Torches illuminated the tunnel as the figures made their way through the cavernous underground. Winston Beaumont led the way, a 6ft3 man of solid build hunching under the low ceiling as he followed the path to the last known location of the fixers. The company colours of his containment suit were khaki and gold but they barely registered in this gloomy atmosphere. Within his airtight mask, a light illuminated his dark skin and shaven heat but cast his chin in shadow, his stubble looking thicker than it was. The walk was harder than he’d expected. The tunnel was narrow, unevenly sloped and haphazard. It would have been easier if he was able to stand upright, or if he hadn’t been carrying the MOXIE pack on his back, but the latter was company standard. The tunnel had run this way for a mile but it felt longer. The opening was just ahead and Winston informed the rest of his team, a 4-man squad in all, each of them dressed in similar fashion.

Winston felt relief as he stepped out of the oppressive tunnel and into the wide space. He’d been sent designs on the room and it was just as well because even with their torches and his MOXIE pack, the room was so dense with fog that it concealed the true size and shape of the space. He could have just walked into a huge stadium for all he knew. Smoke obscured the walls and the roof. Winston reached up to the green button on the side of his mask, activating his broadcast mic, and spoke into it. “Hello. Recovery Team present. Please identify your location.”

Nothing.

He’d expected as much. There’d been no transmissions out of this location for 10 hours. Still, chances were someone was conscious here, just unable to move.

Winston reached to the MOXIE pack behind him. The square box wasn’t overly heavy but added to the overall weight of his suit. The two funnels that spouted out at the top of the box, one capturing the noxious gases, the other dispersing oxygen, only added to the weight and a carrier had to walk at a slight hunch to balance it out. Winston grabbed the handle of the Retrieval Funnel, detaching it from its hook and brought it round to the front to aim the funnel more directly at the gases ahead. He switched the mode from PASSIVE to DIRECT and the gently humming device started to vibrate more efficiently. The mist swirled into the funnel, along the piping and into the MOXIE pack where the device started to convert the toxic fumes; sending the cleaned results out of the second funnel.

Winston attached his torch to the funnel gun, then retrieved his tablet device from his belt. Attaching it similarly to the space on the funnel gun, the screen of the tablet brought up the plans to the room and lit up Winston and his teams’ relative positions.

The fog shifted in front of him and sent swirls towards him and into the gullet of his funnel. The familiar swirls like a tornado reminded him of the stories he’d watched with his late father, tales of disasters on Earth-that-was. They brought a strange sort of comfort to him. “Anything?” a voice beckoned over the radio in his helmet. Unlike the crackle that came from the radios of his fellow cleaners, this was clear as day, transmitted from his bosses up high. “Negative,” Winston replied. “Still working the scene.”

Then, the fog in front of him shifted strangely. Instead of a gentle whirl, the spiral straightened momentarily to resemble straight lines, zigzagged and then continued to swirl. “That was weird,” Winston said, mostly to himself.

“What’s that?” a voice crackled, this time from one of his colleagues on site, the aptly named Carter Sweep.

“Maybe a problem with my MOXIE” Winston replied.

“The mist not moving like usual?” Carter answered. “It’s not just you?”

Winston looked behind him, his torch shining a light on the silhouetted figures working hard to clear the air with their machines. The mist looked even denser than before.

“It looked like I was looking at the transmission receiver,” Dash, one of the new guys, responded.

“Like a sound wave,” Carter answered back.

“It’s not clearing,” Dash said. “The mist just keeps…”

“Let’s keep the channel clear,” Winston interrupted. “Unless it’s important. We likely have a leak somewhere, that’s why our MOXIES aren’t working as efficiently.”

“Big leak,” he heard a voice mutter. Winston guessed it had come from Dash.

Truth was, Winston had been on a lot of clean-ups. It was the fixers jobs to fix any leaks or machine issues - hence their name. But it wasn’t uncommon for a cleaner like himself to patch up an dodgy job. Still… there was something about this place that gave him the creeps. The knowledge that a team of fixers had already come down here and now there was no sign of them gnawed at him.

He’d felt an anxiousness in his chest growing.

Looking at his tablet he could ascertain that he was near the centre of the space and had yet to find anything. The ground was a solid smooth rock and showed no signs of degradation. Curious, he would have expected the ground to be full of dust but it wasn’t settling. Perhaps there was a gravity issue here too, which would explain the strange mist patterns. Winston tapped the TF Diagnosis on his tablet. Thin waves of light emanated from the device, surrounded him and spread out throughout the structure. A second or so later and his screen brought up a black circle with a yellow dot running the circumference of it. Inside the shape were numbers counting up quickly from 0. Within a few seconds it had reached 100% and the screen changed again to present a series of charts measuring gravity, temperature, oxygen, nitrogen, and the presence of toxic gases. Surprised by the readings, Winston chose to expand the results to examine the analysis of other possible contagions in the area.

According to the diagnosis, everything was normal here. There were no toxic gases. The atmosphere was breathable. And, according to the remote scan, all Terraforming Operators in the area were functioning normally.

