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Chapter 27 – Would that have any affect?

Chapter 27 – Would that have any affect?

[Location: Decontamination Depot t3rm1nu5 - Hallway leaving Control Room #1]

Charlie peeked down the hallway then pulled himself back to take cover. Fifteen years ago when he was in the Army, he had secured buildings when he was stationed in the Middle East. But his tour of duty had been quite a while ago and right now he was winded. Cleaning out enemy combatants for a twenty-year-old was a lot easier than at thirty-five. His lungs burned as he sucked air in and out like a steam engine. He wiped his face with his hand and snapped the sweat from the ends of his fingers onto the floor. He could feel his body heat rising from the gap between the collar of his armor and his neck as it mixed with the smell of his own body odor.

I forgot how much I hate this fuckin’ armor.

Still winded, he leaned back against the wall and continued to replenish his oxygen level. As he stood there breathing heavily, he thought about his life on Earth. Even though he had worked in some pretty horrific places, he remembered Earth as a beautiful place and he had many wonderful memories of living there.

One of his most vivid memories took place in the early part of the spring. During the first few weeks of April, he would leave for work just before the sun broke the horizon. As he walked to his pickup truck parked on the side of his house, he could smell the freshness of the air and hear the slight wisp of the wind moving through the leaves of the trees. And the air. It always smelled so fragrant and alive. As he walked to his truck, he would stop for a second, close his eyes, and take a deep breath of the sweat smelling oxygen. The fragrance was a masterful mixture of the soil that had been moistened by the morning dew and a cocktail of the plants that had just burst into flowers.

After a few seconds he took another breath and smelled the wrenched stench of oranges and rotten eggs as his happy memories of Earth began to fade, and he remembered where he was—the deadly situation that he and Linda were in. He glanced down to do a quick check of the firearm in his hand and noticed that his hands had taken on a dark gray color. The combination of his perspiration and the black hydrogen soot had worked its way into the cracks of his calloused hands and turned them a grayish black. He rubbed his thumb and fore finger together to try and remove some of the imbedded soot, but it was impossible.

Charlie looked at Jack as he rested a few feet to his right. “You ready?”

Jack gave a slight nod. “Yep.”

Charlie and Jack quietly walked down the hallway to the closed cafeteria double doors with their guns drawn. They had already cleaned out the office area and the control room and locked them down. Step number three was to search the cafeteria and either locate Salsbury or lock down the room and continue their search. Each man took a position next to the small window on each of the doors but did not look in. After a few seconds, Charlie took a quick glance through the window and pulled himself back to his original position.

Jack asked in a low voice, “What’d ya see?”

Charlie took another quick look and pulled himself back. “Tom’s sitting next to the cube in the back of the room.”

Jack whispered, “What’s he doin’?”

Charlie took a longer look. Jack looked at him for an answer but Charlie didn’t reply. Then Charlie looked through the window a fourth time and realized that what he was looking at was wrong. Seriously wrong.

Without turning away, he said quietly. “Salsbury’s down. I think he might be dead.”

Jack’s tone reached an excited whisper. “Dead? What the—” He pushed Charlie out of the way and looked through the window himself. After a few seconds he pulled himself back. “Looks like he bled out. And did ya notice the cell? It’s open.”

Panic flushed through Charlie’s body as he again peered through the window. “Son-of-a—” He rubbed his brow and tried to think. What he was seeing was definitely not what he expected to replace.

Salsbury was face down on the table, his back toward the doorway. Blood had dripped from the table and pooled on the floor around his body. McCormick was nowhere to be seen.

Even with the doubts he had about Salsbury being the killer, he never expected to replace him dead, he never expected McCormick to get out of his cell, and he never expected him to be the murderer.

Charlie leaned his back against the door and slowly slid to a seated position. “I thought you said it was impossible to open the cell.” He wiped the sweat from his face and blinked a few times.

