Isolation-#Wattys2015

Excerpt 30- The Scientific Method

When I arrived back at the lab, Sarah, Allen and a third person were waiting there. The new guy was an even six, had blonde hair and blue eyes and was dressed in a pair of cargo pants, new work boots and a white T-Shirt and he had a Sig Sauer P226 strapped to his leg. I handed the boxes of research equipment off to Sarah and then looked the man in his eyes.

"Looks like you finally got your robot body", I smiled.

"No thanks to your lazy ass", Magellan said smiling back, "so Martin blew up the ship huh?"

I nodded, "James fill you in?"

He nodded, "yeah, have you seriously been flying this ship without me for the past five weeks?"

I sighed, "I wish I could tell you no."

Magellan sighed.

"Welcome to the party brother", I said patting him on the shoulder and walking to Sarah's lab, where I found her setting up the equipment, Alcatraz was in the room too, only dressed in that black elastic underwear that I'd seen Navy Infantry back home wearing in water training. He was sitting on an exam table and his Exo was in the corner. He looked like he was drunk off his ass.

"What happened to you?", I asked as he got off the table, wobbling a little.

"Martin happened", Alcatraz said as I helped him steady himself, "he hacked into my Exo and froze all of it's systems, Sarah had to take it off and I felt so lightheaded and dizzy without it that I fell and gave myself a concussion."

"Is that why you look drunk?", I asked.

He nodded, "I guess."

"Okay", I said, "that answers two questions, now here's three, why aren't you dressed?"

"Because he's running a serious fever", Sarah said, "last I checked it was 118, James and I put him in the shower and it only came down to 107. Jacob said that taking his Exo off shocked the computers in his head that handle his electronics and made them overheat. He's lucky that they didn't fry his brain. We need to get his Exo back on but if we do that then Martin will have a direct line to his brain, and seeing as how Exo's like his are custom built to fit your body."

"He's screwed unless you can lock Martin out", I sighed.

"Everything is spinning", Alcatraz said in a light pitched voice, sounding as though he was about to pass out, "I'm burning up too."

Magellan and I helped Al get back up on the table, "you stay put here", I told him, "your too badly disoriented to be up and around."

"Don't have to say that twice", Alcatraz said closing his eyes.

He took a deep breath. I looked him over. His skin had a dark red tint and I could see the wires underneath it. There were two pieces of metal in each arm, one between each elbow and shoulder and one between each of his wrists and elbows. There were also two between his waist and knees and two between his ankle and knee. There was a triangular configuration of bolts sticking out of his chest and there were probably more pieces on his neck and back. His hair was matted with sweat and the areas around his Connection parts were red. The metal itself was dark, making me think that it was hot and that was where his systems were funneling most of the waste heat. All and all, my friend was a mess.

"Martin just can't waste any opportunity to fuck with us", I sighed, "if Alcatraz dies then I'm gonna drop that tower into hell with him still in it."

"And I'll help you", Magellan said, "where the hell are we gonna sleep once this is over? We have no ship."

I sighed, "I'll figure something out. Until then I guess we'll do whatever work comes our way. We won't beable to do the amount of custom work we had on that one for a while, but we'll get back there."