The pneumatics of the doors sprung to life with an ancient and foreboding hiss; they obviously hadn't been serviced in a while.  A few of the lights in the bowels of the engineering bay lazily stuttered to life.  Max surveyed what he could see in the room and observed a section of the ship that was much more poorly kept than the rest.  The engineering bay looked as if it had flooded at some point in the distant past and suffered a large degree of rust. 

Rust coated the catwalks that overlaid the steel floor.  As the operative eyed through the grates of the catwalk he could see the floor was, indeed covered in perhaps two inches of water.  As if being cognizant of the fact cued in his other senses, he could smell the stench of stagnant water and hear the soft [i]swoosh[/i] of water lapping against the stairways.

His hopes for getting the bay in up-and-running condition quickly sank, like the reactor that faintly glowed in the epicenter of the room.  Max wasn't sure of the condition of the reactor, but it very well could have been leaking and without his suit that would put him at a very real danger of radiation poisoning.  He felt alright, and needed to find a comm. station, so he decided that he would quickly breeze through the bay, and stay away from the water if at all possible.

Mobius took a few steps forwards before looking at the arrangement of pipes that hung low from the ceiling.  "Coolant pipes," he thought to himself.  That was likely the causes of the leaks, but was also his method of traversing over the limited catwalk and into other areas of the bay.  

Ducking down low, like a track runner Mobius pushed off the ball of his foot and dashed towards the ledge.  Leaping up onto the railing and pushing off, he felt the rail snap under his foot just moments after he leapt. Clawing his arms outwards the operative grabbed onto a low-hanging pipe, and immediately felt it give.  Overcome by the rust and neglect the pipe violently swung downwards after snapping and poured a lambent, green ooze.

Max did his best to redirect his body from the waste and pulled himself up the pipeline to sturdier handholds.  He swung his body like a high wire acrobat before throwing himself at a support beam, landing harshly against it.  Hugging the beam, Mobius shimmied around its width and pressed the bottoms of his naked feet against the rusty surface, pushing off and onto another platform.

Landing less graceful than he anticipated as the whole platform lurched he forced his fingers through the grates of the catwalk, securing his hold on it.  His Russian wasn't very good, but the door that said "[font=Courier New]Communication[/font]" above it was about fifteen yards away.  Max climbed up the gate and pulled himself onto the flat steel of the walkway, making his way around the corner to the doorway.  "At least I can see the panel," he thought, "beats the hell out of rigging in the dark."

The door panel was illuminated by a red emergency light that was still somehow active, and the dim, green glow of the reactor, coupled with the glowing sewage that poured from the overhead pipe.  After rigging open the doorway he was greeted by what was essentially a small closet space with a desk, and what looked like an outdated speaker system that was probably used only for on-ship communication.

Max pursed his lips.  Today wasn't such a lucky day for him, but maybe he might have a little more luck.  He picked up the receiver of the radio and heard static--that was a good sign, at least there was power.  Adding in a signal to the comm. he was surprised to find that it was able to reach outside of the ship.  Immediately he felt a sharp pain in his head as he channeled onto one of the frequencies he knew the agency had tapped.  When the ringing in his ears subsided and he regained focus, Max could hear a voice calling through the receiver.

"Operative 2237. Operative 2237."

Max shook his head, blinking away both the amazement and the last vestiges of migrane.  The voice continued as if it seemed to have for quite some time.

"Operative 2237. Mobius. Max."

The last syllable, Max, his name was marked more clearly with concern than the previous callings.  Finally it clicked in the back of his head (and with that realization a small needle of pain to accompany it).

"Annie...?"