She digs the sphere out of the rockfall, and then promptly backs up a bit in case "Beep bepp" is Robot for "I am definitely a vampire."

Apparently it's not, because it just goes, "Beep beep" and swirls around the area a bit on a pulse jet hidden behind a grated cover, and then takes up a position behind her shoulder as if saying, "Well, I'm following you."

Oh dear, another entity that thinks she knows what she's doing. Or she's anthropomorphizing wildly--those beeps didn't sound particularly linguistic--but she still doesn't have any kind of systematic model of what kinds of minds go in what kinds of bodies. Whatever. Onward to places that might be a shuttle station, with her new friend along if that's what's happening.

Another few turns take her through what looks like an oil field. Pumping rigs rise out of the sea bed and are linked to the main pipeline at intervals. Actually, that one sign did say it was a natural gas refinery, so maybe it basically is an oil field. Finally, though, she comes to another collection of buildings, concrete foundations and metal pressure hulls rising from the rocky sea bed, some embedded, others supported off the sea floor. An airlock is at...ground level, with a sign that says, "Upsilon Station B: Shuttle Station". It looks like it's over-grown with little sea life, and initially doesn't respond to the button just like the one she left next to outside the comm station, but the little droid seems to know what it's doing--it lights up a torch and starts burning them off in a circle around the door ring.

Oh gosh, that's so helpful! Margaret joins in with the tools she's been carrying around, prying and scraping and cutting until the door is clear.

Between the two of them, the job is done in a few minutes. Apparently, the robot considers its job down as it sweeps the circle clear, as it turns and jets off up into the dark of the shallower water where Margaret's diving suit can't rise to follow. it's not clear where it's going, but the "OPEN" button on the airlock allows it to swing open. Inside, the airlock is similarly overgrown, but a light above a panel that says "SWIPE OMNITOOL" seems to be working.

Margaret waves goodbye to the helpful sphere and swipes her omnitool on the panel.

At the swipe, the airlock control flashes to PROCESSING, and the pumps and equipment comes to life. The outer door swings closed again, and with a slight klaxon sound, the water starts pumping down into a grating at the bottom. She can look up and watch the water level coming down above here, then it's over her mask, and then below her neck. As soon as the waterline passes, the klaxon proves it wasn't quiet, just muffled. Now it's really loud. After another few seconds, the last of the water swirls down the grating in the floor, and the klaxon cuts off as the inner door slides open with the sound of a locking bolt releasing. She's made it to the Shuttle station.

Margaret is not sure why pumping out an airlock is dangerous enough to justify that much klaxon but presumably someone who knew a lot about it thought it was. Now, does this shuttle station have a shuttle in it, and ideally also a route map?

As Margaret steps across the threshold, a flashlight snaps on on her helmet. It looks from its beam like the tunnel leads down a small distance onto an island platform between two tracks, each hosting a small shuttle car, about the size of an airport tram. The lighting is dim, and someplace in the background there's the omnipresent drip of water.

Automatic headlight: cool. Automatic headlight that somehow failed to turn on until just now: less cool, but maybe getting water dumped on it jostled something back into place.

Now, does it make more sense to try to turn on the shuttle cars or to just walk along the tracks? She doesn't seem to have gotten any more tired since waking up, but it's been less than a day and it could be hundreds of kilometres to Lambda for all she knows. Probably somewhat less, since the whole complex was one pin on the big map, but it's still worth trying to get train service for a bit before giving up and walking. So it's time for another round of "follow cables back and forth looking for the on switch".

At the far end of the platform, where the shuttle tracks vanish into tubes in the wall, trying to hop the platform-edge fence shows that just down the tunnel, there's some kind of automated doors sealed over the tunnel--maybe they're subdivided, to stop water from flooding back along the tunnels if part of the system floods? There's a control box for track power, but the little screen built into it shows "insufficient power", so indeed following the cables seems to be the order of the day. However, looking back towards the right-side platform, there's a communications panel on the wall showing a buffered message, and an open door leading to some tracks back the way Margaret arrived from, to the side of the tunnel down from the surface airlock she used.

Buffered message get. Is it weird that she's getting used to this? Probably everyone is used to this and it's not any weirder than getting used to, like, smartphones.

The call quality was awful, but it sounds like Amy made it here, and ran into the same problem Margaret has with track power being off. She was worried if the power wasn't stabilized, the train could cut out halfway to Theta. It sounds like she meant to go fix the power, maybe why the door is open.

That might have been the first one of these to be immediately practically useful. Margaret follows in Amy's presumable footsteps, hoping her apparent failure doesn't mean she died on the way.

The tunnel leads back a distance long enough to hold more than a few trains--apparently it goes to some kind of maintenance facility. The whole place looks like it could use maintenance--some of the cables hang down and spark, and there's breaks in the casing of the power rails along the walls that the shuttles look like they ride. Just before a closed end door, a small set of steps lead up to a door off on the left side. From around the corner as Margaret gets close enough to see the light spilling out the door into the tunnel in front of her, she can hear a hissing sounds--hissphiss. Hissphiss. Hissphiss.

She tucks cables back into their overhead racks where she can do so safely but she can't do anything about the rail casings. When she sees the light and hears the hissing she approaches cautiously, expecting another leaky steam pipe.

It's not a steam pipe, more of a pumping noise. Rounding the corner...there's a woman lying motionless on a pile of the structure gel. A pair of cables lead from a power box into some kind of gel structure on the wall, which is pumping like a bellows and making the noise. It's connected by a disturbing nest of tubing and cables to different spots on the woman's body. It takes a moment to realize the woman's turned her eyes and is blinking at Margaret. "Don't hurt me!" she cries out weakly.

NOPE NOPE NOPE this is NOT what she wanted

Margaret can't bring herself to make eye contact; she talks to the opposite wall. "I'm not going to hurt you. What do you need? Can I help? What happened to you?"

"I...fell, working on the power relays," the woman--Amy?--gasps. "This thing...it saved me and wouldn't let me die, but it can't let me go. I've been here...I don't know how long."

"I don't know--what to do--even if I could get you out, there's no food here . . . "

"If you see Masters or Holland, tell them I need help," she gasps. "Tell them Amy needs help."

"Okay. I'll. I'll tell them." Why is a misplaced college student murderer suddenly the only hope for way too many people (okay, two people, but that's still way too many).

She keeps walking, heading off to finish the job Amy started.

The power board is right next to Amy in the maintenance room. There's two cables from Amy's...involuntary life support into two ports on the electrical box on the wall, which is recessed into the power lines to the track guides. The screen on it is flickering, but displays "insufficient power--drain detected--systems offline."

Fuck. Not this again, this shouldn't have happened once, why is it happening again, why?

(I need those . . . I was okay)

At least this time she can just walk to Lambda. 

She should probably go back and ask Amy how far it is, before she sets out.

She doesn't want to talk to Amy. Honestly she doesn't want to look at Amy. Or think about Amy. 

(Why did you do that? I was okay . . .)

But if she dies on the way to Lambda because she didn't get some important piece of information, she and Amy and Carl are all doomed.

She walks back to Amy and stares at the floor again. "I can't turn on the shuttles. I'm going to try to walk to Lambda and get help; I know there's someone there. Do you know how far it is, or which track to take?"