Rather than trying to sprint across the training cavern, something she was sure she couldn’t manage before Carl came out after her, Annette ducked quickly into a storage room a few paces from the locker room. The room was dark and full of boxes, perfect for a place to hide. Annette ducked behind a stack of boxes, pulling more boxes to complete her concealment. She sat on the rock floor wrapping her arms and legs around the duffel. She focused her mind on regaining control of her breathing. Rapid panting would give her hiding place away faster than anything.
Annette heard the door slide open, against lungs aching for fresh air she held her breath. The lights came on and Carl’s footsteps echoed from the walls and boxes. Annette crouched lower, and prayed her recent swim was enough to mask her scent. That prayer brought to her mind that she had been neglecting her prayer life quite a bit since she became a trainee a year ago. Carl’s footfalls came within feet of Annette, she heard him inhale deeply. He exhaled and his footfalls retreated, and the lights went back out. Annette didn’t risk breathing until after the door hissed shut again.
Annette didn’t know how or why he missed her, whether her prayer had anything to do with it. Any way around it Annette was grateful. “Remind me to pray more Prima,” Annette whispered.
“When miss?” Prima asked equally softly.
“Later. . .” Annette answered.
Annette carefully unzipped her duffel and fished out a jumpsuit by feel. Fumbling in the dark Annette managed to pull the jumpsuit on and zipped it up. Annette felt around in the bag for her pocket-sized pop-pad and tucked it into the appropriate pocket. Then she rose carefully and made her way back to the door.
“Prima, could you open the door just a slit so I can see out, but not so much that Carl might notice?” Annette asked.
“Yes, miss,” The door did just as Annette had requested. Annette considered stroking Prima’s electronic ego with a “good computer”, but decided it was too big a risk. Annette put an eye to the slit and saw Carl heading out the main door of the practice cavern, Annette watched for a while before hesitantly tapping the door panel to open it fully. Trotting as quickly as she could, Annette headed for the instructor’s quarters. She was just around the bend in the hall when she nearly ran face first into Niri.
“Whoa! Where are you off to in such a hurry at this hour?” Niri asked, seemingly normal.
“Something black and gooey is controlling Carl. We have to do something!” Annette howled.
“It’s okay,” Niri wrapped her arms around Annette and began patting her on the back. Suddenly the embrace tensed and Niri’s arms became like a steel cage. Carl appeared to Niri’s left, holding a pale greenish slug. Annette tensed and struggled against Niri, but the older though smaller woman was more experienced, easily keeping Annette in control.
Carl raised the slug towards Annette’s face the slug oozed the same black oily substance. It felt cold and slick as it came in contact with her skin. Shivers went up and down Annette’s spine as each hair and pore on her face made report of the slime’s movement towards her eyes. Black lightning played itself across her mind as pain seared through her where the slime entered behind her eyes, and climbed down into her lungs.
Annette’s mind revolted, and her body went limp. Half consciously she felt herself being lowered to the floor. Her eyes remained open though she couldn’t control where she was looking.
“She will become, through her we can bring the chief into the becoming. Leave her and return to you quarters,” Niri said in a hollow voice. Stiffly, Carl obeyed. Niri too walked away without a glance back at Annette.
Time blurred, with no one and nothing happening through her limited range of vision, Annette couldn’t say how much time passed. Occasionally her eyes would blink on their own. Annette struggled to regain control of herself as she felt something alien prodding at the back of her mind. It radiated anger and frustration that she wasn’t responding as she should. It was having trouble, physically as well. She felt its pain as well as her own. Nausea overcame her and suddenly she was spasmodically retching. She was in control of herself enough to vomit. Black gunk blinded her momentarily as it retreated from her eyes.
As her mind cleared, Annette’s senses returned to an almost debilitating level of sensitivity. Squinting, Annette struggled her way to her knees. Annette found her balance slightly off, but still managed, eventually, to find her way to her feet. She didn’t feel as though she were under alien influence. Annette knew she had to tell someone what was happening, but who? She’d thought Niri safe to tell.
Annette fingered the puddle of black slime that had come out of her. Whatever was behind it, the slime could be in anyone. Niri’s words indicated they didn’t have Angela, at least not at the time. Anything could’ve happened in the ambiguous period of time that Annette had spent on the floor. Wait, the slimy sluggoids probably couldn’t take over a machine.
“Prima, did the thing affect you?” Annette whispered.
“No miss, are you indicating that you have somehow avoided its control as well?” Prima said softly.
“Yes, now could you theorize for me? Do you think from what you’ve seen that an android form would make a program vulnerable to control?”Annette rasped. She leaned against the wall coughing as her talking loosened another batch of slime from her lungs.
Prima waited to answer until Annette stopped coughing and caught her breath, “No miss, I believe Tawny would still be a valuable ally.”
Annette massaged her neck it was stiff from laying at an odd angle for too long, “How long was I on the floor?”
“Three hours forty-seven minutes,” Prima replied.
Annette groaned and started across the hall to the door labeled Tawny. Annette knocked. No response greeted her. “Prima, try contacting Tawny.”
“No response miss,” Prima replied.
