<USS Avalon> That feeling of being watched

That Feeling  of Being Watched
by Joshua  Garrity and Tavi (our stow-away)
 

Josh glanced over his shoulder again as he looked at the  work orders pulled 
to his PADD and headed out of the shuttle bay and off for  lift one, still 
unable to shake the feeling he was being watched.  He seemed to have that 
feeling 
often  lately, occasionally even accompanied by the scent of someone 
unfamiliar to him,  though rapidly becoming more familiar as it was always the 
same 
scent. It often  seemed to come from a nearby vent, though when he'd checked 
he'd never actually  found anyone there. At first it had bothered him 
considerably, though now he  generally just shrugged it off and went for more 
coffee, 
taking it as an  indication that perhaps he needed a bit of a break and 
generally 
assuming the  time it took to walk to the replicator and back for a hot cup 
would suffice.  Quickly he ran the diagnostic, repaired the lift and began a 
second diagnostic  to confirm the problem had been seen to before attempting a 
test run, then shook  his head.
 
Josh frowned when he looked at the results. That should  have fixed it and 
yet, the problem remained. Shaking his head, he tried again,  and then reran 
the 
diagnostic with no better results, when the solution occurred  to him. 
Pulling the gel pack,   he moved for the door to retrieve another, intending to 
run 
a ship wide  diagnostic to determine how widespread the contamination was, 
then halted,  frowning deeper still. They didn't open. Reaching out, he 
attempted 
to pull them  apart, as he had so many times before, to find them stuck fast. 
Figures, he  thought, reaching up over his head for the access panel. Also 
stuck. Okay. Not  funny. He reached for his commbadge when the lights 
flickered. 
He sighed again.  Not a good sign. He tapped his commbadge. Nothing. He 
tapped it again. Nope.  Dead. As the ship would be if the problem wasn't dealt 
with 
soon. 
 
Tavi watched the engineer go into the lift, and waited.  Soon the lift would 
move, even though (as she knew both from hearing others and  from her own 
personal observations) it had been stuck for many hours.  But it didn't move.  
And 
he didn't come out.
 
Time passed.  An hour, then two.  Tavi's  stomach rumbled with growing 
hunger.  Why didn't he come out?  Biting her lip, she let herself approach the 
top 
of the stuck lift and  tapped on the control padd there.  Nothing happened.
 
Josh opened the control  padd from inside and attempted to manually bypass 
the lockdown mechanisms.  Nothing. He pulled the decryption chip from his 
pocket 
and tried that. Still  nothing. For hour upon hour he tried first one thing, 
then another, then still  another all to no avail. The lift was locked down 
with him in it. He began to  pace like a caged animal, fighting the urge to 
panic. Think, Josh, think,  he told himself. There is a  way out. There is 
always 
a way out.
 
What would the  Engineer do? Tavi asked herself, sitting cross-legged on top 
of the  lift.  He must be stuck but good in  there, or he would have come out 
long ago.  She'd heard small sounds, felt vibrations muffled through the 
plasteel,  so he must be trying to get out.  How does a lift work? she queried 
herself silently, thinking back  to the manuals she was trying to study.  The 
descriptions didn't always make sense to her, but the diagrams and  schematics 
were so clear she could almost be looking at the objects  themselves.  The lift 
is powered  by the gel packs.  If they  weren't working, maybe disconnecting 
them would allow the hatch to be opened  manually.  Maybe she could even get  
away before he found her there, if she could just get the hatch opened a tiny  
crack and run away while he did the rest.  Methodically, Tavi began to 
disconnect all the gel packs she could find  around the broken lift.
 
Josh heard someone moving about outside the lift, the  muffled sound from 
without not unlike the sounds he'd heard within the vents.  Frowning, he shook 
his head. Think. Just think.  He turned his attention again to the  trapdoor 
overhead. It made sense for the door to stick, he supposed, if the gel  packs 
were bad, but the emergency exit as well. That made no sense at all.  Shaking 
his 
head, he tried again to push it open. Nothing. Whatever caused it to  jam, it 
was jammed well beyond any hope of opening. He began to pace again,  
reviewing the engineering diagrams in his head. There had to be something. 
There  just 
had to.
 
Little Tavi ignored her rumbling middle and pried at the  hatch until her 
fingernails bled.  Finally she sat back with a small audible cry of 
frustration, 
thumping  her small fists on her knees.  It  had been hours.  If anyone knew 
the  Engineer was locked in the lift, they'd have come along by now.  And they 
hadn't.  She had to get him out.  She had  to.

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