Chapter Text
The signal was a large one, coming from an exoplanet, somewhere beyond Tau Ceti. At least that’s what the analysis program was claiming, and since Isak was the one who wrote that program, he was inclined to trust it.
Weird, wobbly, wails came from the desk speakers, filling the observatory room and making a nice backdrop to the podcast playing on his phone. He popped another chocolate malt ball in his mouth (a recent obsession he had developed) and updated the database on the laptop. It was when he was taking a break to drink his coffee and look at the monitors when he noticed it. The download speed had dropped. Again.
Frustrated, he learned forward in his chair to stare out of the large window in front of the desk. The large radio telescope array stood out in the distance. Honestly, he wasn’t sure what he was doing; it wasn’t like he could see what was going on over there from the station. The radio telescopes were large, at least fifty meters tall and the satellite dishes themselves were over three times that size. But even with Isak keeping the lights dimmed in the observatory room (got to conserve power, after all), the telescopes just looked like large shadows in the field against the night sky.
Muttering to himself, he turned back to the laptop and ran the remote diagnostics test.
Telescope #1: Online
Telescope #2: Online
Telescope #3: Online
Telescope #4: Online
Telescope #5: Online
Telescope #6: Online
Telescope #7: Online
Telescope #8: Online
Telescope #9: Online
Telescope #10: Offline
Telescope #11: Online
Telescope #11: Online….
Number 10, again. Frowning, he narrowed down the diagnostics check to that telescope.
Telescope #10: Network disconnected (main cable unplugged, backup cable unplugged).
“What the fuck?” Isak muttered to himself.
“What’s wrong?”
Isak yelped, jumping in his seat a bit. Even was leaning against the desk, like a modern day James Dean, with an arm across one of the large monitors, smiling down at him. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.” He didn’t look very repentant. He must have wandered out of the common room while Isak was busy cursing #10. Even had changed into his night clothes; sweatpants and a t-shirt, but a camera was dangling from his neck. Isak guessed he was on his way to the roof to do some filming of the night sky before bed, a side hobby he did in his spare time at the Observatory.
Isak scowled at him, but it was difficult to stay mad. Even’s smile always brightened up the room, dim lights or not. “I’d appreciate it if you quit scaring me all the time.”
“Sorry.” Even laughed again and turned down the wailing on the speakers. The cosmologist on the podcast continued to drone on about the discovery of more binary planets in Andromeda. “Aliens giving you a hard time?”
Isak snorted and ran the diagnostics test again. He could attempt to remotely reboot telescope #10 from the laptop (as if that ever worked), but he was already resigning himself to taking the golf cart out there and manually doing the reboot from the telescope’s control room. “Yeah, damn number 10 is acting up again…”
Telescope #1: Online
Telescope #2: Online
Telescope #3: Online
Telescope #4: Online
Telescope #5: Online
Telescope #6: Online
Telescope #7: Online
Telescope #8: Online
Telescope #9: Online
Telescope #10: Online
Telescope #11: Online
Telescope #11: Online….
“Again?” Even said, with a confused frown.
But Isak was busy staring down at the readout on the laptop, bewildered. He looked up at the download monitor to his left. Download speed was back to normal. 825MBs out of 2.5GBs downloaded so far. He re-ran the diagnostics test on #10.
Telescope #10: Connected and online
All systems functioning.
A gentle hand came down on his arm and Isak looked up at Even’s worried face. “Is everything alright?”
“Uh, yeah… it’s back online.” Isak couldn’t understand what was happening. #10 was the only telescope acting strange since they got to the Kartverket Deep Space Observatory a few months ago. Unluckily for Isak, it only acted strange on his watch. He was starting to get the idea #10 may have it out for him personally.
Even was leaning over his shoulder to look at the laptop monitor, breath ruffling his hair. His hand was still on his arm, pressing gently and Isak firmly told himself to behave. Now was not the time.
“Everything looks fine,” Even murmured. “I can go first thing on my shift and take a look around the control room up there. You think maybe a defect in the cable?”
