Alpha Squad - Vecto: Voyage

Part 4.4

(Previously: Vecto melts his way into the ship and lands in a trash bin. A worker then climbs up the bin to investigate.)

The worker climbed the ladder and reached the top. He looked over the edge and covered his face as heat and gas rose from the trash bin.

"Man I hate the smell of these things!" he said, covering his nose as a looked in the dark, foggy bin. It seemed empty to him. It must have just come from the disintegrator, he thought as he climbed back down the ladder.

Vecto was safe. He had sucked the carbon from the trash and turned the leftover matter into gas particles. But he still had to escape. He rolled to the top of the bin to see the worker push his cart back to the elevator, whistling away. The magnetic crane was approaching, and he had to get to the elevator.

The flat, dangling disc from the crane hovered above and activated its magnetic pulse. It snatched Vecto with the magnetic force, snapping the orb against the thick, circular plate. Just what Vecto wanted, actually. Despite the strong pull, Vecto could still roll. He moved up the crane as it hovered over the pile of metal remnants, using his shield to adhere to it. Soon, he was rolling upside down on the ceiling. He maneuvered around wires and lights on the roof toward the elevator. At last, he could see the crate below with the man waiting at the elevator doors. Slowly, Vecto hovered down from the ceiling. He had to be quiet.

The elevator door chimed and Vecto dropped to the crate.

"Huh?" The worker heard a clang and looked over his packages. He saw a box out of place and straightened it, then pushed the cart through the elevator doors.

It was quite warm in the elevator, the worker thought. He adjusted his collar as he waited for the elevator to reach the Energy Conversion floor.

Vecto was hiding, disguised as a crate, waiting for a chance to escape. He could detect an atmospheric rise in methane particles--but it was nothing to be concerned of. He waited as the elevator hummed to a stop and as the man pushed the cart down a hall. The worker swiped his TAC to open a door and pushed the cart inside to a stop.

"Got some energy from underground for ya!" the worker said as he walked over to greet another man.

This was Vecto's chance. He dropped his disguise to roll off the cart. The vast room seemed overly busy; it was some kind of energy processing plant. Vecto rolled by machinery and stopped near the office. He waited until he saw the door slide open. A heavyset man walked out of it with some sort of snack in his hand. Vecto quickly rolled through the door before it shut and formed his shield to look like the guy. No one noticed. He walked among the office to try to find a terminal. He had to tell Sarah he was OK. He lost his TAC in space and knew she'd probably be worried.

"Hey, Trevor!" a buff officer called out as he approached. "Thought you went on break? Did you adjust the pressure gauges?"

Vecto shook his head.

"What? Now don't be slack'n!" Officer Haggleworth sounded frustrated. "Come on! Hop to it, fatty! Or you won't be going on break!" He slapped him in the back to urge him forward and quickly retracted his hand, looking over his red palm as if he slapped too hard. "Ow ..." he murmured to himself as Vecto went to work.

Just beside the gauge was a terminal.

"Sarah? Can you hear me?" Vecto said through it.

(Will Vecto reach Sarah? If so, what will he say? Find out more in the next installment of Vecto: Voyage!)

Be sure to tell others about Vecto with the hashtag #WhoisVecto and if you can, please pre-order Vecto: Voyage on Amazon at http://amzn.to/1SErRma.