Red Rock

Chapter 7: A Piece of Mind for Peace of Mind (Part 2)

Daire sat with the rest of his residence in a holding room. Akin security personnel were running around in turmoil over the recent crisis. Even the security headquarters adjacent to the holding room swarmed with authorities. The head of security debriefed the residents on what had happened, and assured that what had just taken place would not happen again. He added that there were safety precautions to prevent this from happening in the first place, but Neil had violated set security standards by writing his personal security password on the back of his identification card, allowing Timothy to have Akin personnel authority.

"Why didn't you come quicker?" Jessica asked, separating herself from the grips of Sasha. "You could have saved those people!" she sobbed, feeling traumatized.

"We are currently in a very large ship ma'am," the officer started. "Not only did we have to travel a significant distance to your residence. We also had to understand the emergency and its location. We typically don't run into situations we don't understand. Manual deportation of an emergency capsule usually involves a life threatening malfunction of some sort."

"Like what!?" Jessica responded in disbelief.

"Easy there," Sasha soothed, grabbing Jessica in tight.

The officer didn't seem fazed by Jessica's distressed behavior and continued as if it were an everyday occurrence. "They usually involve hull breaches, crash landings, fires, that sort of thing."

"What about Jacob?" Daire asked changing the subject. "Is he alright?"

The officer smiled. "That son of a bitch is the reason why most of you are alive. He's in intensive care at the moment with severe lacerations to both of his hands, a deep stab wound going through his small intestines, and a pair of broken ribs on his left side." He shook his head. "He's in stable condition and will join you guys back at your residence in a few days. Until then, we're going to watch over him."

"We're going back?" Daniel asked. His feminine pale skin stretching across his tightly knit face from concern, he was not motivated to return to the scene of the crime.

"Yes you're all going back. Everything has been cleaned and replaced, so none of you should have any problems," said the officer making his way out the door. "We're only two weeks away now, stay strong!" he finished, disappearing into the headquarters.

The officer was right. Everything had been cleaned and replaced at the residence during their absence. The kitchen had an acidic smell from the cleaning chemicals, and the walls shone like obsidian glass. Not a trace of blood or gore was found anywhere, settling down the stress from the traumatic events a day's prior. Each member of the residence apprehensively wandered into their own rooms, mindful of their surroundings. It was technically waking hours, but everyone was exhausted and feeling reclusive. 'No more confrontation for the day!' was the general consensus around the room, and within a few minutes, everything was silent.

*

Daire sat at the games table playing Monopoly with Sasha, Jessica, and Daniel. The game started off with laughs and giggles, but quickly turned into an Olympic final. Sasha and Jessica refused to make eye contact with each other after a scuffle on jail time. "You've only been in jail for two turns Jessica, get back in there!" Sasha accused, feeling enraged that someone would cheat in Monopoly.

"No I didn't! I've been in here for three! Don't be stupid!" Jessica replied, betting her life and soul that she had already been in there for three. The four players backtracked and figured out that Jessica had indeed only been in jail for two turns. Even though Sasha was right, Jessica still despised her for calling her out on it. Daniel hadn't said a word in almost thirty minutes. His situation was hopeless, mortgaging four of his five remaining properties and was on the brink of bankruptcy, but after three hours of gameplay he refused to quit until it was over. Daire started the game laughing too, even selling Daniel a 'Get Out of Jail Free!' when times got rough for him. It was a different story now. Daire could smell blood and the game was nearing an end. He owned the two most expensive colors and had hotels on all of them.