Moonlight pours through the window every few minutes. On the lower ring, constant rotation brings in light as it reflects upon the centre pillar of the station. The stars churn in the distance until they're obscured by the pure white face of the Algieba satellite.

     For the past hour, I've laid in bed watching the room's walls burst into bright grey, until fading into blackness. Beside me, my sister is propped up in the corner at the head of the mattress. Her face is pressed against the bottom frame of the window. Worried I'd wake her, I place the last of the blankets on top of her, and silently stand.

      The hydraulic door slides open, dragging along the grit of the floor. The static sound halts with the openness of the plaza, letting in a gust of cold, stale wind. I look into the room to her still sitting silently, as the last of the moonlight illuminates her hair platinum, before draining into space.

      My steps echo out into the grey of the satellite, breaking the monotony of creeping rats, occasional coughing in the distance, the unnatural sounds of working machinery. Before me is a grey cavern, one of many in this level of the station.

      There stands a great fountain drying in the centre of the plaza, with occasional drops falling to a black puddle at the base of the stone. I dip two fingers within it, and smear the black against my hair, hiding its platinum colour under dark oil. For a moment, I stood there leaning on the stone, looking about the plaza. In the crevices where each door was in, there was nothing but a single pile of clothes, covering a man that hasn't moved in weeks. Down each hallway is blackness, where the occasional coughing is too far within to see its source.

      Behind the fountain lies a broken stand which housed clothes with this satellite's emblem, a pale lion ready to pounce. All the clothes have been long stolen, apart from a jacket hidden within. Blindly, I reach into a hole and pull out a black jacket with a hood; it matches the corridors at night, to the best I can make it.

      An arm in one sleeve, I arrive at the one elevator shaft with the doors pried off, resting under one of the dips with a make-shift shack. Pulling the hood over me, a glowing elevator lift ascends and illuminates the hallways in magnificent orange and blue. A man, about twenty years old, leans on the back railing with himself facing me. He lifts his hand to his scruffy chin as though in deep thought, looking at me in slight disgust, before smirking.

      "I can still see you, MT," he says as he pulls out a small grey bag. "I got some batteries for 'em, but don't expect them to last long. Saph' pulled 'em off a dead off-duty trooper in the newest deadzone. They cleared it in the evening, so we get a good few hours in before other scavengers get everything."

      After he offers the bag, I reach my hand inside, and find a pillbottle and a heavy pair of glasses. It's an old visor for pilots in the Algieba airforce, but they've been repurposed for more than simple comms or pictures. There are lenses and wires fastened to each side of the crystalline blue lenses, making it almost spider-like in appearance.

      "Thanks, Zack."

      I stuff bag and pocket it, and slip into the elevator with him. There's a gross buzz as a machine tries to close doors not there, before making its hasty descent further out of the lower ring.

      On the walls are holograms lifted slightly off the walls, with bright blue and orange color, showing off the venues of the station. There's the usual static shot of a bustling plaza that sits for a moment, with venders crowded around a running fountain, with kids playing about. I look forward through the elevator's opening as dozens of murky hallways drift by, before doors start appeaing in front of the elevator shaft.

      The lift halts quietly with a low hum before a closed door. Silently, Zack and I cram our fingers into the cracks of the door and pull them apart. Colors pour into a crowded hallway filled with hundreds of bodies piled upon each other.

      Right before the door is a man holding a woman with his face pressed against hers, like a kiss.

      "No rings huh, MT," whispers Zack before creeping over the bodies into the darkened hallway.

      I peak around the corner to see a smashed panel for the elevator, smeared with blood. With no other way to stop the lift, I grasp the kissing man by the arm to place between the doors. Removing him, I see the woman frozen in a state of sadness, with beautiful dark red hair like the man's.

      The air in the plaza is cold and stale, and thin. Except for an elderly woman clutching at the fountain's stone, the centre of the room is clear of dead. Zack approaches the centre pocketing what I think are small storage drives for computers.

      "It looks like it's all cleaned out. I locked everything up in CZ-7," Zack says as he slides himself onto the fountain.

