Part One | Part Two | Part Three
As the space elevator car rose into the sky, it gradually accelerated until it reached its maximum speed, a comfortable 700km per hour. The initial rate of acceleration was so gentle and so quiet that the passengers hardly noticed that they had left the terminal. The ground swiftly fell away, and it wasn’t long before clouds obscured the view from the windows located over each seat.
Aaralyn sat back in her reclined seat, headphones on, watching as the clouds passed by the window over her head. As the vapor around the elevator began to thin out, Aaralyn could see a storm rolling in today. Huge cumulonimbus clouds appeared in the distance - their massive forms reaching miles into the sky. The early morning sun cast a beautiful, golden glow over the ever-diminishing horizon onto the giant cloud formations.
I wish I were out there, flying among the clouds, Aaralyn thought to herself. I would fly up to the top of that cloud and pretend to jump down like jumping from a cliff, and at the last moment, I would burst through the billows at the bottom.
“What are you working on?” Aaralyn’s father, Ted Roth, was already reading a book. Her mother, Leah, was unpacking her laptop from her bag.
“I need to send Naamah that test data I promised to analyze for her,” said Leah.
“I’ve never had very good luck connecting to the internet from the elevator, but maybe these business-class compartments have a priority connection.”
“I should at least try. I know she’s waiting for the data, and I’d like to review it with her when we see her on board the station later today.”
“Good luck! I hope you can get through to her,” said Ted, returning to his book.
Leah glanced over at her daughter, who had her headphones on and eyes closed. “What are we going to do about Aaralyn’s outburst?” Leah directed the question to Ted, who replied with a simple, “Hmm?”
Aaralyn wasn’t listening to music, though. She was listening to see what else her parents might say while they thought she was distracted.
His eyes still focused on his book, Ted said, “Has Namaah made much progress with her neural connectivity tests?”
“You know I’m not supposed to talk about it,” said Leah.
“I was just curious, that’s all.”
“It really is very exciting!” Leah’s quiet voice dipped to nearly a whisper. “The data from the simulation I ran for her indicates that her new compound may allow neurons to connect directly to silicon-based technology without rejecting it. If that’s true, this is an incredible breakthrough!”
“What exactly does that mean for Aion?”
“It means we will be the front runner in providing human-machine interfaces for the next several decades. It’s going to revolutionize the field of prosthetics, and as much as this sounds like science fiction, it means we will be finding new ways to incorporate technology into the human body.” Leah’s enthusiasm for the topic was contagious.
“You mean, like cyborgs and that sort of thing?” asked Ted.
“Well, I don’t know that I would call it that, exactly. It will be a combination of the biological and the synthetic, so maybe we could call it bio-synthetic, or bio-synth for short.”
“You guys are putting me to sleep with all this boring stuff. I’m going to go find a bathroom so I can flush myself out into space,” Aaralyn said with characteristic sarcasm that only a teenage girl can muster. Aaralyn pulled her headphones down around her neck and stood up.
“I was able to connect to the Aion VPN, so I’m sending Naamah the data and my report,” said Leah, her fingers flying over the keyboard of her laptop.
“I’ll be back in a little bit,” said Aaralyn as she stepped into the aisle. She stood up and stretched her arms over her head. She raised up on her tiptoes, her fingers reaching for the ceiling, which she still couldn’t reach. The compartment must be more than two meters in height because her father, who often made good-natured jabs at how short she was, was just over two meters tall.
Aaralyn looked at her father, who was intently reading his book. Then she looked at her mother, who was furiously typing on her computer. It seemed like they always had so much going on. Did they really have time for her? Would they even notice if she were gone? Like, gone - gone? She rolled her eyes at the thought and started heading for the inner corridor where the lavatory was located.
The elevator cars were like train cars stacked on top of one another. Aaralyn and her family were in a relatively spacious compartment, seating twenty passengers. The seats were wide, and there seemed to be plenty of legroom, even for her father, who normally complained about being uncomfortably cramped on public transportation.
Curious about what the other decks looked like, Aaralyn slid open the door to the spiral stairwell that ran the length of the elevator car on the side of the car closest to the main structure of the elevator. In this small, enclosed space, the electrical hum of the vehicle was much more noticeable. She reached out a hand and placed it on the wall of the stairwell, and while she knew the elevator car did not make physical contact with the elevator’s superstructure, she could feel tiny vibrations in the wall resulting from the passing of air around the car.
