Whispers on an Undying World

The Lab

Sometime a few hours in, Micha received a ping from the Castle. She got up and headed to another room so she could speak in private. It was Dawn, she was twelve years older than Micha and yet it didn’t matter in the least. She was one of the strongest people that Micha knew and also the most cautious.

Micha sat on the bathroom floor and called her directly. After two rings Dawn picked up. “Hello?”

“Dawn?”

“Micha.”

It was clear to Micha that this conversation was going to be a long one, but necessary. Dawn was one of the main leaders of the Castle; if she felt it wasn’t safe to work with these people she could talk anyone out of anything. This conversation was to establish whether or not it was a good choice.

“Where do you want me to start?”

Her voice was harsh, she was mad. “The beginning.”

“Ok.” She began from the art museum, leaving no details out. It was a very long conversation but a necessary one. It helped her figure out where she stood in all of this, and it made her understand that as of right now the company had the largest influence on how the future was going to be.

One thing was overwhelmingly clear, if the infection was to spread beyond Sacramento there would be no stopping it. The best thing that they could do now was slow it, gain enough time to come up with some sort of antidote. If an antidote doesn’t exist then they would need to find the next best thing, whatever that may be.

“Thomas is the one you trust then?”

After pausing, Micha answered. “I trust him. He caused all this death; he will do anything to fix it. Plus if we have him on our side we should keep favor with his mom.”

“Micha, this is a catastrophic event. If the end of life as we know it balances on favor then we might as well abort now and start on damage control.”

“This is damage control. If you can live knowing that you could have helped stop the insane amount of suffering that is coming but didn’t, then you aren’t the person I thought you were.” Micha stopped, waiting for a response, when silence answered her she continued. “We have an actual fighting chance to get ahead of this. Please trust in us, all of us working together can get us that win.”

“Are you willing to die for that win?”

“I’m putting everything on the line for this win, we all need to or we die. When I tell you that this is one way you don’t want to die I mean it. It’s horrible.” When she closed her eyes, she could see that poor man’s eyes slowly going dark. The only thing she could do was calmly watch him go to a place she couldn’t. “Please fight with me Dawn.”

“You’re crying aren’t you?”

“Maybe.” That made her laugh; although she didn’t let it show Micha was an emotional person.

Sighing, Dawn answered. “You know I can’t say now after a pep talk like that. I’m in. Be careful.”

Five cramped hours later and Micha met with the Lab. They stayed off the radio for the most part but when they did get there Micha finished five short range and one long. It was a pain but Micha was going to have to fit them into the bullets so they didn’t mess up the mechanics.

There were no other mechanics on board so the problem fell onto Micha’s shoulders; however it was Thomas that solved it. He picked one up after seeing her being frustrated for too long and tinkered with it for a few minutes.

He chuckled and set the bullet in front of her. “Twist while inserting, not before.”

Micha looked at the closed bullet then at him. “Good catch.”

Thomas sat beside her, their knees touching. “Thanks for the praise?”

Micha tried his way for a few seconds and it slid right into the casing. “No. Recognition.” Out of the corner of her eye Micha could still see an unanswered question. “You don’t normally work with the same people for long periods of time do you?”

He picked up another octopus and began putting it into another casing. “How could you tell?”

“Well for one you don’t have a place on the bus.”

“And?”

“You don’t really fit in with the muscles or the brains. You are smart and fit, yet you don’t actually get on with anyone.” She paused and looked at his unfazed face. “Then there is positive reinforcement. If someone does something well and it’s not acknowledged they don’t feel acknowledged. They don’t work as hard if they don’t feel needed.”

His sincere look made it feel like he actually listened to her. Instead he stood up and hit her on the shoulder. “Cool.”

They were on the semi-truck now, loaded in the back that was a fully functioning lab. Internet and monitoring systems were available.

Dr. Rosenberg wasn’t in the semi but instead back at the place Micha thought was Portland until told otherwise.

They stopped outside an in-and-out so that Micha could get on the truck. However before driving off, Micha convinced them to get some food. She had the point that she hadn’t eaten since yesterday and it was hard to focus on this with her stomach growling.

Sitting on one of the spinning chair, Micha was eating a monster burger with the large fries and a soda. Matt had taken it upon himself to talk to Micha everyone, including her as much as possible. She just assumed it was to keep everyone in the loop, which was actually very comforting.

Now they were doing their best to get through the traffic that this thing caused so they could go to the nearest outpost.

The truck rarely got above twenty.

Now that Micha was on board they were able to show her what they got so far. Not that it was very helpful; Micha went through all of it. It was when they were passing Corning that they got a call from the Doctor asking for an update.

