"She is on maternity leave."

Astra pulls my shoulder into her and hooks our arms together, "We are on leave."

It was a different man than the last one who came this time. "Dr Melbourne doesn't care, he wants to see everyone in the hall in an hour," The mans hands trembled with how long he'd been holding up the envelope, "I was told to come invite you guys specially, and this is for you Kofi."

The second it took me to realise he was speaking to me was time enough for Astra to snatch it for me. "Thank you, we'll be there," She muttered, almost angrily. Realising her tone she corrected herself, "I mean we had plans for today," She glanced up at me and I wondered if she could see my raised eyebrow through the helmet, "Pregnant yoga and all that-

Pregnant yoga?

"But we'll be there," She finished, "Thank you."

He nodded and the door slid closed as we stepped away from it. "My letter?" I asked.

Astra ignored me, reaching up to tap the side of her helmet to unlatch it. "You mean Kofi's letter," She snorted ripping it open with her teeth, leaving a pink lip stain from the glossy stuff I'd seen her steal from Teegan. She frowned at whatever was written in it before turning it around and scoffing "All it says is he's taking you off paternity leave," She rolled her eyes, pressing the letter into my chest.

I didn't bother looking at it, letting it fall back to the ground, "You think this is about the fridge thing?" I questioned, following her into the kitchen.

She turned back to give me a look before tapping my helmet too, "You don't say?" She scratched her head, "They're probably what? Tightening security right?"

"You tell me Teegan, but no way they haven't found a way to get that door open," I deadpanned, taking a seat on the counter. "I mean it's been like, a couple of hours."

"It was a pretty thick door," Astra reasoned, "Looks hard to get into."

"Why design a door you can't break down?"

"'cause no one else would be able to break it down either."

My eyes followed her and she began pulling out things from thee cabinets, struggling with her one hand but I made no move to help her. "What are you doing?"

She pulled something else out and stared at the can for a bit before shrugging and putting it on the counter, "If this is all gonna come back to us I might as well do something I've always wanted to do," She told me, closing the door. "Make bread."

"Bread?"

"It's like a fluffy thing they make on earth," She frowned, "At least it always looks fluffy."

"And it's edibile?" She nodded, and I jumped off the countertop to stand behind her, "I thought you said you've come down to earth plenty of times, why didn't you just eat some bread then."

"I want to make bread Sunshine, not eat it?"

I eyed the objects in front of us, "And will making bread make you happy?" She nodded, "So how do we do it?"

My finger picked at the brown, almost black lump in front of us. "Is it supposed to-

"No it is not," Astra interjected before I could finish. She frowned pressing the pad of her thumb into the thing. "Oh my gosh its like rock."

"Sol, Sol are you there?"

I immediately flipped open my communicator. "Tempest?"

"They are dead Sol, all of them. They are no longer a problem."

Astra and I locked eyes and she mouthed a question to me that i could not answer. "Tempest, Tempest who is they?" I stood up straighter, "Are you okay, should we come get you?"

"I-I never even knew I could," Her voice shook, "That's not even why I'm talking to you," She admitted finally after breathing over the communication line for a few moments.

"Are you safe?"

"I am better than safe Sol, I am alive and there is another entrance into the dome."

I frowned, "Another entrance."

I heard metal banging, "Yes," She said in an almost starstruck manner, "Covered beneath the sand, I only found it when I killed these humans."

Astra spoke up "And how did you kill all of them?"

"It's massive Sol, so big that I can only assume they had help with it," She said sadly, I swallowed at the implication, "I swear I can hear him."

"Him?" Astra asked.

"Deimos is down here curly, I can feel it."

"Tempest, do you know where you are?" I questioned her.

"I am within a distance from the dome that I can still see it, they are connected. This entrance goes underground, however," I heard more sounds of scratching metal. "I am coming in."

"Tempest let's not be rash," I told her, anxiety rising up my throat. "We will come to get you, how will you even open it, Tempest, think."

"I will rip it open with my teeth if I have to."

