“Warning: The station will run out of oxygen in approximately 20 minutes. This is not a test.”
I walked through the door to see my neighbors had already gone into an all out panic mode, the couches and beds were stacked up in the center of the room.
“You two wait here, I’m gunna see what’s up for a sec.”
It seemed like they had a plan, so I scrambled up the mattresses, the owner of the house was sitting near the top as his family and friends climbed around.
“What are you doing?”
“We don’t know; we’re trying to get into the ceiling vent. I can’t believe they sealed us all in here, dying in a space colony due to lack of oxygen on earth. It’s insanity, I respond in kind.”
I saw in his eyes that the last part rang too true, and climbed down.
“Anything?” seeing the exchange had made my friends uncomfortable.
“Let’s head back,” it was all the answer they needed.
“Warning: The station will run out of oxygen in approximately 15 minutes. This is not a test.”
Back in the apartment, the place was a mess from looking for the book.
“Anything?”
“No. You?”
“Nope.”
“Dang, what now?”
The drinks we had were helping us deal with this. Perhaps, looking back, we were a slight too calm.
“You said you say a super in here earlier.”
“Maybe.”
“Well, I’m finding out what the hell they do, and where he went.”
“He might have gone out the front door and no one saw him!”
“She’s right.”
“I don’t care, I know something’s up.”
“Why don’t we all just evacuate?”
“If we could, we wouldn’t need air.”
“Warning: The station will run out of oxygen in approximately 10 minutes. This is not a test.”
“…Makes sense, let’s look around.”
“We’ll check the back, c’mon.”
“Sounds good, I wanna see what’s behind this panel up there.” I’d had my eye on this panel for a little while now, it was a large one, about two square feet, and looked hollow last time I saw it open out of the corner of my eye when one of the supers was fiddling around inside of it. It was just below the ceiling of the circular entry/living room. I climbed onto the couch, and onto a small second-tier ledge. Now, how do they open these? I thought to myself. I’d started to get a good mind hold of how I’d go about opening it when I heard a call from the other room.
“Hey, we–”
“Warning: The station will run out of oxygen in approximately 5 minutes. This is not a test.”
“What?”
“I said, hey, we think we found something!”
“Well, what is it?”
“A panel in the back of the master bedroom!”
“Did you get it open?”
“Uhh…”
“I think you just push it, get a grip with your fingers, and it could just pop right off,” I shouted while I tested this theory with my panel.
“It works!” they shouted. It worked.
“What’d you guys find?”
“A lot of gizmos and circuitry, a small hallway, sealed by debris.”
“We’re all gunna die here!” was the only clear shout I could hear from someone from the other room.
“Don’t worry guys, I found something here. There’s a path, it’s narrow, but it’s something.”
“Warning: The station is out of oxygen. This is not a test.”
GuNNhead 