Chapter 8 - A Greater Threat
Author's note: Hello, dear readers! I'm back. Let's get to your reviews.
The Illuminaughty Pine Tree, you'll find out what's to come very soon!
Gs33022, Stella was not involved in the nuclear accident. The accident happened more than a century before these events. And yes, Augustus, Violet, and Veruca will (technically) appear in the story, although in a way that you may or may not expect.
Turrislucidus, I thought I should hold this person accountable for what they've done. As for the second part of your review, I just figured that Mike would kind of think of himself as "hardwired in logic". Then again, to my knowledge, he did think that everything in the factory was stupid until they reached the Television Room. I believe that he has learned to accept the magic of Wonka's factory, but since he suffered from amnesia after 200 years of cryogenic stasis, I'm sure that his mind reverted back to its old ways.
JOHNHAMMOND1993, yep, you can't rely on logic for literally everything, similar to what I said to Turrislucidus about Mike. And yes, I did know that Disneyland Paris' Space Mountain was going to be called Discovery Mountain. Now, on with the story!
(WARNING: there is a violent scene in this chapter. Just letting you all know.)
After Mike finished recording his third audio log, he warily rose to his feet, still unable to shake off the terrifying hallucination that he experienced mere minutes ago.
Without warning, Stella's holographic face appeared, looking at Mike with a worried expression. "Mike? Mike! Can you hear me? Are you all right?"
Mike sighed, lowering his head. "No, Stella. I'm seeing stuff that isn't real."
"Visions?" Stella replied, cocking her head to one side. "You're having visions?"
"Yes," Mike said, "and I don't know what to do about them. I swear I saw you in person just five minutes ago. Y-you were almost naked, and I...I remember you showing me the entrance to a room, and you got angry for no reason and threw me inside. And then I almost drowned in chocolate before realizing it was all a hallucination."
"Well, I'm nowhere near your location," Stella told Mike. "But the thought of me appearing in your hallucination like that...is interesting." She hastily turned away from Mike, trying in vain to hide the fact that she was blushing. "I-I'm sorry."
"You don't have to hide that from me," Mike said. "Now, what should I do next?"
"Well, your locator will guide you towards a locker room with a stasis ring inside," Stella told him. "Then, you'll enter the Administration Offices and hack the main computer to block it and the other computers from the government's systems, and then the locator will show you where to go after that. Got it?"
"Stella, why exactly do I need to do that?" Mike asked. He was growing suspicious of her demands.
"Because it's just what I told you to do," Stella replied. "Got it?"
Mike sighed. "I suppose. All right, I'm heading that way now."
"Good," Stella said, and she promptly disappeared, leaving Mike alone in the hallway. Without wasting a moment, Mike used the locator, and the blue beam guided him about fifteen paces forward before sharply veering off to the left.
Just how many more tools do I need? Mike mentally asked himself as he walked through the open doorway to the locker room. I know I have more than enough storage for tools at the moment, but if I end up with at least a few more, then I'll run out of room, and then I'll have to make decisions on which tools to keep and which ones to get rid of. This will not be easy.
Mike quickly scanned the room, and he found two open lockers. From the first locker, he grabbed an aerosol container of medical fluid to heal injuries, and the other locker contained nothing but a tiny blue ring. He took the ring and held it in between his thumb and index fingers, examining its smooth, mirror-like surface from all angles.
"The Stasis Ring allows its user to reduce or eliminate temporal flow in a small, localized area for a short period of time," an automated voice spoke. "Personnel are advised to refrain from using stasis on living organisms, as this may have unforeseen consequences."
"Such as?" Mike asked, even though he knew that the automated voice would not reply. "Well, it said to refrain from using it on living organisms, but I bet that undead organisms don't count, so that warning about 'unforeseen consequences' probably need not apply here." Mike decided to place the ring on his right index finger, only to be startled when the ring magnetically attached itself to it. The ring glowed white for several seconds before gradually fading back to blue. "Cool piece of technology, I'll admit, but I gotta get moving."
Mike left the room and continued down the hallway until he reached a pair of malfunctioning double doors at the end. The doors were rapidly opening and closing over and over again, producing loud, clanging noises that echoed throughout the area. At the rate they were moving, there was no way he would be able to make it through the doors without facing catastrophic dismemberment in one way or another.
"Time to see just what this baby can do," Mike said with a grin as he touched the Stasis Ring. Immediately, a blue beam shot out of it towards the doors, and they slowed down before eventually grinding to a halt.
Mike confidently strutted through the open doorway, and he looked over his shoulder towards the stalled doors, admiring the temporary effects of his work as if he had just written a revolutionary computer program. The effects soon wore off and the doors resumed their mechanical malfunction. "So stasis really does work. Impressive. Now, where are the Administration Offices?" Mike tapped the watch to bring up the locator, and the blue line led him to another pair of double doors, just off to his right.
"At least these ones aren't malfunctioning," Mike muttered as he pressed a nearby button on the wall, and the doors slid out of the way to reveal a massive, circular room that was about three-hundred feet tall. The offices themselves consisted of a long, spiraling ramp that spanned the perimeter of the room, stretching all the way from the ground to the highest floor about thirty stories up. All along the ramp, there was a single row of about a thousand desks that overlooked a central courtyard, which featured a large fountain and the remains of what appeared to be a garden. Each desk had an old computer and an armchair positioned in front of it.