My eyes pressed together as I heard our communicators disconnect. "We're going to be late," Astra breathed.

"We're going to be dead."

I ignored the burning feeling of Astra's heated gaze at the side of my head as we listened to Ambrose's speech. Turns out this 'meeting' was a memorial, a memorial for who? Connie.

Yes that Connie, the one I had forgotten to mention to Astra was dead.

But to be fair I've had a lot going on in my life lately.

"And in her beautiful memory we will work day and night and until we discover who has committed this horrible crime," I rolled my eyes as he stepped away from the microphone for a second to wipe a fake tear, "There is something sinister happening in this dome ladies and gentlemen, but I promise that I will get to the bottom of it."

As soon as he was done speaking everyone got to their feet to line up to pay their respects and Astra pulled me away from the crowd. "You killed Connie?!"

I shook my head, crossing my arms on my chest "She killed herself."

This only seemed to make her angrier, "And you didn't think I'd want to know that?"

"Well, let's see," I brought out my fingers and began flipping them down, "Between us almost dying, you almost dying, Tempest almost dying and us almost getting caught every three seconds in between those events when did you think I'd have time to tell you some random human is dead."

"When did she die?"

"Stuck a scalpel in her forehead like minutes after you fell asleep," I explained.

"When I was on adrenaline?"

"Yeah."

"That was yesterday!"

"I thought I didn't catch you guys in the line," If my day couldn't get worse, Ambrose was about to make it worse, "Well considering you're like the only ones in the dome who still wear helmets indoors, it kind of made it pretty easy."

He put his arm around Astra and the fact that he thought she was currently pregnant with his child came to mind, "We were going to wait for people to leave," Astra told him, slipping out of his hold, "To grieve privately."

"Of course, of course!" He nodded understandingly, "She was your closest friend correct? I can't imagine having to lose someone so close to me. But then again, I never lose," We stared at him as he began to laugh at his own joke, "I was actually looking for the two of you to discuss the," He leaned in to whisper to us, "Gory details of her death, thought you'd have an idea of how to solve it," He looked at me, "Unless you think it'd be too much for the baby."

"No, I can handle it," Astra's interjected, "Just as long as we can help."

"Great, great because we've come at a bit of a dead end really, it's actually a bit embarrassing to be coming to you when you're both on leave but it's just," He sighed, "The cameras haven't been working."

I acted super surprised, "The cameras haven't been working!?"

"That's what I said!" He agreed, running a hand through his head, "I paid a pretty penny for this security system and it definitely shouldn't be having gaps in the footage," He groaned, "And it's so strange too, every time we need eyes somewhere the screen goes blank," He made a dramatic gesture with his hands, "Poof like the footage never existed, which comes to my next question," He grabbed Astra's hand, "Tee, do you recall ever...you know, giving somebody the key to your office."

"The key to my office?"

"Not that I'm accusing you or anything," He quickly told us, "It's just the only place that someone would've gotten their hands on the footage is the computer in your office."

I came to her defense, "The doors here need the communicators to be scanned," I reminded him, "And since we've been in our rooms this whole week its only safe to assume someone has got Teegans identification information, which means she is not safe and our room isn't safe for us either," I said protectively, pulling Astra into me.

"They're probably the one who got ahold of the key I gave you Tee," Ambrose groaned, "That makes so much sense, we need to completely redo all the communicators in the dome."

"What?" Astra squeaked.

"Yes, yes," He snapped his fingers, "That's what we're gonna do, have the engineers completely wipe and change everything," He pointed at me, "You're so smart Kofi I knew I could count on you to figure it out."

"No I didn't mean you should-

"No no, I don't want to hear anything else, I've already disturbed the two of you enough today," He smacked himself upside the head, "I should leave you both to grieve, meet me in my office after this so we can get to the bottom of this away from all these grieving people."

Astra nodded to herself slowly as we watched Ambrose walk away, "We cannot let him do that."

"We really can't," I sighed, "C'mon let's go pay our respects to I can grab some shit from the snack table whilst being socially acceptable."

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