Sleep was one of Vik's favorite pastimes. He could fall asleep anywhere, at any time, but waking up was his primary problem. Perhaps his DNA was predominantly composed of genes from people who had lived in the coziest and safest places on planet Earth. Because he himself believed that even multi-ton firearms, the kind he'd read about in the recesses of the electronic library, which used gunpowder and were not equipped with recoil dampeners or sound suppression, would likely not have been able to wake his carcass.
As a guarantee of his awakening, in addition to the already employed audio alarm screaming at over ninety-five decibels—a level which, to his great regret, the ship's medical command would not allow to be exceeded—and the switch to shut it off in the form of a series of what were now algebraic rather than mathematical problems, Vik had recently ordered and installed a physical wake-up alarm. It forced his face to meet the floor instead of lounging in bed.
Ship-time was approaching the morning part of the cycle. Suddenly for him, as was usual for Vik, the time for awakening arrived; his body flew out of the bed. Coordinated with the alarm signal, he panic-tumbled like a feline and landed in a combat stance.
Finding no danger, Vik cursed under his breath and trudged towards the alarm clock, which had a spheroid shape. Its surface was completely covered with buttons, the functions of which changed every cycle, so that even to solve the notorious algebraic problems, one first had to orient oneself with such an inventive input device.
A minute later, the noise ceased. Reaching the bathroom, Vik began washing up. He himself looked quite tidy even after a deep sleep; his moderately long chestnut hair, which ended at his earlobes, was brushed back. And in his large green-emerald eyes, the last dream he had seen was still visible.
His body was athletic; of course, on the ship, matters were strict regarding the crew's physical condition. Just consider the mandatory participation directive: "On the participation of any 'awake' individual in professional sports competitions," which ranged from individual to team sports.
Kira, for example, played basketball with increased gravity and a modified ball. If you additionally activated the blue lighting during games, it seemed as if the game was being played underwater. And the successful team was the one whose number of players breaking through their limits surpassed that of the opponent.
After washing up, Vik proceeded to breakfast. Although he had spent some time preparing breakfast the previous evening, he preferred to chop the salad just before the meal. Turning off the boiling kettle, which he had put on before going to the bathroom, he poured water into a cup containing prepared instant coffee.
On the spaceship, one could easily purchase coffee of different varieties, roasts, and grinds, as there were agronomic stations and departments in the working areas. But no matter how Vik tried to learn, the freshly brewed coffee he made always fell short compared to the instant portions.
Breakfast, as usual, was a success. Some time after the planned wake-up, rhythmic knocking, metal on metal, was heard at the apartment door. Without much thought, Vik activated his communicator.
Outside, a surveillance camera extended above the door, its lens shimmering with a violet glow. The visitor behind the door immediately noticed that his knocking had been successful and had attracted the occupant's attention.
"Morning!" Kira exclaimed, speaking directly to the camera. "Come on, open up, or I'll fix these weights around your neck!" Making this declaration, she bared her wrist, pointing to a series of bracelets, clearly electrical devices, with inactive indicators.
Finishing his coffee and observing these bracelets on the communicator's hologram, Vik recognized them as electronic weights that only functioned in training areas. Because in those areas, the change in gravity affected not the entire athlete's body, but precisely these bracelets, which subsequently gave the person the sensation of altered gravity in their location.
"And good health to you. And what if I don't open? Will you keep knocking on the bulkhead? Like a woodpecker searching for food in tree bark?" He chuckled, then immediately caught himself thinking that his phrases were indeed sometimes unnecessarily elongated.
"What woodpecker?"
"A bird of that kind existed on Earth. You walk into a forest and hear a sound, and it's your friend the woodpecker."
"I said I'd hang them on your neck, and I'll peck through your head like your woodpecker to gnaw out your brains, open up, come on!" Kira declared with a sly smile.
