Survival of the Loneliest

Disco Weapon

VEX! HELP! You hear as you were working in your workshop on a private project a couple of weeks after finishing the Titan projects with the engineering youngsters.

As Nik and Phil appear in the cloud of smoke that signifies a TV unit's teleportation ability, Both holding up a non-responsive Mackie.

Clearing off the worktable in the middle of the room by sweeping everything off, you point to it

"Put him up on there you two, what happened?"

We were out on a recon patrol and Mackie found something that he said had music on. He just plugged himself right into it and then he went mad. Started saying some garbled stuff about being some sort of weapon and pumping out this really weird beat. Nik looked stressed rubbing the side of his head casing.

We unplugged him from it which made him go offline. Then the thing he'd plugged into self destructed before I could do anything else. Phil was rightly confused.

"Fuck, right, I can't use my normal laptop for this then. Go to Bayer and ask him for one of the old human laptops that ISN'T connected to the mainframe, tell him I need it like yesterday. He should be in the prototype area of the hangar today. Phil, if he starts grumbling tell him Mackie's life is on the line."

With that Phil vanishes to go get the required laptop. While waiting you get a few things together and copy some files from your laptop to a USB stick. Phil returns a few minutes later and hands you what looks like one of the newer laptops, which you mutter a few prayers in thanks for, under your breath. Grabbing a few cables you connect up the laptop and then plug the cables into the back of Mackie's head as the other two lads had correctly assumed you'd need access there. Finding the last thing Mackie had played on his systems makes you swear.

"Guys, what did this thing he plugged into look like? Did it look similar to this?" With that you showed them a picture, from your usual laptop, of a small DJ booth setup.

YES! That's it!

"Crap. This is going to take me some time. You two go get yourselves repaired while I work on Mackie. And yes I know you prefer me doing it but please, this time, go to the medics so I can put my full attention on this here. Plus I want to try something and I'd rather no Techfolk be around just in case. I think there might be a virus in Mackie and you two got lucky enough to not get it as well. When you come back don't teleport in here, knock on the door and I will let you know if its safe to enter ok?"

Ok Vex, thank you for helping us. We didn't know what to do, we're sorry if unplugging him has made things worse.

"Unplugging him when you did is probably what saved you two from getting whatever this is. Now get going, sooner I start, the sooner I can tell if I can even bring Mackie back."

With that the two leave by walking rather than teleporting. You could tell Phil was tired and that both were hurting. You'd spotted some of their injuries which was obviously due to the machine self destructing, but you really did have to concentrate on Mackie right now. Looking him over you do spot a few injuries on him as well but his head casing was intact thankfully. Letting the other laptop do a troubleshoot test on his systems you spot something concerning. It was a virus, hiding very deep, using a frequency you'd not seen in the Alliance systems before thankfully but for it to be in Mackie now... you were getting concerned. Putting yourself in front of him so when he woke he'd see you, you rebooted his systems to see exactly what the other two had meant about the weird beat.

As Mackie rebooted, it was just as the two had said. You listened for a little while while you let the laptop work. All of a sudden Mackie looked right at you trying to grab for your hand.