Table of Contents:
Copyright
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Dedication
Chapter One - Finishline
Chapter Two - Recovery
Chapter Three - Lunchroom
Chapter Four - Security
Chapter Five - Tour
Chapter Six - Plan
Chapter Seven - Tweezers
Chapter Eight - Bluff
Chapter Nine - Datacenter
Chapter Ten - Video
Chapter Eleven - Morning
Chapter Twelve - Crawl
Chapter Thirteen - Ropes
Chapter Fourteen - Escalators
Chapter Fifteen - Deep
Chapter Sixteen - Heavy
Chapter Seventeen - Magma
Chapter Eighteen - Piranha
Chapter Nineteen - Alive
Chapter Twenty - Trophy
Chapter Twenty-One - Security
Episode 4
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Review
About the Author
Nano Contestant
Episode 3:
Combat Obstacles
A Sci-Fi Technothriller
Copyright © 2015 Leif Sterling
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Dedication:
To my kids, my biggest fans.
CHAPTER ONE:
FINISHLINE
ROLAND YELLED WHEN he saw his position slip to 49. Through sheer willpower, he pushed his body to slam one foot forward in front of the other despite the heavy protests of his ankle. Sweat poured down his body from the exertion. He could taste the salt from it on his lips. His peripheral vision was completely gone. The excruciating pain and the lack of oxygen in his body created severe tunnel vision.
Suddenly, he saw Bianca drop back a step. Her act was unconscionable. Then he felt her grab his arm and pull it across her shoulders. The weight on his right foot felt lighter. He felt her hand on his back pushing him forward. Bianca surged forward with pit bull strength, pulling Roland with her.
Roland’s tunnel vision lifted with less weight on his ankle. On his left side he could see Enrique and the other racer, both a step ahead of him.
Enrique cocked his left fist down and then uppercutted the other racer in the jaw so hard that he lifted him off the ground.
Roland watched, in near slow motion, as the other racer’s motion completely changed from forward to straight up. As the racer fell back to the ground, Roland saw him spit two white things from his mouth - teeth.
Enrique crossed the finish line. Immediately Bianca crossed the finish line a step behind him. Finally, after everything he had been through, Roland was crossing the checkered Tech Games finish line. The light in his arm changed to green and went out. The position on his HUD showed 48.
The announcer called out their numbers as they crossed. “46, 47 & 48! Ladies and Gentlemen, we have our final Tech Games contestants!”
Coach let out a whoop and began clapping. “Congratulations, Roland! You did it!”
Skylar jumped out of her chair and ran around the room. “Yes! You made it in!”
Bianca let go of Roland, and he slowed to a walk.
Roland began to hop and hobble on one foot. He turned towards Bianca. “Thank you.”
Bianca smiled. “I owed you, mon.” Then she headed over to her team.
“I made it! Ok, Sky. Now you can run the Healing app.” Roland tried to hobble forward but then stopped, overcome with pain.
Skylar swiped left and hit a button on her holographic terminal. “Ok. The Healing app is running diagnostics now.”
He looked down at his bruised and swollen ankle. Then he gingerly sat down on the ground, wincing with every movement. “Sky, see if you can hurry up that Healing app.”
Two medics loaded Roland onto a stretcher.
CHAPTER TWO:
RECOVERY
THE MEDICS TRANSPORTED Roland to the team’s overnight room. Coach and Skylar followed the medics as they moved Roland to his bed. One of the medics pulled up a holographic menu and said to order food whenever they were ready.
Roland opened his eyes at the mention of food and looked around at the room. It was the most plush and luxurious room he had ever seen. “Wow, this place is great. Gimme that menu. I’m starving!”
Coach nodded. “You will need a recovery meal of at least ten thousand calories to replenish your energy levels and to heal your ankle.”
Skylar pulled out her computer and hit the button on the top. A holographic terminal appeared in front of her. She swiped through a few screens to pull up Roland’s vitals. “Looks like the Healing app’s diagnostic is still running. Angela just sent me a plugin for the Healing app. It’s called Pain Blocker, and it blocks all the pain receptors in your body. She said that it might make you a little loopy though.”
Coach helped Roland get his ankle propped up with some pillows. “Run it.”
Roland winced again. “Yeah. Quick.” He gritted his teeth.
Skylar hit a green button on her holographic terminal. “Ok. It’s going. You should feel it pretty soon.” A window popped up on her terminal. “Diagnostics are done.” She swiped right to a new screen and typed a command.
The English accent of Hobbes gave the prognosis. “Sir, your wounds are extensive. It looks like you have chemical burns on your arms, deep insect bites on your legs and minor lacerations and abrasions everywhere. Inflammation has saturated nearly every muscle in your body. Also, the articular cartilage above your ankle has been shattered.”
Roland laid back onto the bed. “Shattered? We can fix that, right?”
