Chapter 10
"If I have lost confidence in myself, I have the universe against me."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
The lab room presently occupied by Beka and Rommie was now sealed off by a forcefield that completely enveloped half of the room and flooring beneath. The creatures within the original contamination chamber had yet to penetrate the field surrounding it, and Dylan wanted to make sure the others, if they decided to leave their unwilling hosts, would not be able to escape the lab.
Presently engrossed in trying to find a solution, Harper and Dylan stood on the side of the room that was unsealed, scanning the computer database of Machello's inventions.
The engineer pulled up a picture of the datapad he'd found within the Limvris chamber. The symbols scrolling across the first electronic page were all too familiar, though he couldn't't translate the elaborate code anymore than he could conjugate Celtic.
"There's gotta be something on here that can help us," Harper muttered, his eyes fixed on the static image before them.
"Not if we can't decode it," Dylan responded. "And we know without Machello's help the ciphers may never be broken."
Harper looked up at the taller blonde man and raised an eyebrow. "Boss, that was… cynical. I'm the one on this ship who always thinks negatively."
Dylan shrugged, still leaning over Harper's shoulder. "Sorry. I'll try to be more optimistic with my next remarks."
The engineer nodded. "Good." He let his eyes drift back to the screen.
"Anything we can do in here?" Beka asked after a moment from across the room. Having no chairs in her half of the laboratory and feeling a bit weak in the knees, she'd settled herself down on the floor to wait.
"I doubt it," Harper answered her. "Look, Bek, considering how many you have in you, I'm guessing your symptoms will start sooner than mine did."
She crossed her arms. "Thanks, Harper. You know, in that case, I'd like to apologize in advance for anything I may say, or do, that could be construed as offensive, as I slowly go nuts," she said, her voice raising in annoyance.
Harper stepped away from the computer, giving his eyes a break, and went to stand a foot or so from the nearly transparent force field. "Rommie? How are you feeling? Any change?"
The android, who was next to Beka but still on her feet, shook her head. "So far I've had no averse effects. My sensors can detect it moving, however. I'm not sure it knows what do with my artificial systems."
"Can it do anything to her?" Beka asked, looking up at the robot above her. "I mean, she isn't exactly physical in the flesh and blood sense."
"I don't know," Harper answered, "but I wouldn't put anything past Machello. The guy was brilliant but a little off his rocker, if you know what I mean. It might negatively effect her systems once it realizes it isn't in a real human body."
Dylan took a few steps towards the forcefield barrier and came to stand on Harper's left.
"What about" he began, but stopped as Rommie made a sudden bee-line towards the combination chamber where the other creatures were sealed.
"Rom?" Harper asked as he watched the android move across the room.
He realized, as she came to stand before the equipment tray, that she hadn't been heading towards the chamber at all. Harper watched in calm fascination as Rommie picked up something from the tray he could only describe as a glorified, six-inch ice pick.
"Rommie?" both Harper and Dylan asked tentatively at the same time.
"Just a minute," she answered, raising the pick above the underside of her right arm.
Harper knew Rommie was an android. Hell, he'd built her with his own two hands. He knew, as humanlike as she was, she didn't feel physical pain or other bodily symptoms like humans. He was all too well aware that under Rommie's pale skin was a smorgasbord of wiring, gears and superconductor fluid.
But as his friend stabbed the instrument though her own arm with a sickening
coolness… he almost found himself upchucking on Dylan's shinny black boots.
There was a moment of silence, finally broken by Beka. "Damnnnn," she murmured.
"Rommie!" Dylan yelled, the shock still showing on his face. "What are you doing?"
With the lab tool still impaled in her right arm, Rommie reached over to the tray with her left and extracted a small scalpel like device from it. "The creature," was all she offered to them.
His stomach now settled down again, Harper watched enthralled as Rommie began to cut around the sharp edge of the instrument in her skin. She made a small line with the scalpel near the entry point of the pick and then used the dull edge of the scalpel to peal back the synthetic skin. He could see what looked to be superconductor fluid and other lubricants leaking slightly from her arm and prayed she hadn't damaged herself too much.