Micha answered the call, putting it on speaker so anyone could talk into their newly acquired earpieces and it could be sent to the Castle and the Doctor. Micha heard her voice first, it was mostly annoyed that she actually had to say, “The Doctor to the Lab.” Laughing, Micha answered.

“The Lab here, what can I help you with?”

“This isn’t a game Miss Anderson, change the settings so I can just speed dial you.” Micha could almost see the Doctor holding the bridge of her nose.

“No can do. How the voice system works is by activating when certain phrases are said so that the people who can’t use their hands, for example I have my hands busy with a long range sensor bullet that if I let go now I will have to start over while wasting a half hour of work.” When Micha just got a sigh she continued speaking. “Plus it’s a waste of time to re-enter all of the phrases we already have in place, I thought you wanted all hands on deck?”

“Miss Anderson, why is it that every time you speak you manage to irritate me, yet say something productive?”

Laughing, Micha used her pliers to hold the last few arms of her machine together then pushed it shut before answering. “You know, Dr. Rosenberg, I’ve been asked that question since the fourth grade. I must say that it has to be a gift or something.” Looking to her right, she watched Matt finish copying her. He was the only one that could watch her make something and copy it perfectly. With a click, his bullet was finished. “Two more long range finished. I was right about Matt, he’s a great help thanks for agreeing to that.”

“That’s great Miss Anderson, how many can you get done before arriving?” In the background we could hear an echo telling her that they were on intercom.

“Well, your lab here has a lot better tech than I do so we should have at least fifteen done if we keep hitting this bad of traffic.” She loaded up the tip into a small sleeve that held the other heads. “So the Castle called a bit ago telling us that you sent some people with spider like bullets that were supposed to be equivalent to my machines to test out the bullets. From what he was saying it seems like the host’s are tearing them out in less than ten minutes. After hearing that we adjusted the machines a little so that it can be shot by a cross bow, that might trick them into thinking they pulled out the weapon but didn’t.”

“Are you suggesting that they have some degree of intelligence Miss Anderson?”

“Yes.”

“Then we are agreed.” Dr. Rosenberg was talking to someone that they couldn’t hear, Micha knew that the Doctor already knew all of this but it was best to explain the reasoning behind it. “I’ll send someone out there with a crossbow then, if it works then make more. Is there anything else that you haven’t shared yet?”

“Dr. Rosenberg, whether you believe me or not is up to you but we are using your computers. You have access to all of what we are doing, the only reason we make changes is because of the information we are getting from you. You have control over what is actually being done, we can only make things for you to use.” Micha went to the 3d machine and looked over the little chips it was printing out. With this she was able to load all her information for the computer to spit out the most compact version of the device. “With the machines here I was able to print out the mini chips that are in the head, they are logged into the computer already so you’ll notice that they also have tracking traits. Also the upgrade made it so we can be as much as five miles away from the chip rather than just a half mile. I also implemented all that we talked about before. Sean was able to make the dart almost un-noticeable, as soon as it makes contact it will be numbed. It’s a local numbing agent so it won’t go and alert the virus that it is in there.”

“Good. Is there any way to test them?”

“Sure, shoot someone.”

“Is that your answer for everything Miss Anderson?”

Laughing, Micha stood and went to one of the windows while looking outside. “I watched a guy covered in blood rip a woman’s arm right off.” Micha wished she could see the woman’s face right about now, but she doubted that it would be any different than normal. “So yes, that is my response for everything right now.” Turning around, she loaded then handed one of the special dart guns to Thomas. “Thomas, you should do the honors.” Facing her back to him, she did her best to not tense. “Aim at the fatty part of my back, just below the shoulder blade.”

“Wha… I’m not going to shoot you Micha.” Thomas put the gun down and grabbed her shoulder.

Sighing, Micha turned around and grabbed the gun from the counter. “McCoy, will you do what I said?”

He paused long enough for Dr. Rosenberg to order him to do so. “Do it. Miss Anderson is correct; the only way to test it is by shooting someone. However it would be better if you shot someone else.”

Micha walked forward and gave the gun to him then turned around. “Thomas go to the computer and watch my vitals, you’re on the job in case you forgot.”

“Shoot me instead.” Thomas tried to push her aside but her laughter stopped him.

“I gave you a job, I’m not the biologist. I am an engineer. This is my device, that one is yours. Go do it.” Her cold voice caught him off guard; she tried to not use her command voice but now was the time she had to. Just as she intended, he scoffed then went to his machine waiting for new information to pop up. “McCoy, you’re up.” Turning around, he didn’t even hesitate. She lurched forward without meaning too; it felt like being hit by a paint gun but the numbing set in twenty seconds later so she only felt an oddly numb spot.

It went online by the time she was able to talk.