Well, what could he do? Vik had to open the door; he remembered perfectly well one time he had angered her with his teasing, and she responded to him for a whole monthly cycle, talking in monosyllabic phrases: "yep," "yes," "right," "uh-huh," and the like. He still remembered that feeling of a dried-out throat in attempts to break her concentration; only a mischievous sparkle in her eyes betrayed her own struggle at that moment.
The sound of the door opening was heard. Vik had just finished his coffee and went to wash the dishes.
"Aren't you a bit early?" he inquired of the lady who had entered the kitchen.
"Just right for a workout, and Phil told me yesterday he'd rigged up a thing, said we'd like it. And he suggested we come to shift earlier and check it out in the morning, so we don't waste time after work."
"I wonder what he's cobbled together there?" Vik commented on this news with unconcealed interest.
Phil Vinder was both a teacher and a boss to them, in the mechanics and electrical department. He had only come out of anabiosis three years ago; before that, his mentorship was also conducted only through robots.
He was a large man, standing nearly two meters tall and weighing a hundred kilos. The presence of large palms and fingers, which at first glance seemed to hinder his work, did not bother him in the least. And the quality of his work, executed with surgical precision, was astounding.
From acquaintances, Vik and Kira had heard more than once that, aside from his remarkable professionalism for his years—he was only twenty at the time of the expedition's launch—he had a very influential half-brother who piloted the only combat mech at the time and, importantly, held a position in the organization called UNION.
This organization was a bastion of security science and the unification of all humanity. But Phil's brother went missing in action shortly before the "Red Sunset." According to the ship's log, from that moment, Phil was beside himself with grief and was recovering for over three hundred years.
Only in the last two decades had he begun to come to his senses, and seven years ago, Vik was assigned to him, as was Kira a year before him. And then three years ago, justifying his decision with the reasoning that "You two couldn't even solder a circuit without human pressure," Phil decided to exit anabiosis.
"I think two monthly cycles ago he was looking at a schematic for some kind of exo-something," Kira recalled, sitting down on a chair.
"Or maybe he decided to assemble some ancient device. To demonstrate an example in real life," Vik replied with a counter-probability. "Who knows, we'll see."
Wiping the last washed plate with a towel, Vik went to change clothes.
"Oh, I'll come with you!" Kira declared and, hopping off the chair, followed him.
Only the partition closed right in front of her nose.
"Haha, what's wrong?" she asked with undisguised disappointment at the door. "Alright, I'll wait outside."
After a while, the two colleagues were heading towards the training grounds. They were built in residential zones, so exiting into the main space wasn't planned. Due to their earlier arrival for training, the area was almost empty.
At this time of the daily cycle, one could only cross paths with a couple of people; the main flow of trainees would surge in a couple of hours.
After the warm-up, the colleagues decided to play basketball. After several unsuccessful rounds, Vik decided to give up and end the game. If only he, like Kira, paid more attention to basketball rather than the game of tennis he had chosen and which pleased his soul, then he, like her, could have lasted longer against one of the laureates of the championship from two years prior.
"Aw, and I was just warming up."
"Well, I'm already overheated. You could have held back to maintain interest."
"You're not made of sugar, you won't melt," Kira encouraged. "Let's hit the shower and go to work."
Vik didn't ponder the sugar comparisons, and the time was already approaching the agreed-upon hour.
An unforeseen unpleasant situation occurred in the shower. The system communicator, whose design features were implemented as separate parts implanted in the user's wrists, malfunctioned during operation. The malfunction was specifically manifested as an uncontrolled discharge of electricity through Vik's left arm.
He had heard about communicator failures in the first centennial cycle of the flight, when physiological implants were being developed and universally introduced. But you wouldn't encounter a device failure nowadays, and then this happens.
At the moment of the failure, his arm cramped with a spasm, and the nerve endings, receiving a greater charge than from a neural impulse, after a moment of numbness, began to dance. The arm decided to live its own life. Meanwhile, Vik tried to give commands to his arm, but only felt a dull, aching pain.
