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ALERT! ATTEMPTED DAMAGE TO CABIN CAM-
He doesn't need to check which camera it is to know. He switches over, easy as breathing, to see exactly who he expected tapping on the glass again.
"Hello, Avery," he says into the localized intercom. "You know there's a room service button?"
Avery tilts his head. "But wouldn't that be for... room service? Like, people?"
An automatic door closes in the captain's quarters. "Have you seen any workers here?"
This makes Avery pause. "I... no, actually." He goes back to straightening up and putting his hands back in his pockets. Before he's quite done, he switches to rocking on his heels. "Derek, do they really make you do everything?"
D3r's sigh catches in his dry throat. It's better than having another goddamn smoothie. "You can't get me out. You know this."
"I have to!" Avery shouts, loud enough to bleed through the resource-efficient walls. D3r switches on the TVs in the adjacent rooms. "Do you really think it's better to be a battery just for the chance to-"
"Avery."
Avery's no less passionate, but he pauses. "Yeah?"
"I'm not the only one who can access the cameras." The automatic doors in the passenger areas don't require any input, but their logs still run through D3r's head. He manages to finish his thought. "I'm just the only one who can control them."
Avery takes a step back, brow furrowed like he's trying to figure this out. "Oh, so can he-"
"Yes." D3r pulls up the Captain's quarters' map and logs. It doesn't seem like the Captain's by the desk, but it's impossible to know for sure. Shutting up would be much easier, but neither of them have that option. "Everything I see or hear is recorded. I know you read the warning labels."
Avery sighs, pacing. "There has to be a way, right? I can't just let you-"
"Be careful, Avery," is all D3r says before switching away again. There's an incident in another room, and he'd rather have a clear head when dealing with it.
Avery spends a lot of time after that trying to open doors. Automatic dining room doors, fake staff doors, what turn out to be cabinets, even space-facing windows.
He pauses at one of the windows for a second, looking out into the abyss. Not the pure abyss, of course- the Captain has protective layers of polarization up to keep guests' minds clean.
Only a second, though. He's very motivated. This has to be part of his plan to save D3r, but it's still not clear what that plan is. Does he think D3r's sitting in the kitchen?
Once Avery's back in a small room, D3r turns its intercom on. "Are you looking for me?"
Avery almost topples over at the sound, but he regains his confidence fast. "I can't tell you that, camera!" D3r realizes the room's probably dark as he watches Avery point accusingly at the intercom instead. "That's what I say here, right?"
Well, yes, but- "Yep." -D3r just wishes he could talk to people- to Avery- without putting them all at risk. "Do you want the light on?" It's alright. He's saving the world.
"Um." Avery's confidence comes in waves. "That would be nice, yeah."
He blinks as the light switches on, like he still doesn't expect it. Once he's adjusted, though, he points accusingly at the actual camera this time. "I won't answer your other questions, though!"
He will. What would they do if he didn't? Stop talking? "Do you think my body's just lying around?"
"Well, I know you have it!" He taps on the camera lens. "You can talk! You need a head and a chest for that!"
Hm.
On one hand, computerized voices are easy to set up. On the other... computerized coughing is much less established, and D3r's done that around Avery.
Not bad.
What D3r actually says is, "What do you think would happen to the ship if you unplugged me?"
"You're gonna kill us anyway!" There's no venom in Avery's voice. "Don't you wanna die a person?"
How does he know about that? Did D3r let it slip? He thinks he's been guarded-
Avery taps on the glass again. "I see that black hole! I know what you're doing!"
...A black hole?
No, D3r's going towards a regular star, a black hole might end up recycling the K- Captain sooner rather than later. He didn't think there was one in the area, but there could be. Good to watch out for.
"You saw a black hole outside the window of a passenger ship, and you didn't tell anyone?" is what he says.
"I thought you knew!" Avery's eyes widen just a little. "The big yellow-orange thing with the black circle in the middle? Black holes are orange, right?"
Not really? "That's a complicated question." D3r switches to an exterior view camera, making sure to keep Avery's feed up on the side.
Outside the ship is exactly what Avery described- a big yellow and orange thing with a black circle in the middle. When it turns to face D3r, he switches away as fast as he can.
