Deep within Binary Bloom, a man whose figure would not make him first choice for such an activity, was crawling through the air ducts. The low hum of the ventilators had stopped three minutes ago, and ever since he had been mumbling ?no, no, no!“ to himself at irregular intervals.


    Faberto had been buried under the debris of the recent attack, but a steel beam that came down in a lucky blocking position had saved him from serious injury. It had taken him four hours to free himself, and the mixture of confined space, limited air exchange and physical exertion had caused him to lose consciousness a few times, or doze off into semi-consciousness.


    That way, he had apparently missed the evacuation team and had not responded when they shouted if there was anyone else.


    Now, this section of the station was being shut down and would be sealed off soon. Faberto did not know what would happen then. Maybe all the air would be sucked out to conserve it for the rest of the station? He desperately wanted to avoid finding it out, at least from this side.


    By the time he had arrived at the nearest corridor, the bulkhead was already down, and nobody answered to his hammering. So the air ducts it was. He had grabbed a laser cutter on his way and hoped that either the air ducts were not yet sealed, or it would be possible to cut through it. Trying the bulkhead was futile, he knew how sturdy they were.


    His belly was a serious problem now. With it, his body filled out almost the entire cross-section of the air duct, and crawling forward was more difficult than it should have been. Faberto decided to pick up regular visits to the gym again, right after this was all over.


    He turned around another bend, which were the most challenging parts of the journey. He already barely fit into the duct, turns required a lot of squeezing and twisting.


    When he was done, the flashlight he had likewise scavenged on his way illuminated a scene of destruction. This part of the station had been hit by a stray shot. On the plus side, he told himself, this was about where he had expected the air duct seal to be. So it was likely inoperative. On the down side, he had just spent four hours of digging himself out of metal debris and doing that all over again was the last thing he wanted to do right now.


    He pulled on the rope he had tied around his waist and belt. There was a bag at its other end, two meters behind him. It was the only way he could bring the laser cutter along and still have both arms free to crawl.


    He fumbled with the cutter and carefully pulled it up. It was a bit of a struggle to get it between his slightly overweight body and the walls of the air duct, and he was constantly afraid he would set it off and burn a hole in his body, but he managed it and finally, sweating and panting, he had the laser cutter in his hands.


    On his belly, in an awkward position with arms extended and head tilted sideways so he could see what he was doing, he cut away the metal pieces that blocked his way. They fell to the floor below with a loud clattering sound. And a delay much too long for his comfort.


    Faberto grabbed the edge to pull himself forward and immediately regretted it. The metal was sharp and had been torn off unevenly, creating a saw-like edge that cut into his fingers. He yelped and pulled his hands back, checking them for injuries. There was a small cut on his left hand, but nothing serious. So he crawled forward the way he had done for the past subjective eternity, pushing against the floor, walls and ceiling with hands and feet.


    When he reached the edge, the part where the air duct had been torn apart, he looked down into a storage room of some kind, filled with what seemed to him to be spare parts. It was about four meters from floor to ceiling, and the air duct was just underneath the ceiling. Which had partially collapsed into the room, tearing through the air duct and some of the shelves underneath.


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    ?Oh shit“, Faberto exclaimed. He started looking for a way to get down. And back up again. He was not past the seal yet, so this room and its one exit door would still lead to the part of the station he was trying to get out of.


    He also noticed that the room was warm. Much warmer than was typical for Binary Bloom. After a moment he felt that from time to time, hot air was coming out of the air duct on the opposite side.


    Finding no easy way down, Faberto got the laser cutter out one more time and sliced off a bit of the edge. It wasn’t perfect, but the cutter made for a smoother edge than the jagged break he had cut himself on. Then he realized that he was head-first in the air duct and definitely would not be able to turn around. His plan had been to grab unto the edge and lower himself down as far as possible, dropping only the final two meters or so.


    The support above him creaked. The metal channel was meant for air, not for heavy humans. Inside the walls, it was well supported, but hanging from the ceiling like here, not so much. He looked around frantically. Finally, he spotted a thin pipe that, if he stretched himself, he could probably reach just before falling out of the air duct. It was his best hope.


    Faberto crawled and pushed himself forward until most of his upper body was in the air. He stretched out his hands and, with a final push, grabbed on to the pipe just as he tipped over and would otherwise have plummeted to the floor below. The pipe was ice cold. Gritting his teeth, he pulled the rest of himself out and swung downwards, one of his knees painfully hitting something on the way down that he had not seen.


    Also, he found that between the icy pipe, the slippery surface condensation had created and his less than optimal ratio of muscle mass to body weight, he really could not hold on as much as he had thought. The pipe slid out of his grip and he fell.


    He crashed down on top of some boxes that fortunately had a considerable amount of packaging material around their contents, which helped soften his fall. It hurt anyways and he felt as if he had torn a muscle in his left leg, but he was mostly ok.


    The same could not be said of the person that had been stuffed into the box. From the looks of it, months ago. Faberto was too dazed from the fall to realize immediately what he had fallen on top of. He grabbed his arm, then elbow, then knee and realized he did not have enough hands to hold everything that hurt.


    Then he saw the body. ?Oh shit!“, he exclaimed, loudly this time. He scrambled out of the ruins of the box, thrashing widely until he was well clear of it, hitting his head on a metal shelf.


    He glanced at the body sideways, not wanting to stare at it but unable to just ignore it. Apparently a woman, early 30s he would say, quite attractive. He struggled with his inner monologue, telling himself that ?attractive“ was not a proper attribution for a corpse.


    He looked around. There was a single door and above the air duct. No other exits. He pulled himself up and tried to open the door. It was locked, but the laser cutter worked its magic once more and soon the door was open. As he had feared, he was right next to the bulkhead, but still on the wrong side.


    He left the door open because it made him feel better, but he turned back to the storage room. He spotted a ladder stowed away in the far corner, behind the shelf and exhaled in relief. ?Some luck for me, finally.“, he mumbled to himself.


    He walked over to the corner, keeping as far away from the corpse as possible. To his surprise, the room smelled of dust, but not of rotting flesh. The dead woman was dry, almost mummified. With the pain in his body slowly subsiding, Faberto was now horrified. He avoided looking at the corpse, but out of the corner of his eye spotted a wallet among the debris of the box, right underneath the corpse. Without thinking, he grabbed it, avoiding to touch the dead body.


    Then he pulled out the ladder, set it up and scurried up as quickly as he could. On top, he cut away the edge of the air duct with the laser cutter right at the wall, so that it would support his weight, and groaning and struggling pulled himself up to complete his journey.