7 THE CHOICE
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"Oh my god, David!" Alexis gasped, still clinging to his embrace. "You scared the hell out of me!" The relief came through in her voice as the tension began to let go of her.
"You can't get rid of me that easy." A harsh cough broke through his upbeat tone.
"Are you hurt?" Alexis asked, inspecting his tattered clothes for signs of trauma. His shirt and pants were singed, he was filthy, and his left arm appeared to be protecting part of his side and chest.
"Just a little sore," he replied. "I was lucky."
"Lucky, my ass!" a voice sounded from behind David. "He saved us all."
Alexis and Douglas looked down the tunnel behind David to find a seemingly unending line of other survivors.
Alexis snapped her gaze back to David. "You rescued these people?"
David shrugging his shoulders. "They are my people, remember? What else was I gonna do?" He forced his grin back to the surface.
"Let's get them out of here."
Douglas took a head count as he ushered the line through the tunnel. With Alexis and David leading the way, they were able to get fifty-seven people out to safety. They accounted for only a small fraction of everyone who had gathered at the viewing platform to hear David speak that morning, but the fact that David had not only survived, but had also led this group to the safety of the service crawl was nothing short of a miracle.
Alexis pulled herself out through the service entrance on Q3 and helped David and his group up, one by one. Douglas, rounding up the last few at the end, climbed up and looked around. "Levi back yet?"
"No, it's just us," she said, anxiety building once again as she wondered why someone she loved was always missing.
"I'm sure he's fine," Douglas said, attempting to keep her calm.
Alexis removed her pack and handed it to Douglas. "Pass the water around."
She retrieved her communicator and stepped away while feverishly pinging her brother's com. A few moments passed without any response and she turned to Douglas. "I have to go after him."
"Who are we going after?" David asked, stepping up behind her.
"Levi is on another deck looking for survivors," she said. "Douglas is going to take you and your group up to Deck 12."
"You’re not going alone," Douglas and David announced simultaneously.
"We can't keep these people here while we wait for Levi," she insisted. She turned to Douglas. "You said it yourself. He's probably fine, but I'm not leaving him. He could be lost or trapped."
"I'll go get him," he replied as he picked up his pack.
Before she could argue, Alexis received a ping on her communicator. "Hold on." It was Salazar.
"Waverly," she answered, disappointment coating her words.
"Did you find anyone?" Salazar's voice echoed across the com.
"We have a small group from O-Deck and possibly another from Agriculture."
"I need you back up here," Salazar demanded. "And Douglas as well. We've got a very serious problem."
"Okay, we're on our way as soon as the other group arrives." She grabbed her pack from Douglas and placed the communicator inside. "You need to go," she told Douglas. "Take these people up and find out what's going on. I'll get Levi and make my way back ASAP."
"Ma'am," he said, returning to the formality of his station, "I cannot let you go alone."
David stepped between them and turned to Douglas. "She won't be. I'm going too."
Knowing she was about argue with him, David turned back around to face Alexis. "He's practically family, and I'm not leaving you."
Reluctant to leave them to traverse the tunnels alone, Douglas struggled to make the decision, but ultimately knew that he had to get the survivors back to safety. Many of them were injured and all of them were tired. He was also beginning to understand that there was no arguing with Alexis.
Douglas turned to lead the group to the safety of Deck 12. Alexis and David moved back into the service crawl, intent on finding Levi.
* * * *
With Alexis in the lead, the two made their way through the tunnels. Alexis, carrying Douglas' tablet, had stopped to try to get her bearings when David reached out and touched her shoulder.
"You were worried about me?"
"Of course I was." Alexis pushed his hand away and started walking again. "What happened?"
"I don't really know. I was talking to some folks in Tech. The crowd was getting really thick at the platform. Before I could get up there, the floor started to shake."
"Hold on." They’d reach the door to the junction that would lead them up to the sub-floor level where Levi was heading, but something was blocking her efforts to get it open. She pushed with all of her strength but couldn't get it to budge more than an inch. David joined the effort, and with a few quick jolts they finally moved the door wide enough to look inside.
Alexis peeked in and looked around. She screamed and covered her mouth quickly to muffle the noise as she jumped back into David's chest. David moved around her to look inside, finding the body of one of the ship’s crew wedged between the door and the stairwell on the other side.
Alexis waited, still covering her mouth, while David moved the body out of the way to make room for them to get through. It wasn't the first body that Alexis had seen that morning but it was shocking for her to be that close to one.
"I'm sorry, David, I wasn't expecting that."
"I would have jumped too," he said, attempting to comfort her.
Alexis moved in past David and as she did, took one last look at the body. It occurred to her that Levi could not have gone this way if the body had been blocking the door when he got to it. He would have had to move it like David did. She bent over to get a better look, to see if she recognized him, and as she feared, it was indeed the body of one the crew that had followed Levi through the tunnels.
Alexis scrambled for her communicator, frantically pinging Levi's comm. "Come on, Levi. Answer me!"
"I think he's been stabbed," David said.
Shocked by the implications of such an act, she stopped to consider who could have done such a thing. “Stabbed?” she asked in disbelief.
"Several times, by the look of it.”
Alexis returned to her communicator, slamming buttons and yelling Levi's name.
"Hold up." David reached up and lightly grabbed Alexis' arm. "I think it would be a good idea to be very quiet from now on."
Alexis' worry, worn clearly on her face, gave David the cue that he needed to take control of the situation. He swung her behind him and slowly climbed the stairwell, holding her hand the entire way up.
As they ascended the two flights of stairs, David noticed that there was no light on the level they were trying to reach.
"Let me have that tablet," he said, letting go of her hand. "We need light."
Guided by the soft white illumination of the small tablet, they carefully moved toward the exit where Levi should have been heading. Just as they were about to reach the grate, David heard some voices in the distance.
He stopped abruptly, motioning for her to be quiet. He turned the tablet towards his body, shielding its faint glow.
“We have been ready for an hour. We need to get back to Mechanical,” the faint voice said.
David listened carefully, trying to determine whether the voices were friend or foe. Unable to hear anything clearly, he slowly crept closer to the grate and peered up from the edge. He could see two men pacing back and forth while talking to each other, one of them carrying a large makeshift blade.
Moving across the tunnel, trying to avoid the light beaming down to the floor from the grate above, David quietly climbed the stepladder. On the other side of the hallway above them, there were two men sitting on the floor, bound and gagged -- Levi was one of them.
