String Theory

Chapter 8

Peter peers over the railing for a second, and then shakes his head. "Just us."

In a swift motion, Eggsy brings his fist down on the card slot, snapping out of its niche in the door with a loud crack. The mechanisms of the handle are exposed now, and Eggsy stuffs his hand in the hole for a moment, grimacing. The door pops open, and Peter stuffs his foot in the crack to keep it from shutting while Eggsy shoves the card slot back into its place.

The top floor is eerily empty. Peter's hearing tunes in, picking up the whirring of the machines, the gentle clacking of blinds against an open window somewhere, and Eggsy's soft, thumping heartbeat beside him. Nobody else is up there with them, and the floor is only lit by the screens of the equipment. "You're up," Eggsy murmurs, and Peter nods. He tiptoes down the hallway, feet silent on the metal floor, and Eggsy's right on his heels, glancing around as they walk.

"Why's nobody here?" Eggsy whispers. "You'd think they'd be on the weather all the time, yeah?"

"No," Peter says, stopping at one of the larger monitors. He drops his backpack. "The sensors do all of the work themselves. It's expensive equipment, designed to run itself. They just need people on the lower levels to interpret the stats." As he speaks, he pulls a flashdrive from the backpack, and shoves it in one of the USB ports.

Eggsy squints at it. "Is that — Stitch?"

Sure enough, the flashdrive is shaped like the little blue cartoon. The actual flashdrive is attached to Stitch's head, and Peter hands Eggsy the empty body. "Don't judge."

"I'm not," Eggsy says, shrugging. "My little sister loves that movie." As soon as it's out of his mouth, he blanches, and looks down at the flashdrive. Sister? I have a little sister? Eggsy grasps for more of that memory — what does she look like, where does she live, how old is she? It slips away before he can get anything, and he has to swallow down the lump in his throat as he begins to forget the questions he was even asking himself. Seconds pass, the brief recollection is already completely forgotten, and Eggsy's heart is left feeling strangely empty. To Peter, it just looks like Eggsy had zoned out for a moment.

The flashdrive is loaded with a data signal, so as soon as Peter plugs it in, it links to Karen's systems back at the Avengers compound, and instantly transfers all of the Mesonet's data, including the atmospheric readings from ASDC. "And— done," Peter says, pulling the flashdrive out and handing it over. "A continual feed back to Karen for as long as we need it."

"Great," Eggsy replies, snapping the flashdrive shut. "Let's go, then. This shit's uncomfortable."

"Wait." Peter lifts a hand, eyes narrowing at the screen. He traces a finger along one of the lines of data, mouthing a few numbers aloud. "This is... insane. Something's wrong with this."

"What? What d'you mean, insane?" He leans over to look at the screen, scanning the gibberish quickly before shaking his head. "It's Greek to me, mate. I don't get it."

"The atmospheric pressure is through the roof," Peter breathes. "There's a ton of duplicate readings. This shouldn't be happening. This much pressure would kill us. Literally. It'd crush Earth like a soda can."

Eggsy blinks, eyes wrinkling with concern as he looks back to the data. "..Is it a mistake?"

"They don't make mistakes."

The door at the end of the hallway bangs open, and Peter's hands light up with tingles. He throws Eggsy a round-eyed glance, but Eggsy lifts his hand and shakes his head a little. "Act natural," he says quietly. "You've got the nametag."

"I can't just–" Peter cuts off, looking up when a scientist makes his way down the hallway. He's graying at his hairline, and a pair of thin glasses are perched atop his nose. He stops when he reaches the boys, looking up from his clipboard to peer at them over the rims of his glasses. His nametag, in scribbled Sharpie, reads J. Edwards, and beside it, there's two dogs heads engraved inside a circle — Orthus. They must have a few representatives at the Mesonet to transfer data to Orthus' newscasters for the daily announcements.