Page 34 of Challenged

“And yet, here we are.” She shrugs. “Nineteen years in cryostasis, Angie. I know I said don’t think about it, but think about it for a moment. Nineteen years. How often do you think Mercenia has thought about any of us in that time?”

Never. Never is the answer to that question. Human life is cheap. On an overpopulated planet, who would care about losing twenty or so people when there are billions that could replace us?

Fuck.

“Okay,” I say, mind racing. “So they give zero shits about us as people. But we both know there’s one thing the high ups love more than anything. Money. And we’re sitting on a gold mine here. I’m prepared to bet those cryostasis pods are worth a small fortune, and there are how many sitting in that room? If we can just get in touch with Mercenia, let them know - they’ll fly out here to rescue the equipment and we can all pretend it was really to rescue us and get a ride back home.”

The words come flying out as fast as I can think them. A tickling sense of wrongness settles in the back of my mind, but I ignore it, focusing instead on the practical.

“If there’s power enough to sustain the cryostasis pods, there must be some computers that are still working here, right?”

I begin trying doors. Brooks doesn’t stop me, just watches, following close behind me as I barge into a room full of computers.

“They do work,” she says, as I run over to one and start mashing keys on the keyboard to wake it up.

Sure enough, it takes a moment, but the screen flickers on. There’s a password option, or a ‘log in as guest’. I hit that, wondering how much of the system is locked away if you don’t have a user profile.

“Lorna’s been using them,” Brooks says, pulling up a chair. “She says they’re not connected to any sort of external network. No way to contact Mercenia, I’m afraid.”

The desktop loads in, and I immediately go to the network settings, confirming what she’s saying with a couple of clicks. I deflate, but then I slow down. Think.

The energy requirements alone to send a message across the stars must be enormous. They wouldn’t want everyone on the team sending love notes back to their girlfriends and using up vital resources, putting pressure on the power supply. So, of course, it would be locked down to only a select few users, a select few machines.

I look round the room, spotting a private office sectioned off by a glass wall. Definitely a manager’s office. It’s easy to picture Baxter sitting behind the desk inside it, gazing out at all his subordinates, making sure they’re not twiddling their thumbs for even a second.

If any computer in the room has the kind of connectivity I’m after, that will be the one.

I get up, heading for the room, glad to find the door swings open readily and I don’t have to try taking an office chair to thetoughened glass. Brooks follows me once more, her arms folded across her chest.

“Tried this one, too,” she says. “It’s password locked. Can’t get into it.”

A couple of taps on the keyboard confirms this. The Lock Screen loads, the username DFARROW already inputted, the cursor blinking in the empty password box.

“See,” Brooks says, coming round to stand next to me as I sink into the chair. “There’s no way of sending a message home, even if we wanted to.”

I reach for the drawers under the desk, pulling open the top one. It’s full of mess. Screwed up paper, food wrappers, stationery. I jiggle the drawer, feeling for the angle that will let me take the whole thing out. I pull, catching the drawer as it comes loose, then upend the entire thing on the desk. Pencils roll around, dropping off the edges of the desk and onto the floor. Brooks picks one up and sets it back on the desk, her eyes narrowed as she watches me.

And what she said filters through my spinning thoughts.

“‘Even if we wanted to’?”

“Yeah,” Brooks says, her tone and expression defensive. “Why would I want to go back to the people that brought me out here under false pretences then froze me after…”

She trails off, and the look that comes into her eye tells me I really don’t want to know what she’s not saying.

“Why would you want to go back to the people that abducted you, brought you out here and abandoned you?” she says, turning it back on me.

I’m clearly burning through any friendliness that she might have felt towards me, but I can’t worry about that now. I keep sorting through the junk, pushing things aside and spreading it all out until I find what I’m looking for.

A paper diary.

There’s a very specific sort of middle manager who indulges in the exorbitant expense of a paper diary. Baxter was one of them. And Baxter had this terrible habit of writing all his passwords down.

“Why would I want to stay here?” I say to Brooks as I prop the diary up on its spine, let it fall open where it naturally wants to. “Does this village the hunter-gatherer aliens live in have running water? What about indoor plumbing? Air conditioning? What about my skill set, huh? I’m a data analyst-” Not strictly true, but it’s the closest job title to what I actually do for Baxter when I’m supposed to be running errands for him. “-I can’t imagine there’s much call for that out here. Are they going to be glad to have the burden of feeding me, keeping me safe, when I’m utterly useless to their society? All my plants were plastic. I am not built for life in a rainforest.”

The centre edge of the page the diary opens on has been flattened so many times by a sweaty palm, the paper is greyed and dirty. In a column, neatly printed out, is a list of words mixed with numbers and special characters. I put a finger to the first letter of the last iteration, copying the characters into the password box one at a time.

“Lina obviously thinks you are.”

---