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Bakamono · (This post was last modified: 02-11-2011, 08:08 PM by Bakamono.)

Researcher Kitaen slinked her way to deck three as she received another alert about a passenger for whom the psychological complications of the situation, had become too much to bear. She absently rubbed her buttocks: mildly perturbed by the dull ache at the site of her vaccine injections. Minutes passed as she daintily trotted toward sector five, stopping momentarily to distractedly pass a scanner over the bodies she passed. Priscilla Mused as she travelled ''¦problem with the higher echelons of society in a crisis: is that they still go where they want and do as they please. Well, let's see if this next one is of any use to us.'

The illumination from the schematic she surveyed lit her face as she approached the target area. Several of the ships systems had been re-routed to this location, which was now handling inordinate amounts of energy for some unknown purpose. Ross' information had been a boon, since he'd been keeping an eye on systems and noticed this curious activity.

A dull, rhythmic hum resounded from the doors to artificial persons maintenance bay two, Priscillas' spine tingled. She tapped in an order for a control team and patched into to a nearby service console. A detailed series of readouts showed her that someone had purposefully re-wired door control and that the door to the bay was locked. Curious recurring waves of energy seemed to be circulating the perimeter of the room. She began attempting to un-weave the insane reprogramming.
A guest meandered into view looking to the busy Priscilla and then the humming door 'What are you doing here? Anything I can help with?'
'I'm trying to get into this room' Priscilla gestured offhandedly without glancing up from her work.

The guest walked over to the door and pressed his palm to the control panel in the usual manner. Suddenly the corridor was lit with a terrible white light and the stench of scorched flesh, Priscilla flinched at the light and glanced up to see the guests body had been flung back toward the wall, and now lay slumped on the ground, smouldering. Small tongues of flame licked up from the corpse, its' skin blackened and red raw patches: unrecognisable as the person it used to be.

Priscilla cursed herself in frustration, she should have realised that those unknown waves had been an electrical-barrier. The poor sot who lay smoking on the floor had just shown her the brutal defences of whoever lay within the room beyond.

'I'm sorry' she offered the body as she went back to 'hacking' the bay controls. With a start she realised that someone else was active in the system, purposefully trying to sabotage her work and perpetuate the near artistic madness that had been set-up. What had begun as unpicking the multiple crossed threads of an ad-hoc system hi-jacking, had become a maddeningly paced game of checkers with gates, routines, overrides and fail-safes as the pieces.

One of the convincing artificial people onboard suddenly sprinted from around the corner, its' white eyes flickered manically as they locked upon Priscilla. With barely enough time to react, Priscilla leapt up to protect her station and was met with a flurry of blows from the synthetic. The fake flesh sheathing of its forearms came loose as the mechanical humanoid pummelled Priscilla backward. Her arms raised: barely able to keep up a defence; Priscilla heard a snap as white-hot pain shot through her left arm. The humanoid quickly followed up with a kick to her mid-section which sent Priscilla sprawling backward, the breath knocked out of her. Arm broken, Priscilla lay facing the monster, scrambling backwards as it advanced with murderous intent. Suddenly she heard the crackly voice of the emergency response control team leader 'Move!' as a line of security operatives quickly intercepted the android and began a blistering, mob-like beating of the artificial creature with their stun-batons.

Pain lanced through her yet she grinned as she awkwardly drew a 'slap-patch' from her pocket and slapped it onto her chest. 'right in the nick of time!' she said to the team leader 'There's'¦subject in there'¦sent that thing down here'¦be ready for more'¦electric door: don't touch! Get me'¦Medic!' Priscilla drawled as the anaesthetic effects of the patch spread a comfortable glow through her battered, smiling form.

***

The order had come down from the executive co-ordinator himself: High-alert and a death meant one thing to Isiah; gloves off and guard up. He and the team had been looking for trouble, so they had pounced like a pack of hounds upon sight of the evil-automaton.

Isiah Knelt over the barely-conscious form of Miss Kitaen, her last words still lingering in his mind as the sub-coordinators orders came through ''¦forget that vapid cow: she probably got hurt on purpose so she could dose up: now get me that sample and get your team to remove that problem!'
'Yes sir' Isiah replied, turning to his security control team to see one approaching the electrified door. 'No!' he halted the eager guard 'its trapped see' he pointed to the charred body and began to bring the team to order, after their gleeful beating and dismemberment of the android.

'Ralph, sammy: go get us the 'pinch', Jones get that thing flushed, rest of your two by two either side of the door, sticks and any implants off until after the flash.' Moments later sammy and Ralph returned, a large cube carried between them which emitted an escalating pitch. 'Alright, you two slide that thing over there and then follow us in, power up after the flash fellas.' As the box slid toward the crackling doors, the pitch reached its peak and crashed into a sonorous boom. A white flash filled the corridor, a blinding light for a split-second followed by darkness as the lights simultaneously winked out.

