Knock Knock: an interactive sci fi serial (Part 1)

A few months back, I wrote a little vignette while experimenting with tools from Mary Robinette Kowal’s flash fiction workshop on Patreon. The end result wasn’t quite a stand-alone flash piece, and wasn’t quite a short story, but something in between—the opening scene of a longer story.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t a story I was going to pursue with any real determination. In a lot of ways, I’m playing with a familiar trope, and I wrote it as a fun exercise rather than any ambition to sell it.

But posting to my Patreon gave me the idea of doing a story developed in serial, writing scenes that bring things to a major decision point and giving readers the chance to vote on what happens next. Alas, voting proved hard to set up on many of my usual platforms than expected — turns out mailing out a poll to subscribers is a premium service for my newsletter provider, and cost more than I’m willing to pay on a project that’s just for fun.

And so we take it low tech: a blog, a google form, and a 1500 word stretch of fiction that posits one very important question. I’ll leave voting open until May 20th, 2022, then take the results and work on part two.

KNOCK KNOCK (A Serial With Reader Interaction)
Part 1: Suddenly, A Knock On The Airlock Door

The knock on the interior airlock door startled everyone. Finn’s heart raced as they turned from their console and exchanged a bewildered glance with Lucy and Tse—but judging by their crew’s facial expressions, everybody was in the dark. Finn checked the readings in case the team missed something, but no warning or trajectory marker sprang out to explain their visitor. There were no life signs within five thousand clicks of Denki Outpost, and sure as shit, there were no inhabitants on the irradiated planet they orbited.

Whatever occupied the airlock knocked a second time. Curt, sharp knocks that echoed through the cramped confines of Denki C&C. Tse mouthed the words ‘what the actual fuck,’ and Lucy’s professionalism fought the wild-eyed expression of a woman ready to a scream. Someone needed to step up and take charge of the situation, and the insignia on the uniform Finn hadn’t worn since they launched two years back meant they were the obvious choice.

“Anybody expecting visitors?”

A feeble joke to break the tension, and Tse offered a courtesy chuckle. Lucy clenched her fists, seemingly open to the idea of lunging across C&C to strangle Finn, and probably would have if the third knock hadn’t sapped the last skerrick of humour out of the wisecrack.

Finn went into command mode. “Tse, double-check our sensor array. Ensure everything’s hunky dory, and this isn’t just a bug that left us flying blind since the automated diagnostic. Luce—run through the external footage. Let the AI do pattern recognition, see if spots anything approaching and—“

The fourth knock, slow and ominous. As if they’d switched to a heavier hand. Or a sledge hammer. This time, Lucy shrieked. Still, she was a pro. Her fingers burst into motion a half-second behind Tse, following orders as she forced her breathing to steady.

Finn crossed over to the airlock seal and employed a more analogue, non-scientific response. They raised a fist and knocked in return, three sharp raps against the worn metal. Tse’s head bolted up, as if astonished they’d engaged, and Finn offered a shrug of apology.

They all waited, breath held, quietly hoping that would be the end.

The next knock echoed like asteroids hammering against the hull, and the whole station shook with the impact. Finn stumbled and fell on their ass, while Tse and Lucy clutched at their consoles to avoid a similar fate. “Scanners are working clean,” Tse reported.

“Nothing on the visuals,” Lucy added. “And systems don’t show any sign of the outer doors opening in the last twenty-four standard.”

Their visitor knocked again. Boom…Boom… Finn counted the seconds between them, as if one were lightning and the next thunder, the interval offering some new information that technology hadn’t provided. They cursed whatever screwless designer insisted there was no need for cameras in the station’s airlock.

“My Da used to tell ghost stories about the phantom airlocks on his home ship,” Tse said. The tall woman was a born spacer, a third-gen drifter who’d lived more hours in the void than Finn had spent on a planetary system. “The dead returned on All Hallows’s Cycle to visit the places they ended up deceased.”

