THE FALL OF ROSENROT STATION

HUNTED

The arclights flared overhead. Then they burst one by one and he lifted his kitbag over his head to protect himself from the shards of burning-hot glass and sparks. He rubbed his eyes and looked around. The concourse was plunged into darkness save for in that narrow band of the window where that red sun came through. The rest of the concourse was lit pink by its diffuse light.

Then there was a sound. A thump of a stall door opening behind him within the bathroom. He backed away and the spun and walked briskly down the concourse and turned into that inky darkness towards the security station.

He held the light of his coder in front of him. Its weak light barely touched his feet. There was a coldbulb in his kit but he didn't want to stop. He made it down to the office and was about to turn inside when he looked at the scanners. Their glow lights no longer pulsed. The laser biometric scanners were blank. This was his chance. He shouldered his kitbag and stepped through gingerly.

The alarm did not sound. He hurried forward. He gripped the strap of his kitbag with his left hand across his chest and holding his palmcoder also that faint glow of its screen the only thing keeping him from smashing into the walls.

Then his legs did strike something. There was a crashing sound as he fell over some hard thing in the darkness. His mouth opened as if to scream out his pain but he remained quiet. His palmcoder had clattered across the tiles and lay on the floor a few meters away. He picked himself up heavily and then felt out the shape of an auto server; it was tipped on its side and its wheels still spinning with the electrostatic field from its induction engine picking at the hairs on his arms. He stood and then he righted the stricken server, which immediately continued its last command given and carried on up the corridor towards the checkpoint. He picked his way amongst dinner plates scattered there on the floor like landlines until he got to his coder. He bent and picked it up and checked the screen briefly. It was not damaged. He looked around. There were many rooms and offices. Each had an electronic scanner that was lit red. They were locked. He counted up six locked rooms and then the corridor was met by another in a T-section. There were signs here. He read them in the light of his coder.

HR + Computer Labs
Dock
Spindel
Warehouse + Medical

There were illuminated stripes along the walls. Each one glowed pale in the darkness.

He went left. There were more rooms. Rooms of all types. He saw one with its door partially open and he started towards it.

Then there was a crashing sound behind him. He hurried forward and threw himself into the room. Immediately he performed a quick survey of the rooms contents using the light of his coder.

In this halfdark he could see a desk and a terminal facing the other way and a chair behind that. A glint of metal in the corner adjacent the desk was a single file locker. There were papers spread all over the desk and some on the floor. There was a couch between the door and the desk. A coffee table held physicals the degrees uncertain. Perhaps engineering.

He returned to the door and pressed the diode to close it. When it didn't do that he gripped the long sideways canted grippinghandle and slid this bulk across and into its holdings. The magnetic lock made a quiet snap. His eyes went to the manual locking system. It consisted of two internal bars that would slide forward and then hook over some internal holdings. He gripped the exterior bolt of one and pulled so that unseen to him the lock fell froward and engaged. He repeated the same at the bottom, crouching down and jiggling the bar until he felt it lock.

Something passed by the door. He was still crouched and he slowly and carefully rose from the door and backed away. Then it came back. It dragged its fingernails or maybe its claws across the door. The sound was maddening but it stopped after a few seconds. The door shuddered then, as the thing reared up onto it. It's nose snuffled on the other side of the peep-hole in the door.

It was gone then. It left in silence save the odd click of its feet occasionally.

Even immediately turned his coder back on and began typing in a new addition to the log.

MET 07-16 poss encounter with hostile, managed to evade. Profile: bipedal humanoid, claws or nails, scent tracker.