Critical Failure

 Trigger warnings: mentions of suicide, death, murder, and violence.

Critical Failure Report – Unit 6534 – All Coms Down

The words flashed on out control panel. We all knew what it meant. All four of us breathed and said nothing for a moment. Gerart gave a long drawn out “Fuck”, which, yeah.

Our mission was simple, collect data, research the planet, don’t die, don’t become more hassle than you’re worth. The Collective don’t waste resources on rescue missions, but they pay well and if you’re lost on mission your family get a nice payout.

No one would be there to cash my cheque.

“Don’t panic” Maywen spoke then, I could see them from the corner of my eye, a calming influence.

“Fuck this!” A crash came as Skip decided the solution was throwing things. The solution is almost never throwing things.

People react to the thought of their slow demise differently, some throw things, others try to keep up morale. Others sit in a corner and rock back and forth. That was Kim, she was muttering something. It may well have been about her brothers back home. At least they were there to cash the cheque.

It was time to make plans. That’s easier said than done when you are staring down the barrel of a gun. Maybe a gun was too quick a metaphor for what would happen to us. We would slowly run out of supplies, considered a lost cause by The Collective. We would have water, sure, but food would be rationed and then run out. Maybe the generator would fail, and we would breath in toxic atmosphere until we slowly lost consciousness. Maybe the coms would return and we would be fine, lots of maybes. Not very many plans.

It has taken an hour to arrange all the food and make up a ration plan. Skip has been bouncing his foot for the last thirty minutes. We have all noticed the tension. I make eye contact with Maywen often, checking that they are okay and that they don’t see the need for action. If it were me I would have knocked him out hours ago. Too much of a panic is no good in this environment. Maywen sees the best in people. If they think something is necessary then it is. I keep checking on them. They look into my eyes and convey calm.

Gerart stands at the front by the whiteboard, “So, we should have enough rations for around 6 weeks, 3 days. Given the likelihood-“

“May as well kill ourselves now then!” Skip is on his feet. “You know those assholes aren’t coming for us”

“Skip-“ I try and put a hand on his arm.

“Get the fuck off me!” He howls, jerking my arm back and jamming my shoulder. I reel back a bit but stand my ground.

“Skip. You need to calm down” It’s Maywen. Their holding their hands up in front of him.

“Calm down so we can all die a slow and painful death?” Skip is still shouting. “I don’t fucking think so” He storms across the room.

“They won’t fucking do this to me!” Skip screams, his back arched back, his voice ringing to the ceiling above.

The Collective can’t hear him. The only people listening are us. And we’re as doomed as he is.

Maywen checks on everyone before bed. I wonder how someone so kind ended up here.

“Is you shoulder okay?” They ask.

My hand reflexively reaches for it, it doesn’t hurt.

“Yeah, don’t need to cut it off or nothing”

Maywen smiles.

They squeeze my hand when they tell me things will be better tomorrow. It makes me want to believe it.

We find Kim’s body hanging from the rigging when we rise the next morning. She hangs there limp and lifeless. We all try and pretend we aren’t thinking about increased rations.

 I liked Kim well enough, she hummed while she worked. She also snored. I wondered if the bunk room would be too quiet now. The very air hungering for something to fill it. Maywen and Gerart cut the rope tying her there and lay her body out. We have body bags in case of emergencies so we wrap her in one. It’s strange to see her like that. Kim was never silent and now that is all she will ever be.

We talk about her as a sort of send-off. Passing around some extra food.

“Waste of resources” Skip mutters, but doesn’t yell again.

We get another warning a few hours later.

Generator Failure Report – Unit 6534 – Automator Down

Skip throws some more things around, no one tries to stop him. The generator now has to be restarted every three hours. A monotonous routine to shape our remaining hours. Kim was our engineer and therefore the only one able to fix it. The rest of us make up a shift schedule while Skip curses Kim’s name. The bunk room is quieter without her.

We fall into a routine. We sit around mostly. Gerart continues his research, collating data points and writing up findings. Skip tries to pick a fight about the futility of this, but no one responds. We get up every time it’s our turn and head for the generator. It’s my turn in the early evening, I had been helping Maywen organise new rationing charts. I pat their shoulder and head down the hall. I take the steps down to the small space where the generator lies. I jaunt up to it and flick the switch.

The drone of the generator rings out around the compound once more.

“Seya in 12 hours” I rap my knuckles against the top of the generator.

I get up at 4am to turn the generator on and find Gerart.

His body lies crumpled on the floor by the whiteboard. His head spilling all its ecological data points and gray matter in a puddle. I swallow bile that claws in my throat and turn to tell the others. It’s just Maywen, Skip, and I now. The bunk room seems weirdly empty. We’re dropping like flies.

Skip checks over the body and confirms what we could all see. That Gerart is long dead. We place him in a body bag just like Kim and try not to look at the gash in his head. I tuck his arms in, placing them across his body. I get a flash of memory from that. I see him pondering the endless indecipherable data on the whiteboards. I hear him muttering about graphing and interesting fauna. I pat his hand and get a shock at the state of his wrists.

They’re bruising, and red with scratches. Signs of a struggle.

