Night 44: M101 - M110 Hallway
So they were going to monitor the bulletin, hmm? He supposed that would at least put a stop to some of the...nonsense some individuals liked using it for, but that would also mean the nurses would most likely not approve of the potential useful information normally written upon it either. Either way, it was not too surprising.
What was surprising ( Read more... )
What was surprising ( Read more... )
Chekov probably would've been able to do it, but with the Captain not answering his messages and... Commander Spock gone, he was grounded for the time being. Was the crew of the Enterprise falling apart in the face of adversity? Surely Commander Spock hadn't intended that, but it seemed to be happening nonetheless. The Captain and Commander must have been better friends than Chekov had imagined, if this was affecting the Captain so negatively.
The ensign wondered if he should open his door, should the Captain decide he wanted to talk. But if he opened the door, if zombies came walking down the hall again, they could get into Chekov's room and he'd be defenseless. He'd have to keep the door shut for now.
He only hoped that the Captain would come. Maybe it was cruel, but a Captain's job was to keep morale up and in order, wasn't it? And Chekov wanted his morale to be lifted, if only a little. He wanted to think that things would be alright soon.
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Kirk slowed as he turned the corner into the appropriate hallway. Except for the sound of his own quickened breathing, it was silent here as well. Had he taken too long? Kirk angled his flashlight to illuminate the numbers on the doors he passed, noticing that not all of them stood ajar. If even the slightest shred of luck had followed him into this reality, then...
M106... M107... M108. He listened for a second at the closed door, a knot of dread forming in the pit of stomach, then decided that if the worst possible scenario had come to pass, he'd rather find about it now so he could get to figuring out what to do about it faster.
Kirk rapped the door decisively, three times. "Chekov? If you're there, answer me."
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"Keptain!" Chekov exclaimed, rushing over to the door eagerly and opening it wide. "I apologize, Keptain. I thought it best to leave ze door closed in case some sort of creature came down ze hallway. I am well, zough." He looked warily at Captain Kirk, as though trying to detect something in Kirk's face that suggested he'd heard from Spock. Chekov had read that some people had come back to life at the end of the night, but he didn't know if the Commander and the Captain had managed to see one another that day.
"What is ze mission tonight, Keptain?" Chekov asked tentatively, his expression indicating that he wasn't expecting much at the moment.
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Never mind. He sensed Chekov studying him, and flashed what he hoped was a reassuring smile. "No, keeping your door closed was a good idea. From the sound of it, the only safe place in this nightmare is our quarters, and even then..." Kirk's jaw clenched. His hands fumbled with his flashlight for a second before managing to switch it off. He was still shaken from his failure to stop ZEX from being taken, but they couldn't afford uncertainty right now.
"Anyway," Kirk began again, "sorry about not getting in contact with you earlier. I learned my lesson about provoking nurses to stab me with a hypospray, trust me." True to his word, Chekov did seem "well" - whatever sedative effects appeared to have worn off, leaving the young man as alert and intelligent as ever. Still, Kirk looked uncommonly serious when he asked: "Are you sure you want to go out tonight?"
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"Please do not worry about it, Keptain," Chekov said, watching Kirk as Kirk watched him. It made him wonder if Kirk was going to ask something of him. He didn't mind being the center of attention, but being stared at with nothing to do was just awkward. "I myself was incapable of reading ze board properly, so it is understandable."
He considered Kirk's next question carefully. What was he expected to answer? He supposed that now he made up half of the Enterprise, so his opinion weighed more. Which meant he had to decide what was best for both him and Captain Kirk. Chekov had been in charge of the bridge before, but he hadn't actually thought that he'd have to make a decision in a life-or-death scenario. That was what Commander Spock was there for...
Was he first officer now? No, no, he was a navigator. He had to navigate, that was all Kirk was asking him to do now.
"Yes, sir," he answered. "Ze more we explore zis plece, ze closer we get to finding a way back," he said with as much conviction as he could muster.
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Or maybe it didn't matter. If Future Spock had been right and the time stream was determined to set itself to rights, then there had to be a way to fix things. Spock wasn't dead, and both he and Chekov were alright - that was more than enough for now.
