Elena tried the handle again, but it was tight.  The airlock had been completed, and the sensors were programmed to change in one week.  Unless there was a computer override, which had to be done from the control room.  She reached for her cellphone, only to realize it had been left to charge in her apartment.  She asked Richard for his, but he put his hands up.  

"Sorry, I didn't bring it, I don't get reception up here."  He stuffed his hands into his jumper pockets.  "What are you gonna do?"

"I don't know," Elena cried out.  "I really don't know."  She wanted to hit him for all of it, everything.  Somehow, this was more his fault than hers and now she'd have to get the program turned off and restarted.  There was no telling how badly this would impact the plants, the experiments, the ocean.  Her ocean.  The lights started to flicker and dim, and she realized that the program had timed out the floodlights.  Within moments they were in darkness, with only a few green LED safety lights on around the room.  She assessed the situation, and put her face in her hands in utter despair.

"Derk will be here tomorrow morning, and he can let us out.  I guess we'll just have to sleep on it."

"Where shall we sleep, my dear?"  Richard asked gamely.  Elena snorted.  AAAAGGGHHHH.  Why her?  Why him?  The path to the door had wound through a little entrance alcove of small raised planter beds, there was a soft area she could nest in by the lime tree.  

"I don't know about you, I'm going to sleep over here."  She walked over, and as it was dark, proceeded to bang her shin on the wall that separated the plant beds from the trail.  "Oooooouch!"  she yelped.  Richard loomed up behind her, his hand on her shoulder to make contact in the dark.  

"Are you okay?"

"Stop touching me!"  

"I am just asking if you are okay, don't get your panties in a twist."  

"Just banged my leg, I'll be fine."  Their eyes were beginning to adjust to the low green light, both just mere hazy shadows in the mist.  Elena groaned as she climbed over the railing, and turned to him, "You can sleep over here too, there should be room to lie down.  If you feel something fuzzy touching you, it's probably Harriet.  She likes to visit."

"Probably Harriet?"

"Or a rodent.  If it's a heavy breather, it's one of the macaques."

Elena had slept in the greenhouse before, sometimes she'd go for naps out by the beach or under the palms.  She knew the place inside and out, so she wasn't too concerned.  For instance, she knew that there were no snakes.  The macaques were pretty good at keeping the big insects under control, and the rodents were usually managed by the feral cats on the property.  Right now, there weren't any inside with them, but they would sneak in from time to time through a still undiscovered vent.  Richard seemed non plussed at the idea.  

"Macaques?   Some kind of bird?"  he asked.  Elena smiled.  Genius or not, he didn't know too much about biology and it secretly pleased her.  

"No, those are macaws.  Macaques are monkeys, like rhesus monkeys.  Ozzy and Harriet are the residents here, there used to be six of them.  We keep them on for pest control."

"Pest control?"  Richard's voice seemed a bit more shaky this time.  

"Yeah, like spiders and scorpions and stuff."  Elena was grinning from ear to ear with this, but he couldn't see.  

"Really.  Spiders and scorpions?"

"Yeah, but no worries.  If you hear a lot of heavy breathing and then some crunching, it means they have caught one.  Ozzy likes to clap when he eats."  This was all true, but she didn't want to break the news yet there were no spiders and scorpions.  Finally, adequate revenge.  

"Elena?"

"Yes Richard?"

"Sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite."  He had curled up nearby her, and slowly inched his body towards hers.  She could hear his breath nearing her, and froze as she felt it on the back of her neck.  The little hairs stood up on attention, and she shivered.  She felt a hand on her hip, which pulled her towards him, and another hand cross over and put on her other hip.  His face was by hers, with just a few leaves between them.  She felt herself get turned on and she didn't want to move.  She didn't want him to stop and she didn't want him to keep going.  He slid himself half way onto her, his torso laying across her legs, and her pelvis.  He pressed in a little, and she couldn't help but want to pull him onto her, and position him between her legs, his face in her breasts, her hands in his hair.  But she didn't.  She pushed him away, and he stopped.  

"Richard, please don't.  I like someone else."  She knew enough of men that that should be sufficient to stop them from further pursuit.  Neither of them was that drunk at this point, and the sobering reality of getting locked in had taken over.  

"Derk? You like Derk, I presume."  He asked, she could feel the heat of his body near hers, and his hand was still resting on her belly.  She picked it up, and moved it off of her.  What a strange turn of the game, she thought.

"Good night Richard, I'm going to sleep now."  And she rolled away, settling in to their nest, right arm up so her head could rest on it, left knee crossed over her.  She lay there, waiting for him to protest, but instead she heard soft snores start.  Dammit.  

*** 

In Elena's inbox there were two messages that morning.  One was a delivery failed notice, her reply to Derk having not made it out during the electrical storm and the send command had timed out.  The other was another email from Derk.  It read:

Christie's ankle is broken.  I won't be able to come this weekend.  I'll call on Monday.  Derk.

***

Elena woke to find herself face down in a pile of damp leaves, and feeling rather warm.  The heat was slowly increasing in the green house, it would go up by 10 degrees this week.  There was also an increase in the vapor.  The end result would feel like more humidity, and hotter all around than just ten degrees.  She rolled over, and realized Richard was no longer there.    The breathing she had heard was Harriet, it looked like she was snacking on a roach.  Elena had forgotten about the roaches.   She reached up and brushed her hair to remove any bugs that had collected in it, and checked her zippers.  She had pulled up the jumper last night, she should be fine.  Just a little stiff from the odd position of sleep.  She got up and started walking around.  

