Chapter Text
The blare of the emergency meeting alarm made Gordon jump and drop the wires he was teasing back together with a startled curse. At his feet, Joshua looked up, and Gordon could see his stern little face through the child-sized visor as he pursed his lips.
“Dad, why are there so many meetings on this ship?”
Gordon sighed and swung Joshua up onto his shoulders before moving out of the electrical room and heading up through storage toward the cafeteria at a brisk trot. “This is a different kind of ship than we’re used to, buddy. It’s not a transport, remember? It’s a mission ship. And there were some, uh, issues with the last ones, remember how we talked about that? So if anyone sees anything weird, they have to call a meeting about it, and we all have to make sure to show up as soon as possible.”
He felt the thud of Joshua flopping dramatically over the top of his helmet. “But this is the third one today, and they’re so boring,” Joshua whined. “Everyone just stands around and talks.”
Gordon chuckled as he stepped into the main conference room-slash-cafeteria. “Yeah, bud, that’s what a meeting is. You’ve broken it down to the bare essentials.”
“Like ‘bear necessities’?” Joshua asked, perking up.
“Yeah, kind of.” Gordon reached up and swung Joshie down as he stepped up to the conference table, plunking him down underneath it where he had already left some coloring books. “Now be patient for a bit, and we’ll go to one of the observation windows after this, okay?”
“Not doing your tasks, huh, Freeman?”
Gordon took a moment to gather himself, then looked up and glared across the table at Forzen. He didn’t even know if it was the guy’s first or last name, and he didn’t care to find out. Forzen had been a colossal asshole for the week-long training they all had to attend before boarding the mission ship - he’d even gotten his hands on some sort of gray paint and splattered it across his dark green suit in what was probably supposed to look like a camo pattern. Gordon thought it looked more like Jackson Pollock was having an off day.
“I would be doing my tasks if someone hadn’t called a meeting for the third time today,” Gordon said through gritted teeth. “What’s up this time? Did you see your own shadow and get scared it was following you?”
The rest of the crew had trooped in through various doorways by then, and Bubby cackled at the comment. “No, that was last time,” he crowed, pulling his cyan helmet off. Next to him, Dr. Coomer took off his lime green helmet with a sigh of relief. The ship was a shitty model from back before the last overhaul, so it was falling apart at the seams even before it got old, and it was ancient now. The air supply systems were so unreliable that the company had tasked the crew with staying in their suits unless they were in the conference room - they were told it was the most reinforced room in the ship. Or maybe it was the only reinforced room, being right behind the cockpit and having all the food supplies in the pantries. The rest of the ship could go to hell, apparently - as long as the engines were working, that is. And they’d been discovered to have a habit of straying out of alignment on day two of the mission, so everyone was pretty peeved about that.
Honestly, Gordon was honestly surprised the ship had held together this far. The starcutter that the company sent last time was decades younger and way more advanced, and it had still vanished with all hands before reaching its destination. In this bucket of bolts, they would be lucky to reach the Aperture asteroid field, let alone Mesa HQ itself.
“Hi Tommy!” Joshua chirped from under the table. “Hi Sunkist!”
Tommy pulled off his bright yellow helmet and bent down to grin at Joshua as Sunkist shoved half of her incongruously enormous body under the edge of the table to reach Joshie and slather his face with kisses. Luckily he hadn’t taken his orange helmet off yet, but that just meant Gordon would have to wash it, again. He hit the clasps to unlock his own matching orange helmet, breathing in the slightly fresher air in the larger conference room space. The suits recycled air, and the packs meant they had over a day’s worth of self-contained supply, but it started to taste weird after a while. Or maybe that was the claustrophobia…
“Hey Joshua!” Tommy was saying. “Wha- what are you working on this time?”
Gordon fucking loved Tommy. He was the only one who consistently took the time to actually talk to Joshie, instead of just talking at him or talking over him or, even worse, not talking to him at all.
“Octopus!” Joshua said cheerfully, holding up the coloring book so Tommy could see the outline he was carefully filling in with green and purple. Gordon was pretty sure that no actual octopus was colored like that, but he wasn’t about to curtail his kid’s creativity. Besides, maybe it was a space octopus.
“Everyone’s here, right?” Bubby said shortly. “Let’s get this over with so we can go back to fixing this rust bucket.”
Tommy looked up in consternation. “Don’t - don’t call her that! You’re going to hurt her feelings!”
“If this ship had feelings to hurt, it would have dissolved decades ago,” Forzen growled. “Can we get down to business?”
“Yes, please,” Darnold said, stepping forward and placing his pink helmet on the table. “I was in the middle of an experiment in the medbay, and if I leave it for too long it might, well...explode.”
“Ooh, finally some quality entertainment!” Dr. Coomer said cheerfully.
Gordon looked around. “Wait, where’s -”
“Yo,” Benrey said from directly behind him. Gordon jumped and was instantly furious at himself for doing so.
“Goddammit, Benrey, can’t you ever show up on time?” he snapped in a transparent attempt to cover his embarrassment.
