Page 225 of Red Scale Daddy
I follow because not following her is not an option that exists anymore.
Behind me, Pally’s voice crackles through the comm line, thin but steady under the distortion. “I’m at service lock twelve,and I am staring at a door that looks like it hasn’t been opened since before I was born. Please tell me this is the right place.”
Roma doesn’t slow. “It is. There should be a manual override panel on your left.”
There’s a pause filled with the sound of metal clanking and something being yanked harder than it probably should be.
“I found a panel,” he says. “It does not look friendly.”
“Nothing here is friendly,” I mutter.
Roma glances back at me, just enough that the faint emergency glow catches the edge of her face. “Encouraging.”
“I try.”
Another tremor runs through the ship, sharper this time. The crawlspace shudders hard enough to slam my shoulder into the wall. Pain spikes down my arm, bright and immediate, but I grit my teeth and keep moving. Somewhere above us, something collapses with a thunderous crash, the sound muffled but unmistakable.
Pally sucks in a breath over the comm. “That sounded close.”
“It wasn’t close enough,” Roma says. “Open the panel.”
“I’m working on it,” he snaps, then softer, “It’s stuck.”
“Use more force.”
“That’s my default setting.”
Metal screeches, followed by a sharp pop.
“Got it,” he says, a little too proud for the situation. “Okay, I’ve got wires. I’m sensing a theme.”
Roma shifts forward another foot, then stops at a junction where the crawlspace splits into two narrower ducts. She braces one hand against the frame, closes her eyes for a fraction of a second, and when she opens them again, she points left.
“Take the left path,” she says quietly. “It reconnects to the outer access spine.”
“Copy that,” I say, angling after her.
The left duct is tighter. I have to turn my shoulders slightly to fit, which makes every movement slower, more deliberate. The metal presses close, trapping heat and sound, and for a moment it feels like the ship is trying to swallow us whole.
Pally’s voice cuts through that thought. “Alright, panel’s open. I’ve got a mess of blue, red, and something that looks like it used to be green before it gave up on life. What am I pulling?”
Roma exhales slowly, like she’s sorting through a hundred variables at once. “You’re not pulling anything yet. You’re going to reroute.”
“That sounds worse.”
“It’s necessary.”
“Of course it is.”
A scraping sound ripples through the walls around us, too close, too deliberate. Not structural. Not random.
Something is moving in the infrastructure again.
I feel it before I see anything, that crawling awareness that we’re not alone in the dark. My skin prickles, every nerve lighting up in warning.
“Roma,” I say under my breath.
“I hear it,” she replies.