Isak sighed. “I hope not, or they’ll need to get the technicians in to redo the whole thing and we’ll have to pause our work. Sana isn’t going to be happy to take that to the higher ups.” And the higher ups would be especially unhappy considering the billions in taxpayer money it took to even build Kartverket Deep Space Observatory. It had only gone online the year before, a defect in equipment was the last thing they all needed.
Even gave his arm another gentle squeeze before straightening up. “I’ll take a look at the logs in the morning, after I go out to check the solar panels, and then run some tests from our server room. Maybe it’s just a software issue.”
Isak flipped the switch to turn off the audio feed to the signal and turned down the volume on the podcast. He looked up at Even, giving him a small smile. “Thanks, let’s hope that’s all it is. You’re filming?”
Even grinned down at him. “Yep, we’ve only got around five more months here. Got to make the best of it… unless they offer another contract, of course.”
A small sliver of hope wormed its way in Isak’s gut. “You’ll ask for a renewal?”
“Well, I may be more open to it if I have certain people here to keep me company.” He gave Isak his ridiculous wink, which was less of a wink and more of an entire face scrunch.
Isak rolled his eyes, trying to suppress his own grin. He knew he was being silly. Even flirted with everyone. Or, at least, that’s what he assumed. Although, he had to admit that he had never seen Even flirt with Eva. She was the only other person staying at the Observatory with them, but it wasn’t like he’d ever seen Even interact with anyone else. They had both met Even for the first time when they got helicoptered into the Observatory, so what did he know?
Still, he was long over getting his heart crushed by false hopes, so he tried to keep a lid on his bubbling emotions. Tried, being the key word.
“Next time, you’ll need to bring over some movies that are not Baz Luhrmann or pretentious foreign films, or no guarantees. There’s only so much black and white I can take on this station.”
Even gasped, pressing a hand to his heart. “Isak, you wound me. And I caught you crying during Romeo + Juliet, don’t even try to pretend!”
“I got something in my eye!” Isak spluttered as Even laughed.
“Don’t worry.” Even grinned, doing his ridiculous backwards walk towards the door leading to the hallway. He gave another ridiculous face scrunch masquerading as a wink. Everything about Even was ridiculous. “I’ll bring over the Transformers series next time.”
“There’s nothing wrong with some good explosions!” Isak called as Even laughed and left out the door, grabbing his jacket and beanie on the way out.
Isak swiveled back around to the bank of monitors in front him, smiling to himself. No matter the number of stern self-talks he gave himself, he was finding it increasingly harder to view Even’s words as just friendly joking. Which was unlike him. He was usually more cynical than this.
To tell the truth, he was thinking about asking for a renewal of his contract at the Observatory, too. Yeah, the pay wasn’t the best, but their housing, food, and any supplies - within reason - were taken care of. Besides, they were all just a few years out of university and this was good experience for all of them. The work was far from difficult and he had Even and Eva to keep him company. And the signals from alien star systems.
He quickly switched the telescope array back into scanning mode and waited for the next signal. A few minutes later, Eva wandered in from the common room, already changed into her sleeping clothes.
“I was just speaking to Jonas. He thought we should go out for coffee when I get back to Oslo,” she said, biting her lip. “Do you think…?”
Isak suppressed a sigh. The last thing he needed was to crush Eva’s hopes, but he was also finding it harder to remain enthusiastic about how this was all going to end up. Jonas and Eva had been off and on since they met at university, their current breakup being their third. Isak had hoped that the forced separation, with Eva being at the Observatory and Jonas back at Oslo, at his teaching position, with only a satellite phone to keep them in contact, would be enough to get their heads out of their asses, but it seemed he had been hoping for too much.
He put on a smile for Eva. “Maybe he wants to try again?”
The hope that dawned on Eva’s face was almost painful. Maybe several years ago, when he was still crushing on Jonas, seeing him and Eva together would have been painful for a different reason. As it stood now, though, what was he supposed to do? Crush Eva and tell her to update her Tinder profile?