      "So, Lance is outta his room in twenty one minutes for his conference. He'll walk out on his tablet and probably rest on the fountain. The way he clutches it, he won't be seeing you. You have five minutes to grab, what again?"

      "Spoons, Zack."

      "Right. They'll be laid in the top drawer in the kitchen, by the fridge. Got your things?"

      I pull back the hood slightly and slip my lens under the hood onto the crown of my head. In the inner pocket of my jacket is the distinguishable weight of the pillbottle in the bag. With a quick nod, the both of us wade through the bodies into the elevator silently. I place my foot against the chest of the man and push him into the corridor, letting the elevator make its ascent to the edge of the lower ring.

     The doors open to a lit corridor, where the glass floors show off a dark Earth, where far off desert is lightly illuminated by the moon, before fading. Most of the screens that line the walls are off, but a few with clocks glow dimly on pillars; 01:13.

      I step out onto the glass, and almost silently, the elevator closes behind me, leaving me alone in the dark. From under my shirt collar, I pull a black fabric over my mouth and the back of my neck. With my hood pulled far over my head, I briskly walk through the corridor, my boots gliding over the glass. As I come up to a bright white fountain, the target comes into view, a large door surrounded by two darkened screens; 01:14.

      I slide to the left into a dip in the wall, a few metres from the entrance, but well in the dark. After a moment standing there, listening to the low hum of the station, a hiss is let out as the door slides open, letting a pale light brighten the fountain stone. The shadow of a person cleaves the fountain slowly, as a man stomps just out of view, onto the glass.

      In the corner of my eye, Lance disgracefully trips on his own feet, letting a dark blue bottle shake its contents out onto the floor. He's an averaged sized man with greying short hair, an open blue officer's jacket's swaying with every flimsy arm movement. His face glows a slight blue; he holds a tablet with a person inaudibly speaking onscreen.

      He stops for a moment before the fountain, standing quite still. With a voice surprisingly sober, calm, he says, "I understand the risk of Leo residents reacting to the shutoff in CZ. Panic may happen, but placing arrests...". The voice tips off the edge of audible as I slip through the door, back on the wall as I pass into the unlit kitchen on the left, then behind a counter. The apartment is mostly a dark blue, except for the light built into the doorframe. For the first time today, I hear it; almost perfect silence.

      With haste, I pass through what counts as the living room. It's huge and open, with a massive window looking out into space; almost every star can be seen in the low light. Before it is a reclining chair sitting in the dark, and a staircase spiralling over a couple dozen feet to a balcony above. I pass before the window, trying to stay as far from the doorway as I can, and I make my way to the utilities at the other side of the apartment. For a second, I see Lance in the distance like an ant. All is silent in these thick walls; I can hear my feet before the hum. A clock behind Lance had 1:15.

      Without stopping, I flick my visor over my eyes as I close in on the mouth of a dark hallway. Quickly, I jam my finger into a slot of the visor, where a button to turn up sound volume used to be, and press into a loose wire. The apartment's blue tint is lost, and begins to glow a bright orange hue. I'm able to see every detail of the doors as I pass down the hall. Now, I am nocturnal, seeing more clearly in the night than anyone.

      The utility room is widely propped open on the left, by several bottles all with labels sloppily scraped off. I press my coat onto my chest, and reach over the trash with my left leg, my left hand reaching a cold piece of metal plating on the side of the wall. Over the course of several seconds, my hand slides from my chest into the interior of my jacket, emptying the bag, pulling out the pill bottle. Powder in it shifts as I pass it to my other hand, which presses it firmly to the top corner of the metal plate, stuck in place by thick gel on its side.

      I shift my weight to my other leg left in the hall, over the bottles. My back is passing through the arch of the door, my face in the hallway, when blinding white light streaks across my vision, forcing me to slam my arm accross my eyes. A door at the end of the hall has swung open. Lance isn't home alone.

      My weight is thrown back into the room in panic, nearly causing me to fall into the bottles. My eyes painfully shut from the light still storming my glasses, but I manage to lift my right leg into the room, hopefully out of view as it hovers over the bottles to keep balance. Looking at the streaking colours under my closed eye lids, I hold my breath and wait for footsteps far in the hall.

