Camping Ch. 7

 

"Aaaaaa..."

They were all screaming as they came out of the hole in the air at a high rate of velocity. One moment they had been speeding along towards Secure Command #36- on a monorail-like tube- and then a hole had appeared in the air and the track had led right into it. Now they were landing.  

No more track, just a crash landing and a screeching of metal. 

Joon found himself flying through the air and landed on a clump of what seemed to be metal junk. Painful landing, too. There were cries for help and screams. Looking around with a groan Joon saw Maia some distance away. She looked alright. 

Where were they?

What was this? 

"Joon.Joon, what's happening?" The commlink. 

Joon groaned as he clambered to his feet, heading for Maia. The tube cars were destroyed, basically, and some of the people were too, from the looks of things. Tough landing. 

Maia had a cut on her forehead and was bleeding. She was hot, in a disheveled way. 

Why was he thinking like that? 

"You asshole," someone near him yelled. He pushed them away, taking Maia's arm. 

"Are you alright?"

She nodded, rubbng blood from her eyes. 

"Could use a drink."

He smiled tiredly, then realized Stella was still talking to him on the comm. 

"We're alright," he replied. "Maybe. I don't know where we are. We went through a... I don't know, a hole in the air? And we're in some... cooling tank area?"

"Strange things have been happening all over the complex. Weird reports... hang on." Muffled talking. " Okay, I'm back. Mallory said there's some kind of weird dimensional warps happening. People ending up weird places." 

"Joon, what was it like?" Mallory. 

"Not now, Mallory," Stella snapped. "Joon, I need to know where you are."

"I don't know," he replied. 

"Look for a floorplan on the wall," she said. "I have to go. Everything's fucked. The western quadrant is offline, which means we have no visibility to the ops center or the Gate. The squatches could be going in and out of the Gate as we speak. Complete dimensional breakdown. The camper is toast so anyone or anything could be entering or exiting. You're going to have to find your way here." 

"Did you say... squatches?"

"Dammit, Joon. Just find your way, okay?"

He suppressed a grin as he turned back to Maia. 

It was stifling and there was a chemical smell in the air. Fumes and great tanks of who knew what. They were on a metal catwalk with tubes dumping fluids into containment tanks. There was a ladder nearby leading up to a higher platform. He made for that. 

"How do you feel about climbing?"

"I can do it," she said. 

"Where are you going?" the man who had accosted him earlier shouted. 

"No idea," said Joon. "Away from here."

"What about us?"

"What about you?" I'm heading to Command. I have no idea where you should go. Where do you work?"

"Engineering."

"Well, at one time I could have given you some directions, but as I don't know where we are... good luck." 

"That's great, thanks." 

Joon shrugged. What could he do? He started climbing.