Bloodlines

Chapter Four: All Things Being Equal...

Joann fumbled in the dark for a moment as she moved towards George, her hands and fingers moving over objects to find her way.
"What the hell?" George whispered in the dark ahead of her.
"I think our mystery friend ran his script again." She replied.
"How? It was only a fragment." He responded.
"I don't know. Maybe its been imbedded in more than one system?" She theorized.
She heard the sound of him smacking his forehead. A moment later he was moving in the dark and there was sudden light coming through a doorway.
"Come on, we need in the core. Anita's backup power should get me access to those logs."
He slid through the crack he'd made in the doorway. Once on the otherside he attempted to open it further, but Joann waved him off and followed him through.
They were in a small tunnel lined with light strips at the bottom. It had no openings save for the door they'd come through and another at the end, which was only about ten feet away.
The oddity of the short hall became understandable as they opened the other door -which seemed to be connected to Anita's backup power suply.
The room beyond was enormous. The hall they'd come through was a rectangle dangling in mid-air above a pit so deep, Joann doubted you'd see the bottom even with lighting from full power. The room was filled with that murky, almost twilight like blue light, it came from energy flows showing through a transparent material in the metal itself. It looked like a giant, blazing blue trail of circuitry running along the walkways, patches of wall, and flowing towards the center of the room, which was home to a multi-tiered column in the center. Each tier seemed to be a circular walkway made of the same grating as what they were now walking across. As they neared the column, a computer screen transitioned out of its mass flipping around to orient to them. It flashed once, then booted, momentarily showing:

Autonomous
Neuro
Interfacing
Thought
Algorithm
A.N.I.T.A. OS loading in Forced Safe Mode

"Damn, I was afraid of that." George said, more to himself Joann thought.
"What?" She asked anyway.
"The way the power was cut has made Anita's systems put her in safe mode. Her higher functions are not loaded to protect her core programming from possible corruption."
"That...went over my head." Joann admitted, more than a little embarassed.
George only smiled and pointed at the screen, which was now at a prompt that said:

Load Command Line Interface
Load Graphical Interface

Voice Command Interface not available in a Forced Safe Mode Environment.

"I can't boot Anita into full consciousness in this state.
Pretty much, she's like any other computer on board ship. Just more powerful." He said.
Joann nodded, thinking maybe she got the gist of that. She smiled ruefully at herself.
George thought a moment, then chose graphical interface and a loading screen appeared, showing the percentage loaded.
It zipped up to 100% faster than she could blink. The desktop was a strange mix of black and neon blue outlines for icons. Joann didn't recognize anything she saw.
"First, lets look at those log files." George seemed to bectalking to.the computer, so Joann remained silent as he opened windows with that same color scheme of neon blue on black. For some reason the colors made her feel sick to her stomach. She didn't see anyplace to sit down though.
"Chairs are not allowed inside the core. Too much chance they might become projectiles and damage my girl here." He patted the computer screen as he shrugged.
"Saw me looking, huh?" She asked.
At this he outright laughed, "Not at all...its almost always what someone new to a core does. Either look for a seat, or ask where they are."
Joann looked around as he worked, trying to see what the other tiers had on them. As she circled around the piller she found rungs attached to it that led up to the next tier. She looked up but couldn't really see anything. She judged the spacing between tiers to be somewhere around 20 feet.
"I think I found something!" George called to her and she hurried back to him.
"What is it?" She asked.
"Her logs indicate that during our cruise, when only one person was awake on caretaker duty, there were several errors regarding the cryostasis pods. I'm trying to track down which pod it was. That has to be whoever is getting out. No matter how crazy that is."
Joann nodded. "How long do you think the power down will last?"
"I only saw a fragment of the script, so I'm not sure. I have Anita searching for any scripts with matching phrasing or variations of it on her systems." He responded absently.
"Hmmmm." Joann said back, as she scanned the room. She couldn't explain it if someone had asked, but something felt off. Everything this person did was for a reason. To hide who they are. Why they woke themselves from cryo-sleep. What was this power down achieving?
Suddenly Joann's eyes and nose were assaulted by a strange, somewhat musky odor. It made her breath catch and her eyes water. She looked over and saw that George was having the same reaction. Then her mind clicked and her eyes widened.
"George! Its you! This is all about getting you alone in the core!" She yelled at him, "Only...you are not alone..." She added quietly.
She whirled about, then looked up.
There, two tiers above them, was a shape. It was moving around, seeming confused. As George ran to her side, it leaped off the walkway and fell into the datkness below them. She heard it grab onto something and make a pained grunting noise.
Joann grabbed George by the wrist and ran for the door. She shoved George through, then tossed herself in. The door sealed behind them.
"What the hell was that?" George demanded, "It was misshappen! Could it have been a man?!"
"George...shut up. Please. I don't think its gone. We have to go. Now!" This last said in panic as the door started to cycle open.
They squeezed back into the small ante-chamber, where George began trying to reroute power to the door.
"George, what the hell are you doing? Use the manual release!"
George stuttered an apology as he fumbled with the emergency door release.
As soon as the door unlocked, Joann was pushing George through and following, trying to see in the pitch black of the powered down main ship.
That smell was getting stronger again. It seemed to eminate from...whatever that was.
She nearly dragged George with her, trying to find her way to engineering, the closest place with other people.
Behind them in the dark was a strange sound, like rending metal. Joann swore she heard angry cursing. Whatever it was, it was following them, but not very closely and not very fast.
What the hell is it waiting for? Joann wondered. Maybe it can't see either? Or maybe it was hurt from the fall?
That stench was all around her, it was all she could do to not puke. Were they even going the right way? Why the hell had she not grabbed a flashlight? How stupid. She knew there was a possibility another power down could happen.
Come on, Jo. She thought to herself, Self-recriminations can wait until later!
Suddenly she was jerked backwards, falling onto her backside. George was screaming. Whatever that thing was, it had him. She heard a wet ripping sound and George screamed again. His scream was so loud, it reverberated up and down the hall in the darkness.
Joann scrambled to her feet and charged that sound, right into the very heart of that horrid smell. It was like a rotted fruit mixed with a musky smell, and this time she really did throw up. The creature backed away from her, and dropped George as it did. Between retching her guts up, she could hear George whimpering and crying. At least he was alive!
The creature made a strange sound, a whine of anguish so brutal and lost, it slammed into her eardrums and rattled in her head. It sounded so...human...and yet...
Her thoughts were cut off as Varley, Lorna and Gina showed up, flashlights shining. Joann looked around, but the creature was gone. She looked over to poor George and tears came to her eyes.
A long, ragged slash ran diagonally down his face, where his left eye had been was a mauled and destroyed blob, even the orbital socket was ruined. His upper lip was split in two and a chunk of his lower lip was missing. His right eye stared at her, tears streaming from it. But the eye was glassy and he made no sounds.
She stood up and motioned to the others to pick him up.
"He's in shock, get him to Vincent!"
She looked back the way they'd come. "Give me a flashlight." She said to no one in particular. Feeling one pressed into her hand she shown its light ahead of her and moved to the wall dowb the corridor.
"What is it?" Lorna called.
Joann pressed her hand against the metal sheeting of the bulkhead. It was shredded, as if by claws. That was the sound she'd heard: it had torn into the metal.