I swallow and try not to let my shock show on my face. I look up at catch Skip’s eye. He’s looking for my reaction and I can only hope my face holds no truth for him.

“Rest in peace buddy” Skip says. I raise the corner of my mouth.

I look to Maywen, they seem to be taking this hard. Did they see the marks? Do they know?

I wait a while, pretending to read old reports. Then, I ask Maywen to join me playing cards away from prying eyes and ears. Skip is throwing a ball against a wall in the meeting space. They nod and join me in my bunk. I don’t know how to start but they beat me to the punch.

“I spoke to Kim that night”

I must look confused as they continue.

“She didn’t kill herself”

“Did you see Gerart’s wrists?” I ask.

They nod. We both sit there looking at each other for a moment. I place a card down between us. Keeping up the ruse seeming pointless but what else was there to do?

“Do we kill him?” I ask, and play a card.

“No” Maywen plays a card.

“It’s necessary” I play a card.

“I hardly think so” They play a card.

“You’re being naïve” I play a card.

“We aren’t him” They play a card.

“Better of like him than dead”

Maywen wins the game.

I lie back in the bunk, not caring about the cards scattered around. Maywen lays next to me and sighs. I can smell them from where we’re laying but all the standard issue soap smells the same.

“This isn’t how I thought my life would go” I say it and it surprises me.

“I wasn’t planning on being murdered” Maywen’s voice is light.

I almost laugh then but it catches in my throat.

“I don’t want to think about you being murdered” My voice is a whisper.

“Don’t, then. Think of something completely different”

“Like what?” I ask, our fingers brushing together at our sides.

Maywen tells me about a field back home. It’s a conserved area for nature, filled with daisies and other wild flowers. They describe the rippling wave of wind caressing the grass. They talk about picnics and laughter, about good times and sudden down pours. They don’t talk about their family. They don’t mention friends. Who will be there for cash in Maywen’s cheque? Who will be there to mourn? I hope I won’t.

I allow myself to live in Maywen’s field for a while, we add to it while we talk. Imagining a stand to sell cold drinks, a music festival in the summer. Hot afternoons spent together far far away from this toxic planet. Far far away from the reality of our situation.

We look at each other and bask in a temporary moment of peace. They press their lips to mine and it’s not surprising. It is peaceful.

“It’s not fair is it?”

“No, life isn’t”

I squeeze their hand and return to my bunk when it’s time for lights out. We agree to game plan the next day and agree to get up together for generator shifts in the meantime. We don’t talk about the possibility of him being in the generator room waiting for one of us. We don’t mention how the atmosphere shifts when he enters our hollowed out bunk room.

I lay in my bunk wondering if I should have just stayed with Maywen. We were both worried he would react to any change. Instead I just took my bunk across from them and looked long into their eyes until they began to droop from sleep.

The thrum of the generator is dead and the air is thick with silence.

I swing out of my bunk and my head fusses a bit, how long has the generator been off?

Why didn’t Maywen wake me for her shift? Panic cuts confusion as I see her empty bunk.

A sick understanding registers with me as I see a single drop of blood in the doorway.

I hold in the outcry of grief that tries to shake from my lips.

I don’t go looking for their body.

I don’t want to wrap them up like Kim and Gerart.  

I can’t see them lying there as they did.

I know I have to go there. Go to the switch and flick on the generator once more.

I know I have little time. I know what I will find there. I know what I would find.

I could see him in my mind’s eye. Stood between me and my lifeline. Him.

That sickening glint in his eye, sweat on his brow. Blood of colleagues, comrades, friends, crusted under his nails.

I know I have to go there. I know what I would find. And yet.

I would be next. The last to go. Except him.

The thing about fear is that imagining the scare before it comes doesn't stop the horror of your eyes witnessing it. I made the familiar walk.

I reach the generator room.

There he stands. There's a wrench grasped loosely in his hand. It has blood dried on it. I wonder if it was Maywen's. A final touch to be placed upon my face.

I look at him. I almost want to greet him as a colleague, my brains neural pathways remembering him as a friend even as the hairs stand on the back of my neck.

I grab a container of cleaning powder and throw it at him. Maybe sometimes throwing things is the answer.

He throws himself forward through the powder cloud colliding with me and crushing me against the door frame. I think of Maywen and throw my weight against him. He staggers just enough for me to duck out from his weight.

I rush for the wrench on the floor, trying not to think.

Something solid hits my head and my vision blurs further. He drags me by the hair so I’m further from the wrench but my arms keep reaching.

I throw my body back suddenly, throwing him off balance, then scramble for the weapon. There’s powder all over the floor and everything is shifting in my vision. He can’t see clearly either, shaking his head and sweating. He still says nothing only taking heaving breaths. I want explanations but his excuses won’t fix this. I know what I have to do.

I rush him, bringing my body down on top of his and bring the wrench down hard anywhere I can reach. It keeps falling then, striking him over and over. My mind snaps back and I stop.

I see the life drain from him, his eyes latch to mine for a second then lose all to the dark. I slump to the floor next to him, my head still ringing.

Some unknowable amount of time passes.

A monitor beeps and tells me a supply ship is coming.

A monitor beeps and tells me the generator is still not running.

A monitor beeps.