“Yeah, maybe you’re right,” Eva quickly agreed. “It wouldn’t hurt to see how it goes.” Isak nodded, smile frozen on his face. Then Eva turned a sly smirk on Isak. “So…”, she said slowly and he knew what was coming, “Even said you guys had another movie date tomor–”
“Okay, I’ve got signals to find! G’night!” He quickly flipped on the audio feed again and turned up the podcast volume. The same cosmologist was still droning on in her steady monotone.
Eva cackled and went back into the common room and, presumably, to her own sleeping quarters.
Sighing in relief, Isak slumped back into the chair. Eva wasn’t about to leave this one alone, she was only giving him a brief reprieve. She had been on his case ever since she caught them snuggled in Even’s bed, watching some pretentious black and white film, in some language he couldn’t even remember. Knowing Eva, she probably already told all the girls back at Oslo. He was certain Sana already knew. Nothing she had said specifically, but he could hear her smirk over the radio whenever she called in from HQ. He was in for it when he got back to Oslo.
A little while later, Even wandered back in, did a cursory check on the server room in the back and said his goodnights. “Movie tomorrow at my room,” Even reminded him, as if Isak was going to forget. They usually watched in the recreation room whenever all three of them had time; a rare event, as they preferred to have someone manning the desk at all times. But usually it was just the two of them and they stuck to Even’s room.
“It’s my turn to pick!” Isak said to his retreating back, “Alien vs Predator 4!”
Even chuckled and disappeared towards the sleeping quarters. After that, things quieted down, the time on his phone approaching midnight. Isak switched the telescopes to active scanning mode. He was on a mission to beat his own previous record. Last week, he made a new personal record of six signals in one shift.
It was going on 3:00 hours, while he was logging his fourth signal into the database and on his fourth cup of coffee and second bag of malt balls, when it happened again. The signal coming in from the distant star in the region of Kepler 5 was emitting a deep throbbing bass that was hurting his ears. He looked up to turn down the volume when he glanced at the downloads monitor. In between Isak finding the signal and getting on the laptop, the download speed had somehow dropped from 140MBs to 108MBs. He quickly brought up the monitoring software and ran the remote diagnostics again.
…
Telescope #5: Online
Telescope #6: Online
Telescope #7: Online
Telescope #8: Online
Telescope #9: Online
Telescope #10: Offline
…
A quick scan on #10 revealed the same issue as before.
Telescope #10: Network disconnected (main cable unplugged, backup cable unplugged).
“What the actual fuck?” A suspicious thought was niggling at the back of his mind. He had dismissed it the first couple of times it happened, but now the more he considered it, the angrier he got.
Someone was out there messing with the equipment.
Fury growing, he slammed the lid on the laptop shut and raced for the door, only remembering to grab his coat at the last minute. He barely stopped to make sure the door to the observatory room and the rest of the living quarters clicked shut behind him before running down the long hallway to the main door of the facility. All the doors in the facility closed and locked automatically, controlled by a fingerprint system, so he didn’t bother to grab his backup keycard before heading out into the cold night. Outside, the Milky Way was on full display, dimly illuminating the sprawling facility grounds.
Isak hurried down the concrete stairs to the golf cart, where it sat in darkness under the small carport, plugged into the recharging system. He yanked it out, hopped on and turned the ignition. None of them ever bothered with removing the key from the golf cart, since there were only the three of them living on the grounds and they all used it to get around.
Breathing out angry puffs of air in the cold night, he flipped on the headlights and slammed on the accelerator. The creaky golf cart spluttered and complained, but obediently darted down the dirt and grass fields towards the telescope array.
The thought of someone playing a practical joke out here, trying to scare him in the middle of the night…
Abruptly, he realized he was going way too fast, after a particular hard bump jarred him. The approaching radio telescopes were nothing but black shapes punched out of the starlit, clear sky. In daytime, it was generally safe to go at full speed, but at night, he had the real possibility of running into a hidden rock, flying out of the golf cart and knocking himself out.
