The Mysterious Cities of Light: Abnormal Circumstances

Chapter 12 - Into the Wild

He pauses. Everybody is hanging on his words.

"There's a ventilation conduit that connects the back of the main deck to the tail."

I see where he's going—I also noticed that the airlock leading to that area is malfunctioning and didn't close.

"Could we use it to send somebody cut power to the doors?"

The engineer frowns.

"Yes, we should be able to roll up the lid by hand. Life support has a direct, backup line. I'm not concerned on that front. However, there's a bottleneck at the end of that conduit. It's too thin for an adult."

The crowd turns to the six-year-old boy that was listening to our conversation.

"No, we're not sending a child in there until we run out of options. What else do we have?"

Let's see, Nathaniel is definitely not nearby, and we can't contact him. We can't just assume he's already trying to unlock the doors—or even aboard the ship!

"There's another possibility," interrupts Zach. "Since I'm the tallest of us all, what if I went and used a large object, like a crowbar, to reach the relays?"

"With a broken arm? Out of the question."

"Come on. These people need an engineer and a leader. They don't care about music right now, and I won't let Lauren get in there."

"Zach, be reasonable."

Huh, so they know each other.

"What about these two?"

"I'm claustrophobic," says one.

"I have to find my wife," babbles the other. "She's pregnant."

I wish we had more brave people like Zach around. I turn to the engineer.

"This could work," confirms the Asian man in his forty. "The bottleneck is one meter long and the box is one further away from the vent."

A short silence ensues.

"No objections?"

Something tells me we're only three to fully understand the situation.

"Alright, then. You two can find a crowbar. Alvin, please show us the way."

Zach, the girl, and I follow the engineer through the dinner, passing the private rooms, towards the back of the ship's main deck.

"There it is."

The two men come back minutes later with a toolbox and a staff.

"That's all we found. No crowbar."

"That should do, thanks!"

The staff really isn't that long. I hope Alvin knows what he's doing. I send a worried look to Zach.

"I got this," he reassures.

Alvin and I pick two screwdrivers from the box and remove the panel, then the filter. A gray cloud of hot, oily air blows out, causing a general cough.

"This is unbreathable!"

The dust quickly wanes. We return to the opening. Zach grabs a flashlight from the toolbox and peeks inside.

"Do you see anything?"

"I see a light."

"Yeah, that's the light at the end of the tunnel," I joke, trying to ease the palpable tension in the atmosphere.

I hear Zach chuckle. The two others stare at me.

"Zach is risking his life to save us," remarks the girl. "The least you could do is be serious and help him!"