Still ignoring them, Rommie prodded within the wound for a few moments before slowly pulling the object from her flesh. As she completely removed it from her arm the small, blue creature came along with it, impaled by the very tip of the tool. Harper thought he saw its flop maybe once before ceasing movement altogether.
"You got it?" a puzzled Dylan asked.
The android finally looked up at them. "I could sense it moving within my arm and thought this would be the quickest way to remove it. It worked."
"You could have hurt yourself!" Harper half-yelled, not truly angry yet still displeased by her reckless behavior.
"I didn't harm any of my arm's motor functions, Harper," Rommie justified. "I made sure of that." She wiggled her fingers to prove it and a small bit of fluid squirted out and hit the ground. The avatar shrugged sheepishly.
"The creature," Dylan interrupted, "do you think it's dead?"
Rommie held up the tool to stare at the thing pierced on it. "I think so. I'm not detecting any electronic impulses from within it like the others. Its glow has also faded."
"I could take a look at it, Boss," Harper offered. "If it's deactivated it won't be a problem."
"If being the key word," Dylan replied. "I'm sorry, I can't risk this thing getting out and infecting the crew or you again, Harper. Rommie is the only one who can stay in there."
"Dylan! Tyr is dying and it's quite literally now or never! We can't have any more of this caution bullshit if we hope to do something about it!" Harper protested angrily.
He opened his mouth to rip into the High Guard a little more but closed it. Instead of more angry words he turned and walked out of the lab, his head aching and the room spinning dangerously.
Once the door closed behind him he trotted down the corridor, unsure of where he was going. Finding the first maintenance shaft available, he keyed the door opened and slid inside. He shut the entrance and scooted deeper into the duct.
If someone wanted to be alone, here was the place to go. The crewmembers who were forced to work in the shafts only did so when direly needed. Most found the tight space too closed off, but for him it was perfect. His size allowed him easier access and there were plenty of open areas deeper in the ship that allowed him to sit up.
Once far enough inside he found a nice place to stop and sat against the wall. He lay his forehead on his bent knees, thankful to be free from that room.
The bulkhead was cold on his back but he ignored the chill creeping into him. "Damn," he muttered, "damn damn damn."
He smiled into his knees. That was Beka's favorite mantra when things were bad. Four little words in row, said so vehemently they become worse than any other vulgar words ever invented.
His smile waved as his mind pictured his friend writhing on the floor, seeing things that weren't there. Calling for help that would never come. He could barely acknowledge what had happened to himself and didn't even want to fathom the idea of seeing Beka like that.
There had to be something he could do. He was missing something vital. He'd thought earlier that he could build something to stop them, but that didn't seem to be an option. Even if he could create something to fight the creatures internally, it could take weeks to design and manufacture.
Harper knew that whatever it took, he wouldn't let Beka go through what he had. People like Uno and Dos would not have a new plaything. He'd make sure of that.
Wearily he looked up. "Andromeda?"
A miniature of the ship's hologram materialized to his left, prompt as usual. "Yes, Harper?"
"Do me a favor and tell Dylan I'll be back in a little while. I just… needed a break."
"All right," Andromeda replied. "Will there be anything else?"
"Nope."
Harper watched the ship's image vanish. He hoped Dylan and the others weren't too angry with him for leaving. He supposed he could tell them he was still feeling sick and then just the thought of being infected again sent him over the edge.
But… that would have never happened to Dylan. He would have gotten over it and been able to continue on with what needed to be done. The High Guard wouldn't be paralyzed by an irrational fear like this.
But he was Seamus Harper. Pathetic as usual. What had an Uber once said to him? "You humans are nothing but animals. When you should fight… you run. That is what makes your race weak. That is why we own your planet. That is why you are merely our playthings, boy."
Years later he killed the Nietzschean that had said it. Shot him in the back in some alley as the uber stumbled drunkly away from a nearby bar. The Niet had killed one of Harper's friends, simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Even though Seamus had gotten his revenge at the time, he was still a coward. He had been unable to look the Nietzschean in the face as he took his life. He'd been too scared to. He had been too pathetic to take on the other in his normal, healthy state, so he'd resorted to taking the easy way out.