It was only when he slowed down to a more reasonable speed that his anger began to cool, and he started to come back to his senses. What was he thinking? It couldn’t possibly be trespassers out here. Every control room was locked with the same keypad system the main facility used. The only people with access to those control rooms were the three of them – Isak, Even and Eva. Possibly some technicians back at HQ, too, but Sana would have alerted them if anyone had made the trip out here. Besides, the helicopter bringing them in would have been obvious. Due to the terrain, it wasn’t possible to just drive up to the Observatory. It was in the middle of nowhere and there were no roads leading up here.
Besides that, the hectares the Observatory spanned was enclosed in a heavy duty fence, twice as tall as Isak and topped with barbed wire. Personally, he had always thought the barbed wire was overkill, but considering how much the entire facility cost to build, the paranoia was understandable.
By now, he was already passing the first few telescopes, already too far out to stop and turn back, even though he was re-thinking his suspicions. There were twenty eight telescopes in total, arranged in a rough Y, creating an interferometer formation. Telescope #10 would be at the center of formation, at the apex, where it branched off into two arms, 9 telescopes on each arm.
A few minutes minutes later, he rolled to a slow stop in front of #10. The satellite dish loomed ahead covering the ground underneath it in near pitch black. Still, by the dim headlights, he could make out the winding stairwell leading up to the control room. From where he sat, nothing looked out of place and he couldn’t see any recent footprints in the area around the stairs. Admittedly, he was too much of a city boy to know how to look for tracks, so he could be missing something.
Still, what was he thinking, flying out here in a rage? Maybe the lack of sleep was finally getting to him.
Sighing, he got out, feeling slightly sheepish, and shut off the golf cart, plunging his surroundings into a near complete darkness. He stood, listening, and trying to let his eyes adjust. Silence had descended across the facility grounds. Except for a small breeze that ruffled the remaining sparse grass, nothing moved, the weather too cold even for the insects. Isak reached back into the golf cart to open the glove compartment and grab the small penlight they stored in there.
The small beam of light illuminated the metal of the stairwell as Isak climbed the stairs. At the top, right beneath the satellite dish, the metal door to the control room was closed. The red light from the keypad confirmed that it was locked. Tentatively, he tried the handle, but it didn’t budge, more confirmation that nothing could have gotten in.
He stood there for a moment, thinking, then placed his thumb on the fingerprint reader. The keypad chirped, turned green and the door clicked open. Inside, the control room was pitch black, except for the faint light from the terminal screen at the opposite wall and the blinking green lights from the servers on both sides. Isak fumbled for a bit for the light switch, flipped it on, and took a moment to adjust to the sudden flood of bright lights. The control room was no bigger than a walk-in closet with server racks on both sides, flush against the wall, enclosed in glass doors. The only noise in the small room was the faint hum of all the fans whirring from the servers. Everything looked in order.
He couldn’t tell if he was relieved or not. If this wasn’t a prank, then there was a good possibility Even was right: despite all the years of testing that went on before launch, a defect had somehow escaped the engineering team’s notice. Someone was getting canned at HQ.
Isak moved further into the room, letting the door lock behind him, and walked to the terminal embedded in the opposite wall. The white text on the monitor blinked at him innocently, waiting for input. He logged in and ran a quick diagnostics check.
Connected and online
All systems functioning.
Continue with full systems check? Y/n
Shrugging, Isak went ahead with it, though he doubted it would reveal anything different. He sighed and rubbed his eyes while the monitor gave him a full verbose reading of the ongoing systems check. It was official: his insomnia was catching up with him and making him act irrational. He always prided himself on being logical and here he was storming out in the middle of the night, looking for monsters in the dark. Maybe he was finally losing it. A real fear rose up in him, a terrible thought of his mom, back at the living facility in Oslo, barely aware and lost in delusions.
But, no. He had the actual logs on the laptop. This telescope was losing connection, and not just losing connection, but the system was detecting that the network was unplugged at random times. Slowly, his breathing returned to normal. He wasn’t losing it. It didn’t matter if these anomalies never happened on anyone else’s watch, their laptop had the logs to prove it was true. But for the systems to detect the cable was unplugged meant that it had to be physically removed from the network port.