"So that's my plan?"
"Of course that's your plan!" Avery crosses his arms. "That's been your last couple plans!" He turns around. "I'm not letting you die for me again, Derek!"
Before D3r can say anything- that they're both dying this time, that crashing the ship won't save him, that that's not a black hole- Avery's already gone.
Avery's still searching. He's muttering something about cabinets as he goes to open-
D3r checks the map, highlighting Avery's keycard with a dot.
Okay, that's still in his cabin. It's not hard to compare the camera footage with the map to track down his actual location, though- down a fake staff hallway, to the end of another hall of door-shaped things.
The best piece of information D3r has, though, is the sound of his door creaking.
"Derek," Avery whispers, too quiet to pick up on the camera mics.
D3r watches him tread almost-carefully through the presumably dim room, illuminated only by indicator lights. Watches him step on empty smoothie bottles, on one clump of organized wires, on a discarded jacket. Watches him as he approaches the figure connected to all those wires. Watching is all D3r can do, most of his energy redirected into the ship.
Avery scrambles around, pulling on any wires he can see and muttering to himself.
"This doesn't seem like the safest way to do this," D3r says over the intercom, deafening in the walk-in storage closet. It's still weird to watch his mouth move around all the tubes, to watch his labored breaths. "What if you unplug my life support?"
He feels something disconnect- one line of cabin cams, by the looks of it. "The black hole looks bigger every day!" Another. "This is the only way out I can think of, alright?"
"That's not a black hole."
Avery looks up. "What is it, then?" he almost squeaks, like he knows the answer. He doesn't stop ripping out wires, doesn't stop trying to save D3r, even in the face of all this. Small lights flicker out, one by one.
"I can't tell you yet." The kitchen cam, the dining room cam, the A/C system, the lights in the Captain's quarters. That last one will probably be bad. D3r switches over-
Before he can, the world starts spinning. Everything feels heavy as his head falls. He tries to make out shapes in the dark room- all he knows is there's something moving somewhere, his eyes individual kaleidoscopes.
Avery's shaking him, he realizes. "Derek? The lights are out, did I do it?"
"Seems like it," Derek manages to say around the stuff in his throat. His voice doesn't come through the intercom.
Avery rips out the tubes, too, and bile comes to take their place in Derek's sore throat. "Are you alright?"
Derek lifts his head and the pain shoots through him like an arrow. "Yes," he says, just managing to get his arm around Avery.
"Oh no, you're bleeding!" He dabs at Derek's forehead, dark stains appearing in his colorful shirt. "I shouldn't have tried to do this-"
"You did great, Avery."
Avery looks him in the eye, and oh, he can do that now-! "But didn't you-"
"He can't hear me anymore." Derek smiles with all his might. "We'll crash pretty soon, I think. Do you want to watch?"
"Watch?" Avery starts trying to pick Derek up in a way that wasn't too unwieldy. He settles on a bridal carry.
As much as he wants to try to walk again, Derek is content in his arms. "I was trying to crash him into a star."
"Of course you were."
"It's a pretty one." There's probably about fifteen minutes of oxygen left. It feels weird not knowing for sure. "Should be visible from the common area."
"Um," Avery tries, standing up. Derek's light from malnutrition, so carrying him there shouldn't use up all their time. "How do we get back there, again?"
He tries to recall the map. Down two staff hallways, through the kitchen... "...I think it starts with a left turn."
"You're kidding me."
Avery steps out, looking down the emergency light-lit hallway, Derek peeking over his shoulder. The door he came from is on the left.
Derek can barely see him smile. "Crazy."
The other passengers are also gathered in the common area. Some are pacing, some are trying to talk over others crying, some are sitting calmly around a yellow table lamp. One of them is trying to drag another away from the glass. For their part, Avery and Derek sit on a window-facing bench.
Derek notices the lack of sirens blaring- the C- King really needed him for everything, huh?
The ship's still moving from his final push, its momentum bringing them towards-
The star isn't there. Instead, there's some sort of massive and ornate structure, a slight gap in it the width of the ship.
It's another gate.
Derek rests his head on Avery's chest, eyes squeezed shut, before he can watch the ship's remaining momentum send them in.