Alcatraz's condition didn't get much better as the hours past, in fact it probably got worse. The reddish tint on his skin actually got darker, His fever was hovering over 99, which was already dangerous territory for a synthetic, seeing as how they were supposed to run "cold", or less than 80. Jacob and I kept a close eye on him as Tyler tried, again and again, to lock Martin out of his Exo skeleton, but didn't have any luck. Matt stayed close by him, trying to keep him awake because we were worried if he went under that he might not wake up. If Alcatraz kicked the bucket, I'd be up in that tower tonight to murder the fuck out of Martin and anything that stood in my way.
"No luck", Tyler said as he entered the lounge with Sarah, "I tried everything from a simple security switch to a complete soft and Firmware rewrite, Martin still controls Al's Exo."
"Man just can't lose any opportunity to screw with us", I sighed, "he's gonna pay for this."
"Assuming you can make it up there", Tyler said, "in addition to working on Al's Exo, "I've been keeping tabs on the lab and Tower security systems. Biological agents are pinging all over the lab, Red Star is spreading very, very quickly. If it keeps spreading like this the Lab will go into Lockdown and then detonation."
I sighed, "neither of those sounds very good. What's lockdown?"
"Lockdown is when the AI closes and seals every possible door", Sarah said, "then it will deploy Security bots to sweep and clear any bio-mechanical or Biological life form it detects. Unfortunately for us, these bots are armed with flamethrowers, the idea is that any life form is unable to survive intense heat, to say nothing of an open flame."
"I can guess what detonation is", I sighed, "question is, if sweep and clear fails, how far will the explosion spread the contamination?"
Sarah shook her head, "no telling. Seeing as how our self destruct is composed of platinum based Thermobarics, their pretty efficient. The system pumps pure oxygen into the air to bring the content to 20 percent, which is enough to knock out humans..."
"But not me", I sighed, "or Magellan, Matt or Al. What happens after that?"
Sarah sighed and looked at Jacob.
"It Sparks and sets the air on fire", Jacob said, "the air heats to a million degrees for almost two minutes. I've seen video of what this kind of system can do to a building, to say nothing of flesh and blood."
"So what's the good news?", Alcatraz asked, managing to speak for the first time in hours.
"It's quick", Jacob sighed, "that temperature will kill you in 1/100th of a second, quicker than you can blink."
"Okay, so Detonation won't spread around Red Star", I said, "so let's hope it doesn't come to that. Sarah, have you made any kind of headway on the vaccine?"
"Barely", Sarah said, "I have the base of Red Star's DNA down. Now, the task is finding the right scissor, and writing it to target the correct Gene. Red Star was pretty easy to map, but the way it's codded is like a fucking Rubik's cube."
"I hate those things", James said, "there difficult as hell to solve."
"There like a math problem", Alcatraz said.
"For some people their not that hard", Sarah said, "I believe that the record is like five seconds. Still, I've never seen biological code written like that before, I'm not even sure I can brake it."
"In that case I have our next target", James said looking at me, "son, first thing tomorrow, you and Mike take a trip to Area 7 on Floor six."
"That place was a deathtrap even before the out brake", Mike said, "you want us to go up there?"
YOU ARE READING
Isolation-#Wattys2015
FanfictionI went into this job thinking it was just another bug hunt, some Scientist dude who got careless with his vials and spawned nothing more than some blood thirsty flesh craving fruit fly or a huge snake. I thought it would be in, kill the monster, get...
