Chapter 93: 93 Departures, Part One

On her last night in the hospital, Tabitha tried to make a circuit of the hallways on her own, but her energy ran out before she got far.

The door to Darren's room was open and there he was, talking nonsense again, more loud and insistent than ever.

"The goddess of this place has shown me the way out. She'll let me leave if I take the right people," he said.

Willow might have been ignoring him, but Tabitha, slumped against a wall nearby, couldn't help but listen.

"Take me with you," she said. There was no way they could leave. He would probably just lead her into an exploding trap. But it would be quicker than dying like this.

*

He dusted off the side of a craft, a shiny round silver thing that didn't look much like the others.

"Property of Antley Grapfoy," Tabitha read out. "Isn't that the person who invented the gate system?"

Darren said he didn't know. He was completely useless. But he seemed sure that if they just checked in that compartment they'd understand what they were meant to learn.

"That's ridiculous. It's so blatantly a trap that I can't believe you think I'd fall for it," she said.

"She kept me alive in a craft like this. I breathed her air. I ate what she made for me. She doesn't want to hurt us! She wants to keep us safe."

Darren always started to cry when he talked about his imaginary goddess of the camp and this was no exception. Tabitha rolled her eyes and turned to walk away. She was ready to go back to her room, to Freya's weird humour, to Angharad and Jin fighting over who could be the most bossy person in the room. She was ready to spend her last moments with them, arguing over old movies and pirated TV shows. It wasn't what she'd imagined for her life, but it was enough.

Rod Spark's helper bot flared to life behind her and pushed them both in. Before she could reach out the door slammed close, and everything was dark.

*

The morning light beat hot on Tsuyoshi's back. The weather had been all over the place lately – cold one day and hot the next – and the up and down was making him sick. Not that he'd tell anyone, even if he ended up with that cold that had already made its way through most of the camp.

"Where is my lovely little machine? Where is Tinny?" Rod Spark asked as he walked around, flailing his arms about and looking self-important.

Nobody answered him. Tsuyoshi was sick of helping Spark already.

Spark directed Tsuyoshi and Zelko for his inspection of the craft – press here, touch that, make sure that thing doesn't bend.

At first working together with Zelko like this for Rod Spark of all people made Tsuyoshi feel tense, but Spark was such a dick that Tsuyoshi had settled into an almost permanent eye roll, so at least he could relate to Zelko's expression of tired annoyance.

Tsuyoshi laughed under his breath when he saw Zelko notice his smirk with a dramatic double take.

"Why aren't the buttons working? They worked yesterday," Rod Spark bellowed.

What an obnoxious blowhard.

"Maybe the buttons find you so annoying they've gone on strike," Tsuyoshi said.

"What did you say?!" Rod Spark yelled.

"I give up," Tsuyoshi said.

Immediately the craft moved under him and he slammed into a seat, jolting his injured side. All the buttons on the console lit up. The monitor blipped into life and the fibreglass door at their side slammed down.

A blatantly artificial machine voice said, "Get ready for take off."

*

Jin searched every room in the hospital twice before finally coming back to his own room, occupied only by Angharad who sat, violently filing her nails.

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"Did you see Tabitha at any point last night?" Jin asked.

"Why, is there something you need to talk to her about?" Angharad asked. Her eyelashes were wet as she looked up at him, but if she wasn't going to mention it, he wasn't going to ask.

"I don't need to have a reason to talk to her."

"Whatever. If you're going to be in a mood you can take it outside."

He didn't think he was the one in a mood. He went outside so he wouldn't blow up at her over nothing.

It wasn't like he didn't get it. Even with all their togetherness and ideas sharing, even with all the smiles and laughter, everyone was more tense since the fight with the machine men. That had to be the whole point. Their tyrant had made sure they all had weapons and they all hid them away in drawers; their tyrant took away the things they liked and they all learned to live without them. No wonder whoever it was escalated in scale.

He found Freya outside, watching Spark's show with her arms crossed and a sparkle in her eye.

"What are you doing out here?" he asked.

"I'm admiring the tall one's arms," she said.

He looked over at everyone climbing in and out of the partially fixed craft. "Really, Zelko? He's disgusting."

"Oh, he's not as cute as you, but he's still very nicely shaped."

Jin rolled his eyes. They weren't the only people watching. Spark's theatrics had drawn a small crowd.

"Have you seen Tabitha?" Jin asked.

"I haven't looked," Freya said.

At that moment the craft lit up and slammed itself shut. Everyone in the crowd startled. Even Rod Spark went wide-eyed with surprise.

Over the loudspeaker came the announcement, in a softly-modulated feminine voice: "I will not let you leave."

But high above them through the ripple of the barrier, the travel gate turned itself on with a shudder, and then the craft shot up. There was a horrendous noise as it hit the barrier. It stuck for a moment, suspended in the strange electric waves. And then another layer of barrier formed underneath, a quick movement like the barrier was panicked, and the craft ripped through the upper layer and shot straight through into the rippling circle of the gate.

Then vanished from sight, and the gate turned itself off.

"Did they get through?" someone asked.

"Of course they got through," Jin said. "You saw them get through. You should ask if they got through alive."

"There's no way they lived. The craft has insufficient shielding. They'll be flash fried inside there," Freya said.

"Don't tell Angharad. I'm sick of seeing her pretend she's not crying all the time," Jin said.

Freya punched Jin's shoulder, hard enough to hurt. "You could have a little bit of empathy for her. We're all unhappy."

"This is proof!" Rod Spark yelled. "The barrier can be breached! We can get out of here!"

It wasn't until Willow ran up to them, frantically signing something that Jin didn't understand, that anyone discovered Tabitha was gone, too.

They searched the whole camp but couldn't find her anywhere. In their room her belongings lay untouched and her bed was cold. That morning Jin had assumed she'd gone outside early; now he felt like the idiot who didn't notice a friend disappearing.

He slumped onto her bed where she liked to sit and covered his face with his hands.

In the hallway Angharad argued with someone, her voice steadily rising. "No, I refuse," she said. And then louder, "I refuse to believe they're dead. I'm sick of people dying. It's not allowed anymore."

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