Forzen snorted. “He was here before you were, you just didn’t see him. With senses like that, you wouldn’t last a day in combat.”
“Oh, don’t you start,” Gordon snapped, pointing a gloved hand at Forzen as Benrey stepped around him and flicked up the visor on his dark blue helmet. He never took the damn thing off - they had been wearing their suits during training, so Gordon was pretty sure he’d never actually seen the top of Benrey’s head. Instead the front was modified so the visor was mobile, almost like a motorcycle helmet. Gordon wasn’t sure how well it would do in a vacuum, but it must have been approved by the technicians, so he wasn’t going to worry about it. He’d rather needle Forzen, anyway. “Like you know anything about combat, you wannabe bootboy -”
“Excuse me!” Darnold said loudly. “Potential explosion in Medbay if we don’t get this wrapped up in the next five minutes!”
Gordon forced himself to take a deep breath and settled back, struggling to relax his metaphorical ruffled feathers. He hated the fact that he let Forzen wind him up so easily, but the man had gotten on his nerves ever since he first saw him during training. He always wore ugly-ass camo cargo pants and never took his red beret off, even going so far as to ask the suit techs if they could make a version that he could perch on top of his helmet while he was wearing it. Luckily they had just looked at him like he was an idiot (which he was) and told him it wasn’t a good idea. Gordon was pretty sure he would have hauled off and punched Forzen by now if he had to look at that all day.
“Fine,” he said instead. “Go ahead.” And he gestured sardonically at Forzen, who visibly puffed up his chest as everyone turned to look at him.
God, he was an asshole.
“I was in Security, of course, keeping an eye on the cameras,” Forzen started, and Gordon bit his tongue to keep from snapping something about how they would be done with their daily tasks by now if Forzen didn’t insist on play-acting as a security officer - a nonexistent position that the ship didn’t even need, given the size of the crew.
“I saw Tommy go into Medbay, and then I heard something rattling behind me. I turned around, and something was in the floor vent at the back of the room!” He finished triumphantly, looking around expectantly at the others, and Gordon fought to keep from rolling his eyes.
Bubby didn’t, and rolled his eyes magnificently. “Ugh,” he drawled, “did you actually see anything this time? Because I’d be worried if the damn vents weren’t rattling; it would probably mean the fucking air stopped working.”
Gordon twitched reflexively, but he knew by now that asking anyone on this ship not to swear was pointless. Joshua would pick up what he picked up, and Gordon was just going to have to make sure he knew which words he shouldn’t say in polite company. Besides, then he would have to stop swearing, too, and that wasn’t going to happen.
“The vents are really - they're pretty loud, Mister Forzen,” Tommy said in an apologetic tone. “Maybe it just caught you off guard?”
“I’m always on guard,” Forzen snapped at him, then glared at Bubby. “And yes, I did see something moving in there, I’m sure of it!”
“Well, what did it look like?” Dr. Coomer asked.
“Yeah, what color was it?” Bubby asked.
Forzen looked down mulishly, shuffling some of the loose reports on the table. “It was too hard to tell,” he said. “Nothing too bright - so not Tommy or Dr. Pepper or Freeman, and probably not Dr. Coomer. It could have been either of you, though,” he added, glaring between Benrey and Bubby.
Bubby snorted, and Dr. Coomer placed a hand on his arm. “I’m afraid not, in this case,” he said. “Bubby and I were in Admin, where everyone loves to swipe their card!”
“Then it was you!” Forzen said, pointing triumphantly at Benrey, who stared blankly at the finger quivering mere inches from his face. His jaw worked for a moment, then he pursed his lips and blew an obnoxiously bright blue bubble of gum that swelled so fast it almost touched Forzen’s finger before he snatched it back. Benrey let the bubblegum deflate and licked it back up, continuing to chew it with his mouth open.
Gordon really didn’t like Benrey. But he liked Forzen even less. And the man was an idiot.
“Hey, Captain Camera,” Gordon said dryly, “can we talk about how no adult human would even be able to fit in the damn vents?”
“Hah,” Forzen said, raising his chain and staring down his nose at Gordon. “There are two issues with that statement. ‘Adult,’” and he pointed down toward where Joshua sat under the table, “and ‘human.’”
“Are you seriously saying you think I’d put my kid into the air duct system on this death trap?” Gordon snarled, both hands fisted on the table as he leaned over it to glare at Forzen with as much force as possible, nearly shaking with fury at the mere thought of it. “As if I’d even let him out of my sight -”
“I’m - I’m sure that’s not what Mister Forzen means, Mister Freeman,” Tommy interjected, “but we do - we do have to take into account the alien threat. Just, maybe not right now, if - if there’s no real evidence? Dr. Pepper’s experiment is really - it’s very time sensitive.”
“Fine,” Forzen snapped. “Just keep an eye out. And don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He snatched up his helmet and spun on his heel, shoving the helmet on over his beret-clad head as he stalked out of the conference room.
Bubby snorted. “That guy’s got issues. C’mon, Harold, let’s go.”