But how? Isak looked around the server racks until he found the main cable and the backup cable for the network. Both were plugged in, the lights on next to them, confirming they were operating normally and receiving data. Most likely, the latest signal he got was already fully downloaded back at the facility and he was wasting his time here. He was about to call the whole thing off and shut down the systems check when he heard it. A low pitched whistling sound, coming from outside, but loud enough to penetrate the metal door of the control room.
He paused for a few seconds, alarmed, then flung open the door, momentarily flooding the metal landing with light. But the sound had already cut off abruptly, the moment his hand touched the knob. He moved to the railing on the small landing and looked out over the fields.
The door behind him clicked closed, a few moments later, plunging everything back into darkness. It took him nearly a full minute for his eyes to re-adjust to the darkness. He could make out the dim shape of the golf cart, waiting for him in the grass below, and the winding stairwell leading down, but nothing moved and the sound didn’t return. He was baffled at what kind of animal that could have been. It was unlike anything Isak had ever heard before. Again, though, he wasn’t an outdoors person and until recently, he had lived his entire life in a busy city. It most likely was some kind of animal, but a large one. What animal could have made it through the metal fence surrounding the facilities?
He stared across the fields, where the dark shapes of the solar panel arrays stood in the distance, and further out, the dark, taller shape of the water tower. Nothing moved and the wind had settled down. His thoughts felt disoriented, somehow, as if his mind was grasping and losing possibilities. Sleep. It was his lack of sleep catching up to him, Isak decided. He was looking forward to movie time with Even. He loved spending time with Even, just talking or watching movies, but lying in Even’s bed was increasingly becoming the only time he could get some real sleep. It made him feel guilty. He was sure Even didn’t appreciate him drooling on his shoulder and stealing his blankets everyday.
A creak of metal below made him jump and snap out of his spiraling thoughts. He leaned over the railing quickly, heart jackhammering, and looked down. From his vantage point, he could see the entire stairwell, faintly gleaming in the starlight. Nothing was down there. But it sounded exactly like someone had stepped onto one of the stairs down below. It was the same sound he had made when he had come up, as the bottom stair was slightly loose. Was there some kind of small animal he couldn’t see?
Letting out a long breath, Isak backed away from the railing towards the door and stopped, mind racing.
He was unsettled. He could admit it to himself, out here in the dark, when he somehow couldn’t back at the station. He had been unsettled for the past couple of weeks and he wasn’t sure why. There was no reason for it. It was only a malfunctioning telescope, but for some reason he couldn’t put his finger on, his unease these past weeks had only grown. It was making his insomnia worse. But it sounded ridiculous, no matter how he explained it to himself. There was no way he could mention his unfounded fears to either Even or Eva. Besides, they already knew about the telescope; there wasn’t anything any of them could do but keep a watch on it. Maybe it was time to alert Sana. Just to let her know that there may be a malfunction, even though they couldn’t pin it down yet.
He unlocked the door again. Inside, the terminal listed the final results from the full systems check. As expected, everything was working as normal, no warnings given. Frustrated, he logged out and flipped off the lights on his way out.
Back on the ground, he started the golf cart up again and turned on the headlights. But instead of driving back, he sat in the driver’s seat, staring up at the radio telescopes branching off in a long line to the right, satellite dishes all turned to a distant point in the sky. Something was off, but his mind was too sluggish to figure out what was nagging at him. He knew he was missing something.
By the time he rolled up to the facility, his heart gave another jump when he saw a figure standing outside by the steps. But it was only Even, jumping up and down on his toes to keep warm. With a start, Isak realized that dawn was appearing on the horizon. How long had he been out here for? He had been certain he couldn’t have been out for longer than 30 minutes. Well, there went his plan to beat his own personal record. Eva would be up in another couple of hours to take over and it was unlikely he would find another signal before then.
“What are you doing awake?” He ran up the stairs to where Even was waiting.
Even held out his hand, something in his palm, and Isak stopped, dumbfounded. That was his radio. Somehow, in his rush to get to #10, he hadn’t even realized he didn’t pick it up.
