Trouble Falling Asleep Part 1

The message arrived late, the familiar clearance stamp a cold, bureaucratic eye blinking in the corner of my monitor. A flicker disturbed the image before it steadied, resolving into the familiar lines of my father’s face—yet a subtle discord hummed beneath the surface of his features, a wrong note in a familiar melody.

His posture was unnaturally rigid, his gaze direct yet held with a strange, practiced stillness, as if each word had been meticulously rehearsed before being uttered into the cold lens of the recording device.

"Delia, Lumina," he began, his tone calculated, distant. "I’ll be tied up in the lab for the next few weeks working on the nuclear fusion reactor. Things are progressing well, but I won’t have time to leave or check in as much as I’d like. If you need anything, Franny and Noah will be there to help."

That was it. No warmth. No reassurance. No Dad. Lumina, sitting beside me, lit up instantly, her small hands tightening around Nutmeg, the hamster comfortably nestled against her chest.

“Daddy’s working so hard!” she chirped, her innocent joy a stark contrast to the unease coiling within me. “I bet he’s making the sun come back for us!”

I offered a weak nod, my mind already dissecting the stilted message. Something was profoundly amiss.

His tone hadn’t carried the familiar undertones of exhaustion or the hurried cadence of a man juggling a dozen demanding tasks. Instead, it possessed an unsettling evenness, a deliberate pacing that suggested each word had been weighed and placed with a specific, unknown intent.

Typically, his messages, however brief, contained a personal touch—a query about our well-being, an inquiry into Lumina’s latest fantastical adventures, an attempt to connect beyond the sterile realm of scientific progress. But this communication felt less like a familial check-in and more like a carefully constructed announcement, a piece of information disseminated rather than shared.

The Floating Fortress, our isolated world suspended high above the clouded surface of the ruined Earth, maintained its predictable rhythms. The scientists continued their purposeful strides through sterile corridors, the gentle hum of the life support systems remained constant, and the artificial light cycles faithfully mimicked the long-lost days and nights. An unsettling normalcy permeated the fortress, a stillness that felt too perfect, too brittle.

Yet, beneath this veneer of routine, subtle shifts began to occur, like almost imperceptible tremors preceding a larger quake. Diego’s security officers, usually confined to designated areas, began to linger in hallways that held no logical purpose for their presence, their gazes lingering on the inhabitants with a newfound intensity. Nothing overtly suspicious, nothing that would trigger an immediate alarm—just an almost imperceptible tightening of scrutiny that pricked at my awareness.

Wings of the fortress that had once been open, familiar spaces like dusty storage rooms filled with forgotten prototypes and quiet side laboratories where independent research had once flourished, were abruptly sealed off, access restricted by newly implemented, higher-level clearance protocols. No explanations were offered, just an unspoken increase in limitations that no one seemed willing to openly question.

Dad was gone. Not merely preoccupied with his work, but truly absent, a void where his reassuring presence should have been. Whenever I inquired about his progress, I was met with the same carefully neutral response, a verbal shield designed to deflect further probing: “Doctor Kotton is focused on finalizing his critical research. He is not to be disturbed.”

Not he’s deep in his work. Not he’s making significant advancements. He is not to be disturbed. The phrasing carried an unsettling weight, suggesting an external force dictating his availability, a lack of control over his own schedule that sent a shiver of unease down my spine.

It happened late one artificial night, the muted hum of the fortress a constant backdrop to my growing anxiety.

I noticed Franny hunched over a rarely used terminal near the newly secured storage rooms, her fingers dancing across the keypad, entering a complex sequence of clearance codes. Her usual confident demeanor was clouded by a subtle tension, her movements betraying a nervous energy.

When she saw me, her body tensed almost imperceptibly before she offered a smile that felt strained, ill-fitting. “Delia!” she greeted, her voice a fraction too loud, the enthusiasm unconvincing. “Shouldn’t you be asleep? Curfew is almost upon us.”

I raised an eyebrow, a flicker of suspicion igniting within me. “I could ask you the same question.”

A forced laugh escaped her lips, a brittle sound that lacked genuine mirth. “Just handling some last-minute inventory checks.”

My gaze flickered to the terminal screen. Lines of text scrolled rapidly—shipment manifests detailing obscure components, records of equipment transfers to unknown locations, lists of raw materials allocated for undisclosed projects. Nothing related to the reactor. Nothing that offered a glimpse into my father’s whereabouts.

“Have you seen dad lately?” I asked, my voice carefully neutral, probing for any flicker of reaction.

She flinched. A minuscule movement, a tightening around her eyes that lasted less than a heartbeat. But I saw it. Her fingers curled almost protectively against the cool surface of the console, as if she had to consciously restrain herself from a more overt reaction. Too late. The subtle tell had registered.

“Oh, he’s—he’s deeply engrossed in his work,” she replied quickly, the recovery too swift, too practiced. “You know how he becomes when he’s on the verge of a breakthrough.”

