Whispers on an Undying World

The Castle

Micha continued to go through the contents of the bag, pulling out the short range transmitter. Now that Micha had a minute to think, she started working the problem.

The transmitter she had was mainly external however she could still attempt to use it; she needed a numbing agent so the host wouldn’t feel the need to take it out. For all she knew, they could use this one rather than the long range. It was faster to make but it had to be shot from ten feet away. They were aggressive so it would be harder to hit so it was less likely to work but she already had three finished.

“What’s your plan?” Thomas was watching her tinker with something that looked like an octopus. “You do have one right?”

“Something like that.” She stopped and looked at him.

“How do those work?”

Micha looked up at him and saw he was genuinely curious about her contraption. “So they were originally designed to be shot in with a small dart gun, these little arms deploy just below the skin in an inch diameter. When they’re in there they track the patient’s vitals much like a vital machine at a hospital. There is a little computer in the head of it that continuously sends out information to the mother. It only records about two minutes of information; the rest of it is stored on the mother system so if we lose contact we will only get two minutes out of the bug.”

Frowning Thomas asked, “I don’t see how they won’t know it’s in them.”

Looking over at him, Micha smiled lightly. “Numbing agent.”

“And you think this will survive impact?”

Micha jumped to her next question without answering his. “How close do you think you can get someone to one of them?”

“We’re trying to avoid close contact, ten yards?” He sighed and took out his phone to call someone. “Right now they’re just watching, from the ones that are dead they took blood samples. The people on the ground are mainly concerned in keeping them contained. Before we left they got through another barrier. People surrounding the area were evacuated but that area is getting bigger by the hour.”

Sighing, Micha continued messing with it. “Can you get me a fast acting numbing agent? Something that works in small doses?” After nodding, Thomas called someone on the other side. He started explaining what was happening here while getting updates from their side. Everything that Micha asked for would be waiting for her in a mobile lab; they were going to rendezvous with them on the way. They were going to have to work on the go, after telling them that she could make some short range ones before even getting to them.

They were making preparations of their own, just in case Micha’s tinkers didn’t work. Instead of taking the helicopter, they flew down the highway and Micha didn’t waste any of the time she had.

Two hours in and Mike was online, he linked in to the servers and was able to see everything happening in Sac. He called her when he got enough information from what was coming through the com to kind of understand what was going on.

She answered with her earpiece, it helped that she didn’t have to hold a phone. “Hey Mike, what do you have up so far.”

Mike sighed; she could hear the generator in the background. The computer took up the most power however now they would have everything active at the Castle. That much power would zap the solar powered batteries dry so they would need to use the generator until all of the solar panels were online.

“The computers are up; I’ve been looking for reports but I’m not finding any feed having to do with Sac. Everything is getting wiped as soon as it goes up. So I got into the camera systems and that led me to a back door someone already set up, the government is all over this. I found a few direct links that they haven’t shut down yet, I was able to answer some SOS calls and they were able to give me a taste of what happened down there. I forwarded them to some open channels to get them help. What the hell exploded down there?”

Laughing, Micha shook her head knowing that he couldn’t see it. “You have no idea how much worse it is. Listen, get everyone you can to go through the data I’m going to get you into. It’s going to get really chaotic real quick, but there is still a chance of containing it. Any requests?”

“We have the triplets set up in the black room, they can handle the data dumps but we need direct access if the system is going to be of any use at all. We keep getting cluttered with dozens of outside sources.”

“I’m on it. Get Jerry to set up the solar as fast as possible, that should help you reach into the dead zone.” Micha grabbed her phone and gave it to Thomas. “Get the lab on the phone, we need a conference call.”

“You can’t call it from outside phones.”

She stopped and looked at him. “Can your phone call it?”

“Yes.”

She shook her fingers out for it, frowning he gave it to her. She held their phones back to back and slid her thumb along the side. It began to glow, when it dimmed she held out her phone again. “Call them from mine, if your mom isn’t there then tap her in. I have a feeling that if she doesn’t know everything then she’ll lose her compassion for our little science experiment.”

He scoffed at her until he went to call the number and found that it worked. Then she smiled. “I copied your code, you got them?”

Thomas nodded, after telling the person on the other end what was happening he handed the phone to her. She found the right app and held it, waiting for the call to transfer to her headset. A beep told her when it was done. After going through her bag she found a second head set and handed it to Thomas. “Is everyone hearing me alright?”

She heard agreements from multiple lines then continued working. “Now that we can talk freely Mike, tap the link through this line and get any information you don’t already have and get everyone at the Castle working on it. Set a two way link so any new data will go to the other.”

“I’m already on it. Who are we with?”

“Miss Anderson, what are you doing?”

Sighing Micha shook her head. “The voice you just heard was Dr. Samantha Rosenberg; she’s the head of this little experiment. If she has any requests then you do your best to get them done, but your way. Got it?” Looking at Thomas, he rolled his head.