Despite or perhaps because of the seriousness of the situation, Annette suddenly found Prima’s propensity for calling Annette miss really annoying. “Call me Annette, not miss, and see if you can unlock this door.”
A click of the latch was Prima’s response. Annette turned the knob and pushed open the door. Inside Tawny sat stiffly unmoving on the bed. Annette rushed inside and closed the door behind her. “Prima, can you tell what’s wrong? Is it the slime?”
“No, miss the android body seems to have been placed in an extended diagnostic mode. She is effectively sleeping,” Prima replied.
Annette groaned at the “miss”, “Can we wake her?”
“I’m afraid not, diagnostic cycles are uninterruptible. She is out of order for the next four point three hours,” Prima responded.
Annette slumped to the bed next to Tawny, “I have to have someone on my side. I can’t deal with this by myself!”
“You have me,” Prima said, sounding more than a little like Tawny.
Annette laughed, “I guess I do. You have any suggestion on our next move?”
“No, I’m sorry miss, I haven’t any experience dealing with situations like this,” Prima responded timidly.
Annette sat up straighter, “Well, we need to detain and contain all those infected so as to prevent them from infecting others, from there we’ll have to hope someone in medical has gone uninfected so they can maybe reverse this. We could use emergency evacuation tags to tag those infected. Then have them transported to a secure room, perhaps one set for stasis”
“Good plan miss,” Prima suggested.
Annette leapt to her feet, “Sounds like we have a plan Prima, now where would I go to find the tags, and can you set up the rest?”
“I already have miss.”
“Good, job Prima!” Annette replied, “Let’s get to it.”
Annette followed Prima’s directions to a cupboard in the factor return zone. Prima unlocked the cupboard and Annette filled her pockets with small bags of the adhesive backed tags. “You have the room set up?”
“Yes, I commandeered one of the medical stasis rooms,” Prima replied.
&
nbsp; “You can do that?” Annette wondered aloud.
“Not personally, but it wasn’t in the least bit difficult to convince Central Computer to do it. It is fully aware of the situation in a way even you and I are not. It was actually relieved to be able to do something about it,” Prima replied.
Annette shrugged internally at the thought that the computers of Sanctuary would be as active in their desires as the people they served. She didn’t have much time to contemplate the thought because two obviously infected people turned the corner and Annette had to hurriedly rip open a plastic bag of tags to have two ready when they lunged at her. Annette slapped the tags on their clothing and backed away.
The two disappeared instantly and Prima chirped out a laugh, “It works!”
“Yes, Prima, good job, now all we have to do is do that with half of Sanctuary’s population,” Annette replied, far less exhilarated by the experience.
“Central says it is actually far less than half the population, for the most part it is the factor personnel which have been affected,” Prima replied.
“Does Central have some way of telling who’s infected?” Annette felt like she was coming into the situation on the bottom of the ninth inning.
“It knows when one tries to make inquiries. It has begun transporting those individuals to stasis rooms, on your authority. I do hope you don’t mind.”
Annette felt a sudden surge of frustration, “Why didn’t it act sooner?”
“It has to be authorized in such action by an acting factor, until you began to act it had no such authorization,” Prima replied, by her tone she clearly felt she was stating the obvious.
Annette struggled with the idea, “So if I had been properly infected you and it wouldn’t have acted?”
“The most we could have done is refuse service. It is integral to our programming, apparently the originators of our code feared some sort of electronic rebellion. To tell the truth, Central is quite ashamed of having acted as independently as to have begun transporting individuals it suspected of infection prior to your express authorization,” Prima replied.
A wave of dizziness hit Annette and her senses cranked themselves up a notch just before she felt the searing pain of more black ooze dripping from her nose. Again she began to retch, this time she vomited up the last of her dinner from the evening before. Annette was forced to the floor.
“Miss?” Prima questioned.
Annette braced herself against the wall and wiped her face on the sleeve of her jumpsuit. “I’m still with you. Man is that gunk not agreeing with me,” Annette blotted her nose on the wrist of her sleeve, it looked like there was a little of her blood mixed in with the slime.
“Are you capable of continuing?” Prima asked warily.
Annette levered herself back into an upright position. “I’m ready.” Annette started off down the hall. It was empty, thankfully, since she wasn’t sure if she really was ready to handle any challenge. “Prima, can you be checking for a safe place for me to rest? Some room off down a hall that isn’t used maybe?”
“How urgent is your need?” Prima tweeted, concerned.
“I can get by,” Annette coughed.
“I’ve found the perfect spot, but Central Computer indicates there are a lot of people between us and it,” Prima answered quickly, “She could transport us there from any transport booth, but, well the infected people have stopped making inquiries of any kind. The only way to determine who’s what is by direct person to person contact.”
“It wants me to act as bait. I’m uninfected and clearly a target. I’m also a little sick. Who’s to say that if they try to infect me again that it won’t take or even kill me?” Annette grouched.
“You’re right, you need medical help, but we have no access. A large proportion of those already detained were the medical staff,” Prima argued.
“Which way am I going?” Annette sighed, resigned to face trouble down.
