Gunslinger

Chapter 9

They searched the building and met up in the middle. Rick looked at Kate. "So what did you find?"
"I found makeshift tables. Hammocks for beds and, best of all, I think it's a diary. But I can't read it." She handed it over to him.
Rick opened it and looked at it. "Neither can I." He handed it back to her. "I came across toys for children, homemade toys. Hammocks and tables and food preparation area. Not much in the way of food. I'm thinking they left because they ran out of it."

"I'd kill for a cup of coffee right about now," Kate sighed. "Even if I can't have any because I'm pregnant. But I found cups, silverware, and plates. No pictures, though."

"If they had any, they probably took them with them," Rick suggested. "Well, we've searched this place. I guess the only place left is where the power went to opposite way."

"Interesting how the power lines went only to the lights, nothing else," Kate commented. "No outlets for power, nothing."

They went outside, back to the windmill, and followed the power lines until it ended in a building. "This building is just like the other one, cobbled together with spare parts," Rick stated.
"And full of holes. I wonder what's inside," she mused, and they entered the building. Looking around, she realized what it was. "It's a workshop. Complete with wheels and belts and gears."
Rick looked it over. "Stripped gears. It'll never run again. That and the windmill's broken."

Kate walked over to a table. "The hand tools are still here, the broken ones, I mean."
"They packed up everything useful and took it wherever they went," Rick told her.

"We can return to the main building, eat what we brought, and sleep in the hammocks," Kate offered. "I wonder what they used for a bathroom?"

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"It's an outhouse of sorts. There's a shower, at least." Kate wrinkled her nose. "It stinks in here, but it's still useful."
"I'll let you stay here while I go back to the main building and try and find something clean to eat on and use, like a plate or something similar." Rick kissed her and left. He was back a heartbeat later. "Love you." And he was gone again.

She smiled. "I LOVE YOU, TOO!" Kate yelled. She pulled down her pants and panties, sat on the toilet, and peed.

ǂ

Kate had finished eating and then looked at Rick and the room. "How do we make love in a hammock?"
Rick stared at the hammocks and tried to imagine them making love. "With a broken back, maybe," he replied. Kate burst out laughing. She didn't know why, but she found that funny.

"Then, I guess we do without because I'm not laying on my back on this floor." Kate saw his face. "It's dirt!" She watched him grin. "Funny, very funny."

ǂ

They slept in separate hammocks. Come morning, they got up and headed for the showers. They showered together, which was a first for them.
Kate dropped to her knees, gave him a blow job, and swallowed his CUM. Then Rick knelt and ate her pussy until she had an orgasm.

Later, they went to the main building again, where they ate breakfast they'd brought and sat there talking. Suddenly, Kate threw up her breakfast. Rick still felt bad getting her pregnant, even if Kate wasn't at all fazed by throwing up.
After that, they headed for the elevator. "Ten bucks says we find another desert next," Kate bet him.

Rick shook his head. "I don't have ten dollars. All I have are gold coins."

"Never mind." Kate stepped into the elevator, went down, and stepped out. "That felt like two levels this time," she commented, then walked around the corner. She came face to face with it. "It's a wall with a door."

"It's a metal wall with a metal door," Rick corrected, walking toward it.

"It kinda looks like a cargo door on a spaceship. Are we on a spaceship?" Kate asked him. "Can there be a spaceship in a Tower?"
"It looks like it slides open," Rick noted.

Kate searched for a way in. "We either need a code or a passkey. It looks like it's a ten-number code."
"If we count the repetition of numbers, then there could be…" Rick thought about it and could hardly believe it. "Ten billion numbers."

"Good grief." Kate deflated. "That leaves finding a passkey, which could be anywhere in the Tower. We'll never get inside." Frustrated, she smacked the door with her hand.
"How are you at hot wiring?" Rick asked her.

Kate studied the pad. "It's flat-faced, built into the wall. I'll need a knife to start with."
Rick took something out of his pocket, flipped it, flicked open a switchblade, and handed it to her. "Have at it. I'll guard the elevator."

She drew in a breath and got to work at prying it open to expose the wires inside.

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"I got it!" Kate called out, which got Rick to come to her. "Now, which wire is which?" Kate still had a problem. "This may take a minute or two or three." So Rick went back to watching the elevator.

"OW!" she yelped as she crossed the wrong two wires. She put the offending finger in her mouth, thinking that would help ease the pain. "Well, it's not those two wires."

That did get Rick to look at her, but she looked fine, and he went back to watching the elevator. He didn't want a Man in Black sneaking up on them.
"So which wire is which? Let's see if this wire leads from the pad to here. But it's not this wire, so maybe it's this one," Kate muttered. She cut and connected the two wires, and suddenly, the door opened.

"I GOT IT!" Kate was pleased with herself. She looked inside and saw many crates. Whatever those were made of, it wasn't wood.

