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Grace’s in the lab. Rocky conducting his own experiments with the Taumeoba. The pair worked together in a comfortable silence. Only occasionally did the pair ask each other questions about their findings.
Grace leaned forward and looked down the microscope. The Taumeoba were all dead the second he exposed Nitrogen. That was less than ideal given both Three World and Venus were primarily Nitrogen.
Grace let out a deep sigh. They needed to come up with something to fix this and fast. Grace couldn’t seem to think of anything. His brain was seemingly slow to think, that wasn’t like him.
“Coffee.” He said to the computer. A bag of coffee appeared from one of the arms, that was weird. Why was it in a bag? They had gravity, so it should have given it to him in a cup like normal. He sipped it slowly, letting the burn race across his tongue and down his throat. He had grown accustomed to the temperature of it by now.
“Grace okay, question?” Grace looked to Rocky, he was tapping the side of his Xeonite with his carapace tilted in concern. “Grace seem…” He tapped his claws as he thought for the right word. “Slow. Slower than usual, statement.” Grace stared at him for a moment. He was fine, he was… what had he been doing again?
“Yeah. I’m fine. I think I am a little tired is all.” Even as Grace said it, he knew it was wrong. He wasn’t tired. He was just struggling to think properly about the… what had he been working on again?
He felt like he was drunk. This is how he had felt when he had drunk Illyukhina’s vodka. God that seemed like a lifetime ago now. Grace shook his head. His vision blurred more, even with his glasses on.
“No, something wrong, statement. Grace breathing bad bad bad.” Grace took stock of his breathing for a moment. Rocky was right. Something was wrong, Grace couldn’t catch his breath.
Grace felt panic overtake him. He started wheezing shallow breaths in and out at a high rate. Something was really wrong with the ship’s oxygen supply.
“Computer…” What did he want to ask again? “…what’s the oxygen percentage on the ship right now?” Grace got no response. Something was definitely wrong.
Grace stood from his chair, his head felt as though it wasn’t attached to his neck. The room when spinning around him. Grace leaned on the desk in front of him, his lung felt more and more empty with every breath he took.
“Grace, question? What’s wrong, question?” Grace wanted to answer Rocky, he really did but just couldn’t. His brain felt like mush in his head.
His brain was screaming something at him, he could sense it, but he just couldn’t figure out what it was.
Grace rested his palm against his head. What was it he was trying to tell himself? Grace could still hear Rocky’s notes and the laptop, but he just couldn’t translate them in his ears. The noise of his own brain was too loud. Everything was far too loud.
Grace slumped back down into his stall. He just needed a minute, he would be fine.
“Grace, EVA suit, statement. Has human atmosphere, statement. Grace need, statement.” Grace felt the spike of adrenaline through him. It was as if his brain started working again, it was what his brain was shouting at him this whole time. The EVA suit. It has its own oxygen supply and atmosphere. Why was he thinking about the atmosphere?
He didn’t have time to figure that out. He just needed to get to the EVA suit.
Grace shot up from his stall. He wobbled on his feet a little. Or at least he thinks he did, he can’t really feel his body right now.
He focused on the red suit in his mind. His eyes could just about see where he was going around him, he could see the path in front of him but no walls around him. He guessed this was what they referred to as tunnel vision. He could just about hear Rocky’s ball clanking against the metal grating behind him.
He saw the air lock just up ahead. His hand slipped against the handle for it but with all his focus behind him, he managed to get it open.
The red of the suit acted as a beacon. He homed in on the suit in a desperate attempt to save himself. He could still hear Rocky’s panicked high-pitched notes, the laptop long forgotten in the lab.
Grace didn’t know how long he fought with the suit to get it on. He could feel the strength leaving his muscles as he fought with it. Rocky’s panicked squeals kept him going. It was the only thing he could hear over his own slowing heartbeat.
Once the suit was on, the LCVG completely forgotten about at this point, Grace took gulps of air. It was like he had surfaced being underwater for the last however long.
Grace looked back down to Rocky.
“Are you okay, Rocky?” Rocky chirped back to him, but he couldn’t hear the laptop. Rocky caught on and started nodding at him instead. Grace started walking to the lab, Rocky not far behind.
Grace grabbed the laptop, turning the volume up as high as it would go and tuning it to his EVA suit radio frequency.
“Grace okay, question? Grace slow, almost fall. Grace stupid stupid stupid. Something wrong with ship, statement.” Grace nodded in agreement.
“Something is definitely wrong with the ship. Why didn’t it warn me? I absolutely just experienced oxygen deprivation. I could have died—” Grace stopped for a moment. Letting the words sink in. He could’ve died just now. If it wasn’t thanks to his ability to focus on Rocky’s voice, he may not have even noticed he was slowly suffocating.
“Rocky fix, statement.” Grace looked down at his Eridian friend and smiled.
“We’ll fix it together. Statement.”