Turn of the Pipes (A Redpoint One Romance) (20 page)

In the silence he thought he heard voices.
Investigating the wide corridors leading off the platform he found
one where he thought the sound was coming through stronger than the
others. With no other clues, he headed down it.

It wasn't long before he found a large
circular room with other rooms and corridors branching off it in
all directions. A circular raised platform filled the middle, on
top of which sat consoles and chairs. The railing running around
the edge of the raised platform broke in several places with a
single step leading down to the ground floor.

He recognized the man studying a hologram
hovering over a circular table in the very middle of the
platform.

"Arthur Getty," Ignacio called as he stepped
into the room.

Arthur glanced towards him before returning
his attention back to the hologram. "I'm sorry, but I have no time
for visitors today. I'm dealing with an emergency right
now."

"Does it have to do with a plumbing system
near the upcoming pet show?" Ignacio asked, his hand tightening on
the bag in his hand.

Arthur looked up, his attention completely on
him. "Yes. How did you know?"

He lifted the bag. "One of my newts has been
getting into the pipes. I just found these in his enclosure while
giving it a thorough cleaning."

Arthur came to the edge of the platform to
investigate the contents of the bag. He shook the bag while looking
inside before shaking his head. "A few fittings. It shouldn't cause
what just happened."

"Still no answer," a male voice said from
Arthur's wrist.

Arthur dropped the bag on the top of a console
and returned to the hologram, lifting his wrist before saying, "I'm
not getting anything up here, either. It's like she literally
dropped out of the station."

Somehow Ignacio knew they were talking about
Rachel. Knew it for a certainty right to his bones. A few of the
repair bots joined him at the edge of the platform, their eyes
bobbing on eyestalks as they watched Arthur and the
hologram.

"I'm calling out a full search party. Tish, I
need you in the area as fast as you can. We need to know if
something is wrong with Redpoint One's upper systems," Arthur
said.

"I'll help," Ignacio called out. "Just tell me
what area to search."

Arthur switched off the hologram, moving to
step off the platform. "Leave this to those of us who know the
area. We're intimately familiar with the station."

Ignacio pointed to a blue and gray robot that
looked friendly. "One of the bots can come with me. I won't get
lost. I want to help."

"Sorry, leave this to us."

Ignacio watched him heading to the door, his
throat closing up. He called out after him, "I won't not be there.
Not again."

Arthur stopped at the door, the bot trailing
after him stopping as well. "What?"

"My first wife. I wasn't there for her. I will
be there for Rachel," Ignacio said. He took in a deep breath and
joined Arthur. "I'll follow you if I have to."

"No need. It seems the bots agree you should
be there." Arthur pointed to his feet.

Ignacio looked down to find the blue and gray
bot staring up at him, hovering right at his feet. Somehow, he felt
better knowing it was there.

"Follow me. We're rendezvousing with others to
organize the search. I'll explain on the way," Arthur
said.

Ignacio was right on his heels as they headed
back to the travel platform.

***

The water was filling the corridor fast. Rachel had long
since left the supply cart behind. It could take care of itself.
She needed to take care of her own neck.

And she was starting to get worried about it.
The water already came up over the tops of her boots, making it
hard to move very fast. Every door and corridor she tried wouldn't
open, no matter what she or the other bots tried. Tools didn't make
a difference either. To make matters worse, no one answered the
calls she tried to make with her ID band.

"Come on, Redpoint! Time to open," Rachel
yelled, pounding on another bulkhead. Which didn't make a
difference, either.

She felt horrible in the head. Something felt
wrong in this whole section. It was as if she couldn't hear
Redpoint One at all. Even the bots were upset. All three stuck
right close to her, as if looking to her for guidance. She didn't
know what to tell them, other than she wanted out, too, and for a
return of the soft mental touch of Redpoint One.

Now that she was without it, she realized how
much she'd come to like it since arriving. Redpoint One was home,
and the mental touch made her feel welcome. Now she couldn't feel
anything other than a cold emptiness.

The bots grew more vocal in their worry, with
even the two strange bots huddling next to her, looking for
reassurance.

"We need a way out. Find a way out," Rachel
said to them.

Usually, once they knew what she wanted, they
did it. Took the lead, gave some indication of direction, but they
didn't move away from her to lead the way.

Yet, the water continued rising.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

IGNACIO STAYED CLOSE to Arthur, letting the man
lead them to the problem area. They arrived to other maintenance
engineers already congregating. It lifted his heart to see so many
would be joining in the search to find Rachel, but it made his
heart sink to realize something was going on none of them
understood.

"Any clues at all," the man called Damien
asked.

"She's not showing up on any internal
sensors," Arthur said. "This is the general area she was last seen
in. We do a manual search from this point on."

Arthur passed out hand scanners and gave
several teams general search locations. Ignacio took one of the
last scanners, figuring out how to turn it on by himself. A simple
scanner from the looks of it, and definitely human-made and not a
construct of the station. After a few tries he felt comfortable
with the interface, succeeding in getting it to pick up everyone
around him.