“Except it ain’t All Hallows,” Finn said. “And we caught Denki’s first rotation. The station was fresh off the line — I doubt it’s a fucking ghost.”

Tse squared her jaw. “You got a better explanation?”

Finn didn’t, but the next knock saved them from having to admit that out loud.

BOOM! Then the interminable wait, eight seconds at least, before the second BOOM! shook the outpost once more.

Finn steadied themselves against the wall this time, pushed down the panic clawing at his throat. “Any chance we can vent the airlock, give whatever’s in there a taste of the void?”

“We don’t know what it is,” Tse said. 

“You in a hurry to find out?”

Tse worried her lower lip, hands dancing across the consol. The hiss of oxygen leaking gave them all some comfort. Slowly, intractably, the sensors confirmed the lock was empty, even as the exterior seal cranked itself opened. 

Lucy brought the external camera up on the main screen, showed them the backdrop of distant stars and red-scorched planet visible from their side. She nudged the joystick, trying to get an angle on the door itself, but the best they could do was a broadside glimpse of Denki Outpost’s flank. Not perfect, but they’d spot any occupant of the airlock floating away once they void did its thing.

Nothing floated out there except a few stray barrels, unsecured debris from the airlock ready to load into the next supply run.

The knocking returned—BOOM… BOOM—as if the vent hadn’t even occurred.

They sat, mute, as the seconds passed. Finally, Finn spoke: “If this is one of you playing some sick joke, speak now and we’ll agree you’ve pulled an all-time classic.”

“It’s not mine,” Tse said, and Lucy confirmed she was innocent with a nod. Both squinted at Finn, puzzling out whether their captain might pull a trick like this to break the monotony and write it off as a team-building exercise. Judging by the speed of their fading suspicion, the theory didn’t gain any traction. 

Probably because I’m ready to piss myself, Finn thought. They drew a deep breath and forced a thin veneer of authority over their fear. “Seal the airlock and restore the atmosphere. If this hasn’t stopped them—“

BOOM! 

The noise caught Finn by surprise, and they jumped. Adrenaline surged, but they ignored it, counting seconds. BOOM! There were thirteen before the follow up now. Getting slower, growing louder, no discernable pattern to the escalation.

“If emptying the airlock didn’t stop them,” Finn said, picking up the thread, “then I doubt there’s anything we’ve got in here that’s going to discourage them. That leaves us with two obvious alternatives moving forward, and neither of them are good.”

Tse perked up, as if the thought of choice somehow eluded her. “Roll out the options.”

“One: we ignore it and hope it goes away,” Finn said. “Praying that whatever is knocking at our door is ultimately harmless, and we make it until the next supply ship arrives in three months’ time,”

“Let’s call that Plan B,” Tse said. “What’s the other option?”

“We open up and let it in.” Lucy’s voice was soft, resigned to what had to happen. She flipped the controls, ready to comply with Finn’s order. “Airlock will be human-inhabitable in approximately two minutes.”

“We ain’t opening up,” Tse said. “I don’t care what Finn says. Something tracks you down in the middle of deep space, no explanation, no signs of violence? You keep your habitat sealed tight and take your chances that it can’t break its way inside.”

“Would claim it as my first choice,” Finn said, “but there are no good options.”

“It’s better than the other proposition,” Tse argued. “I not keen on meeting whatever’s out there.”

“Me either,” Finn said. “But it is what it is. Regulations don’t cover this, so we all vote on the play. All in favour, raise—“

BOOM! 

The floor shook under them, so hard Finn wondered if this time the station would shatter under the impact. The shaking knocked Tse out of her chair, and Lucy’s face took on the green cast of someone about to vomit. 

BOOM!

Finn figured it for thirty-seven seconds. Longer gaps between knocks, but each one hit harder. They sucked in a deep breath and closed their eyes, not sure they could meet Tse’s stare or Lucy’s panicked expression.

“Alright, time to vote,” Finn said. “All in favour of letting our visitor in, please raise your hand.”