Reactor

It was melting. The reactor had overheated somehow and would shut down if it was not stabilized, ending the lives of all aboard the ship without power. Paul sprinted to the room, almost out of breath when he reached it. Inside, other teammates scrambled to authorize the machine's reset, allowing it to recover from its meltdown, Orange on the right and Pink on the left. The failsafe needed two astronauts to place their hands on the biometric scanners concurrently to restart the reactor.

As Paul stood in the center of the room hunched over, his hands on his knees. The clock ticked down and there was nothing he could do but watch. Directly in front of him, the cylindrical reactor, standing statuesque and sturdy, pulsated a deep red. It buzzed and frothed like a cage that kept an untamed liquid within its mechanical walls. Empty pipes branched out from it, meaning the rest of the ship was not receiving any of the generated energy. The room was now packed with astronauts, but the reactor didn't seem to have been reset. Paul estimated that they had about ten seconds left before a full core meltdown.

Paul's heartbeat thumped wildly as he wove his way through his teammates to the scanner on his right. There were approximately five seconds before there was no turning back. Paul knew they would all suffocate or freeze as soon as the count reached zero. Orange seemed to be having trouble placing his hand onto the digital screen. Paul cursed and shoved the astronaut out of the way, promptly planting his hand onto the scanner which vibrated green in response.

There was a moment of silence as the reactor shut down, the sounds and lights of its cooling system faded like a dying heart. Every present member of the crew held their breath, their lives clinging onto a thin shred.

A second later, it started back up again, sounding healthy and refreshed. The room lit up with the energy fuel that flowed through the pipes. A cheer went up from the team as Paul let out a sigh of relief. As the adrenaline subsided once again, he couldn't tell whether Orange looked ashamed or downcast. Paul wondered why such a skilled engineer struggled with such a simple task. With the reactor fixed, the engines were at full strength, accelerating them through space. They were back on track.

Paul eyed Orange for a moment as the team exited the room to return to their tasks, but then turned his attention to admire the Reactor room. The coalescence of the obsidian-colored floors and walls, along with the pulsating blue radiance of the reactor gave off a futuristic essence. Paul felt like he was living in the future that humanity had imagined in years past.

Paul took a deep breath, letting air heavy with the scent of synthetic material and burning metal into his lungs. The reassuring drone of the reactor's machines soothed his rapidly beating heart. Although now surrounded by tranquil atmosphere, Paul's hands trembled from the thought of the disaster that nearly happened. If he had not taken the initiative to fix the Reactor, they would all have surely perished. Taking one last moment to appreciate the sheer power of the room he was standing in, Paul got on with his work.

Glancing at his tablet, Paul read his next task. His inward smile faded almost instantly. The words leaped out at him from the screen, making his diminishing blood pressure spike up again. It was one of the most dreaded tasks. A task so frustrating it was enough to make a grown man go absurd. Card swipe.

As Paul made his way to the Admin room through the narrow halls of The Musk, he couldn't stop thinking about the events that unfolded earlier. The thoughts overwhelmed his chagrin for the task ahead. "Was Orange a newer astronaut with little experience or did he just not want the melting reactor to restart?" Paul murmured to himself. Passing through the Lower Engine and Storage, he arrived at the entrance of Admin.

Before entering, a bright red light above him blinked on. Paul identified it immediately. Mounted on the wall was a security camera spying on him like the eyes of an eagle. The red light meant someone was at the Security station watching over the crew in The Musk. Paul imagined that person fixated on the mirage of camera input on a large monitor. Paul didn't know whether to feel safer knowing that someone was observing his movements or scared that there was a possibility that it was the murderer who now knew where he was. He shrugged away the thoughts and reminded himself to stay focused on the strenuous task ahead.

