Marta was working in the greenhouse early morning. At first, she didn’t notice the symptoms. Then it was just a slight discomfort as if her breakfast had not settled properly. Before long she found herself confused about what she was doing and what she had done. Her nausea increased.
Marta headed for the airlock between the greenhouse and the atrium area. Then the vertigo hit. She felt herself spinning and closed her eyes, but the spinning wouldn’t stop. Marta abruptly sat down and began to crawl towards the lock. She still had ten feet to go when she passed out.
She awoke in the atrium on one of the lounges. Her husband Abel was there and so was Hermann Adler who worked in the greenhouse with her. “How do you feel honey?” asked Abel.
“My head hurts and the room is spinning a bit when I turn my head. What happened?”
“John is in the greenhouse right now trying to find out,” said Hermann.
“What!” she exclaimed. “You let John go in there.”
“Don’t worry honey,” said Abel. “John is suited up; he should be protected from whatever caused you to pass out.”
Just then John came through the greenhouse door carrying someone across his shoulder. He moved to where Abel and Hermann were standing and they helped him place the body on another lounge.
“Lauren,” Hermann said. “I didn't know anyone else was in there.”
“I found her in the far corner. I was checking the oxygen concentrator panel and almost tripped over her. Maybe that was what she was trying to do when she succumbed. I have to go back in there and finish checking.”
“Okay son,” said Abel. “But be careful.”
John was back at the oxygen concentrator's panel. The readouts looked okay, but something was strange. They were too steady; they didn't have the tell-tale jitter that showed the cycling of the concentrator. John opened the cabinet doors. Except for the power light, the unit appeared to be in bypass. He tried the reset and the system restarted. John could hear the unit cycling as he would expect.
By the time John had returned to the atrium, Lauren had been taken to the hospital. “How's Lauren?” asked John as he unsuited.
“Not too good I'm afraid,” said his dad. “She was not responding so we had her taken to the hospital, they should be able to bring her around. What did you find in there?”
“The concentrator was offline. You wouldn't know it to look at the front panel but if you opened the door, it was obvious. The oxygen hadn't been scrubbed for some time; the concentration must have been pretty high. I reset it and it seemed to start working again.”
“Let's see if I can pull up the oxygen sensors.” John pulled out his Annie. “Yeah, they appear to be working, oxygen content three times higher than normal but falling.”
“What could have caused this John?” asked Abel.
“I suspect it was the same thing as the EV dad, a bit of sabotage.”
No comments:
Post a Comment