Rick joined her and looked inside. "Nice work." He kissed her and went inside.
"Thanks." Kate followed him. "They look like crates. But what's inside them?"

"I found a door," Kate called out and got Rick to join her. She pressed the panel next to the door, and it opened. Suddenly, the cargo door closed. "Drat."
"Worry about that later," Rick told her. He walked into the darkness, and suddenly, one after the other, the lights came on down the corridor.

"Motion control," Kate noted. "Lots of doors to choose from."
Rick went up to the first door, but it didn't open for him. Kate reached past him and pressed the panel on the wall. "You have to press the button."

Rick stepped inside, and the room lit up. "Interesting."
He wandered around, and Kate did the same. "It's a Medical Unit. I don't recognize some of the equipment, but it's medical," she told him.

"What's this?" Rick stood in front of a bed. "What's with this control panel?"
Kate went around to his side and looked for herself. She shrugged. "I don't know. I can't read it. But it looks advanced, above what I know."

She moved to a different area. "Much like I can't read whatever is on any of these bottles here. They're drugs, obviously, but I don't know what kind." She picked one up, looked at it, and set it back down.
They left there, came to the next door, and opened it. "It's a bedroom, most likely a doctor's bedroom," Kate said.

Rick chose what he took to be the bathroom while Kate searched the closet. "It's definitely a doctor's bedroom," she called out.
"Modern bathroom complete with hot water," Rick told her.

"So, where's the doctor?" Kate wondered.
They left that room, went across the hall to the next door, and opened it. "It's a cafeteria and kitchen. But where is everyone?" Kate didn't see anybody.

Like lightning, Rick drew his weapon and pointed it at something that moved.

Kate touched his arm. "Easy, Rick, it's just a droid. A cleaning droid, by the looks of it."

"Droid? What's a droid?" Rick asked her and didn't lower his weapon.
"A droid is a mechanical robot who only does what it's programmed to do. This one cleans. It's harmless." Kate forced him to lower his weapon until he put it away. "Come on, let's search the kitchen."

They found walk-ins full of frozen food and refrigerated food and a pantry full of dried goods. Though, they couldn't read any of it.
Kate looked around. "There's lots of food, so where is everyone?"
They left, went across the hallway to the next door, and opened it. Rick looked grim. "I think we found everyone."

"Skeletons. Everyone is dead, long dead by the looks of it," Kate observed.
They stepped into the room and looked around. "I can't tell what killed them. For all I know, they were shot," Rick said.

"I think it's an entertainment room. There's a gaming table, what I think is a kind of pool table, something I don't recognize, and a seating area for movies," Kate told him. "So why are they all in here?"
"It looks like whatever it was came suddenly." Rick looked over at her. "This skeleton is holding cards."

Kate pointed to other skeletons. "This skeleton is playing pool or whatever it is, and these are watching something long finished."
"It appears that of your droids has been in this room," Rick mentioned.

She stood there thinking. "If it happened fast, that would explain why no one's in the Medical Unit."
They left that room, went to the next door, and opened it. Kate saw a room full of bunk beds. "This is a dormitory."

"I see skeletons in some of the beds, Kate. Whatever it was, it was fast acting, like really fast."
They found showers, toilets, sinks, and storage full of towels and other supplies like shampoo and soap. There was even a washing machine. There were a lot of empty beds.

They moved to the last door in the hallway, opened it, and walked in. "It's a bedroom," Kate commented. "With a skeleton in the bed."
"All the others were wearing uniforms; this one is wearing something else," Rick pointed out.

"They're called pajamas." Kate went into the bathroom while Rick searched the room. She poked her head out. "There's everything you would expect in a bathroom here."
"There are uniforms in the closet and other things like boots, underwear, and socks," Rick called out. Seeing movement, he drew his weapon lightning fast, only to see another cleaning droid enter the room and start cleaning. "I think this one is a female," he told her as Kate walked out of the bathroom.

"That makes sense, given what I found in the bathroom," she agreed. "That leaves whatever is in the cargo area."
"So what do we do?" Rick asked since he had no idea.
"I don't know, Rick. I just don't know. We need to talk about it, I guess. What worries me is what killed these people. Is it still active? Will it also kill us?"

"Well, they're aliens, so I would think that makes us immune, but you have a point," Rick agreed. "Though it may already be too late."
Kate sighed. "I was afraid you would say that."
They retreated to the cafeteria and sat down to talk.

ǂ

"We're missing something," Kate told him after a short talk.
Rick wasn't following. "Like what?"
"Like power. This place has power. The lights, doors, the Medical Unit and Entertainment Room, power," she listed. "Where is it coming from? I didn't see anything."
"All right, so where do we look? There's only one hallway, isn't there?" Rick asked.