Jack took a position next to Charlie. “It is. Elixer secures a cell like that on Earth and it can only be opened with an encrypted key on Mars.” Jack closed his eyes for a second and shook his head. “It’s impossible!” Then he snapped off the word, “Shit!”

Charlie placed his elbows on the top of his knees and lowered his head. “Well, obviously that isn’t the case because, ” he pointed behind him with this thumb, “the cell in there is open. And it looks to me like McCormick isn’t in it.”

Jack threw his hands in the air. “McCormick must have had help.” He turned and looked at Charlie. “Maybe he and Salsbury were working together.”

Charlie lifted himself and looked through the small window again. “Well, if they were working together…they aren’t anymore.” Sweat smeared the glass as he pressed his face against the window and turned to the right and then left, trying to see each side of the cafeteria. “I don’t see McCormick anywhere…unless he’s hiding up against this wall.”

Jack checked his weapon, his body tense in preparation for battle. “We need to sweep the area and lock it down. You ready?”

Charlie moved away from the window and pointed with a nod. “You work on the right side of the room,” he nodded the opposite direction, “and I’ll work on the left.”

Jack’s breathing increased as the doors opened a crack. “Let’s go.”

Charlie and Jack quickly pushed open the doors. Charlie smoothly moved left, staying low and hugging the wall. Jack did the same thing on the right side. Their eyes swept the area looking for McCormick, their guns in a firing position. The soles of their shoes squeaked on the waxed tile floor as they slowly moved forward.

After about thirty seconds, Charlie realized he hadn’t taken a breath and exhaled. “I got nothing…no Mccormick.” He lowered his weapon slightly and tried to calm himself, still scanning the room.

“Nope.” Jack pushed the doors closed behind the two and leaned against them. “Nothing.”

Charlie walked next to Jack and threw the deadbolt. Then each man turned and smoothly moved forward with his gun in a ready position heading toward Salsbury’s body and the open cell. They stopped about six feet from Salsbury, visually examined the scene, then turned three hundred and sixty degrees with guns drawn to ensure that McCormick was nowhere in sight.

Charlie lowered his weapon and craned his neck to get a closer look at Salsbury. “He’s dead alright. Nobody loses that much blood and lives.” He crouched to get a better view. “Looks like he’s sliced ear to ear.”

Jack lowered his rifle and moved toward the open cell. “I have no freakin’ idea how he got outta this thing. And where did he get a weapon?” He pointed at Salsbury’s corpse. “How was he able to do this?”

Charlie continued to inspect Salsbury’s body. The smell of the decomposing corpse and the lake of blood on the floor reached the back of his throat. “Yeah…none of this makes any sense.” He pointed. “McCormick didn’t take Tom’s firearms; his pulse rifle is still here and I can see his side arm still in its holster.”

Jack walked closer to Salsbury’s dead body and winced as the smell invaded his senses. “Looks like they were eating.” He poked at some small plates and broken pieces of pie on the table with the end of his rifle. “They must have been working together. McCormick must have figured out some way to open his cell and must have talked Tom into helping him.”

Charlie moved away from Tom’s body, pressed the back of his hand against his nose to try and block some of the stench, and walked to the open prison chamber. “Well, somebody figured out how to open this freakin’ thing.”

Jack lowered his weapon to his side and continued to study the scene. “I don’t see a knife or any type of cutting tool here, so whatever it was that he used to open up Salsbury’s throat…I would guess that he must still have it.”

Charlie sighed and his shoulders slumped. “Great. A knife-wielding maniac running around D.D.315. Just what we need.”

He closed his eyes and tugged at the battle armor that was pressed tightly against his throat. “I can’t take it. I’m loosin’ this crap.” He yanked on the armor that protected his upper body and pulled if over his head. “This stuff is terrible.” He tossed it to the floor and began to pull off the armor that protected his legs. “I’d love to meet the asshole that made this stuff.” He stepped out with one leg and then the other, then adjusted his coveralls to make them feel more comfortable. “There, much better.” He wrapped his holster around his waist and tightened it.

