“Yes, you successfully dressed. Quite well done, Jace,” Khoth remarked dryly.
“Now you’re sassing me!” Jace grinned.
“Perhaps.” There was the faintest smile on Khoth’s lips.
“I do believe you just made a joke. Wonders will never cease.”
“You said you do not know me well. How are you so certain that making a joke is rare for me?” Khoth’s chin lifted.
Jace’s mouth twisted. “Uhm, well, you’ve got a point. Do you make jokes often?”
“No.”
“Alrighty then. Guess I got that one correct. But not all Thaf’ell are like that, right? So serious? Thammah isn’t--hey, where is she?” Jace suddenly spun around to look for the other Thaf’ell.
“I believe she is hiding… ah, the screen has changed. It is showing us the cell block we found Gehenna on,” Khoth said with a dip of his head towards the screen that had previously said “no”.
The screen showed the other Thaf’ell inspecting the other cell doors and occasionally checking her suit’s readouts.
“Ah, wait. Let me try and reach her.” Khoth brought up a holographic display on his left forearm.
But just as he was about to speak again there was a frightening WHA-WHA-WHA-WHA sound that had Jace’s bones vibrating. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw red light. It came from the screen. The corridor outside was suddenly red in color and there was some kind of mist coming out of the vents.
Oh, my… I might have made a small error, Gehenna murmured.
“WHAT?! What’s happening, Gehenna?” Jace asked as he whirled around on the AI.
It seems in my zeal to get us out of the Core, I may have tripped some of the Osiris’ security protocols, she said. Don’t worry! I’ll fix it!
Jace’s gaze snapped from her to the screen where he saw his mom and dad grasping the front of their throats with both hands as their eyes bugged out of their head.
“GEHENNA! What’s happening to them exactly?” Jace stated as he raced over to the screen and placed both hands on it.
They are… uhm, suffocating, she answered. But I will get this figured out!
Jace watched in horror as both of his parents went down onto their knees hanging onto one another. He was about to scream Gehenna’s name again, but then he realized she wasn’t the one he should be addressing.
He whirled around to the screen again, “Osiris!”
Yes, appeared on the screen.
“Stop the security protocols!” Jace demanded.
His parents had collapsed fully now.
There is a criminal--
“You will obey me!” Jace shouted and he saw one of those live electric wires in his mind’s eye, like he had with Metal Rain. He grabbed hold of it. There was a sharp stab of pain, but that quickly passed. He felt the ship all around him and that sense of listening was intensified. “You will stop the security protocols, Osiris. I am the Pilot!”
There was a pause and then a single word appeared, Yes.
Nature
“Stop the gas, get oxygen in there and open these goddamned doors!” Jace ordered the Osiris.
Again, there was the simple response, Yes.
Immediately, the gas that had been pouring out of the vents into the corridor was flushed out and oxygen was pumped in. The doors did not open until all of the gas was gone, Khoth noted, then they whooshed to the sides and Jace surged through them without thought. Khoth and Gehenna hesitated in the Core chamber’s doorway. They watched safely from there as Jace dropped down to his knees between his parents.