The control teams mounted lights flickered on, batons buzzed into life as two of the team pried the doors apart with old fashioned bars allowing the rest to march into the bay. Light beams scanned around the bay, illuminating a chaotic assembly of naked machinery and artificial persons, hammers and tools lifted like some frozen clockwork army. In the centre of this orchestrated mess sat a well dressed man, wearing some kind of strange helmet from which wires reached to the systems around him.

Like a demonic spider in the middle of its' web, the man sat sobbing, sheathed in sweat and grinding his teeth, he pointed at Isiah. 'mother spatching, feculent, pond-scum! Do you realise what you have done!? I was so close to achieving perfection! You will pay for this!' the man rose in a frenzy, clearly raving. Making a beeline for Isiah, he aimed an expensive looking firearm and pulled the trigger. His wild eyes registered shock as the weapon failed to fire.

'Whatever you like genius. Take him down fellas.' Isiahs' deadpan voice rang flat through the communicator. The team leapt toward the unfortunate maniac, the familiar 'kwoom' noise of the batons rhythmically resounded through the otherwise silent room. 'Alright that's enough. Jones take a needle-full, we're dragging this guy to a medic.' Isiah made his report to his sub-coordinator across the secure channel and requested a cleanup team to re-organise the chaotic bay. 'Soon' he thought, he would be off this, uncomfortably-shiny, pleasure-cruiser-from-hell and back to satisfaction of beating up drug-addicts.

***

After hours upon hours of ceaseless toil, Cryer teams reported into their sub-coordinators, made their reports and sent copies to the shared database.

The atmospherics teams had finished their internal refit of the ventilation systems. With a significant kick given to these systems, and the new filters, the technicians were confident that a contagion like this would not be able to spread again. Nevertheless they insisted on running isolated cycles to better track any particles passing through each, separable system.

The crews in the kitchens had finished their annoyances, and had escaped with only one knife injury from the chefs onboard.
Leff and Tor stood in the now gleaming waste disposal chamber, its sheer walls reflective and flawless. Tor shed his biohazard suit, walked to a long carry-all, opened it and produced a napkin, cutlery, pate, crackers and a small salad. He proceeded to sit down on the spotless floor of the metal room, arrange the food, and began dining.

'I seen proud, and I seen stupid; now I think I've seen the epitome of both.' Leff muttered in disbelief.
Tor replied around a mouthful of lettuce 'Come on now Leffy: you and I both know this is probably the cleanest place on the ship right now. Now come on over and help me with the main course.' Other Biohazard cleanup teams were enacting similar, less eccentric celebrations of relief around the ship.

***

Stella, aglow with bliss, stood before Doctor Whitesun as he gracefully gestured her to take a seat. She could hardly believe how well this was going, as she struggled not to faint again, she gestured to one of the entourage to loosen a tie at the back of her bodice. Her heart went out to the doctor as he explained the autopsy mystery: his face plainly showing his good conscience, with worry about the danger to human life. And through this Stella could almost see his mind working away behind those azure eyes. Her face lit up as Doctor Whitesun easily understood and appraised the situation, and graciously offered his help. He took another easy sip of his coffee, putting Stella in mind of a more-handsome Sunbucks ad. She enjoyed the moment before hearing of the doctors impressive initiative and the undoubtedly less-handsome Hammersmith.
'Oh: Doctor Whitesun! You have sublimely summed up that terrible mess much better than I, thank you. And I should not be surprised that a man of your calibre was so forward thinking.' She took a moment before rising with the help on an attendant, her heart hammered in her chest before she asked ''¦would you care to accompany me to Deck A-Two to see if we can locate Tiberius Maxwell for some insight?'

***

Deck two, conference room three:

Andrew and Julian sat discussing the possible mutation of the infectious agent, as well as arranging their pooled facts in chronological order.

'We are looking at an incubation time in of likely, eight days'¦'
'Or one hundred and ninety two hours.'
'Yes, so we agree that infectious agent also has a significant state of dormancy at the five day mark, only to manifest again after twenty four hours?'
'Indeed, and after that dormancy, it may possibly be stronger.'
The pair continued finishing each others sentences, and went on to dissect the second problem.
''¦Implies that ruptures in organs or weakness in membranes, allows the agent to infect systems other than the lungs'¦'
''¦and therefore adapt to its' new environment. Exactly! In this case the mutant aberration of the agent acts as an acid'¦'
''¦yes! Or converts body-fluids into acids: which then consume everything within'¦O dear.'
'I took the liberty of forwarding 'Sams' Particulars to the subordinates of both Doctor Hartford and Doctor Palmer. Initial classification defined the agent as a form of 'gaian pneumonia' however: further developments reveal something much more virulent and aggressive.'

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