In the close quarters of the maintenance shaft, the wide arc of vision only helped to remind Jester of how uncomfortable he was. It was like being shoved into a soup can and his chest tightened like someone had cinched a belt around it. Why didn't someone tell him he was claustrophobic? Isn't that the sort of thing they decide in the vat?
"What a time to find this out," he mumbled as he sank his claws in and forced himself to leave the ladder. "And just after my warranty ran out too."
He tried to laugh at his own joke but the chuckle came off as a squealing echo in the tight confines of the metal conduit. Megan called up from below, probably asking if he was okay and he responded by crawling away faster. Of all people, he couldn't want her to know he was shaking like a leaf from something besides his espresso binge. She was Dr. Barker's daughter and he couldn't bear the thought of embarrassing himself or his model in front of any of Dr. Barker's blood. Besides, his friends at the pit would ever let him live that sort of faux pas down and he knew he was just self-effacing enough to tell them.
"Are you okay?" her voice called through the hands-off mike.
"Why? Did I scare ya?" he quipped and kept moving.
Jester relaxed when the shaft widened slightly, allowing him to breathe easier and move more quickly. The sooner he got to the workstation (estimated: 5 minutes) and took care of this Owen-psycho (estimated: 5 seconds tops, IF he took his time), the sooner he would be back in open spaces where there was plenty of air again -not that the air was short or deficient in here, but he couldn't help worrying about it. Oh, how he'd like to get his hands on the smart-ass tech that dialed that disadvantage into his makeup.
Panels and automated machinery buzzed and hummed behind the grillwork to his sides, their LEDs flickered like SLA-mas trees along the polished metal and his skin. The urge to mimic them with his own pigment vanished as quickly as it occurred because he couldn't spare the concentration it required. Instead, he thought about the seasonal festivities- the tinsel, singing children, company sanctioned SLA-mas present exchanges - but the ways to distract himself ran out before he really got started. His memories of SLA-mas parties were just false implants to make him more compatible with humans and reminded him that he was just another a SLA "product" instead of an employee. The emptiness and isolation weighed down on him more than ever.
"Oh great, ANOTHER PHOBIA!" he thought to himself. "I'm afraid of being alone too!"
Shaking his head to clear it, he pushed on faster. A SLA-mas song talking about Santa Claws coming to town began looping in his head and he found himself singing along, buoyed up by his nerves and the caffeine wave. Before he knew it, the exit was in sight but the shaft's diameter had suddenly narrowed again and he had to tuck his elbows under his chest and shuffle forward like a worm. It was getting harder to move by the moment and his shaking claws reminded him of how well adapted for this he was.
"Don't they ever TEST for this sort of thing?" he thought to himself.
It briefly occurred to him that he was probably named "Jester" instead of "Joke" simply because it sounded nicer -after all, no one in their right mind would have created a KM infiltration specialist and made them claustrophobic. The affliction was bad enough for humans, but with seven eyes, he was acutely aware of the tight confines from nearly every direction and the sensation was absolutely maddening.
"Almosttherealmosttherealmostthere," he thought to himself, speaking out loud at the same time.
"What?" Meg's voice said. "You're breaking up. I didn't get that."
The rasp of his claws was as loud as the heartbeat in his ears as he reached the end. Slumping, he let his breath out in a long hiss and let the relief flood in. The few minutes it took to crawl this far had felt like hours, but it was finally time for the fun part. The exit opened beneath him and he carefully peered in with the side of his head, spotting a rickety stepladder beneath him and a cluttered room bathed in red light. Nothing moved and the only sound was the beeping of equipment and purr of air vents.
"Jester, answer me! Report!"
Silently, Jester gripped the edge of the shaft and looked in further, using a slight turn of his head to survey the small room. The grilled floor was covered in food cartons, plastic cafeteria trays, and candy bar wrappers and he grinned wider. If this Owen guy had a crappy diet like this, giving him a quick death would be merciful. He tumbled forward and landed in a crouch with claws extended, easily reaching both walls.
"Ello Honey," he crooned, still ignoring the voice on his mike. "I'm home!"
There was very little cover for anyone to hide, but he made it a point to look around anyway. Piles of assorted tools, structural schematics, and manuals mixed in with the debris and he tossed each aside once it was identified.
"Megan. It looks like our friend's been hoarding manuals and building stuff. I wonder wha." he started, but a blinking set of lights from the trash to his left caught his attention.
Leaning down, Jester carefully shuffled the paper out of the way, finding what appeared to be a jury-rigged control panel of some sort. Cables ran away from it and he followed them along the base of the wall and back under the trash where they terminated at a red numeric counter that was working its way down from thirty-two. He giggled aloud to himself and shook his head. The subversive obviously wasn't very good at making booby traps - the fool had set the counter so high that whoever triggered it would be on a shuttle home before it went off. All that had to be done was to find the ordnance and disable it, but that couldn't be difficult. That was when he realized that the floor, ceiling, and part of the walls were completely covered by layers of some sort of pliable plastic padding. Shuffling the debris back, he found a line of stenciling across its surface and craned his neck around to read it.
"C-983 Seis-mic-core-char-ges," he muttered as he read the text upside down, seeing that the entire room was stacked with the stuff.
"Uh-oh."
Meg flinched away from her earpiece just as the hot waft of smoke and debris blew her off the ladder. Distant rumbles and groans echoed through the station and the floor trembled briefly beneath her. Automated alarms wailed from the distance and she sat up, blinking in the fog.
Jester was gone.
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