Richard was not by the telescope as she had half expected.  She could see the trampled leaves where they had searched for broken glass the night before.  Two dirty cups sat on the lift platform, and his heavy tool bag.  He must have ditched it when he had realized the time.  Elena looked around the dirt, picking up a few more strays of glass, and putting them in with the others.  She patted down a side pocket on her jumper, looking for a napkin or cleaning cloth.  She found a protein bar in there instead, and took it out, brushing the dirt off and considering her breakfast.  A loud splash burst in on her thoughts. She crossed the desert landscape, back over the rails through the temperate forest, and over to the ledge that overlooked the ocean.  Richard could be seen swimming in the water below.  Her water.  She screamed.   

"What the hell are you doing?"  

It wasn't that it was dangerous.  They went in the water often enough, but in full wetsuits and scuba gear.  He was.... naked.  Elena ran through the maze of trails, down the side stairs and over to the stairwell that descended upon the beach.  His clothes lay in a little pile by the rowboat, and his underwear were draped over the chair.  Her chair.  He came up from the surf, which was generating little waves from all the splashing, and walked towards her.  Light poured in from the glass ceiling, all cloud cover from the night before abandoned for another clear Arizona day.  It reflected off all the little beads of water on his body, he glistened.  His curly hair formed ringlets everywhere, including the patch on his chest.  She kept her eyes up, and then turned away. 

"Just rinsing off, I was totally drenched from last night."  He sat in the little chair, nude, and she had to keep turning away from him to avoid seeing his naked body.  And his manhood.  The tugs and urgings of the night before took no time in poking up their little horny heads again.  She crossed her legs and drew in her breath. 

"Uh, couldn't you put some clothes on?"  she asked.  She was relieved he hadn't gone in with any clothes, the soaps would have been more problematic to the water chemistry than just human sweat and skin.  But she was still upset he had gone in at all, without asking.  

"Elena, you're going to be a professor of biology.  How can a little anatomy in the wild bother you?"  he laughed back.  "I don't want to get my clothes more wet, so let me dry off with the sun here."  Beams were crossing the mist in the air, and striking off his chiseled body.  Elena felt suddenly stiflingly hot in her jumper.  She only had underwear and a camisole on underneath, so she realized she'd have to keep it on. 

"Fine," she snorted. "I'm going to go check on the ... " she couldn't think of where she was going to go.  Normally she'd have full range of the entire facility, no locked doors, all sorts of tunnels and stairs and rooms she could dip into.  But not now.  It was just the greenhouse, with two monkeys and a jackass.  She started back up the stairs.  Richard wiggled around in the chair, making it squeak, and she straightened herself up in a body retort.  "I'll be back later." 

Elena returned to the lift, and collected the two cups, realizing that they would have to be cleaned and used for water.  There was no water fountain in here, but the vents were misting recycled water from the reclamation project.  It should be clean enough to drink, all of it had run through the reverse osmosis machine before being pumped back up to the vapor tanks.  If she could get the screen loose, she could pry off one of the tubes and pour some directly in each glass.  The heat was really starting to get to her, and she yearned to be swimming naked on the little beach herself.  She collected some water and walked back to the ocean, and called out to Richard.  Hopefully, he'd get the message and put on some clothes.  There was no answer.

She looked over the railing, and observed him sprawled out sleeping on the sand, his head on his clothes, his limbs spread askew.  He had gotten a sleeping woody, she could see it from here.  She left the water cup at the top of the stairs, and turned away.  Soon enough, Derk would arrive and he could get them out and this whole fiasco would end.  She walked back to the airlock exit and pressed her face to the glass in the door.  Off to the left, she could just catch a glimpse of the clock.  1230.  Derk should be here by now, she thought, she'd just have to give him time to figure out where they were.   He hadn't been before, as far as she knew, so it might take a little while to follow the maze of corridors down to the main greenhouse entrance.  It was part of the same lobby that he'd enter to find the lounge and the control room.  If he looked on the monitors, he'd see her there.  And he'd also see Richard, lying on the beach.  Double dammit. 

At two, when she had finished her glass of water, and was now starting to swelter, she wandered back to the beach.  Richard had dressed, drunk his water, and was now sitting looking intensely at the surface of some of the rocks.  

"Those aren't real rocks, actually."  He looked up as she approached.  He was only wearing his suit up to his waist, the rest draped down and tied off with the arms.  He wasn't wearing any shirt.  "They look really good though, don't they?" 

"Yeah, I was trying to figure out how they do it.  I can see the sand is real."  They had imported the sand from Hawaii, Kona in fact.  It was comprised of tiny little fragments of shells and coral and lava, as the little ocean here had been a coral reef in its heyday.  Now it was a milky green haze with a handful of fishes nibbling on algae.  She had no idea what would become of the ocean aquarium here, when she left.  The algae bloom had spelled an endgame for the ecosystem.  The warming water this week would likely finish the job.  All the corals had died, all the jellies, all the invertebrates.  Very little light penetrated the water, and almost all the life had been suffocated out.  She was beginning to understand how it felt, wrapped up here in this red suit, the air temps now reaching 86 degrees with 60% humidity.  "Isn't your boyfriend supposed to be here by now?  I am starved."  Elena thought of the protein bar in her suit, she hadn't eaten it all.  She didn't really want to share, but she also knew that Richard wouldn't have brought any himself. 

"Here, have the rest of this, " she offered.  "It's all I've got.  We can see if there are any mangoes or bananas left on the trees."  She really had no idea where Derk could be, and it was worrying her.  If he didn't let them out, they could be here for days.  With almost no food, and just some water.  Alone.  Just the two of them.  Alone.  And very very horny.