The Extinction Trials(10)
“I can tell you that you’re going to be okay. And we’re looking for your mother and sister.”
PART II
The Station
Chapter Nine
When Owen woke, the pain was gone.
Except for his eyes. A dull ache started there and radiated into his head.
He opened his eyes, but he saw only white—and felt more pain.
He shut them tight and listened. It was utterly quiet, the only sound the soft beating of his heart. That in itself was strange—the idea that he could hear his own heart beating.
He reached up, but his hands almost instantly hit a solid wall. It didn’t feel like a wall, more like a block of ice. The surface was frigid. The impact made an echoing gong sound in the space.
He realized then that the wall he had hit wasn’t ice. It was glass. With each passing moment, his mind seemed to work a little better. Sensation throughout his body returned.
Carefully, he raised his hand and felt the frigid glass that surrounded him. He was in a cylinder of some sort, that much was certain. He was completely naked. Tubes were attached to both of his arms.
He tried opening his eyes again. Slowly, the white he saw resolved into a view of the ceiling and three lights there, distorted by the curvature of the glass cylinder that held him. Somewhere beyond his view, a red light flashed, strobing the room.
A loud pop sounded and the glass rose. Air hissed in—cold air, hitting him like an electric shock, making him convulse.
An alarm blared—the sharp sound synchronized with the flashing red.
The cold, the pain from the light, and the piercing alarm overwhelmed Owen, a sensory assault smothering him.
He closed his eyes and was curling into a ball when strong hands grabbed his arms and hauled him up and out of the cylinder. The person didn’t even bother to disconnect the tubes in his arms. The lines jerked free with a stab of pain that was only barely noticeable over the chill pressing into him.
His feet hit the floor, which was so cold it sent a wave of shock up from his feet.
“Put these on.” The voice was male, calm, serene even—a stark contrast to the alarm.
Owen cracked his eyes enough to see a young man. He was slender and lanky, with short blond hair. He pressed a black sweater into Owen’s hands. The garment was thick and ribbed, with something sewn inside. Owen pulled it on immediately. The young man pressed a finger into a chest patch on the sweater, and it instantly began heating up, infusing Owen’s torso with warmth.
Still, his breath came out in a puff of white fog, his voice scratchy, as if he hadn’t used it in a very long time. “Who… are you?”
“Call me Bryce.” The young man reached for a pair of pants and boots that lay on a silver metal cart nearby.
Without a word, Owen slipped them on. Bryce bent over and tapped similar patches on each, and the garments warmed.
Suddenly, the lights snapped off, plunging the room into darkness except for the glow of the panel beside the glass cylinder and the red strobe light.
Then the lights came back on, flickering, unsteady at first.
“Where—”
“I’ll tell you what I know,” Bryce said quickly, grabbing Owen’s arm. “But first, I need you to help me wake the others.”
The young man pulled Owen forward with surprising strength.
For the first time, Owen took in the room. There were seven glass cylinders similar to the one in which he had awoken. They were all empty. Several metal carts were strewn across the room, also empty. On the far wall hung three screens, all off, one cracked.
Bryce tugged him toward the door until Owen fell in behind him, struggling to keep up. It was as though his body was slowly coming alive again.
Outside the room was a narrow hallway. Overhead, the alarm droned, and red light pulsed.
Owen glanced back at the lighted control panel beside the door to the room where he had woken up. It read POD 12. Across the way, a door panel read POD 13. Beyond it, the door read POD 15, and POD 17 past that.
The long corridor stretched out to the left and right, terminating at what looked like an airlock at each end.
“Hurry,” Bryce said as he sprinted down the hall. He paused and motioned to an open door. “I’ll wake them. I need you to take them to this room and wait for me.”
Catching up, Owen read the screen beside the door:
OBSERVATION 2.
“Wake who?” Owen asked.
“There’s no time to explain,” Bryce said. He rushed to a door nearby that read POD 10 and pressed his thumb into the control panel. The door swooshed open, revealing a room exactly like the one Owen had awoken in. Seven glass cylinders sat on pedestals—six open, one closed.
Bryce rushed to the closed cylinder and placed his thumb on the panel beside it.
When Owen caught up to him, he scanned the screen, reading the log.
Subject:
Maya Young.
Recent Updates:
Power failure.
Initiating battery backup.
Battery capacity 43%.
Battery capacity 33%.
Power restored.
Charging battery backup.
Power failure.
Initiating battery backup.
Battery capacity 37%.
Battery capacity warning: 20%.
Power restored.
Charging battery backup.