Aaralyn climbed the stairs from the Business Class deck to the First Class deck. The door to the compartment was locked, so she cupped her hands against the small, circular glass window and then pressed her face to her hands, cutting out the reflection of the stairwell lights, making it so she could see into the compartment.
Her view wasn’t great from here, but she could immediately tell that this part of the elevator car was much nicer than Business Class. The ceiling looked like it was much higher. Aaralyn was fairly certain that her tall father wouldn’t even have to lean over to keep from bumping his head if he were to walk through this compartment. The Ceiling was dome-shaped, like half of a sphere. A ring of lights around its circumference slowly transitioned from one color to another, and currently, it was a very pleasing shade of green. There must also be fiber optics in the dome because she could just make out small pinpricks of light that looked like stars.
She couldn’t see any people because each passenger had a privacy partition around their seat. Just how rich do you have to be to afford this?
Aaralyn continued up the stairs and past a door marked Authorized Crew Members Only. She assumed it must be the cockpit. A few more stairs and the stairwell opened up to a compartment with the most incredible view she had ever seen. This compartment also had a domed ceiling, but instead of color-changing lights and fiber optics, this dome provided a crystal-clear view of the sky and elevator above. Her eyes were drawn first to the elevator itself, stretching out above her as far as she could see. For a moment, she felt disoriented as her brain tried to determine if she was still looking up or if the path they were on stretched out infinitely in front of her. If not for the acceleration of the elevator car and the decreasing but still present pull of Earth’s gravity, she may have toppled over. She reached out and grasped a handrail that circled the room's circumference and stepped onto the previously unoccupied observation deck. Eight tables were arranged symmetrically around the room, each with six chairs. A circular console occupied the center of the room - its displays provided information about the current speed and altitude of the elevator, and the number had just passed 85,000 meters. The screen indicated that the boundary separating Earth’s atmosphere from space was located at 100,000 meters. She guessed that they would reach space within the next couple of minutes due to the rate at which the numbers were increasing.
As she walked around the display console, a voice reached out to her from the direction of the stairwell.
“Good morning, young lady! What do you think of this view? Pretty incredible, isn’t it?” said a young man who had just stepped up onto the observation deck. While he spoke, he turned and inserted a key into a small panel on the wall just beneath a flap in the wall marked Trash.
“I just don’t get why the night shift never empties this trash receptacle. I mean, I guess people just don’t come up here that often anymore. Can you believe that anyone could get used to this view? Blows my mind.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty awesome,” Aaralyn said as she continued to walk around the console, putting it between her and the man.
“Is this your first time riding the elevator?” asked the young man.
“Yes.” Aaralyn didn’t feel inclined to encourage conversation with the man, but she noticed his brown jumpsuit, and for a moment, he seemed familiar.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. My name is Colin. I’m a Utility Maintenance Engineer.”
“I’m Aaralyn.” She paused. “So, Utility Maintenance Engineer… is that just a fancy title for garbage man?”
A strained smile crossed Colin’s face. “I guess you could say that, but I’ll have you know that I do more than take out the trash. Well, I mean, I think I will. This is actually my first day working for Elevate Corp.”
Colin pressed a button in the small trash compartment he had just opened, and a quiet motor pulled all of the air out of the trash bag before heat-sealing it. The trash bag was simply a long plastic tube that would be sealed in intervals as the bag was filled. When it reached capacity, a signal was sent to Utility Maintenance, and someone would come to the unit, evacuate the air from the bag, and seal it off. Then, the unit would spool out another couple of feet of plastic, and a new trash bag was ready for use. As Aaralyn watched this process from across the room, she thought this unit was similar to the one in her family’s apartment, though this one was probably much nicer. Her family’s trash unit did not remove the air from the bag, and the heat seal function wasn’t nearly as good. The seal was often inconsistent, and it would drive her father crazy whenever the bottom of the bag would break open, spilling the contents of the bag all over the kitchen or the hallway on the way to the trash chute.
“Hey, um, I’m not telling you that you have to leave or anything, but are you sure your parents are OK with you being up here alone?”
“Yeah, they’re fine with it. I just needed some time to myself to think.”
“I get it. I used to get so upset when I thought my parents were getting all up in my business,” said Colin, attempting a youthful tone because he thought the young girl might feel less intimidated by his presence if he sounded younger. It’s not like he was really that old, but he guessed there was at least a ten-year gap between him and the girl.
“They just make me so mad! They want us to move to the Taurus stations and don’t care that they’re ruining my life!”
“I’m sure that’s not quite true. I’m sure they love you very much and value your opinion.”
