The Oasis

Chapter 11

Ch 11 

                  Jake dropped the shoe as his breath caught in his throat. The pieces had finally fit together. He looked around at the room, knowing why it reminded him of a subway station. Because it was. Some fatalistic catastrophe and years of neglect had turned it into the ruins it lay in now, but the layout was unmistakable.

                  Jake slumped to the ground, running through all the facts in his mind. He still could not understand why. How could something like this happen? How could Control have hidden it for so long? Who else knew?

                  He had to tell Dr. Lauren. He had to tell the entirety of the expedition. But how?

He knew the way he had come was blocked, but there had to be other options to try. He could wander down the tunnel the other direction, and see where that took him. But who was to say those tunnels were open? Or worse, Jake realized, they could collapse on him at any moment.

                  He refused to believe he was trapped. Dark and closed spaces would not hold the victory over him this time. He was in a station designed for transportation after all. Why not get in and out the same way everyone does.

                  Jake looked around, clicking on the rest of his lights. A small glint in the corner caught his eye. It was a metallic hand rail. Underneath the rubble somewhere, was a set of stairs. They lead only up to a pile of collapsed rock, but beyond that was the surface. Jake turned his auxiliary lights off to conserve power, and began digging away at the rocks. He pulled large ones from the pile and sent them tumbling down the stairs behind him. With each one he removed, the barricade shifted. Jake had no way of knowing if he was making progress, or making it more likely that he would get buried alive, but he had no other option. His hands continued to scoop away at the red dust and the broken pieces of cement and rock.

                  After what seemed like hours, a sprinkle of light filtered through the top. The light spread through the stairwell and filled Jake with hope as though he were a flower getting the first rays of the spring. He dug faster. Several more exhausting minutes passed by before the opening was large enough to crawl through.

                  Jake leaned back and let the light pour in. The dust clouds continued to swirl, casting a red glow across everything. The opening was hardly half a meter square, but it was just large enough for Jake to crawl through. He could make it bigger if he continued to work, but he could also collapse the whole thing in again, and he was far to worn to continue digging away for another hour. After a short respite to catch his breath, Jake set himself to escape.

                  He laid down, crawling across the rubble, putting his arms forward to pull himself through the hole. His progress was maddeningly slow, but he knew he had as much air as he needed. He had wrestled with the idea of ditching the exo-suit once he found out that the atmosphere was no longer a near vacuum. But he had no way of controlling his temperature, or protecting himself from the dust storms, as well as any hazardous and poisonous gasses that still might remain. Crawling through the small hole, with red clouds kicking up all around him, Jake now blessed the exo-suit for keeping the choking dust from filling his lungs.

                  After his shoulders were through, Jake used his elbows to crawl faster. His progress increased until the power pack on his chest caught a snag. He pulled, and heard a crack. He didn’t dare back up, lest he get stuck even further. Jake had few options. He first tried to pull himself up, so his chest was away from the ground. The hole was too small. Then he tried to turn himself around to go through at a different angle. The power pack caught on another piece of rubble and the pile shifted. Rock rumbled about and Jake felt himself squeezed round the middle.