The shattered edge

[Jayce]

"Well... That was pretty cool." Jayce said. "Hey, boys..." Stacy coughed. "And girl, in here." Jayce motioned for the group to enter a smaller room. Once the group entered the room, the floor started to shudder. Then the walls, and finally the ceiling of the room started to wriggle, before the group felt like they were moving.

"Ey, hermana, it's an elevator, ese. Chill out." Alvarez said to a rather confused looking Winters.

They stopped, at a new platform, above the main core of the ship. There was a transparent bowl, high to the stern end of the compartment. It was big, but the flat black crystal octagons around the chamber were at the perfect height for consoles.

"It looks like a nerve center," XiaoBei observed.

"Hold tight," Alvarez commanded. "Brooks, you go first... and don't touch anything, hermano!"

"O-key, boss!" Jayce retorted, in a rather thick, fake Hispanian accent. He began walking, running his hand along almost every panel and console in the room, before the door behind him closed.

Minutes later, there was a banging noise on the top of the elevator. The hatch opened to reveal a rather confused and bewildered Jayce. "Hey, umm, yeah, so you guys shut the door, and then it didn't open again... So I had to go all through this deck, find a way up, come BACK to this deck, and open the hatch. But look what I found!" Jayce help up a small, opaque, black triangular panel, with a single recessed button at the top. "Watch this!" Jayce placed the small triangle on the floor, and pressed the button. "See, it's a map! And I DIDN'T wreck half the ship to get it." Jayce's smile went from one ear to another, as XiaoBei said:

"Well. Great. Except that map leads us to the room that we're standing right in front of. So... Yeah, you just wasted about... 45 minutes of my time. Let's go." XiaoBei stepped out of the elevator, one of his boots crushing the small triangle. Jayce stayed behind and collected the small shards of the map, a dejected look on his face. Winters shot Jayce a sadly sympathetic glance. He followed behind the group, pondering how much of a jerk-off XiaoBei was.

"I wonder who would miss him if he fell through the flo-" Jayce' train of thought was derailed as the Doctor nearly fell through a hole in the bridge floor, letting out a rather girlish scream. A smile crept back onto Jayce's face, as he hauled XiaoBei back onto the deck. "Don't break my stuff, doctor. You need us. That need doesn't reciprocate." Jayce whispered into the doctor's ear.

XiaoBei simply looked at the deck.

---