Mimic and the Journey Home

Creating a Void

“Higgens!”

I groaned, unwilling to open my eyes or lift my head.

“Higgens! I don’t know what you’re doing in there, but I’m about to break the door down myself if you don’t get up and let me in!”

That sounded serious.

Groggily, I lifted my head and tried to take inventory of my surrounding. I was still in the bunk that Mimic and I had claimed for ourselves, where apparently, I had fallen asleep sitting up and slumped forward against the wall. My shapeshifting companion had once again reverted to her black and spikey self, taking up one of the bunks in its entirely.

She needed all the rest she could get, so I knew I needed to get to the door before whoever was banging on the other side woke her. Since when had I locked it anyway? I didn’t remember doing so.

“I’m coming!” I hissed, fighting my way to my feet. My head spun for a moment, but I managed to recover and make it to the door before anyone could do any kicking in. I blinked in confusion as I saw the engineering trio on the other side, looking bright-eyed and in agreement.

“What’s going on?” I asked quietly.

“We’ve made up our minds a little early, and there’s no time to waste.” Gonzales grabbed my wrist and pulled me out into the hall. “So, rise and shine, sleepyhead, it’s time for your very first try at engineering in a vacuum!”

I tried to verbalize objections, but my brain wasn’t quite keeping up with the situation. I had never been much of a morning person, and I was even less of a four-in-the-morning type of person.

“But if we’re killing the power and life support to the whole ship, don’t we need to wake up Mimic?”

“There’s plenty of preparation and suiting up that has to take place beforehand, so we thought it best if she rested while she could. Don’t worry, we’ll take care of her once it’s time.”

“Okay, that’s good. But can we stop for some coffee along the way?”

‘Really? I never thought of you as much of a java drinker.”

“I’m not. Sleep is always superior, but when it’s in short supply, I’ll take caffeine as a substitute.”

“Gotcha. Well, I think we can arrange that.”

They changed our course toward the cafeteria, and a few minutes later, I had a steaming cappuccino right in front of me.

The hot drink did indeed help, soothing over my frayed nerves and overworked synapses. I felt myself start to feel less dead and ready to do the impossible.

Well, impossible for me. Apparently not so much for my engineering friends. And yet, they felt that they needed me, so there was that.

I didn’t have much time to contemplate whether I was overestimating my worth or not, because soon they were hauling me toward the engine room. From there my day devolved into a frenzy of sealing leaks, setting up oxygen tanks and emergency suit repair kits. From there it was making sure that our enviro-suits had every possible nick or tear patched up and reinforced.

By the time we were ready for the big shutdown, it was somewhere around ten o’clock and I was excited and nervous and all sorts of conflicting feelings combined into one little body.

Or maybe that was the caffeine. I had never been allowed to have it when I was younger and now I remembered why. It made me…twitchy. Like all of my nerves were standing on end and my fingertips were about a half inch longer than they should be.

“You wanna go get your BFF, or shall I?”

I looked up from the gap I was sealing to see Gonzales standing over me with another coffee in hand. “You sure?”

“Yup. Grab both your suits and haul your hindquarters down to her. Once she’s in here, we’ll do the final seal and then turn off the engines and have a go at this very dangerous plan of yours.”

“I don’t know about it being my plan.”

“Hey, take credit for your accomplishments,” she said, helping me up and handing me the warm drink. “This is a good idea, friend. And one we probably wouldn’t have thought of on our own. Sometimes you need to think outside the box and that’s exactly what you did.”

“You really think so?”

“Of course. I never say what I don’t think. That’s why I have eleven write-ups on my record and get paid ten thousand credits less than the coin twins.”

“That seems excessive.”

“And so is my attitude, apparently.” She patted my back while simultaneously shoving me out of the room. “Now go, get sleeping beauty and make sure she’s suited up before she withers away. I’ve always wanted to save a damsel in distress, and this is the closest chance I’m ever going to get.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” I murmured before turning and going to do as she said.

“Are we ready?” I asked, probably for the fifteenth time as the five of us stood in a semi-circle, the engine controls in front of us.

