Chapter 28
886 Words
The first room was empty. The second too. Discarded belongings spoke of the inhabitants’ rush to leave. Dalton moved through the living quarters at speed, the insistence he find Doctor Jutteridge growing almost painful with every door he opened that she wasn’t behind. Another closed door succumbed to his charge and another empty space greeted his eyes. Time was running out.
“Doctor Jutteridge!” He shouted the words, careless of who else might hear. “Doctor Jutteridge!”
A door opened further up the line of the narrow corridor and he saw frightened eyes peeking out. Dalton started towards them, his strides long and purposeful.
“Doctor Jutteridge?”
He’d pulled her personnel file from the information stored in his comm-link, but the door was only open a sliver, keeping him from making out the features of the face beyond. Dalton came up close and pushed hard to force it open fully. A woman cried out in fright as she fell back, grabbing protectively at two children huddled together on a thin bed.
It wasn’t her. The face was slim and looking gaunt from the effects of fear. She made soothing noises to quieten one of the children who sniffed and moaned in her arms. The sight of them was a wrench, given what he knew would happen if they stayed where they were. Dalton fought to say something, his implant pressing hard to make him turn and leave.
“Evac. Bay.” He forced the words out through clenched teeth.
The woman looked at him with wide eyes, clearly terrified. She didn’t move, still keeping her body between him and her children. He couldn’t blame her. A heavily armed man had just barged his way into her quarters when everyone around her had fled in panic of some unknown terror.
“Get. Them. Out.” He struggled with the effort and felt his body swinging away as the implant overrode his sympathies.
Dalton stepped out of the room, his muscles fighting to follow conflicting impulses. It was no use. He’d done all he could. The grip that held him was too strong to offer anything more. All he could do was hope she took the warning.
“Doctor Jutteridge,” he called out the name again, desperate to bring down the intensity of the demands in his head.
“That’s Doctor Bloom-Jutteridge, thank you very much.”
Dalton span to follow the voice. A woman had appeared from the maze of corridors to stand in a junction a few metres away. She was fat. It was the first thing that hit him. Nobody was fat. It was an almost impossible feat to manage with standardised DNA cleansing and the minimal content rations that were everyday fare. To get fat you needed to have more than your body could use and you wouldn’t get it with the manufactured paste that made up most Deorum diets. A part of him wanted to ask her how she’d possibly achieved it.
“Doctor, we have to get you out,” he said, putting the question aside.
“I’m not going anywhere!” She said it as if she was in charge and Dalton’s mind did another flip. “Not until you address me correctly and apologise.”
“What?” He couldn’t believe she was acting so haughty. Getting her name right was not the highest priority.
“My name is Doctor Bloom-Jutteridge. I am a highly respected immunologist and I will not have some lowly soldier treat me with disrespect. Now apologise.”
Dalton felt his mouth open and close as he tried to wrap his thoughts around the change in pace.
“Do you have any idea what’s going on?” He said, stepping toward the woman.
To her credit, she didn’t shrink back. Instead, she lifted her chin, breathed deeply to fill her over ample chest and pressed her hands firmly to her hips.
“People are dying. There is an almost indestructible robot smashing its way through every level of this station and killing every single person it finds.”
He heard a muffled shriek from behind and the patter of hurrying feet. The woman he’d left with her children had made a decision. The right one, by his judgement. It might not save any of them, but at least it would give them a chance.
“The rest of your team have been escorted to an evac pod and if I don’t get you there soon, what’s left of the crew are going to tear the place apart trying to get off this bucket.”
She gave a little snort, raising her head further to show her disdain for his words.
“Apologise,” she said loftily.
Dalton felt his temper spiking.
“My job is to keep you safe,” he ground out the words. “All I want is to get you back to Luna.”
She swivelled her eyes back to him, somehow managing to look down her nose despite his greater height.
“What you want is not important," she stated haughtily. "I will not be treated like some common assistant. I demand you apologise this moment or there will be severe consequen-”
Her mouth snapped shut as Dalton’s fist connected with the underside of her chin. Doctor Bloom-Jutteridge’s eyes rolled back into her head and he caught her with an effort as she toppled sideways.
“My job is to keep you safe,” Dalton muttered to her unconscious form. “Not to listen to your pompous bullshit.”
- Writer