Skylar nodded. “Yep. The Healing app can do that.”
Hobbes projected a hologram of half an avocado into the room. “It is recommended that the patient eats a meal that is high in natural fats to counteract and reduce the inflammation. Perhaps half an avocado?”
Skylar smirked. “Roland has never eaten just half of anything.” She looked over at Roland. “I think you’ll also need something high in sugar to spike your insulin. Want to add a half gallon of ice cream and a pound of guacamole to all that meat you’ve ordered?”
Roland smiled as he rapidly tapped to increase the serving quantities on the hologram menu.
A few minutes later, there was a knock at the door, and then the room service staff entered with a tray filled with a dozen sizzling filet mignon steaks, a whole carton of ice cream, a big glass serving bowl filled to the brim with guacamole and two bags of tortilla chips.
Skylar raised an eyebrow. “Whoa.”
Roland s
miled again and motioned for them to bring the steaks over to the bed. He grabbed one of the steaks and bit into it without using any utensils. “I love you, little steak wrapped in bacon.”
“That must be the Pain Blocker talking.” Skylar brought Roland a sports drink. “Here, chug this too.”
Roland downed the sports drink, and then he went right back to eating his steaks.
About an hour later, most of the food was gone. Roland was asleep on his bed, passed out from exhaustion, the food and the Pain Blocker.
Skylar swiped left two screens on the Healing app’s interface. The page layout was sparse. It only had an on-off switch, an entry for number of hours and a label which read, “Coma.”
Coach was carefully going over Roland’s vitals. “Is everything ready?”
Skylar nodded. “Yes. He is. Are you sure he needs to be taken down that far?”
Coach came over to Skylar’s terminal. “Yes. I think with his ankle cartilage being shattered rather than cracked, he needs to be taken down as deep as he can go. His body has a lot of healing to do, in addition to his ankle, after that race.”
Skylar bit the edge of her fingernail. “Ok. Flipping this switch will put him into a medically induced coma.”
Coach crossed his arms. “Yep. Do it. Forty-eight hours. He will be as good as new.”
Skylar typed in, “48,” and then hit the switch.
They both watched as Roland’s vitals dropped down several notches and leveled out again.
Then Skylar swiped to the next terminal screen and hit the button for the Healing app to begin doing all the jobs that she had queued up for it.
Skylar watched Roland’s vitals for the next thirty minutes, even though it had been a long day, and it was late at night. She needed to sleep, but she was worried about him.
Coach snored lightly on the couch.
Skylar took the last bite of her salad, checked Roland’s vitals one more time and then swiped to the monitoring screen to set an alert in case any vitals went out of their assigned parameters. Then she too fell asleep on the other bed in the room.
CHAPTER THREE:
LUNCHROOM
TWO DAYS LATER, Skylar gently shook Roland awake.
Roland propped himself up in his bed. “What time is it?”
Skylar handed him a glass of water. “About noon.”
He chugged the water. “How long was I out?”
She took the glass from him and handed him a chilled cup of espresso. “Two days.”
Roland sat bolt upright, spilling half his espresso. “Two days? Why didn’t you wake me? Have I missed anything?”
Skylar shook her head. “Just Coach’s snoring.”
Coach came over by Roland’s bed and began looking at Roland’s ankle. “We put you in a medically induced coma. Your body needed deep rest in order for you to fully recover.”
Roland raised an eyebrow. “You put me in a coma? Seems like a bit much.” He chugged the remainder of his espresso and then looked at his leg. “Must have worked though. I feel good.”
Roland’s ankle looked completely normal. Coach prodded it with his finger. “Does that hurt?”
Roland shook his head. The swelling and bruising were gone. His skin had gone back to its regular color. “Nope. Doesn’t hurt at all.” He swung his legs over the bed and began to try and stand.
Coach rushed over next to him. “Easy now. Take it real slow. Let’s make sure everything is working properly.”
Roland leaned on Coach and slowly stood up. He carefully began to put his weight on his right ankle. “Feels good so far.”
Coach let go of him but didn’t back up. “Ok, good. Now take a step.”
Roland stepped one foot forward, easing his weight onto it. He nodded. “It feels normal.”
Coach relaxed. “Great. Now walk around the room slowly. Skylar is going to run a scan on your ankle.”
Skylar had her terminal pulled up. She hit a button on it, and a three dimensional hologram of Roland appeared in the middle of the room that mimicked Roland’s movements. “Ok, I’m ready.”
Roland took a few steps. “Still feels good.” He jumped. “Yeah, feels great.” He walked over to the hologram in the middle of the room. “This thing is strange. Did you guys have it pulled up the whole time I was running the race?”
Skylar shook her head. “No, just when we were running scans on you or when we were concerned about your vitals. It uses a lot of resources, so I don’t use it unnecessarily.” She swiped through a few screens on her terminal. She smiled at the results. “Everything looks good on your scan. You can’t even tell the cartilage in your ankle was broken.”