“I mean, as ready as we could ever be. You’ve got the most out-of-ship experience of any of us,” Gonzales said.

“Yeah, don’t remind me of that. I’ve been on a handful of hull cleanups and that’s it. I haven’t even repaired a rupture from the outside.”

“Shush, positivity only please.”

“Actually, we want to retain a neutral state as much as possible, lest we spark some sort of reaction in our vacuum,” Bahn laughed.

Gonzales sighed. “Your puns are as amazing as ever, Bahn. At least if we all die in a horrible explosion, I will never have to hear one again.”

“Just for that, I’m specifically going to haunt you.”

“Does it work that way? If we’re both dead, you can’t, like, attach your spirit to mine, can you?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to many dead people.”

“Guys, back on topic.” I took another deep breath. “Ready?”

“Ready. Kill the power, Higgens.”

I reached over to the side of the console that was my responsibility and turned several dials to the settings Ciangi had made sure were drilled in my head. The rest of the team did so as well, with only Mimic not participating.

No, she was strapped down in a corner with several fire extinguishers beside her in case of an emergency. I hoped that she didn’t feel left out, but she was so weak, and so tired, we thought it was the best way to keep her both occupied and safe.

I felt my weight start to shift almost immediately. It wasn’t full-on, gravity-less floating, but there was a certain feeling of constantly tipping forward. I also heard the fire doors closing all around us, sealing off the engine room from the rest of the ship.

And finally, there was the steady hiss of air as Bahn set the environmental controls to flush the atmosphere of the room.

We stood there for several moments, waiting for everything to be just right before we moved into action.

Once our feet did start to lift from the ground, Ciangi hit a button on the large countdown holo-screen we had set up on one of the data-logs, and we got to work.

First was pressing the code into our enviro-suit’s number-pad on the arm which would engage the magnetic function of our boots. Once we were all safely adhered to the floor, we went about doing our parts.

For once, I didn’t let my anxiety or self-doubt distract me. I had a job to do and I was not going to be swayed.

“Welder.”

I crossed to one of the tool stations we had set up, grabbing the tool and getting it to Gonzales as quickly as I could. She took it and started setting one of the capacitors, the tip glowing ionic-blue.

“I need a sprocket clamp.”

I bounded over to the table once again and fetched that tool too.

“Welder done.”

Back to Gonzales to grab the tool and put it on the table for the next person who needed it.

The next five hours dissolved into a sort of dance as I moved between the three. I had to be careful not to knock anything or get them the wrong tools, lest someone make a mistake that ended with the death of everyone.

There wasn’t any talk beyond the orders for tools and various swears as close calls or drops happened. It was tense, it was nerve-wracking, and I couldn’t wait for it to be over.

I nearly jumped out of my skin when Bahn uttered an actual sentence. “Did you finish the dampener installation over there?”

“Just completing it now,” Ciangi answered, standing up from where she had been crouching.

“Gonzales, how are those sprockets coming along?”

“On the last one now.”

The tallest of the engineers took a deep breath, then nodded. “I…I think we’ve done it.”

“What? Really? You finished installing all the new crystals and making sure the system hasn’t rejected them?”

“So far, all of my tests are coming back successful. The only thing left to do is power the system and see if it works.”

‘Really?” I asked worriedly. “Just power on the system? Isn’t there a safe way to go about this that doesn’t involve all of us exploding?”

“Sure, but usually it requires remote activation while we stand on the deck of a comfy space station. You see any of those around here?”

“Unfortunately, no.”

“Right. So, this is a kind of do-or-die thing, but I’m putting my money on the do part.”

“That’s an easy bet to make. If you lose, no one can collect the bet from you.”

“And that’s the beauty of it, isn’t it?”

“Alright then,” I said, cutting into what I sensed was another round of banter. “Let’s bring the systems online.”

“Right-o.”

The four of us lined up in the same order that we had started this whole project with, each pressing the dials, punching in the codes, or raising the levels of whatever it was our responsibility to do. I watched the others out of the corner of my eye and I had to admit that I had never felt so much like part of a team. They really had needed me for their plan to work. Well, my plan, apparently.

