Kailath

Intro

• "Genius behind the keyboard, nerves of steel, now without a home."

• Basic Info

  • Name: Kailath
  • Gender: Female
  • Played by: CeramicDragon
  • Race: Human
  • Alignment: Lawful Good
  • Size: Average
  • Body Type: Just a little curvy
  • Height: Average
  • Complexion: Fair/faintly Asian
  • Hair: Black
  • Eyes: Brown
  • Disposition: Gentle/Typically upbeat

• Biography

  “Everything’s running smoothly,” she said to the vid screen.
  
  The face grinning back at her over the screen nodded. “Great, just as it should be. You should find some intern to take your place. Go home, we can take care of the rest, sweetheart.”
  
  She shook her head with a smile. “What did I tell you, Sarh? I said I’d see this through just like the rest of us. The twenty-seven hours are nearly over, anyway.”
  
  “But you’ve been cooped up in there the whole time! I don’t know how you’ve stayed awake, much less sane and working. Nerves of steel, my love Lath,” Sarh shook his head again in admiration.
  
  Kailath only grinned in response as she turned from the vid to do her part in maintaining balanced levels in the project’s shielding and containment. This was the off-location heart of the main controls, which operated best with dull, monotonous attention paid to the panels of luckily still-unwavering numbers. These numbers she watched dutifully as the time passed without remark. One of the numbers flickered as it has been doing sporadically and she logged the event, then called down to the right sector to check again that nothing was amiss.
  
  The one technician left in that sensor’s lab, who she had talked to half an hour before about the same matter, snapped at her. “Look, it’s fine! Either you ain’t readin’ the dials right or the damn sensor’s on its way out! I’m not checking the blasted thing again! And you leave me the hell alone, I can’t get anything done with you barging in here so often!” The vid feed shut off quickly.
  
  With a sigh, she contacted the head of operations inside the test. “Uellik, didn’t we just replace Sector Twelve’s shield sensor 54 last week? It’s still showing the same error as the last sensor.”
  
  The man frowned. “I’ll send Rindal to check it out, but we might just have to replace the whole unit if it’s still doing it.”
  
  Kailath wore a frown of her own this time. “Maintenance did replace the whole unit last week… Get Tlrossa out of there and put Rindal in a suit then have him look at the entire string of sensors.”
  
  “Good idea,” Uellik replied, turning away to make it so.
  
  Five minutes later Lath could hear Tlrossa the technician complaining about “a meddlesome re’shaw that won’t let a real scientist do her job” and rolled her eyes. She waited for word from Rindal.
  
  “Alright, I’m finally pulling the shield sensor open…” Rindal said.
  
  His next words were strings of expletives from his home world, then the numbers before Kailath started jumping around. She felt her heart hit her throat as she began stabilizing procedures and demanded, “What happened? Talk to me, Rindal!”
  
  “The base of the shield sensor’s cracked through when you peel the covering back. They didn’t need to do that to change the sensor, so no one noticed.”
  
  “Cover that back up now! The dials are going wild up here! Evacuate Sectors Eleven through Thirteen; I have to close off that leak before anything happens.”
  
  “We’re not going to have enough time to salvage the experiments in those sectors, Kai-”
  
  “Damn the experiments, get everyone out of there before the whole system destabilizes!” she barked while her hands danced over the panels surrounding her, trying to give the people a chance to evac the rooms. Rindal provided her no more argument and hurried to obey. Distantly she heard shouts and protests over the vid system but concentrated on doing as much as she could to keep the fluctuating numbers within balance parameters. However, she could tell she was slowly losing the battle. She spared a moment to get a hold of Uellik again. “Uellik! The shielding over Sector Twelve is collapsing and I can’t slow it down for long, we need to evacuate now.”
  
  “How long have we got? There are four labs down there.”
  
  “Tell them to send their data and get out, we haven’t time to move anything around. I’m doing everything I can to keep it moving this slow, but the shield is failing. Two or three minutes.”
  
  “Got it.”
  
  Alarms sounded out on their side and people jumped to act accordingly. Her thoughts shrank to the wavering shield numbers until a siren blared in her ear, indicating an irreversible collapse of a section of shielding. Her gaze snapped back up to the vid system and she stared, then slams a palm down on the local comm as she selects a specific vid. “What the hell are you doing? Get that equipment out of the doorway and close off the lab!”
  
  ”I’m not leaving without this experiment!”
  
  “You’re endangering the whole sector if you don’t get that door closed now, Yovin.”
  
  “Bah!”
  
  She watched as the man threw some signs at the vid-corder and cleared the doorway, then hopped through before it closed with a hiss. Kailath allowed herself a sigh of relief before looking back to the other vid-feeds. It was similar everywhere else; none of the scientists were eager to leave their projects behind, but all pulled out before their respective doors closed. Back to maintaining the stability of the rest of the shielding as much as possible, she again contacted the leader. “Uellik, that section of shielding is down and its pulling the rest of it more quickly than I can stop it. We need to evacuate the whole facility ASAP.”
  