He and Dr. Coomer both headed back toward Admin, and Darnold strode quickly out of the cafeteria in the direction of Medbay, an intent expression on his face. Tommy started to follow him, but paused and looked over at Gordon.
“Are you, uh, okay, Mister Freeman? I’m sure Forzen is just trying to help, you know.” Gordon didn’t miss the fact that he dropped the “Mr.” in front of Forzen’s name as soon as he left the room.
“I’m fine, Tommy, thanks,” Gordon said with a sigh, leaning both elbows on the table and dipping his head slightly to run both hands over his hair. He was going to have to redo his ponytail soon - he could feel it frizzing out and riding up the back of his neck. The techs had wanted him to cut his hair short, but he’d refused. He was starting to wonder if they hadn’t had the right idea, though. Certain areas of the ship could get hot. He waved a hand at Tommy. “You go on, man, I’m sure Darnold could use your help with...whatever he’s doing. Try to keep him from setting off the smoke alarm again, yeah?”
“Sure thing, Mister Freeman!” Tommy said cheerfully, and bounded after Darnold, Sunkist hot on his heels.
“Is the meeting over?” Joshua piped up from under the table. Gordon dropped into a crouch to smile at him.
“It sure is, bud. Good job keeping busy down here. How’s the octopus coming along?”
“Oh, I finished that,” Joshua said dismissively. “I’m working on a barack-uh-duh now.”
“Barracuda,” Gordon corrected the pronunciation after a quick glance at the page. Apparently barracudas were pink now. Good for them.
That just made him think of meeting Darnold on the first day of crewmate training. He’d made some comment about his choice of the pink suit, and Darnold had looked down at it and blinked.
“Is it pink?” he’d said pensively. “I thought it was more of a lightish red.”
Gordon had hastily assured him that whatever color it was, it suited him, and Darnold had beamed at him and asked about Joshua, which automatically made him a friend in Gordon’s book. At least he liked more people on this ship than he disliked. Tommy was wonderful, of course, and Darnold was as well; Dr. Coomer was like everyone’s crazy uncle, and even Bubby was more fun than he was irritating. Forzen was a dick, though. And as for Benrey…
Wait. Where was Benrey?
Gordon straightened up and looked around the cafeteria, but it was deserted. Huh, that was weird. He thought he would have heard it if Benrey left the room - even though the doors weren’t always closed to the cafeteria, the air-shields were always active, and they buzzed slightly when someone walked through them. Gordon hadn’t heard the buzz...but then again, he hadn’t been listening for it. He’d probably just missed it.
Whatever, it wasn’t like he really wanted to talk to the guy. Benrey was...weird. Gordon shrugged and popped his helmet back on, latching it closed and squatting down next to Joshua again.
“Hey Joshie, can you save the rest of that for later? I gotta finish the wiring fix in Electrical, and then we can go to the observation deck, okay?”
“Okay!” Joshua closed his coloring book, stacking it on top of the others Gordon had stashed under the table for him, then shoved the crayons back into their battered box and scrambled out from under the table. Gordon picked him up and swung him onto his shoulders again as Joshie giggled and drummed on his helmet with his miniature gloves.
“Hang on tight, okay?” Gordon checked to make sure Joshua had his feet tucked into the shoulder straps built into his own suit, then they were off, back down the hall to the storage room.
The conference room was quiet after they left, aside from the general noises of a working spaceship. The vibration of the engines was audible, as well as the hum of the lights and air systems, and an intermittent clanking sound inside a wall somewhere that would probably have to be dealt with soon. And, after a few minutes, there was a faint clattering sound as the floor vent at the side of the room shifted and raised slightly, balancing on a roiling dark mass of something caught halfway between liquid and smoke. It bubbled out of the vent and heaped up on the floor, rising and coalescing swiftly into a humanoid shape that brightened to a deep shade of blue.
The visored helmet turned slowly, covering the whole room in one smooth rotation. The rest of the figure was motionless - no twitching fingers, no breathing. After a few moments of stillness, the figure took one careful step forward, then another, and another, until it stood next to the table, just to the right of the position Gordon had been in during the meeting.
It dropped into a smooth crouch with inhuman grace and stared into the space under the table where a small pile of books and writing supplies had been carefully tucked away. For a long moment, it held still - then it reached out and picked up the topmost book, letting it flop open. A purple-striped octopus was on one page, a blood-red seagull on the other. Both had been colored with dedicated enthusiasm, if not exact precision. One gloved finger traced a section of the octopus where the purple crayon had drifted beyond the dark printed lines - then the hand pulled back, snapped the book shut, and placed it carefully back on the stack, tilting it to lay in exactly the same position it had been in when Joshua left it.
One gloved hand rose to the helmet and flicked the visor back. Benrey tilted his head slightly one way, then the other, then he blinked once, twice - and it was as if a switch flipped, and he slouched and sighed, scrubbing a hand over the bridge of his nose. He stared at the books and battered box of crayons for a few moments more. But eventually he scooted back, stood up, snapped the visor back down, and walked out of the cafeteria.