"I have to warn you, Leo... My lab... Well, it's probably not much safer than that street out there. You know that... Tech-cancer you brought in earlier... The one in your tablet?"
"Yes, what about it?" Leo demanded as a cold fear began to creep up his spine.
Randell shook his head but didn't answer as he set Alice down and opened the lab door. When he picked Alice back up and began to walk through, he finally turned his head to look at Leo and continued his explanation.
"Well, let's just say I managed to isolate it, and I studied it a bit... It's really something, you know? Then it kind of... How do I put this?"
Randell trailed off as he carried Alice through the door and into the lab. Leo's fear increased with each step. Randell's voice had changed as he spoke. There was now real fear within it...
Leo followed him in, set Annabelle down and slammed the door shut. Then, he demanded an explanation. "Spit it out! What happened, Randell?"
Randell set Alice down next to Annabelle, then looked at Leo with a mixture of embarrassment and terror written across his face.
"Well... It kind of... Took over my lab..."
Chapter 35
Leo tore his eyes away from Annabelle's limp and motionless body and stared at Randell, trying to comprehend what he had just heard.
"What do you mean it took over your lab?"
Randell shrugged his shoulders. "Well... I isolated a few of the little buggers when I was trying to restore the data from your file, and then I ran some tests on them. The good news is that I figured out how they work, sort of. They produce a signal that corrupts the programming of other nanomachines. Then, it reprograms them to build new nanomachines within whatever technology they've infected. It's like a nanomachine cancer, as I surmised earlier, but I still don't understand how the code can bypass the firewalls of the technology it infects. It shouldn't be able to, but somehow, it does."
Leo broke eye contact with Randell and looked around the lab, wondering what technology had been infected. "Well, how bad is it? Is the programming fluid?"
Randell nodded. "I think so... Based on the way it moves, I think it's being controlled from somewhere else, probably through deep subspace transmissions..."
Leo's eyes lingered on the weapons locker across the room. "Well, what do we do? Do we need to burn down your lab?"
Leo was tired. His ears pounded, his head throbbed, and his chest ached. It had been a hell of a day, and now he had to worry about more than just Thrall's gang. Exony could now turn Randell's technology against them at any moment.
"I don't, Leo. I don't know!" Randell cried. "It's gotten into my echo-scanner, my simulation CPU, my ship A.I..."
Randell caught himself as he mentioned the ship A.I., and clammed up, but Leo had heard him as clear as day.
"Ship A.I.?" Leo demanded as he waved his hand and spun around.. "Where the hell is your ship? How did it get there?"
Randell threw his arms up in anger. "We're standing on my ship right now, you idiot! It's your fault! You brought it here and I and expect you to pay for whatever damage it's caused!"
Leo glared at Randell. "This isn't my fault! I didn't know what would happen..."
Randell pointed at Leo threateningly. "It's not all your fault; some of it was me. Blast my goddamned curiosity! But, now you're bringing even more trouble... I should kick you out right now! This business with the Saren gang could threaten my whole operation!"
Leo stepped towards Randell imposingly, pushing his chest aggressively into Randell's pointing finger while he gave him a deadly stare. "Saren gang? You know their name? You know who they are?"
Randell backed away from Leo. "Know them? They're my biggest customers! Like I said, this is going to threaten my whole operation!"
They were wasting time by arguing, Leo suddenly realized. In the big picture, the Saren Gang was the least of their worries. He needed Randell to help Alice and Annabelle, and then they needed to get back to Alice's ship.
"Screw your operation, Randell!" Leo yelled. "What we're doing is bigger than you, it's bigger than me, and it's bigger than this 'Saren Gang' or anyone else. Exony, the woman who built your little nano-cancer, wants to kill us all, you included. I have to stop her! Now wake them up, goddamn you!"
Randell didn't seem surprised in the least by Leo's revelation but instead stared at him stubbornly. "If she wanted to kill me, then why am I still alive? That shit she built is more advanced than anything I've ever seen. If she can build that, she could probably hack me and turn me off anytime she wants... She could blow up this lab right now..."