It had to be wrong, Winston thought. Maybe the tablet had provided a faulty read. He ran the scan again. No change. “Carter,” he said. “Could you run an area diagnosis for me? I’m having issues with my feed.” His colleague replied in the affirmative and Winston stood still in the centre of the room as he surveyed the mist around him. Looking up he could make out the shape of the curved ceiling but nothing else.

“Everything reads fine, Sir,” Carter says. “Area is… clean.” His tone revealed the same insecurity and untrustworthiness that Winston felt.

“Okay,” Winston said. “We’re going to have to trust our training on this one.”

“Sir?” Dash asks.

“This tech is tried and tested,” Winston says. “But tech fails. We’ve got to assume that whatever is in the air is messing with the readings. Or maybe, it’s not something that has ever been analysed before and it’s clouding the diagnosis. Keep your suits on and make sure your o2 levels are within the green zone at all times.”

Winston examined his funnel gun, flicked the setting from RETRIEVAL to BLAST and heard the familiar thrumming stop. He rested his finger on the trigger and pulled it, the funnel blasting a gulf of air in front of him, shifting the mist so that he could see a good 10 feet in front of him. “Spread out,” Winston said, tapping his tablet so that the map was brought back up, only this time dotted lines separated the area evenly between the number of cleaners. “Search your assigned parameters.”

He pulled the trigger again and again as he navigated the area.

After barely a minute had passed, another voice called over the line. “I’ve got something here.” It was Lambard. “Looks like blood.”

“Are you sure?” Winston asked, noticing Lambards’ location pinged on the other side of the room. “Looks like. Only it’s dry, like it’s old.”

“Anything else?”

Lambard blasted his gun again. “Negative, area looks clean and clear otherwise. Could be old, but…”

“What is it?” Winston asked.

“There’s a lot of it.”

“I’ll come to you after I’ve…” Winston’s words trailed off.

A blast of his gun revealed a shape in the distance.

Winston glances quickly down at his tablet to confirm there’s not a red dot on his map that would identify it as one of his own.

“After?”

“Keep at it,” Winston said, his words drifting out of him without realising. His attention was elsewhere. He pressed forward as he blasted it again. Mist dispersed around the silhouette of legs before the particles reformed to obscure the view.

“Hello,” he transmits, pulling the trigger again, softer this time so that the blast doesn’t hit the person too much. But it’s evidently not enough as it doesn’t even reveal the figure this time.

He pulls the trigger again harder this time only as he does so he’s faced with a wall. There is no one there. He turns to the right quickly, blasting to the side; and then again to the left.

There was someone here. And he was moving quickly.

He looked again at the tablet and realised there was definitely an error with it. The device picked up heat signatures. Every red blip represented one of his team. If there were no other red dots then… could their body temperature have been so reduced so as not to register? Possible, but the device was built to adjust for that. There was definitely an error. But was the error on all of them

“Anyone pick up anything?” he asked.

“Negative” came the replies, one after the other.

He debated whether to report what he’d seen. There was no reason why he shouldn’t have. Except for that growing anxiety. That fear that they might not believe him. That somehow he’d imagined it. But he hadn’t.

He looked at the wall ahead of him, reaching out and pressing his hand against it. It was solid. He ran his hand across, feeling for any grooves, but there were none. If this place had any secret passageways they were hidden from here… like much of this place.

“Anyone locate the source of any leaks, any spots with…” he was going to suggest higher readings but that could only be discerned by the tablet, which wasn’t revealing any toxic gas at all. “perhaps a higher concentration?”

Again came that familiar negative response.

“I’ve got no sign of anything out of the ordinary. No damage at least,” Carter replied. “Not to the structure or any holes anywhere except for the tunnel we came in on. And that was clear as anything. It’s like it’s all just gathered here like a weird weather pattern.”

“Maybe there’s unique properties here that can be studied,” Dash said.

So long as they’re not expecting to study it with the equipment we’ve got down here, Winston thought to himself.

“Hang on,” one of the voices said. “I’m getting movement.” The voice sounded like Lambard, but Winston wasn’t sure.

Winston was just about to reply to him, asking for more information when he saw it to. The mist was moving strangely again. This time it was moving away from him as if he’d just blasted it. Retreating like he’d done something to offend it. The room started to clear around him and Winston could see the shape and design of the room a bit more than before. Instead of examining the room further however, he followed the mist so as to see where it was escaping to. Perhaps it could illuminate them.

He followed it towards the centre of the room, where he’d once stood and a look at his screen told him that he wasn’t the only one. The red blips moved towards the same centre.

He first saw the form of Carter on his left, and then a similar familiar figure on his right. Then as the mist collected in a whirlwind it seemed to lead to a figure in the centre, a figure that Winston believed he’d already seen once before.

The mist seemed to fade as it reached the standing figure, a man dressed in a suit not dissimilar to their own, standing around 5ft10; a man with a containment suit but with no mask. A man that Winston recognised from his work sheet. A man by the name of Francis Kincaid.