I narrowed my eyes, my suspicion solidifying into a cold certainty. “So you haven’t seen him.”

Silence stretched between us, thick with unspoken anxieties.

I swallowed, my pulse quickening with a sudden surge of fear. “Franny,” I said, my voice dropping to a low whisper, barely audible above the hum of the fortress. “Where is my father?”

Her lips parted, as if she were about to offer an answer, a truth she could no longer contain. Then, just as quickly, they snapped shut, her gaze darting nervously around the empty corridor. It wasn’t merely nervousness that radiated from her now; it was a palpable fear, a silent scream trapped behind her carefully composed facade.

The moment Franny’s gaze flickered towards the approaching figures of two security officers rounding the corner, her entire posture underwent an instantaneous transformation. It was as if a switch had been flipped, shifting her from a state of covert panic to one of casual, almost frivolous nonchalance in the blink of an eye.

Gone was the subtle stiffness in her shoulders, the tension in her fingers curled against the terminal. Instead, she leaned against the console with a theatrical sigh, her lips curving into a wide, exaggerated smile, as if we were nothing more than two teenagers engaged in trivial gossip in the dead of night, far removed from the sensitive information displayed on the screen before us.

“Oh my god,” she sighed loudly, flipping her hair with a dramatic flourish. “Delia, you have to be honest with me. Between Diego and Aiden, which one do you think has better boyfriend potential?”

I blinked, the sudden pivot in conversation jarring, like a record scratching mid-song.

“…Excuse me?”

Franny’s smile widened, becoming almost unnervingly bright, as if this was the most natural segue in the world. “Come on. You’ve seen them around. Diego’s all dark and brooding, the classic emotionally unavailable type, right? But Aiden? He’s got that chaotic energy, the reckless intellect obsessed with his bizarre experiments. Totally different vibes. Weigh in.”

The rhythmic footsteps of the approaching security officers grew louder.

Understanding dawned, slow and sharp. This wasn’t idle chatter; it was a carefully constructed diversion, a smokescreen woven from teenage drama.

I swallowed my initial irritation, the urge to demand answers warring with the sudden comprehension of her strategy. I leaned into the performance, forcing a lightness into my voice that felt utterly foreign.

I swallowed my irritation and leaned into the act, even though I wanted to throw her out the nearest airlock.

“Oh, totally Aiden,” I said, injecting way too much enthusiasm into my voice. “Nothing says dream guy like zero impulse control and the constant threat of explosions.”

Franny tilted her head, her expression almost thoughtful, as if genuinely considering the merits of my dubious taste. “You’re into that?”

“Obviously,” I deadpanned, flipping my hair with an exaggerated flourish of mock flirtation, fully embracing the ridiculous role. “Besides, Diego’s always walking around like he’s carrying a chip on his back. I can’t date someone who makes everything feel like a war movie.”

One of the officers glanced our way, a flicker of something unreadable in his eyes. Then, apparently deciding that whatever vapid nonsense we were discussing posed no immediate threat, he continued his patrol.

A slow exhale escaped my lips. It had worked.

Franny offered a quick, genuine wink, a fleeting acknowledgment of our shared, absurd performance. “You’re surprisingly good at this.”

I rolled my eyes, the remnants of my annoyance resurfacing. “Let’s never speak of this again.”

She chuckled softly under her breath before stepping closer, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper now that the immediate danger had passed. “Listen—if you’re serious about finding out what’s really going on with your father, Aiden is your best bet.”

I frowned, the name catching me off guard. Aiden? The resident eccentric, whose experiments frequently pushed the boundaries of both scientific possibility and safety regulations?

She nodded, her earlier levity replaced by a focused intensity. “You need access, right? He’s got it. Not because he holds any significant position or authority, but because he’s…unconventional. He has a knack for navigating the unnavigable, for slipping through the cracks in the system. I guarantee he knows more back routes and forgotten access codes than anyone else on this station.”

It wasn’t a completely illogical proposition. Aiden possessed a peculiar talent for circumventing rules and regulations, often with a baffling combination of audacity and sheer luck. His research had been linked to unexplained power fluctuations that had plunged entire sections of the fortress into darkness, and crucial components for other projects had a tendency to mysteriously reappear in his cluttered lab weeks after they’d been officially logged as missing. Yet, despite this consistent disregard for protocol, he remained a fixture, tolerated with a mixture of exasperation and grudging acceptance.

I hesitated, the image of Aiden’s chaotic workspace and his tendency towards impulsive actions flashing through my mind. Involving him in anything clandestine felt akin to introducing a volatile element into an already unstable situation. His enthusiasm, while often infectious, rarely aligned with discretion. The prospect of him “sneaking” into restricted areas filled me with a sense of impending disaster.

But Franny’s words held a certain undeniable logic. If I needed an unconventional key to unlock the secrets hidden behind those newly sealed doors, Aiden, with his unique blend of brilliance and disregard for authority, was likely my most viable, albeit most alarming, option.