Striding into the wine-colored floor, Paul was once again fascinated by the technological prowess the room possessed. On one side was a row of cubicles, each with its own red velvet chair, that manned the supercomputers where every calculation the ship's automated system had to make was processed. Mathematical formulas, strings of numbers, and volatile graphs filled the viridescent screens. To the right of that was a massive table glowing beneath a hologram mapping the specific rooms of The Musk. Taking two steps down to the table, Paul accessed the terminal by tapping on a couple of keys. The map in the center of the table flashed and then displayed miniature representations of the astronauts in each marked area of the ship. His eyes scanned the map, as he recognized the number and color of teammates in each room. Paul noted that he was the only person in Admin and continued to scrutinize the map, nodding now and then when he spotted a crewmate's tiny icon. He was simply stalling until he couldn't any longer. There was no need to maintain vigil on the holographic map. The vision of completing the card swipe lurked deep in the recesses of his mind. It only took a few minutes for Paul to get bored staring at the different locations of his teammates on the glowing map.

Taking a deep breath, Paul gathered all the determination he had and pivoted around to the other side of the table. A number pad and the card swiping system were laid out before him. It was supposed to be a routine check to ensure the ship's astronaut database was in order, but it was tedious and resented; despised by nearly every astronaut. The long slit used to scan the card seemed like it was laughing menacingly at Paul as he stared at it in disgust. "Just get it over with," Paul consoled himself.

It wasn't the task he feared, but the exasperation and annoyance he was going to endure as he continuously swiped cards through the reader, varying in speeds, praying that it would work. The morbid memories full of aching wrists and a burning hatred for the job weren't helping. I didn't spend several decades learning the complex mathematics and physics of space to spend my time swiping cards, Paul groaned inwardly. This never-ending cycle of tedium the card scanner task is. Paul attempted to control his rising anxiety. He stretched his arms and pulled his wallet from his back pocket.

Opening the worn and cracked antique leather wallet, a tidal wave of memories hit Paul as his eye caught sight of the treasured family photograph behind the transparent plastic slot. It was faded and wrinkled due to the passage of time and repeated removal from behind the protective shield. His heart rose to the top of his throat and Paul fought to hold back the tears. They were all dressed in astronaut suits, his beautiful wife in an orange suit and his energetic son in a purple one. Through their mock visors, their beaming smiles struck his heart, melting it with warmth from deep inside. He wished with all his might that he was with them at that moment. He promised he would come back for them one day. He promised.

What are they doing right now on Earth? Paul wondered. His son was just starting Kindergarten when he left. He said a quick prayer for their safety then remembered what he needed to do and shook his head to concentrate. The identification card sat snuggly in the forefront of the pouches, waiting patiently to be used. Paul steadily pinched the edge between two fingers and lifted it out. A younger version of himself stared back at him from the card. The image was scratched and scraped and barely visible in places. Tiny lines of text outlining his details had faded along with the photo. Paul examined them carefully, as if to check if they were still correct, before turning his attention to the swipe machine. A glowing green rectangular LED screen gave bold instructions displaying the digital words "PLEASE INSERT CARD" in white letters. A curved arrow indicated to the motion the card should be swiped in, with two lights towards the end to signal whether the scan was a success or not.

With the card in his hand, Paul prepared himself for the irritation he was about to undergo until it was finished. Paul summoned all the tenacity in his being as he brought the card closer to the slit, gently placing it at the beginning of the marked arrow. It was the moment of truth.

Paul began to drag the card sideways along the scanner; not too fast and not too slow. It had to be at exactly the right speed, or the machine wouldn't read the bar code, and he would have to restart the process. When the card had come to the end of the slit, a second of dreadful silence passed. Paul could already visualize the red light teasing him and the capitalized letters forcing him to start again.

To his mild surprise, a green light winked, and he heard a sound like a chorus of angels. He almost thought he was hallucinating. "ACCEPTED. THANK YOU" the screen displayed. Paul stepped back in utter amazement; his eyes wide. He had done it...on his first try! An overwhelming sense of accomplishment enveloped him as if he had just won first prize for every competition in the world. He couldn't believe it! The task was finished!

Paul once again registered the contents on his tablet. A rectangular bar on the top left kept track of the progress of his assigned tasks. The green area represented the completed jobs. It was nearly half full, indicating the amount of work that still needed to be done. There was no time to waste. Paul got on with the next assignment, a fulfilling feeling of achievement reassuring him as he entered back into the halls of The Musk.