"This is one big office," Mike said as he looked around the room in awe. "I can barely imagine how busy this room must have been back in the day."
His locator led him to a black desk not too far up the ramp. A brass plaque was positioned in front of a computer monitor, and it read: "Doris - Lead Supervisor".
"Hmmm, this should be interesting," Mike said as he pushed the power button on the back of the computer. A chime was heard as the computer booted up, and a shimmering silver "W" appeared on the screen as the operating system was being loaded. Eventually, it was replaced by a picture of a female Oompa-Loompa who wore a white beaded necklace, a pink collared shirt, and frameless glasses.
"So...that's what the workers looked like before all this happened?" Mike said to himself. "Interesting. I'll look into that later."
He used the mouse to open a terminal window, and he quickly typed some commands into the computer before pressing the Return key. Lines upon lines of code flashed across the screen so quickly that he had no time to read any of it, and a few seconds later, a window popped up that said, "All admin systems are now offline."
"Well, at least Stella will be happy now," Mike grumbled as he hastily logged out of the computer. He backtracked towards the doors he came in from, and he pushed the button beside the door frame. With a click, the doors smoothly parted like they did when he entered.
Suddenly, a body fell from an opening in the ceiling, nearly giving Mike a heart attack. He instantly raised his plasma cutter.
"Jeez, this factory really is a gigantic booby trap," he muttered in disgust as he carefully stepped over the corpse. It was an Oompa-Loompa, but it appeared more similar to Doris' healthy condition than that of the mutated ones he encountered before. Nonetheless, the man's unblinking, glassy eyes still made him feel uneasy.
Stella's holographic face appeared in front of Mike once again. "Mike, are you there? In case you didn't know, shooting those creatures in the chest does not work under any circumstances. You have to go for the limbs to take them down. Got it?"
"Yes, Stella," Mike responded just before she disappeared, leaving his surroundings as silent and desolate as ever. So that explains why slicing off the tentacles on that creature I encountered earlier put it out of commission so quickly.
Mike's locator pointed him straight towards the end of the hallway, where another pair of double doors stood between him and whatever might be lying beyond. Once he got there, he pressed a button on the wall, and with a click and a whir, the doors slid open, and Mike barely had time to process the pink blur that was sprinting towards him.
"RAAAAAAAAA!" A mutated Oompa-Loompa roared as it took a flying leap right onto Mike's shoulders, causing him to fall flat on his back. Now that its head was mere inches away from Mike's, he had more than enough time to stare into its eyes, which were devoid of any sympathy or regret. A disgusting, yellow fluid was spilling from its open mouth as its jaws clamped themselves around Mike's neck, ripping away at the chain mail that was "protecting" it. His worries were quickly replaced by excruciating pain as the creature's teeth began tearing into the right side of his neck, and he could feel his own blood spilling out onto the floor. His suit's health monitor was beeping rapidly like an EKG, well on its way to flatlining at the moment of his impending death. No! Mike screamed in his head. I will not die! I will not die!
Determined to survive, he managed to muster enough strength to push the creature away, and he quickly blasted its head off with the plasma cutter, followed by a swift kick to its abdomen. The toe of Mike's metal boot sent the monster's body flying into the wall with enough force to shatter its spine like porcelain. Its limp body fell onto the floor, and everything became silent once more.
Mike slowly rolled over onto his side so that the wound was facing up, and he awkwardly reached around for the container of medical fluid, which he had tucked into another one of his suit's many storage compartments.
He aimed it towards his neck and sprayed about half the container's contents onto the wound. The soothing mist caressed his wound, and just like that, the skin was perfectly healed and restored to its original condition, and as an added bonus, his suit began to repair itself.
"I'd better hope there are more of these containers in here," Mike said, sighing in relief as he stood up. He only had the slightest hint of an ache in his neck now, a major improvement on how he felt less than a minute ago. After stowing the aerosol container away, he took off his gloves, and he ran his fingers across the chain mail around his neck, verifying that the material had indeed been fully repaired. He stood up, put the gloves back on, and moved onward.
After two left-hand turns and one right-hand turn, Mike came across yet another door. This one had an electronic sign above it that read: "WONKAMOBILE STATION # 5". He opened it, and he entered a room that was unlike any that he had seen before. It was an open, spacious, well-lit room with comfortable reclining chairs and a long row of lockers that contained a plethora of goodies pertaining to Mike's mission, including extra ammunition for his plasma cutter, healing candies, another aerosol container of medical fluid, and even a flamethrower, along with a spare pack of fuel!
"This must be my reward for all the trouble I've been through so far, for better or for worse," Mike said after he finished grabbing everything he could from the lockers. He slumped down in one of the recliners, all too eager to close his eyes and recharge for just a few minutes. He tilted his head to the left to glance at the other end of the room, where a pair of tracks led into a tunnel. "I guess that's where I have to go next. Don't worry, Stella, I will get out of here alive."
Author's note: I hope you enjoyed this chapter! What did you guys think of it? Feel free to review, and stay tuned for more! :)
(Note: The layout of the Administration Offices in my story was inspired by the spiraling ramp gallery in the Guggenheim Museum.)