Leo's frustration began to peak. He wouldn't get anywhere trying to reason with Randell, not unless he reasoned with cold, hard, credits.
"It doesn't matter..." Leo acidly replied. "Give Alice something to remove her paralysis, and she'll make it more than worth your while. Just help me now, and this time tomorrow, you'll be relaxing on a beach somewhere, all thoughts of nano-cancers and murderous psychopaths gone from your narrow mind."
"She better, or there's gonna be hell to pay," Randell grunted.
Then, he turned and walked over to one of his many shelves and pulled a small device off of it. As he walked back over to Alice and Annabelle, he made several inputs on the device in his hand, then tossed it casually to the floor.
"It's fried..." Randell explained.
Leo wanted more explanation, but before he could demand it, a loud beeping alarm and a distorted male voice rang out through the room.
"Warning. Security breach. Perimeter defense deactivated... Hull breach imminent... breahahhhhhhhhh..."
The voice quickly faded into a gnarled distortion, but the beeping alarm persisted, ringing out briefly every few seconds.
"NUTS!" Randell screamed as he ran over to one of the consoles in the center of the room and began furiously typing commands into it. Leo stood still. He had no idea what was happening or what he should do.
"They got in..." Randell explained as he stared down at his console. "They're using thermite to breach the hull. My security is fried like an Emu egg! I can't fight them off!"
"Where are they coming fro..." Leo began to ask ,but was interrupted as the metal plating on the floor beneath him suddenly opened in a hexagonal pattern, and Randell's wife Sila emerged upwards through it. Leo quickly realized she was riding a hidden elevator up to the lab from somewhere below.
"Randell!" she yelled. "What in the blue moon is all this noise?!"
"Nothing to worry about, my love!" Randell answered in a trembling voice.
Sila angrily stepped off the elevator and marched over to her husband, then shoved him in the small of his back. He slumped forward from the blow, then turned around to face her.
"Okay, okay, my love," Randell said, this time with deadly seriousness. "We're completely screwed. Sarens want to kill old Leo and his pretty sidekicks, and they're outside, melting the hull with thermite."
"That's better," Sila said with cold satisfaction. Then, she walked with purpose to the weapons locker and stood next to it expectantly. Randell opened it for her with a few sweeps of his fingers over his console, then Sila reached in and extracted a large plasma rifle, handling it with well-practiced grace.
"Where are they coming from? The door to the bar?" Leo asked as he looked around at the walls of the lab, searching for any sign of an apparent breach point.
"FUCK!" Randell screamed as he smashed his fists into his console and gave it a hard kick for good measure. "It's completely fried! I'm locked out of everything!"
Randell then ran over to the weapons locker and awkwardly pulled out another rifle. Leo drew his pistol from within his jacket, and wheeled his head around to look for where the breach would happen.
"I need ammo!" Leo yelled.
Randell distractedly reached into the weapons locker and extracted a few clips, then tossed them across the room to Leo.
"The hull will glow red at the breach point!" Randell yelled as Leo reloaded his pistol. "Keep your eyes peeled
!" He then began walking around and placing his hand on the wall at different locations.
They waited in tense silence except for the loud, intermittent beep of the ship's alarm. They existed in that fearful, hyper-alert state for over a minute before Randell finally spoke.
"Here! They're coming through here!" Randell yelled as he pointed at the door.
Leo nodded, grabbed Annabelle by her arm, and dragged her as far away from the spot as possible. He watched Sila and Randell take up firing positions behind the consoles in the center of the lab, then made another quick trip to drag Alice to safety.
Leo's breathing was rapid and ragged from the adrenaline coursing through him and the effort of pulling his friends to cover. He tried to calm himself as he drew his pistol once again and took up a firing position next to Annabelle's motionless body.
Leo watched the spot Randell had pointed out and saw a small section of the wall slowly turn orange, then bright red. The Sarens would be breaching soon, and they would probably throw gas or stun grenades through once the hole was big enough, Leo thought.