      The soft steps of someone comes to the door of the room. The pace starts to slow as it comes up to the door, as though they've noticed me shaking in the corner of their vision. They almost stop, but continue passing the room, kicking at a stray bottle and sending it far into the living room with them, startling me into nearly falling again. I let out a heavy breath from my nose, and slowly put my foot into the hall, to the best of my memory.

      I slink into the hallway and onto the left wall, and squint as the person, a man, drifts tiredly into the kitchen. The sliding bottle clinks against the bottom step of the staircase, right before the fridge door clicks open. I thrust my hand onto the visor, pressing it into my hair before I risk more retinal damage for a fridge. Squinting, I see a tall guy, my age. He's got nicely trimmed hair, even after sleep, and wears elegant white clothes clearly with the Regulus Academy symbol on the back. It's Ryan, Lance's kid, and Zack is very fired right now.

      He's got something in wraps pulled out from the back of the fridge and placed on the back counter. He's putting back a pile of several things, so I sprint to the counter at my first chance. For a brief moment, I see 1:17 from outside the entrace, past Lance, and shift in place aside the island in the kitchen.

      The fridge door slams with a clatter, and hear to my left Ryan taking a few steps out onto the glass into the living room. I wonder how soon it'b be that he'd look out at the stars and have his eyes finally adjust, easily showing some figure stooped a few feet by him, crouched by the counter.

      He's eating, eating something crunchy when I hear the shift of what's probably his hand against a wall; I think it's reaching for a light switch. My hand flies to my visor again, and presses the button once made for calls on the right arm. The lights high up in the ceiling start slowly casting light. Across the room, we're both clearly in the glass reflection, with myself frantically clawing at my temple.

      After pressing several times, all the lights in the room go out all at once. I hear a loud exasperated grunt as Ryan starts wandering, and realizes it's a complete power outage.

      As he rushes down to the hall, I dash behind the counter and throw myself onto my knees. I'm by the fridge, before one wide drawer, and pull back my pantlegs, showing intricate webs of dirty black tape wound about my legs. Slowly, I pull the drawer back against my chest. Without putting my head any higher than it should be above the counter, I start grabbing at far-too-heavy pieces of silverware and shoving them into the huge webs of tape.

      I spare no time looking back as I stick all the metal I can find into the straps, balancing the silver precariously on my legs before wrapping some loose tape further around it. I can't let any pieces sound off, as I keep listening for incoming footsteps, or my three favorite words.

      "What the fuck!"

      I stifle a smirk as I grab the last pieces and strap them in. I tense up a bit at the thought that at this moment, a fire alarm could go off from melted metal and plastic. Sapphire's bottles of remote-activated thermite, they're my favorite. I push the drawer shut softly.

      My pants fall over my heavy legs as I lean back away from the drawer and rest my back on the island. I take a sharp breath as Ryan returns from the hallway, pacing somewhere out of sight. I brace myself to escape, with my head peaking towards the door from cover.

      I steel myself as Ryan comes close, his pace starting to slow. Behind me, I hear him placing his arms, or his hands, on the island a few feet away. Out of time, reaching for my visor I slowly stand, and look right at his eyes, the side of his face lit slightly by the entryway glow. I can barely just make out his expression. Our eyes locked, and my hand on the left volume button of my visor, a bright flash suddenly illuminates him from my hood. He probably throws his arm to his eyes, but I sprint to the entrance. I hold my hood close to my face, hopefully not obscuring a Lance standing within reaching distance.

      My boots pound against the glass with a loud pinging noise as I make my way further into the vastness of the floor, away from danger. I can't make out any sounds of chase, and I feel free and victorious. I can hear the distant yells of Ryan, breaking my rhythmic steps. "Fucking shit!"

      A smile sneaks onto my face as I run, but fades quickly; the visor slides over my eyes with each boom of my steps. A faint photo of Ryan's eyes takes my focus, a residing image from using the camera's burst of light. He never did raise his arms in reflex, or react much at all now that my memory processes. In the resting image of Ryan looking at me, with eyes full of hate, unblinking, I feel unease not knowing if he ever planned to stop me then, at that moment, or if he's waiting for my next mistake.