  “Kailath, you know that takes time. There are nearly five hundred people in here.”
  
  “That means we just have to move faster, sir. I’m doing what I can.” Panic took root. As she talked, her hands continuously tried to stay ahead of the falling numbers, but she steadily lost ground.
  
  “I know you’re doing your best, Kai, and I can’t ask more of you. Give me as much time as you can. See you on the other side of the shield.” He grinned and disappeared from the vid, saying to someone off screen, “—eep her calm, talk to her.”
  
  Moments later Sarh’s face filled the main monitor and she could see he was trying to act like nothing was wrong, “Hey love, how you doing?”
  
  “Getting a little stressed, gotta tell ya.” She offered a strained smile as she eyed the screen off to the side showing the three-dimensional building layout and where people were located at the moment. Hundreds of little green blips all slowly headed for the exits and turned in to lines as they converged on select halls. Sarh, as she designated some time ago, shone as a bright yellow-orange dot close to the center of the building, where the on-site Control team micro-managed things like communication and temperature control.
  
  “Talk to me, baby, don’t let this get you flustered. We know how fast you can work when you need to.” He exuded the utmost confidence in her.
  
  “Sarh, Sector Twelve’s shield is down and it’s pulling on the rest like dead weight. I’m doing what I can to boost the system to keep the collapses behind the people evacuating but it’s not going to be enough pretty soon.”
  
  “And you’re shutting down everything as you go, right?”
  
  Lath nodded. “Sealing it, too, but it’s not slowing the collapse. Honey, please, get out of there. You can make it in time to the nearest exit. The whole building’s going to go under, please get out.” She looked to the vid for a second.
  
  He smiled to her. “I will. I just know that sometimes it helps you to talk your way through something, so keep talking.”
  
  She looked back to the building layout and winced as she watches a group of lights go out. Softly she said, “Sectors Ten through Fourteen are sealed now… Ten collapsed before everyone could get out.” The conversation paused while she fought the system, then glanced back to the vid. “Sarh, please!”
  
  “I will, I promise, baby,” he replied soothingly.
  
  “I can’t-” she swallowed hard and turned back to the controls. “Shielding over Nine and Fifteen failing. There’s… oh god, there are thirty-eight people that didn’t make it out before one of the doors closed in Fifteen.”
  
  “We all knew what we signed up for when we came in here twenty-three hours ago, Lath.” The vid-feed from Fifteen cut out before she has a chance to do anything. “Focus on the rest.”
  
  “But—“
  
  “I know, love, but we don’t have the time. If you go back to open that door, another will close before more people have a chance to get to it. Keep going. How are Eight and Sixteen doing?”
  
  “Falling,” her voice cracked and she roughly wiped away a few tears as she tried to concentrate. A new alarm beeped and she looked over at it. One of the staircases leading up from Sectors Ninteen and Twenty has collapsed from weight strain, trapping a solid green line heart-wrenchingly long. “Sarh…”
  
  “I see it,” he said, finally starting to look grim.
  
  “Evacuate Control,” she pled as the vid screen for that staircase blinks out, just like Fifteen’s feed.
  
  “First in, last out!” Uellik shouted in the background.
  
  She studied the building layout and frowned. “Why aren’t people getting out?”
  
  Sarh turned away from the vid for a few moments and shook his head. “It looks like a few are, but the doors are sealing shut as we go. We can’t open them back up from here, either.”
  
  “Alright… I’ll try to keep open some of the doors furthest from the collapse, but it’s an automated system. Evacuate Control now,” Kailath repeated urgently.
  
  “We will, as soon as a few more people get out,” Sarh responded, glancing to another screen.
  
  “NOW, while you still can. Seven and Eighteen are failing, how much longer are you going to wait?” she demanded, growing angry with them for not leaving like any sensible person should.
  
  “Kailath, concentrate on the shielding,” Sarh said harshly, earning a red face from her.
  
  “Three more trapped in Lab 3, Sector Six,” her voice cracked, heavy with emotion. On the building layout screen, the green lights belonging to the various trapped scientists and some of those caught in the collapsed staircase turned red, indicating death. She looked back to the shielding numbers. Too many of them zeroed out. Even as she fought the failing system, she concluded in a stunned voice, “I can’t do much more, Sarh.”
  
  “Don’t you tell me that, Lath, you’ve got a job to do. We’ve still got seven sectors to evac. Slow down that shielding as much as you can.”
  
  “There’s nothing else I can do! I’m redirecting power, boosting the shielding output, fighting the auto-close doors, and sealing labs. Please, why don’t you guys just leave now?” The last came out barely above a whisper. On the vid system, one room blinked out after another.
  
  He looked up at her and smiled sadly. “You know we can’t just do that. I’m sorry, love.”
  
  She stared at the screen as tears welled up and protested weakly, “But… You promised.”
  
  “I know, I’m sorry, sweetheart. Slow down that shield so others can still get out.”
  