“Dr. Rosenberg, its Thomas. Micha has a plan; I think it’s a good idea to give it a shot.” He kept from groaning but his voice was reluctant. Micha guessed that he was trying to not regret his involvement in this stunt.

They could hear her suck her teeth then give in. “Fine. Then please enlighten us Miss Anderson.”

Smiling at Thomas she nodded. “I think you’ll love it. Right now I have three short range devices; by the time I get to the mobile lab I should have five. By the way you couldn’t have done that better than if I had asked you to, nice job on getting the lab closer to ground zero.”

“The point Miss Anderson.”

“Ha, right. I have some crew members up in the mountain that have twice as many links you’ve managed to get. They just linked into your sources so they can filter out any irrelevant data that gets sent to your servers. Leave that to them and your guys can focus on the intricate stuff, I want to be on the ground so if there is anything that needs adjusting it can be done then. If you need anything done, we will all be connected so there will be almost no drag time.” Micha finished her fourth dart, setting it aside. “Mike, you’ll be Castle. Matt, you there?”

He stayed silent until now, his voice became louder. “Yeah I’m here, you came out of your shell miss I-ain’t-nothing-special.” Laughing for a second he continued. “Garett and Sean are here too, they put you on the stereo so they’ve been listening. We were close before, they let us in on all the garbage. Do you have any plans for us?”

“You have all of the files that they have correct?”

“Yeah, we split it up so I think we’re caught up.” In the background they could hear someone else. “That’s true, so we noticed that they are still highly social, there hasn’t been one of those crazies that have been alone. Hey Garett, pull up that video of the US bank.” Clicking filled the head piece then Mike gasped.

“I can’t see what you’re seeing.” Micha rolled her eyes.

Mike answered. “It’s a dog, there a bunch of bloody people running down the road passing right by this dog. Are you thinking that they go by smell?”

Matt laughed again. “That’s what we were thinking; they are already inhumanly strong so it’s possible that their other senses have been heightened.”

“Good job, to get into contact with each other so we don’t have to be online the entire time just say your code name then other sides. Any data you have will be sent to Dr. Rosenberg and her team. Her team will go by the Doctor, Matt you guys are the Lab, and Thomas and myself will be eagle.” Micha looked over to Thomas. “For example, eagle to Lab. When you’re not in conference you have to initiate the call, the voice system will call if you just say that. Dr. Rosenberg, is this alright with you?”

She sighed; clearly having a plan made without her was drawing on her nerves. “Get it done. The Doctor out.” A click told everyone that she was gone.

“Ok.” Micha tried to not care. “You guys keep working; I’ll try and get these done before getting to the Lab. If anything happens, call me. Eagle out.” The headset shut off before they could answer, she snickered at her little joke. The voice system associated Dr. Rosenberg’s exit as the hang up command, now they could use it to end conversations.

The silence was deafening, Micha could feel that Thomas had something to say but was holding it back. After a few minutes Micha spoke. “What is it?”

Thomas was on a computer, the sound of his typing slowed. “Why do you assume that silence is a question?”

Working on the fifth octo, she kept her eyes to herself. “The only data that I have of you suggests it is.”

Thomas chuckled, the typing stopped. “That data says so?”

“Yes.”

The typing starts again. “Then your data is wrong this time, the silence is just silence.”

“Ok.”

Silence again. “Is it possible that the question is yours not mine?”

That made her pause; she looked up at him curiously. “I guess it is.”

“You don’t seem like a guessing person.” His voice was soft, like he was trying to keep the conversation between the two of them.

Micha lowered her voice in response. “That’s a reasonable conclusion. Engineering doesn’t leave much room for guessing.”

“So what’s your question?”

She paused for a moment then asked. “We went to school together?”

“Had a few classes together in the ninth grade. English, math and p.e., you don’t remember me.” He did not sound bothered, just a statement.

“I don’t remember a lot from that time, its not personal.” She stopped and looked at him. “You remember what classes we had?”

Nodding, he typed away. It must have been a report of what was happening. “Yes, you never spoke but when you did it was the funniest thing to witness. Do you remember the six pack?”

She started laughing; these six teenagers were the most popular in the grade. When they decided they were a group they called themselves the six packs, stuck with them all through high school. “How could I forget the six pack?”

He laughed with her. “No one could. They always talked!”

“Oh! I remember there being a day that I was just not having it, they were being rude to the lady teacher and blew.” By this point they were laughing loudly.

“You screamed ‘shut up you morons, if anyone needs to pay attention it’s you six!’ I’ll never forget the look on Carters face, she was proud and mad.”

For the rest of the drive they talked about the dramas of their mutual high school. Some things that Micha never understood, Thomas had the other half of the story and vice versa.