Michael Siemsen - Exigency

John.

Could John get up? Was he still hurt? How long had he been healing? Five days? Ten? Thirty? Time felt so inestimable—intangible.

Beep… beep… beep… beep…

She wished she could snooze it. Just five more minutes, Dad. Five more minutes of sleep was all she needed. Could she wirelessly connect to whatever it was? That would be the ideal. Not leaving the tent—no—that would be the absolute worst-case scenario. No leaving the tent just yet.

A list of available devices popped up in her fone’s basic standby interface. Two MWs, one MS, the heater’s diagnostics interface, John’s suit, Minnie’s suit. An orange dot flashed beside John’s suit, indicating it was low on power and in powersave mode. He certainly hadn’t been moving enough to provide any significant charging. Next to Minnie’s suit, the blinking red dot revealed that it was the source of the alert sound. Almost dead power cells? How could she have less power than John? She connected to it and silenced the alarm.

About to disconnect, she reread the alert.

ENVIRONMENTAL ALERT – Advise close visor, seal suit.

Minnie sat up, bare arms instantly chilled by the frigid air outside her covers. She didn’t even remember taking off the suit the night before.

Wait, what time is it?

She fully activated her fone and the usual border of icons filled the top and bottom of her view. It was almost sundown—32 hours had passed since she’d left the message on the supply pod. Something was very wrong. She’d never been able to sleep more than seven hours. And what about urination? Had she gone in the tent? She felt the mat beneath her and it was dry. Her stomach, too, didn’t hurt, despite the fact that she still hadn’t had her first movement. And why was the suit advising about seals?

Eyes still heavy, a soothing voice encouraged her to relax, to just be glad the beeping had ceased, to go back to sleep for just a little while, that she deserved it. Minnie fought the temptation and connected to the multisensor somewhere in the dark outside the tent. She had it run a new environment analysis. At sea level, oxygen was always lower on Epsy than it was on Earth, but in the cave it had apparently gone down 3% over the past two weeks, simulating an extreme rise in altitude. Stranger still, it wasn’t replaced by nitrogen or carbon dioxide.

O 2: 12.2%

N: 66.8%

CO 2: 4.6%

Ar: 1.04

Oth: 15.36

Well that’s a whole lot of “other,” Minnie thought, still struggling to focus. What the hell is it?

She expanded the “other” line to see what they’d been breathing, but didn’t recognize the mixture. Whatever it was, she guessed it was toxic. After downloading the values, she switched to the med app and dropped the gas mixture into a typimale of John’s height, weight, and age. It sped through simulations: 5 minutes, 30 minutes, 4 hours, 24 hours, 1 week. It didn’t even have to go that far. Right away she grasped that, for humans, the gas mixture would be received as a potent anesthetic.

I wonder…

The warmth and peace of her bag calling to her, she drove on, running through the list and selecting each compound to pull up the details. Nitrous oxide, propofol, several others without names that would surely have some sort of medical significance back on Earth. She blinked slowly. So much of the past two weeks suddenly seemed to make sense. Maybe. Or maybe this was a dream. Some fresh air would be nice. Some cool outside air… but it was so far. Maybe after a little more rest.

Cripes… of course!

She violently slapped her face, unzipped the door, and staggered out of the tent, clumsily pulling on her suit. It was like untangling a hundred cables tied up in fishing net. Eventually, feet found their way to boots, hands made it through sleeves, and her helmet surrendered to her sealing efforts.

After only a few deep breaths, her muddy head already began clearing. And after a few more, some of the “other” elements struck her as familiar, after all. She pulled up the acid slime sample she’d taken from one of John’s parasitic worms and compared the elements. The substance contained many more compounds than the air—more than two dozen—but all six of the unknowns in the cave air existed in the slime.

The air hadn’t always been that way. This was certain. When they’d first arrived, it was only slightly off from the outside mixture.

The heat!

That was absolutely it. Raising the cave temp had activated the worms. She’d even said it. She’d said it and never looked back. But had she inadvertently poisoned the air by killing all the worms? Like carbon from deforestation? She switched to therm and moved her head through a full scan of the floor, walls, and ceiling. All appeared clear until red streaked across her optic as she glanced past the smaller subcavern. She looked back and walked toward it.

Indeed, speckling the subcavern’s walls, floor, and ceiling, plus entirely coating the half-barricaded tunnel, there were thousands of the things. In therm, it looked like someone had lit up the place with red holiday lights.

Minnie rushed back to the campsite and began shoving their gear into the backpacks. Food, clothes, SSKs, weapons. She needed to carry it all in one trip out. And that’d be the easy part. Getting John into his suit and helmet, dragging him across the cave, out through the underwater tunnel, and then somehow up and out the sinkhole—probably still unconscious the entire time—it all might pose a small challenge.

An abrupt scritch . Again, longer. Nausea. Neck pain, legs sore, side burning, jaw… so much burning. Hunger. Dry mouth. Unable to swallow.

Strangely, among all the new pain, the pressure behind John’s fone was still relentless. He wanted to rip it from his face, but needed it to keep contact with Minnie. Minerva.

Scriiiitch!

The sound pierced his helmet and he suddenly sensed his orientation: upside down and buried beneath something.

His body lurched reflexively when his boot knock something that wasn’t a wall. He woke up his fone to see where he was. Low power alert from his suit. Everything felt wrong. Something pushed his feet again and his helmet scratched once more against coarse rock. He was in the water tunnel. How had she gotten him into the tunnel? What was the last thing he remembered? Hadn’t he taken off his suit at some point?

JOHN: What’s happening?

MINNIE: Hey! Good morning! Just sit tight, okay?

Assigning inflections to text was generally ill-advised, but her M looked downright chipper.

Light appeared at the end of the tunnel. Apparently daytime outside. He used his hands to guide his body through the tunnel and keep himself from banging up against anything. His arms felt tender and weak, as if they’d been punched all over a thousand times. An unseen Minerva continued to push him forward from behind.

MINNIE: Almost there! You still doing OK?

JOHN: For the most part. Care to share the plan/situation here?

She shoved him out of the tube and into the wide pool of green-hued water. He tried to right his body into a proper feet-down orientation, but the attempt only served to reemphasize the uselessness of his muscles and to light up sore spots on his legs, side, neck, and chest. Minerva appeared before him, took hold of his shoulders with her hands, and used her legs to set him upright. Facing helmet to helmet, he saw her grinning face. He watched as her eyes skittered about—movements indicative of typing. A few seconds later, he received the M.

MINNIE: I was going to tie your limp body to the rope and then lift you out. Now, same plan, but with you awake you’re much less likely to be damaged in the process.