“But they don’t! They’re already talking as though the move is a sure thing.”
“I know that big changes like a move can be difficult. You’ll miss your friends. You’ll have to get used to a new school. But sometimes change can be really good. Have you tried thinking about it from your parent’s perspective?”
“Not really. I mean, why would I? It’s not like they have friends they’re leaving behind.”
“Could it be that this move will result in really good things for your family? Maybe your parents will make more money, or it will open the door for future career opportunities. It will likely present you with opportunities that only a few other young people in the world have ever received.”
Just then, a young woman, probably in her late twenties or early thirties, appeared in the doorway of the stairwell.
“Ah, there you are, Colin. I was wondering if you could lend me a hand with something,” said the woman.
The young lady was very attractive. She wore a red jumpsuit that appeared to have been tailored to fit her perfectly. It wasn’t skin-tight or anything like that, it just looked like it was made specifically for her. As Aaralyn looked from the newcomer to Colin, she thought she spotted a bit of a blush creeping up in Colin’s cheeks.
“No worries, Sam! I was just about to head back down to the Engineering deck,” said Colin as he closed the door to the trash receptacle. “Sam, meet my new friend, Aaralyn. She’s traveling with her parents today to visit the Taurus stations.”
Aaralyn tried to look like she was studying the console displays in front of her, though she was watching the pair in her periphery.
“It’s nice to meet you, Aaralyn. I’m sure you’re going to love it up here. The Taurus stations are state-of-the-art. The research facilities are second to none, there are a ton of entertainment options, and there’s even a school for kids your age. I’m sure that’s the part you’re most excited about.”
Sam’s enthusiasm for the Taurus stations was infectious. Aaralyn wasn’t ready to show her excitement yet, but she had to admit, even if only to herself, that she was looking forward to an adventure. She would see and do things that her friends had only dreamed of. It’s not like she would never see her friends again. They could meet up virtually in NexusVR whenever they want.
Standing against the wall near the doorway, Sam said, “I need some help removing a wall panel so that I can change out an air scrubber. The panel isn’t heavy, it’s just large and awkward.”
“I think my job here is done. I’ll be right behind you,” said Colin who then turned and addressed Aaralyn once more. “Aaralyn, it was very nice meeting you this morning. I hope I gave you some things to think about.”
Aaralyn looked up and smiled sheepishly. She knew she was being selfish and that the way she had yelled at her parents earlier wasn’t right. She did her best to give Colin a smile and an ever-so-slight nod of her head.
Sam turned and started down the stairs, Colin following just a few steps behind her.
As Sam and Colin disappeared down the stairs, Aaralyn’s curiosity got the better of her, so she followed the pair into the stairwell. She waited for Colin to disappear around the corner and then followed slowly behind, descending the stairs on tiptoes so as not to be heard. With the spiral stairwell being only a meter wide, Aaralyn found that if she stayed toward the outside of the stairs, she didn’t get quite so dizzy.
Sam and Colin’s voices could be heard just ahead of her. It seemed they hadn’t noticed her following them down past the passenger compartments. The walls of the stairwell were a colored gradient that shifted from one primary color to another in a way that indicated that they likely corresponded with the compartment located on each level. She noticed that the color of the wall now shifted to a desaturated gray, which she took to mean that this area must be for crew only.
Upon reaching what she assumed was the bottom of the stairwell, she had to quickly reverse course a few steps to remain out of sight.
“I can’t believe they didn’t take care of this during the night shift,” said Sam with obvious irritation in her voice. “They always seem to leave the less desirable jobs for us to take care of. I mean, I’m supposed to be analyzing power consumption profiles, not changing air filters.”
“I think it’s something I’m supposed to do,” Colin said as he removed a small wrench from a pocket in his jumpsuit.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. I wasn’t trying to say you aren’t doing your job.”
“No worries! With this being my first day on the job, I’m sure I could miss some things. I mean, the week-long training only ended yesterday, and it seemed like they spent a lot more time on policies than procedures.”
“I know what you mean. I’m not saying you’ll be like this, but the attrition rate for Utility Maintenance Engineers is pretty high, so I think they spend as little time and money on training for your role as possible.”
“I guess I get it, though. How hard is it to take out the trash?” Collin paused, a glint in his eye. “And change air filters…”
“Yeah, when I saw the air quality alarm for the Crew Deck, I thought I should come find you.”
They needed to remove a one-meter square panel from the wall. Sam was right - it was just large enough to be awkward for one person to handle alone. Colin removed the bolts from the bottom corners, and Sam stepped up and placed a hand against the panel, holding it in place as Colin then removed the bolts from the top. Once the panel was free, Sam and Colin each grabbed a side of it and carefully set it aside.
