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“Zero, I need you back at the distribution center.”

“Another package?”

“No, one person.”

My face seemed to speak volumes. It must have been a mixture of bewilderment and disbelief. The manager of Crusader Industries’ Research, Development and Logistics department quickly followed up.

“Uh no, don’t transport them. You have to find them.”

“Excuse me?”

“Yeah, the thing is, we have a contact at the distribution center. He took the package you picked up to the Security Compound. However, we’ve lost contact with him. Fly over there and see what’s going on.”

Grumbling, I turned and headed for the door.

“And Zero. You’d better wear armor. You never know.”

I stopped and turned my head. The manager was sitting behind his desk in his crumpled blue shirt, smiling and hunching his shoulders. Behind him on the wall were the framed pictures of Crusader Industries’ ships. And the picture of the stylized crow that was graffitied on Cousin’s Crow. I frowned at him for a second. Then I left his office. The door slammed shut with a loud bang.

*

There I was again in the large lobby of the Distribution Center. Light flooded into the hall through the glass roof and the large side windows. Shadows decorated the concrete structures and the floor. It was impressive. If only there hadn’t been this eerie silence. Not a soul was to be seen.

A rustling sound to my right startled me. All my muscles tensed. It was a plant that had been stirred by a gust of wind. With a sharp breath, I pressed the tense air out of my lungs and went to the reception. But there was no one to be seen here either.

To the left and right of the long reception desk was a passageway to the back of the lobby. ‘Security Control Room’ was written on a sign pointing to the back. I took a quick look around and then went through the control area to the back and into the security control room. It was a large room with a conference table and two workstations with surveillance monitors. They showed images from various cameras in the Distribution Center.

The keyboard in front of the screens clacked as I used it to gain access. Once I was in the system, the recordings from the cameras began to flicker backwards across the screens in fast forward. It was a minute before I saw the contact on the screen. He was going down a maintenance shaft, there were no cameras there. At least now I knew where to start my search.

The access to the maintenance shaft was narrow. I crawled through on all fours, only to suddenly find myself in a spacious maintenance area. Pipes, fans and monitors could be seen in the yellowish light of the dim lighting. Steam rose hissing in some places. Freight containers and crates stood on the grid floor. By now I was glad to be wearing armor. A long, semi-dark corridor with branches and doors led to the left and right. It almost smelled like an ambush.

Accompanied by the metallic clacking of my boots echoing through the corridor, I went to the right. I moved carefully along the wall, past more pipes and crates. Sometimes the corridor became narrower, then wider again. At some point I reached the central ventilation system. Large fans were built into the wall and filters lay on the floor. It reminded me of my time in Levski, where I had serviced the ventilation system as a member of the maintenance team. Only everything here was much more modern than in the old, run-down Levski mining station.

I walked on, took a turn to the right and started to lose my bearings. The dark corridors were eerie and winding. Finally, I reached an opening in the wall through which bright light was shining. It was narrow and at head height. I could look straight into the lobby through the slits in a grille. Then I found service hatches leading into the lobby and to the upper landing pad. These corridors seemed to be suitable for moving unnoticed through the administrative area of the Distribution Center. Was that why the contact had come here? But where was he?

I walked on, climbing up a ladder to a narrow passageway that led to another maintenance corridor on the other side. Suddenly, gas poured out of a pipe next to me. It hit me in the face like a whiplash. The gas wasn’t hot, but it still caused a violent reaction. My body shook and I began to cough and choke uncontrollably. I fell to my knees and spat phlegm onto the metal floor. My field of vision began to blur, everything was spinning. My blood pressure shot up and made my carotid artery swell. With trembling hands, I reached for my medgun. In one last controlled movement, I put the medgun to my arm and pulled the trigger.

As I sat on the floor, the dizziness slowly disappeared. My vision became clearer. After a minute, I stood up with difficulty and put on my helmet for safety. The maintenance corridors were more dangerous than I thought. Still a little dazed, I continued to search for a lead to the missing contact.

At some point I reached a narrow, horizontal shaft. A ventilation shaft or something. It was pitch black in the shaft. I hated dark, narrow corridors and caves. I stood in front of it for a moment, gathered my courage and then crawled inside. The darkness swallowed me up. I moved forward on all fours. With every step, the rattling of sheet metal echoed through the shaft.
After crawling a few meters into the shaft, I switched on my helmet lamp. The light reflected off the gray sheet metal wall and illuminated the area in front of me. I jerked back suddenly and crashed against the wall with a clatter.

“Shit!”

My startled scream rang out in my helmet. I had to collect myself for a moment, then I took a closer look at what was in front of me in the light. A man wearing brown overalls with protectors on his elbows and knees. Equipment for maintenance work was hanging from his belt. It was the contact man. He was dead.

I could not determine the cause of death. There were no signs of external violence. Was he killed? Or had he also been exposed to the gas that had knocked me out? And what was he doing in that dark shaft?

I could do nothing more than document everything. My job was done. Let others take care of the investigation.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)