“I woke up for a drink and saw you weren’t at your desk. I thought you had taken a bathroom break, but then I looked out and saw the golf cart was gone.” Even looked concerned. “You left your personal radio. We wouldn’t have known if something happened to you.”
“Yeah,” Isak said quietly, still bewildered that his personal radio hadn’t even crossed his mind this entire time. He never forgot his radio; it was drilled into them during training to never forget it. “I… guess I forgot.”
Even touched Isak’s face. “You’re freezing! How long have you been out here?” He quickly ushered Isak into the station. It was only when they were back at the observatory room that Isak realized how cold he was. The warmth in the station was such a shock, he felt he was going to start sweating on the spot. How much electricity were they using to heat this place, anyway? They had a gas filled backup generator, but most of their power came from the solar batteries out in the field, which were limited. It was much too warm in here.
“Is everything alright?” Even asked, switching on the full lights. He still looked worried, making Isak feel even more ridiculous for running out in the middle of the night on a wild goose chase. The bank of monitors surrounding the desk in a semi-circle had all fallen asleep. His malt balls lay scattered next to the laptop. He didn’t even remember knocking that bag over in his rush.
“No, I’m fine. It’s just number 10 was acting up again and I went out to check.” Isak bit his lip, wondering how much he could say. Not that he believed Even would laugh at him, he was too kind for that, but Isak didn’t even know how to explain it to himself. “I… just thought I could figure out the issue if I was there while it was happening,” he finished.
“Alright,” Even said slowly and then reached out to gently squeeze his arm. “Why don’t you let me take care of it. I was planning on doing a full check on it today, anyway. Besides, we can still download all the signals as long as the rest of the telescopes are acting normal, right?”
Isak hesitated again, but then nodded. “Right. But don’t go over there; I already ran a full systems check and I looked at the servers. Nothing’s wrong. It’s normal.”
For a little while, Even didn’t say anything, just watched Isak. “Okay. How about I take over and you sleep? At least until Eva wakes up,” he quickly added when he saw the stormcloud forming on Isak’s face.
With a sigh, Isak dropped his annoyance. Even was only concerned and trying to help, not questioning his competence. “Honestly, I’m fine.” He smiled a little. “Besides, I only seem to sleep in your bed these days. Must be all those boring movies.”
Even’s grin returned, as the tension melted from the room. “Why do you think I put them on?”
“So you’re purposely boring me to sleep!”
“Hey, it’s the only way I could keep you in my bed.” Even winked again and Isak rolled his eyes, turning back to the desk to hide his own grin. Even chuckled behind him and moved back to the doorway leading to the common rooms and sleeping quarters. “Just wake me if you get too tired to continue.”
“You just get some sleep. I’m not missing movie time because you can’t stay awake,” Isak said, with a salute. After Even left, he dimmed the lights again and slumped back down in the chair. The unsettled mood from earlier quickly returned, but he switched on the monitors and finished inputting the last signal he received in the database to try to get his mind on more productive matters. Even though he wasn’t expecting another signal before Eva took over, he switched the telescope array back into active listening mode.
By the time Eva came into the observatory room, yawning and ready to take over, Isak was debating a sixth cup of coffee. But the jitters were getting bad, maybe he needed to eat first.
It was at the kitchen counter, staring out of the window towards the distant fence, when it occurred to Isak that maybe he should do a perimeter check. They hadn’t done one of those in the past few weeks. It would probably take an hour to circle the entire facility, but at least he could rest easy once he saw that there were no gaping holes in the fence, and nothing could have gotten in. At least, nothing big enough to matter.
He debated sneaking out and not telling Eva his plans, but then he remembered he left his radio on the desk. With a sigh, he went back into the observatory room, where Eva was humming to herself and picked up his radio and keycard.
“What are you up to?” Eva looked up from the notebook in front of her. Nothing got past her.
“Just going to look at the fence. We haven’t checked it in a while.” He hooked his keycard to a lanyard and placed it around his neck.