"Randell!" Leo shouted. "Do you have any grenades or gas masks?"
Leo expected him to answer, but instead of Randell's voice, a distorted robotic voice rang out through the room.
"Departurrrrrrrrrrrr Sequence Initiatrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!"
Leo heard the words as he stared at the glowing red metal on the wall, but they meant little to him until Randell yelled out in alarm.
"What the fuck?! No!"
"Thrusterssrrr Prrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrimed!"
Randell dropped his rifle to the floor and turned to the console next to him, smashing his fingers down onto it as he gritted his teeth in frustration.
Leo watched him, flickering his vision between the breach point and back to Randell as he tried to make sense of what was happening.
"Thrusters firingsssssrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!" the ship's voice creamed as the alarm continued its incessant beeping. "Liftoff in three seconnnnndrrrrrrrrssssss!"
Randell finally quit pounding on the console and turned to Sila with a mix remorse and amazement in his eyes. "I'm sorry, my love. It looks like our time on Oberon is over!"
Just as he finished speaking, the room around them gave a creaking lurch, knocking them roughly to the floor as the loud hiss of gas thrusters vibrated through the walls.
Leo was amazed and terrified as he struggled back to his feet. Exony's nano-cancer had taken over Randell's ship that was also his lab, and it wanted them to take off. He knew their situation was dire, but he couldn't help but smile at the thought of an old ship bursting forth from the old buildings of Rithe Island while the stunned Islanders below looked on in awe.
His amusement was short-lived, however, when he looked over to where the Sarens were breaching the hull. A small hole had melted entirely through the hull and was dripping molten metal down the wall.
"Randell! Where are we going? Where is it taking us?" Leo yelled as the loud crunching of what was surely broken masonry echoed through the ship.
The room gave another lurch as the crunching got louder, but Leo managed to stay on his feet by bracing himself on the console next to him.
"I have no idea, Randell groaned as he sat down, then leaned back to lay on the floor and stare up at the ceiling.
"The hull!" Leo yelled as he awkwardly struggled against the momentum of the ship and stumbled over to the shelves on the wall to his right. "It's breached! What if the ship leaves the atmosphere!"
"Fuck it!" Randell yelled back.. He made no move to help as Leo searched for a useful item among the pile of devices that had fallen off the shelves during the ship's departure.
Leo's panic grew as he laboriously searched through the devices. He needed some titanium plate and a welder, or a hull repair kit. They were a necessity on most older, alloy-hulled ships. His search proved fruitless, however. Even when he opened the cabinets beneath the shelves, he found nothing but a plethora of useless scanners and bins full of random parts.
As Leo extricated himself from one of the cabinets, he was greeted by the green shoes and green skirt of Sila, who was now standing above him.
"Never mind Randell... He gets a panic attack from time to time... Here, Leo," she remarked as she handed him a small metal case. Leo quickly grabbed it, but as he began to open it, the ship's voice rang out once more.
"Warning... Strrrrructurrrrral integrrrrrityhrrrrrange courrrrrs...mediatellllllllllllllly!"
When Leo pried the case open, he found three small metal plates and a chemical welder. With the utmost urgency, he grabbed the items and crawled towards the hull breach. He could see some of the devices strewn across the floor already being sucked across the room, and he felt the breach beginning to pull his body towards it.
Knowing he only had a few seconds before the ship left the Oberon atmosphere, he quickly placed the titanium plate over the breach. The heat of the metal promptly radiated into the plate that he was holding, and he felt the flesh on his fingers begin to burn. He fought through the pain and held the plate in place while he activated the chemical welder in his other hand.
In spite of the dire nature of the situation, Leo was calm. He was comfortable performing repairs on an old ship. He had made them many times on his ship, Arcturus, which was probably still docked, or maybe impounded back on Osiris.
Leo mused about what might happen to his ship while he welded the titanium plate into place. Maybe it would be auctioned off. How much would it bring? Four, maybe five thousand credits at the most? The thought bothered Leo, as it was worth much more to him than that.
