Chapter 10
Cutter and Steven entered the room, their guns in their hands ready, just in case a certain creature decided to reappear. The room looked empty but that didn't mean it wasn't that they had learnt from experience.
Keeping their eyes peeled, Cutter and Steven edged further into the room.
Steven thought he saw something move out of the corner of his eye, when he turned and pointed his gun at it he found it had just been a piece of paper floating down from the desk to the floor.
"Crystal? Jack?" Cutter called into the vast space that occupied the room. As he had expected: no response. Taking a quick scan across the room, Cutter concluded that there was no one in this room.
Catching each other's eye, Cutter nodded to the door and the two men began to walk back through it.
As Cutter was almost passed the threshold he heard a loud noise behind him. He turned round in time to see the whole room being tipped upside down in a rippled motion. Cutter caught a glimpse of the creature as it swept its way across the room destructing every attachable thing in the room as he went. Then it disappeared from his view and as he screwed his eyes up squinting to try and find out where the creature had gone, Steven had found it.
It was coming straight towards Cutter, the look in his eyes told Steven that the creature didn't intend to stop. Reacting quickly Steven pointed his gun at the creature and fired, three shots buried themselves into the creature's flesh.
Cutter jumped out the way, getting his bearings as Steven fired the last shot. The creature was clearly still alive and active, despite having three bullets within its chest. While the creature was occupied with Steven, Cutter raised his gun and aimed it so in theory it would end up in the creature's heart.
He fired.
The creature's body slumped to the ground dead.
Steven gave a sigh of relief and looked at Cutter.
"Thanks," Cutter had taken the words out of Steven's mouth. Steven nodded.
"No problem, thank you!" Steven replied, his thanks having lost impact.
"Right let's get out of here, they obviously aren't here." Cutter quickly got motivated and Steven followed suit. The moment forgotten.
Crystal had managed to get the computer to its original state and was now she was just starting to connect the monitor to the screen.
Helen was beginning to get impatient. She could see how close it was to being up and running and was getting restless waiting to get her hands on the computer. Her plan was inches away from being put into action.
Jack had watched his sister with admiration; he had tried his hardest to be help and knew he hadn't quite made the bar. There was nothing else he could do at the moment, apart from watch as Crystal began wiring up the monitor.
There was just one more wire to be slotted in and almost as soon as that was done the screen flicked on.
Helen's eyes lit up as she saw the screen flick into life and she was about to sit at the computer screen and start her work, when Crystal stopped her.
"You can't use it yet, I need to re-install the programs." Crystal told her. Reluctantly Helen backed away and let Crystal continue.
Taking over the seat Crystal worked methodically through the programs. She was halfway through when she took a break, glancing at Helen and making sure she wasn't watching, she clicked on a new program and changed settings. She quickly changed what she needed and then returned to installing the programs. After a few minutes, Crystal took her hand of the keyboard and sank back into the chair.
"That's the last program, now what did you want to do?" Crystal looked at Helen; she had already anticipated what she was going to do and was ready to be ousted out of her chair.
Helen immediately took the keyboard off her and made her get out of her chair. Crystal grinned as she stood by her brother. Jack knew that she had done something to the computer, he just wasn't sure what.
Helen tried typing something into the computer, an error message appeared, getting rid of the message she tried again. The same thing happened. Helen glared at Crystal.
"What did you do to it?" she demanded to know.
Crystal grinned, with a scheming expression at Helen.
"I've changed the settings, the computer is in code." Crystal replied.
"Change it back!" Helen yelled.
"Sorry can't be done, the settings have been changed and saved and you can only access the changes during the installing of the programs." Crystal explained matter of fact-ly.
Grudgingly Helen took a step back from the computer and let Crystal take up her place.
"So, what do you want me to do?" Crystal asked, feeling rather smug now.
Helen sighed, this was how she had planned it, she was meant to tell anyone else about it, that's when things begin to go wrong. But there was now no way else to go about it, if she didn't tell Crystal, then it wouldn't be done at all.
"Block off a room and then sound an alarm." Helen simplified it.
Crystal resisted the urge to say anything, she wouldn't question it. She had already done enough to annoy Helen; she didn't dare take it any further. Taking the first part of the command, she opened the program that she could easily centrally lock all the doors leading to a certain room.
"Right, what room?" Crystal sounded ever so calm for someone who was doing something under direct command of someone who had a gun and was not afraid to use it.
"The front reception, leave one door open."
Crystal highlighted the room and then clicked on 'automatic lockdown' then she highlighted one of the doors and clicked 'unlock'.
Helen watched over her shoulder, scrutinizing her every move to make sure it fitted with her plan.
