I Took a Walk Episode Five Last Minute Instructions
Earning this bonus could cost Jimmy his life
Griever held up a large map of Elmeron Dynamic’s basement. “I have painted a line on the floor here that will put you right in the middle of their basement. To return, use their main hall. It points directly at a room three doors down from this one. Just walk down the center of it into the wall.”
“That’s workable.”
“You’re talking, but we are not hearing you.”
He tapped the mic switch with his chin again. “Sorry about that. I must have turned off the mic. I need an ear bud like yours.”
“I’m not so sure,” said Eastland. “Transmissions are more complicated when phased. None of our phased equipment could talk to each other without a direct connection. We haven’t fully worked out why.”
“But the mic isn’t for when I am phased, it is for now.”
“You may have a point,” Eastland said.
“Moot point,” said Griever. “This is the only time you are going to use this suit, and it is too late to change it.”
“That’s true.”
Eastland continued, “We calibrated your step meter from your last trip. It says that the basement is 16,972 steps away. You can toggle that step meter up on your heads up display, but it is only useful in places you can see. I’ll have more things that can be read by touch designed into the next version.”
Jim tapped the other chin switch and got that display, which also included power remaining and other suit readings.
Griever said, “Keep count of your steps. If you reach 20,000, turn around and head back. We’ll take a break and try one more time.”
“At 20,000, return. Got it.”
“You now have cameras with lights on each wrist. Pass your arms slowly through anything that looks important once you are there.”
“Got it.”
“Then let’s get you lined up and you can start.”
Jimmy, taking a deep breath, walked into the concrete wall.
The utter blackness of zero light swallowed him.
Despite knowing better, he kept expecting it to end with each step. Deep inside, his fear said, turn back.
His breathing echoed in his helmet like the scene of some old horror movie.
He noted the vibration and sounds of his rebreather. Technically, it wasn’t fully a rebreather. According to Eastland, it reacted water with carbon-dioxide and made methane, then sent the oxygen back to him from both the CO2 and H2O and exhausted the H4. Unless you neglected to refill the water, such a system would run out of power before water if not hooked up to a generator.
This suit needed to be able to play MP3, something to distract him from those sounds.
Damn it, he hadn’t been counting his steps. He stopped. How far had he gone? Most likely over one hundred, but under two.
Fear told him to turn around and go back.
He fought down the fear with logic. A couple hundred steps in 20,000 wasn’t much. He began walking and counting his steps, but his doubts grew. Maybe this wasn’t such easy money.
Yet he could see little hope of owning a home in the neighborhood he and Linda planned to move to, eventually, without such a big payday. Even that would not cover the one point five million such homes cost but would get him a mortgage close to what he and Linda paid for rent now. He could just see her in her skimpy suit out back, getting a tan.
Fuck, he lost count.
Had he passed one thousand?
It was time to head back and get his head on straight before trying this again.
Turning around, Jimmy fell down.