"We go back and start again from the beginning," Kate told him. She got up and headed for the cargo section.

They searched all the walls but found only one door. Then they went through every room searching for a hidden door; they didn't find any.
They met in the hallway at the end outside of the bedroom with the single female.

"What are we missing?" Kate was becoming more and more frustrated. "Search the walls. Maybe there's something we're missing here." She searched the wall directly opposite the door to the bedroom while Rick searched farther down.
Kate didn't find anything, so she searched the end of the hallway and saw her hand go right through it. Shocked by what happened, she yanked her hand back and stared at her hand. Then she put it back through it.
"FOUND SOMETHING!" Kate waited for Rick to join her. "Watch this." She put her hand through the wall and pulled it out again.

Rick was surprised, so he tried it. "Interesting. Do we stick our head through?"
"I guess so. I'll give it a try," Kate offered, but Rick stopped her.
"No. You're pregnant. You need to think about the baby. I'll do it." Before she could object, Rick stuck his head through, held it there, and pulled it back out. "It's dark."

"Motion sensors didn't pick it up. You'll have to go all the way through."
"Damn." Rick took a deep breath. He held it and stepped through.
"Rick, can you hear me? Answer me! Please!" Kate was getting worried when suddenly he showed up. She closed her eyes for a minute, then looked at him. "What did you find?"

"I'm not sure. The lights came on, but I'm still not sure. I can breathe there, and I can hear you. Come on." Rick took her hand and dragged her through the wall to the other side so she could see for herself.
"WOW!" Kate was amazed at what she saw. She didn't take a step, and neither did Rick. They just looked.
They were in a room that was in an arc. There were panels everywhere and a wall of windows looking out onto something fairly large that glowed. There were six chairs to sit on in front of the panels.

Kate moved to stand behind one of them and looked it over. Rick selected a different seat, and he also looked. Frustrated, she shook her head. "I can't read any of this!"
"Me neither. Now what?" Rick was out of his element here.

Kate decided to sit in the chair and look over the controls. "If I select the wrong thing, I could start a catastrophe."
"Then don't press anything, Kate."

"If I don't try something, we'll never learn anything," Kate countered. She changed seats and looked at all the controls. "I don't know what to press." She changed seats again and studied all the controls.

"At the risk of repeating myself, do not touch anything," Rick told her, but Kate wasn't listening.

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By now, Kate had sat in every seat and had looked at all the controls. She still couldn't read a thing.
"This seat's controls look different than the others. I wonder..." Her voice trailed off as he stood behind her.
"What are you thinking?" Rick asked her.

"Well, these controls look like something, but this looks different," she pointed out. "I think they control something different, but I don't know what button to press." Then Kate rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah. Don't press anything. But we don't learn anything that way."
Rick didn't say anything. He was out of his element and didn't understand it. "Just press it again to turn it off."
"Right." Kate looked, trying to decide what to press. She sighed and held her hand over a button but took it away and studied it all again. She finally pressed a button, and instantly, a voice sounded. "I don't understand, do you?" Kate turned her head to look at Rick, who shook his head. "Great."
So she pressed the button again but didn't hear anything. She pressed it a third time, and she heard a voice. "I still don't understand."
"Under…stand," the voice said.

Kate's mouth dropped open, and she looked at Rick. "Did you hear that!?"
"I did. What did you do?"
She stared at him. "I don't know."
"Don't…know," the voice repeated.

"It's mimicking everything I say," Kate realized.
"Say," the voice told her.
Kate pressed the button again. This time, the voice didn't repeat what she said. So she pressed that button yet again and heard the voice repeat itself.

"I wonder," Kate considered.
"Wonder," the voice said.
Kate opened her mouth to say something, then closed it and said nothing. She thought about that. It was repeating what she said. Why?
"Understand," Kate said.

"Understand," the voice repeated.
Kate pressed the button again and said something, but the voice said nothing. So she turned to look at Rick. "Any ideas? Even wild ones would help."
"It repeats a word you say, and it's getting better at it," Rick offered.

"Yes, but why?" Kate turned back around, looked at the button, and then turned to look at Rick. "This will sound wild, but what if it's learning English with what I say?"
"In that case, you'll need to say lots of words. A whole lot of words," Rick told her. "Assuming you think that's a good idea. What if you teach it, and it turns out to be..." He trailed off. "Well, evil? Another Man in Black."
"Great." Kate turned back around. She needed to think. Then she turned to look at Rick. "What if a Man in Black did this?"

"You mean he manages to get through a door that took you hot wiring it to get it to open? Then, he gives them a virus or whatever that kills them, just not instantly. It takes time to activate. In the meantime, he leaves without searching this place and taking whatever he wants," Rick asked her.
"When you put it like that..." Kate turned around again and looked at the button. "Do I or don't I?"