Roland nodded. Then he raised his hand. The hologram mirrored him. “This thing is pretty entertaining.” Then he began jogging in place, high stepping his knees. The hologram mirrored his movements exactly. Roland smirked and then turned away. “So, what’s on the agenda today?”
Skylar turned the hologram off. “They are having a contestants’ lunch in the cafeteria and then a tour of the headquarters.”
Coach combed his hair. “I have a coach’s luncheon and meeting.” He headed for the door. “Roland, I’m glad you are doing so well. We’ll meet back here later this afternoon and go over our next plan.”
Skylar waved. “Sounds good.”
As soon as Coach left, Skylar motioned Roland over, but she had her finger over her lips. “Do you want to hear my new favorite song?”
Roland crossed his arms. “Yeah, play it.”
Skylar pulled up a terminal with some new pop song. She cranked up the volume really loud and hit play. The eccentric beat of the Floating Zebras began pumping out of her terminal, which pulsed to the beat.
Roland made a face.
Skylar pulled up a new terminal that showed a map of the Pinnacle headquarters building. She motioned for Roland to come closer. “We can talk quietly now. I want to make sure they aren’t listening.”
Roland’s face turned serious, and he nodded.
Skylar pointed to a few locations on the map. “This is going to be our first chance to really scope out Pinnacle. We need to try and see where they might have stored info about your dad.”
Roland whispered. “Where do you think is the most likely place?”
Skylar pointed to a spot on the map. “There are two places, I think. The first is their datacenter. That’s where they have all their servers and data storage devices.” She pointed at another spot on the map. “This is their financial department. I’d bet they have some very sensitive data there.”
Roland pointed at the spot on his arm where his locator was installed. “What about this thing? They tracked me all through the race with it. I’m sure they can tell where I am now.”
Skylar pulled up another terminal that had code continually flying by. “I’ve been working on that almost the whole time you were sleeping. It’s not quite worked out yet, but I am working on a way to spoof your location. Then we will be able to show you being here in the room, instead of in an unauthorized area looking for the information we need.”
Roland nodded. “Ok, good. But for the tour, I just follow along with the group to see what I can see, right?”
Skylar closed her terminal. “Yep, that’s it. Just be on the lookout. All right, you better go, or you’ll miss lunch.”
Roland opened the door. “Oh no, wouldn’t want that now, would we? You going to order something up for you?”
Skylar waved him off. “My soybean burger is on its way up now.”
Roland made a face and then closed the door. He made his way to the cafeteria. There was a Pinnacle employee at the entrance with a barcode scanner. Roland held out his arm. His arm lit up green as soon as it was scanned.
“Welcome to the Contestants’ lunch, sir.” The employee motioned for him to head in.
Roland was greeted by the savory smell of fine cuisine. He looked around the room. Buffet tables lined the outer edges of the room, each with a different type of food. Servi
ng staff in white uniforms and tall, white chef hats served up food to the contestants. Roland smelled hamburgers and made a beeline for that table. He loaded up his tray with two juicy looking, one pound burgers and a small mountain of french fries and onion rings. Then he found an empty table and sat down.
A few bites into his burger, Enrique sat down across from him with a plate of grilled chicken and broccoli. “I can’t believe you eat like that all the time.” He shook his head.
Roland grinned and picked up a piece of bacon that had escaped his burger and popped it into his mouth. “Got to keep my energy levels up.”
Enrique stabbed a piece of steamed broccoli with his fork. “It’s not fair. I have an app that monitors my caloric intake and alerts me when I’m approaching my caloric threshold. You, on the other hand, top your meat with more meat.”
Roland nodded toward Enrique’s broccoli. “Shouldn’t you at least put some cheese or something on that?”
Enrique used his silverware to deftly cut into his chicken. “I can’t. Although, occasionally my app does allow me to add salt.”
Roland finished his first burger and picked up his second. He lifted the bun so Enrique could see. “I didn’t just add meat for my toppings. I added extra cheese, too. I had the server guy stack four layers of cheese on here.”
Dumbfounded, Enrique shook his head again. “If I want to stay trim and fit, I can’t eat more than eight hundred and seventy-five calories in a single meal.”
Roland chuckled. “I have to eat between three thousand and five thousand calories.”
Enrique sprinkled a few grains of salt on his chicken. “Wow, a day?”
Roland grabbed a few french fries and wrapped them in bacon. “No way. I’d starve to death. I need three to five thousand calories per meal.”
Enrique just sighed and went back to cutting his plain chicken.
Nano Contestant - Episode 3: Combat Obstacles: The Technothriller Futuristic Science Fiction Adventure of a Cyberpunk Marine (Nano Contestant Series) Page 1