Murmansk-13

Hernandez breathed a relieved sigh as he left the exposed space of the atrium, the corridor was wide but straight. He would see trouble approaching long before he was trapped. As the burden of dread lifted his steps became freer and gradually heavier as he ascended the passageway. The gentle press of kinetically generated gravity caused his heavy steps to slew in momentary disorientation, his inner ear experienced brief vertigo as he passed the indistinct threshold from the artificially processed gravity at the core to the mechanically processed gravity of the outer ring. He caught himself with a cocky grin and righted his footing as his body warred against the Coriolis effect. For the uninitiated the effect would be stomach churning, like dropping from the top of a rollercoaster while simply walking forward.

The fear and tension that had accompanied him since arriving at the station left Hernandez strung out. For eight hours it had been a distraction from withdrawal, an almost psychological high. Now alone and relaxed he could feel his mind unspooling, the edge lost. It wasn’t a comedown, so much as a physiological and psychological drain, a loss of focus. His EVA suit suddenly felt heavy against his shoulders and constricting, irritating. The emptiness and whiteness of the corridor lacked stimulation, his eyes flickering for want of a focal point. Cool sweat glistened his forehead and grew chill against the constant breeze pulsing from the service corridor, the slackened quiff of his hair adhered to his face, itching his nose.

Hernandez rubbed his eyes and slicked back his hair, tried to remember he was doing this for Tala. One of the few people who saw the real him, not the empty vessel of home. Tala knew him in a way other people didn’t. She would appreciate he had come, alone. Hernandez remembered the drunken and confused night they’d bunked together, he’d never let her know he’d got hung up on it. Couldn’t, it would destroy their friendship. But it didn’t stop his mind from drifting, didn’t prevent each footfall from being tired and angry, the swatch of dim grey bulkheads that indicated the terminus of the corridor growing no closer. He looked at the time readout in his suit, he’d left Nilsen and Pettersson at the reactor sixteen minutes ago.

The first heinous threads of rotten flesh came shortly after, plucking at his olfactory senses and stopping Hernandez in his tracks. He’d smelt death before when he’d visited one of his dealer-friends trailer and found him riddled with bullets. The insides of his tin plate abode sweaty with condensation, the body bloated beneath a carpet of maggots. He tried to remember the man’s name as the smell intensified.

Then he heard the distinct pounding of flesh – fists and palms – against buckling metal, somewhere in the distance. Adrenaline fired through his body like a much needed hit, he hesitated against the rush as his edge returned. For a moment he wondered if it could be Tala or the Captain’s group in trouble, but the fist and palms were too numerous, the low guttural calls too inhuman. The fear redoubled, he back stepped and felt a cold metal cylinder press into the nape of his neck.

“Where are the other two?” A female voice, affected British and vaguely familiar, asked.

Hernandez pressed his eyelids closed, angry at himself for letting his attention slip. How long had she been following him? He felt the gun barrel scrape against the base of his skull, pushing for an answer. He wondered if this was like the last moments of the lives of people he’d known in Tuxtla, the friends of the other Hernandez, the detached Hernandez, friends who’d pushed the wrong people. The guy in the trailer, melting through the thin metal skin of his home. “Fuck you, cono,” was the only answer Hernandez was going to give and waited for the hammer to strike the pin, realizing he’d known it would end this way.

☣☭☠

The autumn sun was low in the clear sky, watery and pallid as Katja made her way through the rush hour crowds. Swaddled in furs against the frigid mid December air, thick with condensate. Usually she revelled in the hubbub of the city on a Friday evening and the weekend atmosphere of release. The Christmas lights would soon flicker to life as twilight deepened and she fought the urge to linger. But tonight she had to get home.