The problem resolved itself, just as it began, unexpectedly. The failure simply stopped. Vik flexed his wrist and found no abnormalities. Everything was fine, just as it had been a minute ago.
Rubbing his forehead, which his own hand had bruised, Vik exited the locker room.
"Who punched you?" came a puzzled voice. "And how could that even happen?"
"And a good morning to you, Richter," Vik replied, recognizing the familiar voice. "Well, my arm decided to have a falling out with me."
"How so?"
"A glitch in the comlink. Electricity ran through my whole arm. Good thing the 'backup implants' didn't trigger because of it."
"Well, that's a rarity. And the OSS didn't activate?" asked Richter.
"You're right, that's strange. A glitch, and the OSS didn't scream its head off."
The guys had to contact the security system and report both the malfunction and the failure of the "Organism Security System" procedure. This system monitored the physiological data of the passengers, and upon noticing even the slightest deviations, security and medical personnel were dispatched to the location.
In its early days of operation, the system was overly sensitive. It was amusing to read the criticism of this program in the ship's log, from people whose proximity, based on informational data, was considered a threat to the individuals' lives.
Over two hundred annual cycles had passed since then, and by this period, the system had been thoroughly debugged. Information about this incident greatly interested the law enforcement officers. According to their data, everything was fine with Vik, which was what was being telegraphed to the OSS center; analysis of the data revealed neither falsification nor a failure in the system itself. Although the comlink's data recorded changes in the victim's physical indicators.
"What's this gathering?" asked Kira, approaching from the locker room. "Did someone die?"
"Not yet, but it's a matter of time and chance," Richter said, extending his hand for a handshake.
"Are you a witness to the incident?" the law enforcement representative asked Kira.
"What kind of..." Glancing at Vik, she hesitated. "Were you attacked or something?"
"No, no," he hurried to reassure her. "The comlink in my right hand shorted out, and my arm decided to punish me for life," he reported, turning it into a joke. "And the OSS didn't trigger in this situation, so we reported it..."
The surprise on Kira's face overshadowed all other emotions. News of a malfunction was one thing, but the failure of the OSS awakened fear in her as well.
"Please try not to disseminate information about this OSS error. The team will take measures to find the root of the problem. And we will devote all efforts to eradicating this error," the security officer informed them, interrupting the colleagues' conversation.
"Alright," all three responded in unison.
After collecting data, the officers went on their way. Richter, whom Vik had known since he was about five, said goodbye and went to train. The information about this incident had somewhat stunned him; his pale face showed not a trace of color, and in contrast with his red hair, it gave him a somewhat surreal appearance.
Heading to the workshop, Vik and Kira decided to stop by the technical service center. There, after checking the implant, they concluded that the device was physically fine, and no defects in the hardware were noticed.
The technician allowed only one possibility. Given that the communication implants are charged externally, namely via wireless energy transmission, it was possible that the area experienced an increased attraction of the charging potential. And despite the structural feature of the charging element, a leak occurred externally, except that the traces which are present in such a situation were not observed.
"At the very least, the slightest sign of a short circuit would be visible on the device, but this is like some kind of fantasy."
"But you see, the medical scan data shows minor muscle tears, similar in practice only to the after-effects of electric shock," Vik cited one of the facts proving the incident, and added, "And also traces on the shoulder electro-barrier."
Electro-barriers were the name for implants located at the junctions of limbs. They are designed to block an electric charge in the affected area to preserve the safety of the greater part of the organism.
Since the expedition was traveling on a spaceship, which in turn uses a large amount of electricity, safety measures were certainly necessary in case crew organisms were electrocuted.
"That's just it," the technician agreed. "Everything points to the fact of the incident, but there's no trace on the comlink."
Failing to get a clear answer, the colleagues went to work. They worked in industrial sector number four. Opening the door, they stepped inside.