SD241710.22 - Duty Log - Sails - "Lights Out"

Posted on Sun Oct 22nd, 2017 @ 12:05pm by Sails-at-Dawn Mr

862 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: Test Mission
Location: USS Versailles
Timeline: Current

=^= Promenade, Midnight =^=

The time was 6am, and the location on the promenade was, according to some maps, at precisely 0 degrees. If the map was a top-down view of the promenade ring, this would be the top-center sector.

Some had called it the FroZone, for the 0 degree (celsius) freezing point of water. Kids, usually, had called it that to sound cool. This tended to fade as they grew older, and started resisting childish things.

Adults had called it High Noon, for two main reasons. One was the top-center position of the "12" position on a 12-hour clock. And the second was marketing, as there were enough wild-west fans on the station for the whole "themed sector" thing to pull in a crowd.

High Noon had been popular, with visitors coming from other systems just to enjoy the ambiance, but this had all changed around 12 months ago.

For reasons unknown to science, this area was now actively hostile to lights. The shadowy nature of the area, once part of its' lawless-frontier "shtick", was now less a metaphor and more a literal reality. If you installed any kind of light, or fixed one, the average life-span was about 3-4 weeks. The only reason people weren't falling down dark stairs here was the absence of stairs.

It wasn't a hardware thing, oddly enough.

The power systems had been stripped and re-stripped. No surges, no flaky control systems, and no substandard parts. It didn't matter if the light was built into the ceiling, or running on its own, isolated power supply. Even *torches* burned out inside of two months. Circuits fried, batteries failed, and bulbs simply fell out of their sockets.

Some called it a curse.

The locals called it...Midnight.

Emerging from a side corridor onto the promenade, Sails knew none of this. He knew he had two hours until he needed to be at the docks to meet a pilot, and he'd found what seemed like a one-hour job to kill some of the time until then.

The first thing he noticed was the darkness. Crossing from another sector into this one was like stepping into a dark cave under moonlight. Some emergency lights provided just enough visibility for the first dozen meters, but after that it was all pitch black, and anybody without night vision was in trouble.

After taking a moment for his eyes to adjust, Sails entered the darkened area and immediately side-stepped a pair of youngsters wearing illuminated outfits. Moments later, the handyman was forced to dodge two more kids wearing the same gear. They seemed to be firing harmless laser beams from devices on their hands, and were taking things very seriously.

Unfamiliar with laser tag, but well aware that kids did all manner of strange things, Sails turned his attention back to the job.

One tricorder flick later, a beam of light spilled out into the gloom, illuminating a surprisingly busy series of shops. There was a romantic cafe, illuminated by candles, a pet shop, illuminated by clusters of glow bugs, and a vegan store, illuminated by the smug glow of their own moral superiority.

"Hey, turn that off." One of the cafe customers said to Sails, gesturing at the light and wincing from the direct beam.

"Oh, sorry." The handyman replied, leaving it on but redirecting the beam and cutting power by two-thirds.

The now-diminished beam was still bright enough to illuminate a trail of water splatters along the carpet. Moving quickly, the handyman scanned the nearest stain for biological traces. His quarry was the messy sort, and would almost certainly leave some traces...

*beep beep beep!*

The traces were present and very strong. His quarry couldn't be too far away, and he knew that time was at a premium here.

If he took too long, he might be bringing back a corpse.

Waving the beam around, he poked at the control screen for his tricorder and regretted (not for the first time) not getting the long-range scanner fixed before accepting this job. Hunting was easier when you weren't searching manually.

So he followed the water trail at a fast pace through the dark, dodging past piles of discount cookware outside a series of pitch-black ironmongers, hoping to get lucky.

And he did, rather anticlimactically, about thirty seconds later.

"Rrrrribbit!" the frog croaked; its bid for freedom cut tragically short by the handyman's hand closing around it.

Trying to ignore the gross, slimy feel of the amphibian held firmly (but gently) in his fist, Sails tucked away his tricorder and pulled out his padd. Though he now couldn't see a thing, again, he knew the lights were working in the next sector, just past the cafe a hundred meters behind him.

Moving briskly through the darkness, he tapped the padd and opened a video channel to the client.

"Hello, Mrs Tillis? I have recovered your son's frog, and I'm on my way back to you now."

"That is wonderful news Mr Sails! Though...I can't see you. Is the link broken?"

"No ma'am, it's just dark here. The lights are out."

"Oh dear. Is it safe?"

"Yes ma'am, absol..."

*crash*

*bang*

"Rrrrribbit!"


=^= End of Log =^=


Sails-at-Dawn
Civilian
USS Versailles

 

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