Chapter 2 - The Right Thing To Do
Passing through the debris thrown to the sides of the former barricade meant to keep us out I stepped into the ship's command center.
The girl who had called to me beckoned and I hurried over to where she and three boys were busy at instrument panels.
One boy looked to be Japanese and the other two appeared to be Thai. They were all flipping away at switches and levers and in concern I said in English hoping that they could all understand since that was the only other language I knew other than Hindi, "Wait, what you do? You know what it is you are doing?"
The Indian girl spoke in response shaking her head, "No, Nysha, look everything is dead. Nothing works!"
The Japanese boy nodded and said slowly in fragmented English, "Massive power failure."
Looking to him I asked, "You mean the engine stopped working in the ship?"
Shaking his head quickly he waved his hands 'no' and said, "No, no. This is different. Everything cooked. Never work again. I think it what they call EMP."
Staring around at the others I made the obvious statement in rebuttal to that, "Why would they do that? They need us! We are a major part of their rebuilding plan. They used a lot of their remaining resources and personnel to come capture us."
"Not them, but 'Others' I think." He was quick to respond with.
For a moment I stood dumbfounded by his statement.
A voice, with a heavy Pakistani accent to it spoke from behind me in English, "Makes sense."
Hearing the voice of one of India's long-standing enemies made me inwardly cringe as I turned to view the speaker.
She was beautiful, even as a fellow female I could recognize that unashamedly.
She was taller than me and instantly I heckled up inside as if sensing a threat in her to my own well-being.
I said in rebuttal, "How do you think it makes sense that the, 'Others' would do something so....so..."
"So sophisticated." She finished for me and I nodded sharply in response.
"They want us as badly as the elite pigs do. We are like the last gold on earth to them and now we are all gathered together in one place for them to feed upon."
"You think they are coming here?" The other Indian girl asked in panic.
The Pakistani girl nodded indifferently before concluding her theory with, "They found the holding centers did they not."
Like it or not she had a point there.
The Japanese boy spoke, "They could have tortured survivors to tell them where it was we were going. Even debilitated as they have gotten to be they could have at least gotten a victim to launch a nuke....up there. Maybe many nukes." He finished with, as he figuratively pointed towards the ceiling and the sky beyond.
It was a long shot, but there were elements of substance to it just the same.
The reality that flesh eating soulless creatures bent on consuming anything with a soul still in it in hopes of gaining back what they had lost, were even now making their way across the ocean after us was chilling beyond words.
Looking up I was about to ask a question of the boy when I was cut off by the curt voice of the Pakistani girl, "Listen!"
I really did not like her, but patiently I bit off what I was about to say.
In the silence then I heard it.
The sound was a dull echo like, 'bang....bang' noise.
It sounded weird somehow as if it was a canned noise of some kind and not in the immediate vicinity.
Following my ear's insight I stepped toward the one side of the control room followed along closely by the Pakistani girl. We saw it at almost the same moment and rushed to it.
There was a pipe with a cap on it that I recognized from movies as a mouthpiece for relaying orders verbally without the use of an intercom or loudspeaker. Reaching the pipe we leaned toward it and sure enough the banging noise was louder.
"The boiler room!" We both exclaimed out with as we read the label on the pipe the noise was coming from.
Turning to the others in the room I exclaimed, "Has anyone gone down there yet?"
They shrugged as if to say they didn't know, but I was already moving. Someone or at least 'something' was clearly down there.
From my travels about the ship over the past week I knew roughly where the access door to the boiler room was and yet being such a large ship it took us several minutes to get there during which time we picked up quite a following.
Getting near to where I knew the access point to be the Pakistani girl rushed ahead and not to be put down I sped up as well.
Reaching the door first she turned to me half out of breath and barring the way she said, "What if it isn't someone locked up?"
A telling moment passed by before she added, "What if it's one of the 'Others'?"
A tense silence ensued in the crowded hallway.
Strangely I had never fancied myself to be the leader type, but it was my voice that spoke out in the stillness, "We need to know for sure. We can't leave someone locked up. We can't do that or we...... we would be like those who stole us away from our families. No matter what we can never be like them! No, not any of us, ever!"
The girl before me inclined her head and gave a slow nod before turning to push at the door. It only shifted an inch, but then it shifted more as I and others came up to push against it in concert with her.
The door gave way as all the stuff piled against it was pushed back. There was no light in the expanse beyond the door and the reality of that was beyond eerie to experience in the moment.
At any moment poised on the edge of darkness's gloom I expected something to leap out and start biting at me.
Instead of a bite though came a very male sounding American accented voice, "Over here!"
Drawing in a breath of relief I was in time to see the Pakistani girl do the same.
She'd been just as scared as I was. Somehow knowing that helped me feel better.
Turning to the packed hall I cried out, "We need a light of some kind."
Before long a couple of boys squeezed by us with a pair of makeshift torches in hand. As the fiery light lit up the gloom the boiler room compartment came alive with dancing shadows.