But still, even with those pleasant feelings and affirmations flowing through me, I couldn’t help but feel like we were counting down to our possible demise as soon as a single spark of energy shot through our jury-rigged system.

What happened before played in reverse, with our weight returning to us in waves, air hissing back into the room, and then the fire walls slowly sliding up until the engine room was back to its proper state.

“Should we be raising those so soon?” I asked. “Seems a bit self-assured, don’t you think?”

“Can’t help it. In order to bring this room back to its status quo, we have to pull them up. They’ll come back down if they need to, but there’s not going to be any reason to. Right, guys?”

“If you say so,” Ciangi answered with a shrug. “I prefer not to jinx things, so I will just say that our preparations should be adequate.”

“That’s a fantastic assurance,” I remarked before crossing over to Mimic’s chair and unbuckling her. “You ready to go home?”

“Yes, very much so,” she said, voice low and warbling, as if she was a sim that’s memory crystal had been corrupted.

“Then let’s go to the bridge,” Gonzales said, coming up on the opposite side and draping one of Mimic’s arms over her shoulders. “We’ve got a wormhole to jump.”

We made our way down the hall and sat ourselves right back into our flight formation. Mimi and I in the back, Gonzales at the helm, Ciangi on the scanners and Bahn on the navigation array. We were silent yet again as we prepared to put our work to the test, and I gripped Mimic’s hand tightly.

“Here goes nothing,” Gonzales muttered, putting in the engine codes and gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles.

Like usual, there was a beat of quiet while we waited for the mechanic parts of the ship to catch up. That second seemed to stretch on forever, containing both our salvation or our deaths at the head of a pin.

And then…the engines hummed to life and we were gliding forward, whipping through space like we hadn’t just been floating listlessly for over a week.

“Woohoo!” Gonzales yelled, kicking her feet against the underside of the console. “We did it!”

“I wouldn’t celebrate just yet,” Bahn countered. “We still have to make it through the wormhole itself.”

“Don’t worry about it,” the weapons engineer said with a manic grin. “I’ve got a good feeling about this. But just in case, everyone should hold on real tight.”

I didn’t need a second warning, bracing my feet and clasping the armrest with my free hand as we burst through the horizon of the fold in space.

Just like before, we were enveloped in an acid-induced collection of colors and lights, all winding around us like a child’s finger-painting that had radiated with neon and some other nuclear material. The swirling brightness of it all hurt my eyes, and I turned my head away only to see Mimi struggling in her chair.

Her face was shifting and warping before my eyes, bones rearranging themselves around her face in real time. It was certainly startling, but most of all, it was worrying. Was she okay? I couldn’t read her expression through the quickly changing landscape of her face and she wasn’t making any sound to indicate whether she was in pain or not.

I tried to open my mouth to call to her, but I couldn’t get my jaw muscles to cooperate. There was too much force exerting itself on my face. I could feel my skin pulling back and my eyelids struggling to even blink.

My whole world was reduced to trying to keep my skull from batting back and forth on my headrest, and my neck was screaming in protest. It did not appreciate the sudden and intense workout, but there wasn’t much I could do about it.

And then it stopped.

There was no warning, no automated voice from the computer to tell us that we were about to have a reprieve, just one moment we were in the most realistic rollercoaster sim of our lives, and then we were being shot into the unnatural calm of space.

Granted, that lasted all of ten seconds before we had to dodge an asteroid.

Gonzales set out a string of curses that I hadn’t ever imagined before, gripping the controls of the ship and piloting us through the suddenly very crowded sector of space we had shot into.

We probably should have remembered how close our little wrinkle in the fabric of reality was to a potentially lethal asteroid field, but we all make mistakes from time to time.

Hopefully this one wouldn’t kill us.

However, compared to the violent, nerve-wracking experience that was wormhole jumping without the appropriate tethering technology, the field passed quickly and easily, only one managing to lightly score one of our sides. Gonzales killed the power when we were on the other side and let out a long breath.

“That was fun,” she said, shooting a shaky smile to the rest of us.

“Yes, it was,” I replied. “Now let’s go get Mimic something to eat.”