Hide And Seek

Shit, Bethany thought, how did they find me so soon? Sure, she'd expected that her forged ID might set off some kind of warning or something when she tried to get a new ticked, but she didn't think anyone would recognize her face within thirty seconds of getting off the shuttle. Without waiting to see what the rent-a-cops would do, she bolted down the terminal, trying her best to lose herself in the crowd. Great, my first trip into space and I don't even get a chance to more than peek at the view.

Beth quickly rounded a corner. Out of view for a second, she turned her jacket inside out and flipped her cap around, lowering the brim to cover her sapphire eyes. She cautiously looked around, and saw the guards continuing straight. Good, I lost them. Bethany chuckled to herself, then turned to check out the departures board. Instead she found herself face to face with an angry man in a brown uniform: security. Not even stopping to think, the girl spun around the guard and darted down the connecting hallway. Not bothering to stop, she caught a door marked "Authorized Personel Only" an engineer had emerged from, just before it closed. She slid in and locked the door behind her.

The view before her was staggering. Standing in an air-shielded cargo bay, it was as if she had nearly walked out into space. A few more meters, in fact, and she would have. Staring at the starscape provided her with an unobstructed view Earth, its Moon, and the Sun, a view so bright she had to fumble for her shades. Once she put them on, she remembered what she was doing here. Her eyes stopped focussing on the view outside and began looking around her, within the air-shielding. Literally tons of crates were framed by powerful robotic arms, some of which were actively moving the boxes to and from their designated craft.

Almost automatically Bethany picked out one box, seemingly at random, and she wasted no time dropping into it. Finding herself in a bin of folded towels, she pulled the lid down tight and pressed her ear to the side. It wasn't long before the security guards came in, and began looking around for her. She heard the a pair of voices:

"You take this side, I'll take the other."

"Gotcha."

Behtany heard the two rattling boxes. One of the guards, seemingly the one in charge, was moving slowly away from her, but the other was coming towards her. She nearly yelped when she felt a light rattle. That's the box next to me. Not long before...

"Alright, these are all locked. She must be have left."

"Right. Where to next?"

"I dunno, she could be anywhere on the station. Let's just call in to base and..."

Bethany heard the door slam behind them, and then silence. She waited a full minute before lifting the lid and peeking out. All clear. Now to figure out where to go from here. They'd probably have guards looking for her throughout the station, so she'd need to be very careful about how and where she moved.

BANG! A robotic arm slammed the lid of the box back into place, knocking it against Beth's head. As her new cage was carried to its vessel, Bethany's world faded into a murky black fog.