him, he started having a panic attack and couldn't recover. He used up his remaining oxygen in about ten minutes." That sent me right back to what Iris had said a couple days ago, 'I don't want you to go out there and have a panic attack in the middle of space'. Even though not at the time she expected, it had happened and that's what got him killed too. "I'm sorry, Andromeda. I didn't know what to do."
"Honestly, there was nothing you could do." That didn't make it any better though, of course.

At that moment, a call from Evans came through. I was in no mood to talk, but I didn't just want to hang up on him either. I answered it, but kept my face turned away so he couldn't see how red and puffy my eyes were from crying. "Hey Andy, sorry I didn't call you sooner but-" Obviously my attempts at hiding had failed, because he instantly turned concerned. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, um, I just need a minute."
"Andy, if you need me or if there's anything you want to talk about-"
"I want to be alone right now, actually."
"A-All right. Just know I'm here for you and I care about you and-"
"Bye, Evans."
"Huh, bye." I quickly hung up and turned away from the screen. I plopped down in a corner of the room and pulled my knees to my chest. Then, I just let it all out. Tears that came hard and fast and unending.