Thomas got a profile of Micha on the screen, which he wasn’t expecting. “Besides a lot of stress, her vitals are normal. Are you guys seeing this?” They could see everything about her from her blood pressure to her white blood cell count. “It also registered as Micha.”

“Miss Anderson, your report.”

“It is the oddest feeling, besides that its working great.” She pulled up the back of her shirt so the others could look at the entrance wound. “It’s supposed to just look like a BB bullet head. How does it look?”

Matt was the one to look, he walked up and began messing with the numb spot. “It’s like a really big black head, you can’t even see the little arms. Did you do trials before this?”

“Not human trials, not even living trials. We got to dissect a pig and after they were done with it they let me run some tests. My school got used to my odd requests; I got them more funding so they stopped caring.” Pulling her shirt down, she walked to the screens and looked at her report. “Are you looking at my vitals?”

“Yes, why does it have a report about your person?” It was the first time that she seemed interested and not annoyed.

“That’s a secret egg. As long as the person you shoot has gone to a hospital and given blood their history will be found. Part of the upgrade included a background. The little computer in each shot will extract the dna sequence and put it through the blood database you have, if they had any type of medical history before that you should rule out certain factors. I thought it would help with the data collection, there might be something that those people had in common that made that mutation accelerate.” Patting the concerned Thomas on the shoulder, Micha sat down next to him. “At the bottom there is a release, if you want to get it out without breaking the octopus. When it pulls out it will take enough blood protected in its arms that you can have your sample. Push the release, shoot the host, go in and get the machine.”

“I must admit, you’ve done more than I thought you could.”

“You should thank Sean for that last bit, he gave me the idea.” When Micha originally made the device there was the option to retain blood but Micha didn’t think it would come in handy. A simple tweak to the design and it was set.

Micha looked over to see the man smiling slightly while looking over a police camera, he had been watching through every video that showed the infected so he could see if there was any behavioral trait that they shared. It was the first time she saw a positive emotion from him, it was like he was always lost in thought and didn’t have time for showing emotions.

“I’ll send my gratitude when we have a handle on this. Get back to work and make more of them. Doctor out.”

Snorting, Micha loved that she initiated that voice command. Thomas looked over at her, frowning. “What? It’s funny. That’s straight from Star Trek.”

Matt leaned back in his chair, smiling at her. “Seriously? Come on you’re a nerd?” When she nodded he shook his head and took a drink of soda. When he set it down he looked back at his screen. “I can’t believe we’re following a nerd.”

Yawning, Micha got comfortable and closed her eyes for a minute. The lack of sleep was catching up to her. “Hey, that is Queen nerd to you.”

Their playful banter continued on for another hour or so, getting sillier by the moment. Even Sean had to join in after a while; it ended up being an enjoyable experience considering what they were heading to. Maybe that was why everyone was joining in. They were heading straight for the front line; some happiness was needed to get them through what was coming.

Thomas watched her for a bit, noticing the dark circles under her eyes for the first time. “There should be a bed back there, you should take a nap.”

Opening her eyes, she glanced over at him then the back of the trailer. The left side was the bathroom, she hadn’t thought about what was in the small room to the right side. “You don’t have to tell me twice.” Getting up, Micha started to walk away but Thomas pointed at her back.

“Why don’t you take that thing out?”

Shaking her head she opened the door, seeing bunk beds mounted in the walls. “Having it in for a few minutes won’t make your mom comfortable; I’ll leave it in until we get the others online. See you in a bit.” Closing the door behind her, Micha jumped on the bottom bed and was quickly asleep.

Outside they continued working, doing their best to keep getting information and working with the Castle and the Doctor. It wasn’t easy, there were times that getting directions from both ends were a hassle but it was the only way to make any progress.

Thomas worked with Sean to try and make a profile of each types of infected but it was more difficult than they thought, although there distinct types of infected they couldn’t figure out why they were different. An alert popped up on Thomas’s screen around twenty minutes later that told him that Micha’s heart rate dropped along with her breathing.

Without looking over Sean asked, “What was the alert?”

“Micha’s heart rate dropped, I think she might have taken off any boundaries when it sent information to the computer so the system is trying to make some. Assuming that it made a normal zone, when she dropped out of it, the octopus sent a report to our attention.”

“So she fell asleep.” He sounded like he didn’t need an explanation.

Sighing, Thomas nodded and minimized the alert. Matt chose then to pop up between then while holding out two cups of coffee. “Hey your mom is awesome; she got us a coffee machine!” Laughing, he trotted off to his seat. If Thomas hadn’t know better they would have been on a field trip with how everyone had been acting, yet they were somehow getting things finished ahead of what was planned with upgrades. These kids were all odd yet worked together so oddly well that it was like they had been working with each other since the beginning. If they managed to be helpful Thomas could see a program getting set up for them, they might even be put on emergency call.