  Kailath looked down at the panel and felt helpless. She went through the same motions as before and numbly reported, “Sectors Four and Twenty failing, one hundred-eighteen trapped in Twenty’s Labs 3 and 4.” The building layout now showed as much red as green. “Sector Three failing… and sealed. Two failing… Sealed. One failing… Sealed,” her voice grew softer with each announcement.
  
  Uellik appeared next to Sarh with a keycard. “Sending you the experiment data now.”
  
  She nodded stiffly and flicked a switch for reception.
  
  The leader smiled bravely. “Now, seal the whole complex before we take a chunk of the planet with us.”
  
  “I- I can’t,” she sobbed.
  
  “You have to,” Sarh said gently. “If you don’t, the shield’s internal radiation will spread over the half of the planet the explosion doesn’t cover.” Uellik nodded. “Thank you for everything, Kailath.”
  
  “But I couldn’t do anything…” More urgent sirens warned her that Control’s shielding was weakening.
  
  “You can seal the complex,” the man replied simply.
  
  “No one will survive this,” she cried.
  
  “You will,” Sarh pointed out.
  
  “Without you?” she shook her head.
  
  Uellik interrupted, “Kailath! Seal the complex! We don’t have much time!”
  
  “I can’t!” she repeatedd in despair.
  
  “You can, and you will! Like Sarh said, if you don’t seal the complex, we’ll blow away part of the planet. There are five million people living on this planet’s surface. Two million live within the blast radius, and ALL the rest will suffer some kind of radiation poisoning, and millions more will die. Do you want that to happen? Millions of people dying because you didn’t seal the blast?” Uellik grew quite intense. He knew he needed to push her to some edge to do this final, undesirable part of her job.
  
  Kailath cried over the wide panel before her and shook her head, “N-n-no…”
  
  Without missing a beat, he ordered, “Then seal the lab. Now!”
  
  Kailath unlocked and pushed aside a clear security box which covered the switch. As she closed her eyes, she whispered, “I’m sorry…” before pushing in the big red button.
  
  Uellik’s face transformed from hardened superior to that of a truly remorseful friend. “You did the right thing, Kai. Thank you.” He moved away from the vid-feed and Sarh took his place, running a hand down his face. “I’m sorry it had to end like this, Lath. I love you.” He reached out and put his hand on the screen.
  
  She did the same, sobbing wordlessly after she replied, “I love you too, Sarh.” In the background, an automated voice announced, “Control shielding, ten percent, nine perc- eight per- seven six…” and she started crying so hard that she couldn’t hear the rest. A minute later, the force of the implosion rocked the foundation of the off-site controls and knocked her to the ground, unconscious.
  
  
  #
  
  
  "Just get out of here!" the office manager screamed at the retreating, hunched back which shuffled out of the office, leaving a trail of tears behind. As the door closed behind Kailath, a former coworker threw a glass cup or bottle which shattered loudly. Though none of it came close to hitting her, she flinched hard. With nowhere else to go and her head bowed, she clutched the box in her arms and headed to the food court. After that, she planned to secure transportation far, far away.
  
  She sat down in a far corner of the court, set the box in the next chair, and stared at the table, rubbing a hand on the now naked-feeling, bare patch of frayed blue-grey jumpsuit where a company logo and name-patch once resided. The manager had ripped it off after she turned in her resignation. After a few minutes, she noticed people who had been dining close by got up and moved farther away to finish their meals, making her face burn with shame. She stood up and went to a food vendor for a meal, but the worker behind the counter turned their back and refused to serve her, as did the next vendor and the third following. She looked around to the other stands and spotted not a single friendly face. Kailath forced back a sob and headed for the indiscriminate self-serve unit which churned out cheap, nutritious cardboard-tasting mush. Just as she reached the self-serve unit, she heard a crash and glanced back in time to watch some guy walk away from the table at which she had left her box. The contents of the box littered the floor. Biting hard her lip against the wall of threatening tears she felt, the social reject received a bowl of the nutri-mush and returned to the table, then picked up her things before she sat down again.
  
  She kept her head down, already knowing how others glared at her. She ate the nutri-sludge, and quietly sniffed back tears. In voices loud enough to carry, those nearby called her various unkind things such as “coward” and “murderer.”
  
  When finally she concluded that she really had no appetite, she disposed of the bowl of mush but again had to leave the box undefended. She returned to the table and picked up her belongings again. With shoulders drooped, she walked carefully out of the food court, going out of her way not to bump into anyone. Despite her best efforts to stay out of people's way, someone shouldered her roughly and when that wasn’t enough to knock her down, she was shoved hard by random crowdspeople, never the same person twice.
  
  She picked up her belongings a third time and by then some were broken, including a picture frame whose front shattered, breaking up the picture to the point of being indiscernible. After she scooped everything back into the box, she hurried out of the court with her head hung so low she could barely see over the edge of the box to the corridor beyond. She had to find transport off this planet.