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Inside the cleaner’s store room space was limited. Shelves stacked high with fluids with all manner of functions. Tim couldn’t understand the logic behind designing a space so small, in a building built on a newly colonised planet, with land still being given away for free. It was another item to add to the already long list of things which irritated him about the Mars colonisation, but this wasn’t the time to get flustered. Their voice will be heard soon enough.
Once inside Tim began his transformation; the same one his two fellow occupants, Ed and Max, were in the final stages of. Reaching down into his holdall Tim retrieved the overalls. Standard issue navy blue with the UWRI logo over the left breast pocket. He had had to opt for the extra large size being as he was 6’4. Unfortunately his slim build meant he failed to fill them in quite the well as his rather stocky counterparts. He didn’t quite look the part like the others either. Both Ed and Max had shaved their dark hair back to a uniform 2 millimetres. Tim’s curly blonde hair was unchecked. Next out of the holdall was the tool belt which Tim swiftly swung around his waste and fastened. Finally, the package. The small four square centimetre cube appeared innocuous . Tim new that, for someone like himself, a lifetime of study would not enable him to reveal the mysteries behind the awesome technology that lay inside this cube. Another by-product of the technology currently on offer from the United Wormhole Research Institute. How fitting that it should be used to bring their glorious triumph to spectacular end. Tim slid the cube into a pouch on the tool belt and exchanged glances with his team. Unspoken, they left the store room. Time for the next stage.
Two years of planning were about to come to a head. The plan was simple enough. Tim and his team were to plant the device by the apparatus and leave. They had all timed their holidays to coincide with today so they could leave and return to Earth. The device was on a twenty four hour timer. They’d be long gone by then.
It was a long journey from the store room to the wormhole apparatus; down several corridors, a brief tube ride across station followed by a lift ride up the gatetower to where the wormhole terminus was maintained: one hundred meters above ground (apparently this was a safe distance taking into account the margin of error when calculating the position of a wormhole terminus).
Tim enjoyed the odd occasions he got to ride on the tube, he found them relaxing. He glanced over to Ed and Glen. They were sat opposite each other across the isle. They appeared too relaxed, he suspected they’d done stuff like this before. Tim peered back outside through the self-cleaning nanospex glass and across the red landscape to the oil-rig like structure they’d just left. His thoughts drifting, contemplating events leading to today.
For eight weeks Tim had worked at the UWRI Mars Terminus Station. Despite his hatred for the environment he’d placed himself in, Tim new it was necessary. His job application had been successful and without complication. The job itself was straight forward enough, and although extremely monotonous, it was the best salary he’d ever had. This still wasn’t enough to rid himself of the guilt he felt every night in his quarters. He lay awake at night reminiscing of how he’d ended up on this god-forsaken rock. His time studying Marine Biology at university, meeting Aide and his group of friends. Finally finding a group of people who shared his views on how we should be pouring money into conservation rather than abandoning what we have in search for other worlds. It seemed ludicrous and beyond reason.