"Now start an ultrasonic alarm," Was the next order. Crystal had to restrain herself from questioning the command. What use was an ultrasonic alarm? Was it even possible to do that? Assuming that as Helen had commanded her to do it, it must be possible and so she endeavoured to find it on the system.
To her surprise she managed to find it within the section she thought would have nothing in. clicking it, she had only the fact that the computer told her that it was activated to guess that it had worked.
Frowning Crystal looked closer at the screen. The CCTV showing on the left hand side of the screen had things fleeting around heading into the reception room via the door she had unlocked. On closer inspection she found these things to be creatures and they were all heading in to the room.
It had caught Jack's eye too. He leaned in, almost forgetting that his sister was actually sitting in the seat, narrowing his eyes to check it wasn't his vision that was deceiving him. It wasn't what he was seeing was true, yet it seemed so weird. Why was every single creature heading in the same direction?
"What's going on?" Jack demanded to know. Crystal was glad that he had spoken and not her, that meant that Helen was less likely to be angry at him.
"I've trained them," Was the vague answer he got.
"To do what?" Crystal tried her luck, figuring that she had a better chance of getting an answer now it wasn't just her asking all the questions.
Helen hesitated. She debated on whether she should tell them, but then she figured that they couldn't do anything to prevent anything now and so she continued.
"To listen for the ultrasonic alarm and retreat into that particular room."
"To do what?" As soon as she said it Crystal knew she had crossed a line, gone too far. As she expected Helen ignored her and refused to answer it. That was obviously classified information.
Abi and Connor moved into the hallway, walking along with a sluggish pace that Abi had set. Connor halted in his tracks. His ears had always been tuned to recognise anything mechanical; especially to do with the ARC of which most of the additional technology was his own creation. And now he could hear the familiar sound of the automatic locking system kicking in place, it was a clearer sound then it should be, but he considered that age had something to do with that.
"Can you hear that?" Connor asked Abi. Abi, whose ears weren't quite as in tune as Connor's, couldn't hear anything.
"Hear what?" Abi asked, frowning at him.
"Hear that… the mechanical sound of the automatic locking system." Connor explained realising that Abi hadn't a clue what she was meant to be hearing.
Concentrating hard Abi began to hear what Connor was on about. And then she began to see why Connor was pointing this out. Who was doing it? She knew enough about technology to know that someone had to be controlling it, turning the buttons on and off.
"How is it doing that?" Abi asked.
"Well there's a programme on the computer that allows…" Connor was cut off.
"I meant who's doing it?" Abi snapped.
"Oh, well considering the state of everything here I'm surprise that anyone's got a computer actually running; most of the ones I've seen have been in pieces." Connor said, not really answering Abi's question.
Abi gave him a hard stare and was about to re-ask the question when she was interrupted by a loud clanking noise, coming from the Zoo where they had just been. Both their heads turned straight back at the door. Abi rushed back into the room, Connor following her tail.
In the cage the sabre-tooth tiger was throttling his head against the bars, doing its best to break free.
"It's a good job that its special enforced metal!" Connor exclaimed watching the creature with fascination.
"I'm not so sure that is going to make much difference." Abi said regrettably. She had noticed that the bars where bending in, subsiding to the tiger's efforts. She had a horrible feeling that the re-enforced bars wouldn't hold the creature in. The metal was beginning to snap, the sabre-tooth was winning the fight.
"Connor…" Abi was about say that they should get out of there, when bars finally gave in and the Sabre-tooth tiger was able to walk out of the cage, shake itself and then turn towards them.
"RUN!"
Abi shoved Connor in front of her, trying her best to make him move faster. They needed to get a good distance between them and the tiger if they were going to stand any chance of stay alive.
They shot down the corridor, running faster than they thought possible. The tiger hot on their heels as they barely managed to keep any distance between it and them.
Running into the reception area, Abi darted behind the counter and dragged Connor with her. There was a loud roaring noise, it didn't sound like the sabre-tooth. Abi sneaked a quick look over the counter; she was dumbfounded to see that the sabre-tooth tiger wasn't the only danger.
She slinked back down into the crouched position they had both taken while hiding behind the counter, ready to move as soon as they needed to.
"Oh my!" Abi breathed.
"What?" Connor didn't like the sound of that 'oh my'.
"It seems that the sabre-tooth isn't the only thing we need to worry about." Abi replied in a low whisper.
"Oh god!" Connor exhaled, stifling the sound with his hand.
Abi felt herself holding her breath, waiting to see what would happen next. She could see to possible ways, one being that the sabre-tooth would go for the other creatures and then they would be witnessing a fight or the sabre-tooth would ignore them and follow their scent.
it's getting very close to a main climax yet still no reviews! L