Immediately, smoke began to spill out of the top of the wall compartment they had just revealed. It wasn’t a lot, but smoke didn’t belong here, so there was obviously a problem.
“Here, put on this mask,” Sam said as she handed a ventilated face mask to Colin. She reached back and grabbed a second mask from where they hung on the wall behind her and secured it to her face.
Colin pulled a small, rectangular device from another pocket in his jumpsuit. He placed the device just inside the opening in the wall using its built-in magnets to adhere it to the wall. He triggered the device, and a small fan whirred to life. The smoke inside the small compartment immediately began to clear as it was pulled into the small box.
Aaralyn was having difficulty seeing what the two adults were up to, so she leaned over as far as she could, nearly lying on her side on the steps. She carefully gathered her hair so it wouldn’t spill down onto the next step and give her presence away. Some of the smoke had crept toward the stairwell and she stifled a cough.
“Did you hear something?” Colin asked Sam.
“No, nothing. Look, the smoke is clearing. What is that?!” Sam said as the smoke cleared, and she got her first look inside the compartment. A small plastic box could be seen inside the compartment. Not only did it appear to be the source of the smoke, but it obviously did not belong. The box had been adhered to a thick bundle of cables that ran vertically through the compartment. It had been pressed into what looked like expanding foam - like the type you spray from a can to fill a gap. The foam had expanded around the cables and the sides of the box, holding it in place, while excess foam had dripped messily around the compartment onto other components.
“Colin, I need to report this upstairs,” Sam said, pulling a radio from a belt at her waist. “Flight Deck, this Engineering. I have a priority message for the Flight Commander.”
“Go ahead, Engineering.”
“I have Utility Maintenance Engineer Colin here with me. We are doing a routine scrubber inspection, and we’ve located what appears to be a foreign object in the scrubber compartment on the Crew Deck. The device has been jury-rigged in place using foam, and smoke was found coming from the device.”
“Do what you can to contain the smoke. We will reduce climbing speed and contact Ground Control for further instructions.”
Aaralyn could feel the elevator car begin to slow beneath her. She felt light. Really light. Her hair started to float around her face, and she reached up to push it out of her eyes. As she tried to settle back into position so that she could continue to spy on Sam and Colin, her hand slipped off the edge of the stair she was on. The decreased gravity caused her to lose her balance, and she rolled forward down the stairs in what felt like slow motion.
Sam spotted her. “Young lady, I must ask you to return to your seat immediately. It’s not safe down here.” Her voice was muffled by the mask that covered her entire face.
Colin did not turn around. He had a plastic tool in his hand and was prying the cover off a small box in the wall. “I think I’ve just about got it,” Colin said, and the cover to the foreign device popped free. It floated out into the room and followed a lazy arc to the floor.
“Colin, we need to wait for instructions. We have no idea what that thing is.” The concern in Sam’s voice was undeniable.
“I think I see the problem,” said Colin. “This device looks like it was forcibly attached to these cables. I mean, the circuitry in the box is physically connected to the cables.”
Aaralyn picked herself up off the floor and tried to look around Colin to see what he was working on. “I think that foam stuff must have short-circuited the electronics in that Circuit Sprite. That must be what was causing the smoke.” Aaralyn had a thing for electronics. When she was little, she always asked for those wiring kits for her birthday, and recently, she started upgrading to building miniature computers. “I have several of those at home. I love to configure the…”
Sam cut her off. “Aaralyn, I need you to return to your seat now!” Her tone left no room for negotiation.
Aaralyn was a little taken aback by the gruffness of the woman’s instructions. She closed her mouth and turned for the stairs. Her feet barely had to make contact with the floor now, and her whole body was propelled through the air. She raised her hands to guard her head from impacting the ceiling near the stairwell opening. She didn’t mean to, but she pushed off the ceiling and returned to the floor with a thud - the toes of one foot hitting the first step and twisting her foot. She could feel the strain in her ankle as her foot twisted unnaturally. She nearly lost her balance completely, but she caught the handrail and silently began to ascend the stairs. Despite her reduced weight, it was slow going with her now injured ankle.
Back on the Crew Deck, Colin was probing the insides of the little box. “I think she’s right. I’ve seen these little devices like this before. They are commercially available and completely configurable. I assume that, what did Aaralyn call it, a Circuit Sprite, must be a custom computer kit for kids.”