"I'm glad to have you with me, Chekov." Kirk clapped the young man on the shoulder, his mood now greatly improved. "You're right, exploration's going to be the key. I haven't given up on the grounds yet - I saw several people going over the walls on my way here, so I have a feeling something's out there, even if it isn't the exit. But I want to focus our efforts here for now. You wouldn't have happened to learn anything of interest about this place, have you?"
Kirk glanced at the closed door, frowning again.
"Not that we can do anything until Spock joins us." He looked back, oblivious to the fact that Chekov didn't know Spock was alive and well. "I told him to rendezvous here, but maybe we should head out and see what's keeping him."
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"Keptain... are you sure ze Commander is... coming?" Chekov asked gently. He didn't know if Kirk was suffering from adverse effects from the sedatives, or if he just refused to believe that Commander Spock was dead. There was some sort of psychological trauma linked to it, he seemed to remember. Survivors of horrific starship battles babbling about how they were still there. Still fighting. How their dead crewmates needed help... If Captain Kirk was suffering from such a psychological break, Chekov didn't want to set him off and make him violent. He was the last person able to deal with this sort of thing. Silently, he wished Doctor McCoy there. He'd be able to set Captain Kirk straight better than Chekov could.
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Kirk stopped himself mid-thought, realizing something else that had slipped his mind, what with everything else going on. "Where's your roommate? The uncommunicative one?" He looked away from the two empty beds, back to Chekov. "They didn't get him too, did they?"
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But then, things started to fall into place a bit. Chekov remembered (vaguely) someone saying that not everyone had 'stayed dead'. He wasn't able to return to read the posts before his nurse had taken him back to his room after his shower, but if the phrase 'not everyone stayed dead' was supposed to mean 'some people died last night spontaneously and without any logical cause, but were alive again in the morning', then perhaps seeing Spock's note hadn't been a delusion or hallucination brought on by Chekov's poor reaction to the sedatives.
So, Commander Spock must have been alive. Or Captain Kirk was insane. Chekov chose option 1. It was less terrifying to consider resurrection than the insanity of his highest commanding officer.
Which brought Chekov to Captain Kirk's mention of Spock 'happening' to see a loved one die, which put a kink in Chekov's stomach. So it was his fault, then. He'd been unable to rescue Commander Spock's mother from Vulcan--he'd lost her and saved everyone else. Why did it have to be his mother? Why hadn't he been faster to re-establish the lock? He'd failed Commander Spock once, and now it looked as if not only would the Vulcan Commander never be free of his burden of loss, but it would haunt him in other, more tangible ways in this building.
He was just barely beginning to consider the idea when Kirk's questions pulled him away from staring at his roommate's bed wide-eyed.
"My roommate?" he repeated. "He left almost as soon as ze doors unlocked. We managed to hawe a short conwersation, zough. 'Zey' didn't 'get him'.
"But Keptain... I had a poor reaction to ze sedatives and am unable to remember most of what I wrote or read on ze bulletin board today--Commander Spock is-- is aliwe? And you're certain of zis?"
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The designated rendezvous point was room M108 -- Mr. Chekov's assigned cell. As Spock made his way down the correct hallway, he only needed to count three doors down before his flashlight beam illuminated the proper number. The door was closed, but Spock could hear a pair of familiar voices on the other side of it. Although he didn't wish to interrupt Kirk in the event that he was discussing something rather important with Chekov, he knew it was best to let them know he'd arrived.
He knocked the tip of his bat against the door's surface -- gentle, yet loud enough to be heard by the room's occupants. Twenty-third century technology had largely provided for more convenient ways to announce one's presence, and so the thought of adjusting his flashlight and bat to use his knuckles had not occurred to him.
"Permission to enter, sir," he spoke.
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He sighed, rubbing his brow.
"Of course not." While the commander excelled in many areas, basic social niceties was not one of them. Just as Kirk opened his mouth again to explain, a tap sounded at the door. He tensed automatically, hand going for the flashlight in his coat pocket (the best weapon he had right now), but the voice which spoke next was unmistakable.
Kirk stepped past Chekov to open the door. "Spock," he greeted, relief clear in his voice. Both members of his crew accounted for. "It's good to see you weren't kidnapped. Well, no more kidnapped than we already are."
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