Perhaps after he was done with their crazy mission, he would return to Osiris and his ship would still be there. Maybe he would find it unimpounded, unauctioned, and waiting faithfully for him to return. That thought gave Leo a sense of hope, and he smiled to himself as he finished welding the plate over the breach.
Once the weld was complete, Leo stood up and inspected his work.
"Hrrrrrrullllll brrralrrrrred!" the corrupted ship A.I. informed him.
Good, Leo thought with satisfaction. He had no idea where the ship was taking them, but for the moment, they were safe.
The ship now hummed softly around him. It was probably moving smoothly through space after exiting the Oberon atmosphere.
Without waiting a beat, Leo dropped the welder on the floor and ran over to where Alice and Annabelle lay motionless in the center of the room. As he ran, he gave a quick look over to Randell, who was still lying on the floor, staring up blankly at the ceiling and now joined by his wife as she reclined next to him and whispered in his ear.
Leo quickly knelt next to Annabelle and placed his finger on her neck, then felt immense relief as her slow but steady pulse beat against his skin.
Leo spoke quietly as he looked down into her dim and motionless eyes and caressed her cheek affectionately.
"That was pretty crazy... If nothing else, we'll have some good stories to tell when this is all over, right?"
After staring at Annabelle for a few seconds, he turned to check on Alice's condition. He leaned over and pressed his fingers to her neck and recoiled in surprise when her eyes slowly rolled in their sockets to look at him.
"Alice?" Leo shouted. "Can you hear me?"
Alice's eyes focused on him and stared up with an eerily blank look. Then, she reached up and touched his face.
Chapter 36
Thrall violently smashed his fist into his forehead, but his immense rage kept him from feeling pain.
Leo and Alice, the pathetic rats, had somehow slipped through the trap he had set on Oberon.
He, Thrall Verdum, Leader of the Chosen, was strong there, and his family that resided there were dedicated and numerous. They should have been able to capture two people. But no, the rats had escaped him once again.
Thrall sat alone in his luxurious new quarters as he stewed in his anger. Violent visions of pain consumed him, but the elegance of his surroundings provided at least some relief.
> An heiress had previously occupied his new home. Her name had been Katherine, and she had smelled like lilac and gooseberries. She had begged so pathetically, but so endearingly for him to allow her to live...
For a while, he had let her believe that he would. She had been appreciative of that, and she had thanked him in many exciting ways...
He had seriously considered letting her live, but in the end, his hunger had called to him. He needed Katherine's meat much more than her entertainment.
Thrall smirked as he looked around his plush, luxurious, blood-spattered apartment. His new home was the ideal place to strategize the death or enslavement of troublesome humans, and to communicate with others among the chosen.
Communication between colonies had become very easy, now that he didn't have to worry about hiding. His communication network had grown over his long life to span across thirty pathetic human colonies.
The scent that had been transmitted to him from Rithe Island had been foul. It had informed him that the trap had been sprung on Leo and Alice according to plan, but Leo's tricky nature had prevailed again, and he had killed five more of Thrall's kin. After committing that heinous act, Leo had then escaped aboard a ship that had been buried and hidden among the disgustingly ramshackle buildings on Rithe.
Luckily, the five chosen hadn't died in vain. As the rat's escape ship had taken off, Thrall's sister had attached a tracking beacon to its hull. As soon as it landed, Leo and Alice would find themselves entrapped in his net once again.
As Thrall thought about the message he had received from Rithe, the foul smell of it materialized in his mind, and he retched, then spat disgustedly onto the floor next to him.
It took him a few seconds to clear the smell and by extension, the taste from his mind, but when he did so, he smiled to himself.
Yes, Leo and Alice had escaped, but he was tracking them, and they would be his very soon. Also, there was other critical progress being made that helped to buoy his spirits. Director Sullivan had accepted his little mind-slug like a champ, and Thrall could monitor and control his every action in real-time.
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