I don't own any of the characters from MI High. I have borrowed them and thrown in a plot.
"Yes, of course. It would be very convenient," agreed Frank. "Come on," he said, smiling and taking her hand. He lead her to his personal quarters at the back of the base complex. "Lights off," he commanded as they left the room. The base fell into darkness.
Early the next day a small group met in the top-secret base under St. Heart's School. Tom had been awake half the night thinking through the information they had found. Aneisha had struggled to sleep. She kept having nightmare visions of Dan's eye's closing as they arrived at the MI9 medical facility. Zoe often had terrible dreams, so the night was no worse than usual.
"Right, team, let's share what we have and we'll decide what we're looking at," began Frank. "This device you encountered yesterday is like nothing we have in MI9 and like nothing we've encountered before. It was capable of flight, but Tom and I didn't find any radio receiver so I don't know how it was controlled."
"I don't think it was controlled," blurted out Tom. "I think it was autonomous," he said.
"What ? In English ?" begged Aneisha.
"It operated on its own," explained Tom excitedly. "It had some basic programming. There wasn't enough memory storage for a lot. It had basic vision capability, so I think it was only able to identify movement. It's a bit like a fly really. It can detect movement and react to it, but it's not able to identify what it's looking at or anything clever like that."
"So all it did was look for the first thing it saw moving about," said Aneisha, "Which was Dan."
"Yes, exactly, and then it did what it was programmed to do," said Tom. "It aimed for the moving target and injected the poison," he said. The excited look froze on his face as he remembered who the poison had been injected into.
"Yes Tom !" exclaimed Frank. "I think you've got it exactly right. Oh and that reminds me," he rummaged around on his cluttered desk top. "This arrived this morning," he said, putting another small plastic sample jar on the table in front of them. They craned to see what was in the jar.
"I can't see anything," said Stella.
"Oh, it is tiny," said Frank, passing her a magnifying glass. "It's the needle which injected the poison. I told the doctors to look for it and they managed to pull it out of the skin in the back of Dan's neck last night." The others all looked at him with various expressions of shock and revulsion. "Oh, Dan was fast asleep. He didn't feel a thing," Frank assured them. "Don't worry."
"How did they make such a tiny needle ?" asked Aneisha.
"It's all amazing," said Tom. "It's leading edge in miniaturisation. I've never seen anything like it, have you Frank ?" he asked.
"No," said Frank. "Have you heard about anything similar ?" he asked Stella. She shook her head.
"Aneisha, the scans you and Dan carried out showed that the facility had stocks of many tiny electronic components. That laboratory you investigated had banks of microscopes. It was a micro-electronics lab of some kind. I believe that they were manufacturing these types of devices," Stella said, pointing to the robot insect. "They also appeared to have their own semi-conductor fabrication facilities. I think that was the equipment which showed up on Dan's scan through the wall of the laboratory," Stella explained.
"Do you think it was a set-up ?" asked Zoe.
Frank and Stella looked at one another. "No," said Frank slowly. "I don't think so. I think they just thought you were getting too nosy and decided to test a device. They certainly didn't care if they killed you or not. They could have used any inert chemical to test with. Instead they decided to kill one of you. Thank goodness it was only one of you," he added.
"Maybe they only had one," suggested Zoe.
The others looked at her. "I think you're right," said Aneisha. "It must have been a prototype. They could have tried to kill us both and we wouldn't have been able to tell anyone about what was going on in that place."
"But if two health inspectors died just after a visit, wouldn't the building be raided and tested for poisons and stuff ?" asked Tom.
"Yes, it would," agreed Frank. "But I agree with Zoe and Aneisha. This device must have been a prototype, so we are not presently faced with an army of tiny poisonous robotic insects," he said. "I think another formal visit to the facility may be in order later today. We've got something else to do first though," he said.
"What's that ?" asked Tom.
"Go and visit Dan, dummy !" said Aneisha.
"Oh, yeah. Course," agreed Tom.
Aneisha was relieved to find Dan propped up in bed, with a pile of pillows behind him. He still looked weak, but was able to give them all a smile when they came into the room. Zoe kissed him gently on the cheek. "What was it ?" Dan asked, in a quiet voice.
"It was a tiny, robotic insect designed to inject poison into anything that moved," explained Tom.
Dan frowned at Tom, taking in what he had just said. "A sort of Frankenstein wasp ?" asked Dan.
"Yes, I guess so," agreed Tom, with a shrug.
Dan looked worried. "How many of those things have they got ?" he asked.
"Oh, we think that it was a prototype," explained Frank. "I won't go into details now, but we think it was the only working prototype they had. We've got some time to stop them, before they start manufacturing large numbers of these things."
"Have we got anything to fight them with ?" asked Aneisha. "Giant fly swatter ?" she asked, half joking.
"You need a wasp spray," suggested Dan, so quietly they could only just make out his words.
Tom looked thoughtful. "Actually, that's not a bad idea," he said.
"I think Dan's joking," Aneisha pointed out.
"Yes, I know that. Still, it's a good idea," said Tom, rubbing the side of his head. "I'll have to think it through," he added.
Aneisha looked at him, bewildered.
Frank was looking at Dan who was clearly tiring. He reached over and squeezed Dan's hand. "I'm glad you're going to be OK Dan," he said. "We'll see you soon. Get plenty of rest because we're going to need you, alright ?" Dan nodded slightly and they all filed out of the room.
Frank turned to the doctor as they left. "How long do you think it will take him to recover fully ?" he asked.
"We don't know exactly," said the doctor. "I hope he should be able to go home in a couple of days. No active duty for a little while after that though," she warned. Frank thanked her and led the others out of the building.