Just another example of his limitations. He'd been too weak to fight Machello's bugs and now he couldn't come up with something to stop them. He was almost too scared to go back into that room and look at the creatures that had given him so many new nightmares.
If Beka and Tyr weren't factors in it all… he might never go back. He knew he had to try, for them if nothing else. If he failed he would just deal with those consequences later.
On his hands and knees, Harper crawled towards the exit.
Trance was on her way to see Rommie and Beka when she suddenly stopped before one of the maintenance shafts. As her forward momentum came to a halt the entrance to the shaft opened and someone poked his head out.
"Harper," she acknowledged.
The startled Earthling tried to straighten up and bumped his head on the frame of the entrance.
"Tra-oww!" he squeaked as his skull made contact with the hard metal.
"Oh, I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Trance apologized again and again. She took one of his arms to gently help him out.
The engineer mumbled something under this breath and rubbed his head. "Oh… it's okay. Ma always said I had a hard head." He smiled a bit lopsidedly. "Well, fancy meeting you here, Little Lady."
She smiled a bit at his humor. It had been rare as of late. "I was just on my way to see how Beka and Rommie were feeling. I'm afraid there isn't much more I can do for Tyr at the moment."
Harper jammed his hands into his pockets. "You know I wouldn't usually ask you to use your abilities, besides that time I wanted lotto numbers of course, but couldn't you this time? I mean, can't you see something in one future or another that can help Tyr and everyone else?"
Trance sighed. "I wish I could say I have all the answers, Harper. Unfortunately, even my vision becomes cloudy in moments of desolation. Everything I'm seeing for them is so hazy. When you were ill I knew you were in danger, but I didn't know from what until you…"
"Went nuts?"
"…you…"
"Lost it?"
"…no… until you.."
"Waved goodbye to the ship of sanity?"
"Harper!" Trance scolded. "Until you become mentally unstable. I can't even begin to describe what I saw your future to be. Beka is like that now, and Tyr… I know there are good and bad futures for Tyr. That is all. Regrettably, I see just images and no remedy to get us to the good."
"So, the solution isn't just in your subconscious somewhere, waiting to come out?"
"I'm afraid it doesn't work that way," Trance answered.
Harper shrugged. "I supposed it's too bad we couldn't trick some of your kind into helping us out. Maybe some of their alternate future antennas are working better than yours."
Trance smiled. "No, that isn't going to do any good calling them, Harper. And we don't have… antennas."
"Too bad," Harper said, raising up onto his toes a moment and falling back onto flat feet. "If you did I bet you guys would get THSN."
"THSN?"
"The Hoverboard Sports Network."
"Ahhhh," Trance drawled. "THSN."
"I can't believe you didn't see that coming, Trance." A small smile crept into the corner of Harper's mouth and Trance was glad to see it. She had missed it greatly. "Well," he interrupted her thoughts, "we better get back to the others. Come..."
Harper's smiled disappeared and was replaced with a look of contemplation. The face he made when an idea for some new project came to him.
"What is it?" Trance asked.
"What did I say before?"
"You were talking about the THSN."
"No," Harper prompted, still in thought, "before that. What did I say?"
Trace narrowed her eyes at him. "Well, you said it was too bad we couldn't trick some of my kind into helping us. You asked if their alternate futures antennas might be working better than mine. I then told you that calling them wouldn't do any good… and that we didn't have antennas."
Harper's eyes widened a bit. "That's it."
"What's it?" she asked in bewilderment. There were very few things that could confuse her, and Seamus Harper was definitely one of them.
"A trick! That could be our answer, Trance!" Harper exclaimed. His brain seemed to be moving a mile a minute.
Trance shook her head and clasped her hands over his shoulders to keep him still and focused on her. "Answer to what?" she insisted.
Harper took a deep breath, let it out slowly and then grinned. "Our answer to helping Beka and Tyr."