“You better hope to God he doesn’t have Jozef’s gun, unless your body can stop an energy round.”

“Don’t worry. Linda’s said so many prayers for me, I probably got extra credits with the big guy.” He exhaled sharply with a slight smile.

Jack inspected Salsbury’s body a little closer. “Looks like McCormick did take something from Salsbury.” Jack pointed to the side of Tom’s head. “His ear piece and mic are gone.”

Charlie closed his eyes and let his head drop. “So he could be listening to everything we say?” His stomach twisted, the discomfort causing him to grunt and shake his head slightly.

Jack nodded. “Probably.”

A third voice popped into their communicator ear piece. “Gentlemen, nice to hear from you again. It took me a few seconds, but I figured out you had switched over to channel thirteen. Sounds like you’ve been busy beavers. What do you think about my handy work in the cafeteria?”

Charlie tilted his head back and another grunt slipped from his mouth as he exhaled. He couldn’t believe McCormick had been listening in on every word they had said. Likewise, he couldn’t believe he didn’t see this coming. McCormick was a step ahead of them and Charlie didn’t like it. He covered his mic with this hand and looked at Jack to do the same.

“I’ve been walking through your hydrogen facility and I am very impressed. You run a tight ship here, Charlie.”

Charlie removed his hand from his mic. “Glad you’re impressed.”

McCormick continued. “Looking through your control room, I’ve become very interested in the piece of equipment called the argon scrubber. I’ve read about this technology before but I’ve never seen it up close.”

Jack narrowed his eyes as the ends of his mouth turned down. “We already locked down the control room. How did he get in?”

Charlie covered his mic with this hand. “The controls for the argon scrubber are in the filtering system control room on the other side of the plant….” He tossed his hand in the general direction.

McCormick’s voice popped onto the communicator again. “You seem to be a pretty smart guy, Charlie. Any ideas what would happen if I shut down the argon scrubber?”

Charlie’s features hardened. “It’s impossible, McCormick. The control system wouldn’t let you do it. There’s interlocks and overload redundancy.”

There was a pause then McCormick replied, “True…very true, but what if I shut it down manually? What if I went out to the plant floor and found the argon scrubber…then I adjusted the scrubber’s vortech diverter to zero? Would that have any affect?”

Charlie could taste the metallic flavor of the fillings in his mouth as he ground his teeth. A blast of anger and terror exploded inside his head. He knew the scrubber couldn’t handle its vortech diverter being set below ten percent. Anything lower would cause a vacuum in the argon scrubber’s intake and then cause it to overheat. The scrubber’s thermal overload would trip and because the diverter was manually set to zero, when the process control system went through a reset procedure, the scrubber would trip again.

The argon scrubber was the most critical component in the entire hydrogen condensing process. Lose the argon scrubber and lose control of the condensing process. Lose control of the condensing process and you run the risk of losing your life.

Charlie stood tall and inhaled, pulling back his emotions and wanting to play it cool. “You’re full of shit, McCormick. You don’t know what you’re talkin’ about. The vortech diverter doesn’t have much of an effect on the argon scrubber, plus if the scrubber went down it wouldn’t be a big deal. We make some bad product, so what? We vent it into space.”

McCormick snapped, “Not a big deal, huh? I guess you consider a compressor explosion…No. Big. Deal.”

Charlie put his hand over his mic and glared at Jack. “We gotta stop this ass hole now or we’re gonna be up shit’s creek.”

Charlie knew Jack wasn’t familiar with the process of hydrogen condensing and had no idea how important the argon scrubber was to the process and most importantly the life of everyone on D.D.315.

Jack’s eyes were locked onto Charlie and his mouth slightly opened as he shrugged.

McCormick’s voice came across the communicator again. “You know I’m right, Charlie…admit it.” He snorted out a laugh. “I’m gonna blow this place sky high in a couple minutes. I’m gonna burn it to cinders and you know you can’t stop me.”

He paused.

“And you and your pretty little wife are gonna burn to a crisp along with it.”