"Okay, everyone head out, and stay together
with your partner," Arthur said. "I don't want anyone else getting
lost. Keep your eyes open, trust your instincts, and trust your
bots."

Ignacio looked up, realizing he'd missed some
of the instructions as he'd tried to figure out the scanner. Had he
been assigned to a partner and missed it?

Among the pairs leaving into the maze of
corridors, a man of medium build with blond hair waved at him.
"Let's get going."

Ignacio rushed to join him. "You're my search
partner?"

"You got it. Vasiliy Lukin," the man said with
a short wave of the hand before turning into the
corridors.

"Ignacio Manetti."

"You know our Rachel?" Vasiliy asked as the
corridor started narrowing.

"We're dating," Ignacio said, wishing he could
say more than that. Thanks to him and his cowardly heart, they were
barely dating at all. If not for the interfering Naughty Knitter's
Club, they wouldn't have even had their romantic lasagna meal in
the middle of the maintenance corridors.

Vasiliy stopped in the process of turning into
a new corridor. "Wait, are you the one with the newts and the
oil?"

The comment about the oil threw Ignacio until
he remembered the attempt to get Irvine out of the pipes and back
into his enclosure. "Sorry to say, yes, that was me. Or rather,
Irvine."

Vasiliy gave a short laugh. "If we weren't in
the middle of this, I would ask you to explain it in more detail.
As it is, we need to find a direction."

Ignacio glanced back the way they'd come, to
find two bots behind him, including the blue and gray bot. "You
don't know?"

"I know we're supposed to search this general
area, but not where Rachel might be. Bot, any ideas?" The white bot
chirped a question, but didn't move. Vasiliy looked down the
corridor he'd been about to head down. "There lays the
problem."

"Shouldn't we start a basic search pattern?"
Ignacio asked.

"Sure, we can do that," Vasiliy said with a
shrug of his shoulders. "Honestly, I'm used to the bots knowing
where a problem is, or getting a sense or instinct of where to
start. I'm not getting anything right now. How about
you?"

Ignacio looked up and down the corridors, as
well. There wasn't much to see. Only an endless expanse of pipes,
conduits, and control panels. A chaotic spaghetti that made no
sense at all. Unlike the others, he didn't possess any instinct or
knowledge of the layout of the internal workings of the
station.

"I guess something is better than nothing,"
Ignacio said, picking one corridor.

The corridor didn't hold any hidden pockets of
anywhere a person could disappear in. The more they searched, the
more his heart sank until it felt like a rock. With a station as
big as Redpoint One they could look for a lifetime and still not
inspect all of it.

"I'm still not getting anything," Vasiliy
said, glaring down the corridors. "I hate this."

"Maybe we should go up or down a level and try
this general area again?" Ignacio asked.

"It's worth a try. There should be a ladder in
this direction," Vasiliy said, pointing down a side
corridor.

Up another level and they started the search
all over again with the two bots in tow. Ignacio couldn't shake the
feeling of something bad happening and time was of the essence.
They weren't moving fast enough.

He stopped at a juncture branching off in five
directions, remembering Arthur's warning to always trust the bots
instincts. He asked the bot trailing him, "Do you know where Rachel
is? What direction?"

The bot circled around his feet, as if not
knowing where to go. At least he guessed that was what it meant. It
was hard to tell without them speaking.

"If they knew, they would be in front of us,
not behind," Vasiliy said. "I'm still not getting anything. How
about you?"

"Still nothing."

Ignacio didn't want to say anything more than
that. He knew his memories and emotions about what happened to his
dead wife were coloring his reaction now. He didn't like it. He
needed to be clear headed at the moment, and the memories were
interfering. Somehow, they needed to find Rachel, and
fast.

He picked a corridor at random but stopped
shortly. This was ridiculous. If Rachel wasn't answering calls and
the station and bots couldn't pick her up, then it meant she wasn't
in a usual place, such as a corridor.

They could walk right by her without knowing.
His mind flashed on the horror movie released last spring. The
scene of the moving walls and corridors flashed through his head.
Could they really move? Was that part of the kernel of truth among
all the lies in the movie?

The blue and gray bot settled at his feet and
stared up at him.

"We need to find a way to detect when she's
near," he told the bot, hoping it could understand him. He waved
the simple scanner in his hands. "I don't think this is going to do
it. If Redpoint One can't sense her, why would this?"

"Too bad the sensors of one of the ships going
through the decontamination tub can't help," Vasiliy said, stopping
next to them.

"Oh, let me guess. Redpoint One doesn't allow
them to see inside?" Ignacio said.

"It's one of the reasons pirates have never
been able to take the station. They don't have the floor plans with
which to plan the attack." Vasiliy paused. "Well, one of the
reasons."

Ignacio was beginning to think he knew of the
other reason. Perhaps some of the stories about moving walls might
be true.

The blue and gray bot emitted a curious chirp
and then a sad long beep. The eyestalks turned to look behind them
and then back up at him. The bot settled to the floor,
waiting.

Not the sort of answer he wanted. "Right. None
of us have an answer. I get it."