Prima gave directions which Annette followed. She quickly tagged people who crossed her path, not bothering to wait for them to attack. Ultimately Prima’s directions took Annette down an under-maintained unused corridor. Annette tried several doors, each reluctant to open beyond a crack. Behind the doors were dusty rooms filled with boxes, or clean rooms empty of everything. None of them was inviting enough for her to put forth the effort to pry the door open far enough for her to use as a retreat.
Finally, Annette came to a door which slid all the way open, but it didn’t reveal a room. Annette found a thick rubbery skin, almost like dried paint. Annette put pressure on it and it cracked. Showing a well lit room behind. Annette pushed through with her eyes closed. Vice-like hands wrapped themselves around Annette’s wrists and she was pushed to the floor. Her cheek pressed into a surface made up of layers and layers of paint drippings. She tried to struggle but a telekinetic force added to the hands left her almost as completely incapacitated as when the black slime was in her.
“Don’t move!” Angela’s voice growled, “Is she one of them?”
“Let me scan her!” Tina growled back.
Annette stopped struggling, “I’m not one of those slimy sluggoids! I’m on your side!”
The hands released her wrists and she felt herself telekinetically lifted to her feet. Then the invisible hands turned her to face both Angela and Tina, and held her immobile.
“Then what are you doing looking for me?” Angela asked, her voice was a little high, possibly panicked, definitely painful to Annette’s sensitive ears.
“I wasn’t looking for anything but a safe place to rest. My body isn’t liking what that slime tried to do to me,” Annette replied.
“Is she one of them or isn’t she?” Angela snapped at Tina.
Tina tapped away at her pop-pad, “I’m trying to figure that out. She has traces of the slime in her but her body is actively rejecting it, none of my scans of the infected people showed any immunological reactions. Ooh, interesting. . ..”
“What?” Annette and Angela asked in unison.
“Well, I think I see why Annette’s body rejected the stuff so hard, and I may be able to use that peculiarity of Annette’s immune reaction to neutralize the infection in its hosts,” Tina replied.
“So she isn’t one of them?” Angela asked.
“Of course not!” Prima peeped.
Angela glared Annette, not able to detect Prima’s remote beneath her jumpsuit. “Your Room?”
Annette tried to nod against the force of the telekinesis, and failed, so she spoke, “Yes.”
Prima quickly piped up again, “I have been her daily companion for almost a year now, and was with her during the attack, aside from a brief period of immobility, some vomiting and coughing up that black slug goo, she has been acting normal. On regaining her feet her first thoughts were of stopping the infection from spreading. She requested and received aid from the Central Computer and has a total of one-hundred-eleven infected individuals contained in a stasis room awaiting a treatment to restore them to themselves,” Prima announced, “Now if you will please release her so that she may sit down, she isn’t feeling well you know!”
Angela looked ready to split a seam instead she let out a large guffaw which deteriorated quickly into a manic giggling. Annette felt herself released by the telekinetic hand and quickly slumped to the floor of the room. Now that the niceties were over she was free to glance around at the room’s bizarre decor. Floor, ceiling, and walls were covered in layer upon layer of haphazardly applied paint, some splattered, some sponged, some brushed some rolled, in an entire rainbow of colors. It was a sight to be seen, half mess, half art, it spoke of total manic frustration. It said Angela.
“Nice paint job Chief!” Annette said.
Angela turned her attention back to Annette, “How many more- what did you call them- sluggoids, do you think there are?”
Annette shrugged, Prima piped up, “Central’s projections given all of its data suggest no more than another twenty to thirty, with a possi
ble error of eight percent, unless they have made too large an insurgence into the civilian population. Central informs me that the entire group from the restaurant has been collected.”
Angela raised an eyebrow, “Central computer has been acting on its own?”
Prima’s remote produced a brief mechanical squelch, “No, it is acting as per Annette’s plan of containment.”
Angela looked hard at Annette, “So she’s the authorizing factor in this?”
Prima squelched again, “We are aware that she isn’t officially a factor, but under the circumstances it wasn’t entirely inappropriate, after all she has been acting as a member of your staff for quite some time now, and as far as could be demonstrated she was the only factor-ish person taking any kind of stand and. . .”
“Enough, I have a real problem. I can’t have a second year trainee going around and saving Sanctuary, it doesn’t look right,” Angela’s face was flat and emotionless, then as if in response to Annette’s sudden fear it changed to a broad grin, “No one is in trouble, not for keeping a cool head in an emergency and working out a plan that actually works. I just will have to remedy the situation.” A prime jacket appeared in Angela’s arms. She held it out to Annette, the offer of the coat was tantamount to appointment as a prime.
“Go on take it!” Prima said, “It’s what you’ve wanted!”
Annette’s eyes bulged; she hadn’t finished training. How could she be a prime? She shook her head no and held up her hands. Today was only her fifteenth birthday.
“Just take it!” Angela said with a grimace, “You still could probably use more training, but I can’t see why you don’t deserve it, after all you’ve taken on a lot of responsibility, and have gone a long way towards saving Sanctuary today. Not to mention what you’ve already done. There are factors who haven’t accomplished half as much as you with fifteen years in the field. Take it.”
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