08/15/22 Snippet, THE THING IN THE AIRLOCK.

Like a damn logjam breaking.

“Maintenance found the suit in a reclamation hopper,” Abbie told him as they half-slid down the ‘emergency’ ladders. “And before you ask: there’s no camera footage. Garbage disposal wasn’t considered an essential security zone.”

“Right, I remember,” Tobias said, trying not to sound sour about it. “Because the internal sensors were still set to let us know if any contraband was being disposed of. Or just something big and expensive, like a working suit.”

The two of them walked into the Reclamation Services station, which was possibly even more spotless than it was before the end of the world (Heinlein Station needed every complex molecule it could get). It felt vaguely rude to walk on the utterly clean floor. And it was empty: the suit was the only thing in it besides the table it was on, and the table was only there because it couldn’t be easily removed from the side of the disposal hopper.

I’m starting to see the flaw in that decision,” Tobias continued. “We have a suit! Hurray! …Now what?”