“Well, what’s it doing attached to our elevator?” Sam’s question was rhetorical. “I’ll be right back. I need to get something,” said Sam, and she disappeared down the stairwell into the Engineering Deck. She couldn’t have been gone more than thirty seconds when she reappeared with an AR headset. She pulled off the mask and put on the AR set. The device provided detailed schematics of every part of the elevator car, creating an information overlay that only the user could see. “I knew it. That thing definitely doesn’t belong there. It’s not on the schematics.”
“I think we’ve established that. What are these cables it’s attached to?”
“Those are flight control cables. There are three of them for redundancy.”
“Redundancy doesn’t matter if they all fail simultaneously!” Colin exclaimed. “I can’t believe they clustered all three cables together.”
“Well, in all fairness, the cables separate just above us and run up different sides of the elevator car so that if one side of the car is damaged, there are still two cables through which the flight control system can communicate,” Sam explained.
“Whoever put this here must have known that the cables all come together at this point.” Colin scraped a chunk of foam off one of the tiny circuit boards inside the box, and a piece of the electronic device broke off with the foam.
Immediately, the elevator car lurched as the emergency braking system was engaged. Despite the extremely thin atmosphere outside the car, a horrible screeching sound could be heard as the emergency brakes gripped the stabilizing track on the elevator.
Aaralyn favored her injured ankle, taking one step at a time with her good foot when the elevator car shuddered violently, throwing her to her hands and knees on the stairs. She could tell by the color gradient on the wall that she was approaching the business class level of the elevator. Just a little bit further, and she’d be able to strap into her seat. Then she would be safe.
A vibration rippled down through the elevator car, followed by a rush of air and the sound of an explosion somewhere up above. The change in air pressure must have triggered the bulkhead between each level to close because Aaralyn watched as her path forward, her path to safety, her path to her parents, was cut off by a huge, circular door that shut only a few feet above her head.
Suddenly, the floor dropped out from under Aaralyn, and she was violently thrown against the bulkhead that had just closed above her. What had been “up” a moment ago was now “down” as the elevator car plummeted back toward the Earth. A second and third explosion rocked the car. The walls began to buckle, the small, enclosed space of the stairwell getting smaller as the force of the explosions crushed the stairwell like an aluminum can.
The lights flickered out, leaving Aaralyn in complete darkness. She could feel blood running down her face from a cut somewhere on her head, and the pain in her nose and ears told her that the wetness she felt there was likely also blood.
Another explosion came from the Economy Deck's direction, and the blast's force smashed the stairwell against the elevator’s superstructure. Aaralyn tried to scream, but the pressure squeezed every last drop of air from her lungs, and her head smashed again into something immovable, knocking her mercifully unconscious.
Aaralyn’s chest and abdomen were pinned between compressed sections of the stairwell wall. Her arms were twisted and broken by uneven folds of the wall and stairs. The force of the blast was so great below her that the walls were flattened against one another, severing the young girl’s body at the waist, crushing her pelvis and lower third of her spine. Only the size and strength of the bulkhead had prevented her from being completely crushed. Her head was the only part of her body that remained unpinned.
Aaralyn opened her eyes. She could no longer feel the subtle vibrations of the elevator car, which meant the car must not be moving anymore. A red light pulsed slowly from the bulkhead behind her head. Breathing hurt, and she couldn’t feel her arms and legs. The dim light revealed only a tiny glimpse of the carnage. The wall of the stairway had been ripped from the wall and was pressing firmly against her body, pinning her to the opposite wall. She could see lights flashing through the gap where the wall used to be - sparks flying like tiny starbursts. Her hair floated freely around her head, threatening to drift into her eyes. She slowly turned her head and tried again to raise her arms so that she could brush the hair from her eyes and wipe the blood that ran from her nose and mouth.
The blinking lights in the compartment beyond revealed momentary flashes of the people who had occupied the seats on the other side of the wall
. The chairs were piled on top of one another as though a giant had knocked them all aside with a brush of a hand. Arms and legs protruded from the pile of seats. And the blood. There was so much blood. A wave of nausea overwhelmed Aaralyn, and she vomited. Unfortunately, with her arms pinned, she could not wipe the residue from her chin. She spat to clear her mouth and was surprised by the amount of blood that came out.
It hurt so much! Everything hurt. And why couldn’t she feel her arms and legs?! Her vision was fading - darkness closing in from the edges like the vignette of an old photograph. She tried once more to raise an arm, but the excruciating pain that shot through her pushed her back - into the black.
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