“A perimeter check? This early?” Eva raised her eyebrows. “Yeah, okay, I guess we have been neglecting that lately. Oh, and Sana will be radioing in to get our list for the next supply run. Did you write down what you wanted?”
“Yeah, at the back of the notebook, next to Even’s. Just don’t forget the malt balls.”
Eva huffed a laugh.
“And the coffee! We’re down to eight bags.” He headed outside again and turned on the golf cart. The sun was rising in the sky, which would give him enough light to make a close inspection of the fence as quickly as possible, hopefully before Even woke up.
He cringed at the thought of the expression on Even’s face if he found out Isak was doing a perimeter check right after his shift, considering last night’s events. The last thing he needed was to worry Even more than he probably already was.
As expected, it took nearly an hour to do a thorough check of the entire fence surrounding the facility grounds. And as expected, nothing was out of place. No gaping holes or dug out areas where a large animal – or human – could have squeezed through. Nothing.
By the time he returned to the station, he was done trying to figure out the jumble of emotions in his gut. It was a good thing the fence wasn’t tampered with. But it only caused more questions and it certainly didn’t help with his growing unease.
He was sitting at the kitchen table, morosely staring into his cold cup of coffee when he heard Even shuffle in. He looked up to find Even staring at him with his big blue eyes. It seemed like he was debating whether to say something, but then he just smiled cheerily. “I’m going to make breakfast for us,” he announced and moved towards the industrial fridge.
Isak appreciated it. He knew he looked like shit and the dark circles under his eyes could hide small armies. But he wasn’t in the mood to be reminded. What he needed was a beer. Several beers, he nodded to himself, staring at the dregs in his cup. Too bad alcohol wasn’t allowed on facility grounds.
Even was fiddling with his phone for the songs he had downloaded before they made the trip over. Taylor Swift started playing and Even bopped his head, doing a bad impersonation.
Isak groaned and rolled his eyes. “You’re getting all the words wrong.”
Even grinned at him over his shoulder. “You would know, huh?”
Isak sputtered indignantly as Even laughed.
By the time Even had finished breakfast, Isak’s mind was far from #10, more concerned with Even’s awful taste in music and even more awful singing. They had run out of eggs over a week ago, but that hadn’t deterred Even. Instead he made a Mediterranean breakfast with humus, falafel, chips and olives.
By the time they made it back to the sleeping quarters for movie time, Isak was feeling more relaxed. Like all personal rooms at the station, Even’s was tiny, only big enough to fit in a single bed, a small desk, where Even kept his notebooks and drawing supplies, and a closet. The size of the bed meant they had to squeeze in together, with Isak squashed between Even and the wall, his head slumped against Even’s shoulder. But it was cozy and he was already feeling his eyelids get heavier as Even opened Isak’s laptop.
"Alien vs Predator 4 it is," Even declared, hitting play. Isak grinned when he snorted at the opening scene showing Predator prowling some dimly lit spaceship, looking annoyed.
A little into the movie, feeling particularly bold, Isak placed his hand on Even’s knee. His heart was beating louder, enough that he was sure Even would be able to feel it, if not hear it. Despite all the hints Even was giving, he knew he was taking a risk. It was possible he was misreading the entire situation. He had been told that he was particularly bad at reading people.
But a few minutes later, while Alien and Predator were having their first encounter, Even’s hand came to rest gently on top of his, and Isak’s heart calmed down. They slowly linked their fingers together and Isak smiled to himself.
Despite the b-level horror playing on the laptop screen, he was having an increasingly hard time staying awake. His body almost felt like it was melting into Even’s side. It was during this relaxed state that Isak's mind wandered back to the control room on #10. On screen, Alien was gaining the upper hand in the fight against Predator, but there was something that kept nagging at him. Something about that control room.
Finally, it came to him, while his eyes were slipping shut for the last time. The terminal screen. It was powered on. All terminal screens across the facility grounds were set to go to sleep after 30 minutes of inactivity. But when he walked into the control room, the screen was awake.
On the laptop, Predator howled in pain, and Isak fell asleep.