by Kate Kyle
But how was he supposed to sit her on the chair and hold her there?
Rutger took a deeper breath. In a flash of creative thinking, he pushed her onto the chair, pulled up her thermal top, slipped it over the back of the chair, and pulled it down. Lulu stared at him and all of a sudden burst out in a cackling laughter.
But with the piece of garment tightly stretched between the back of the chair and her petite body, she was immobilized.
At least for a few seconds. She started wriggling almost immediately after.
"Let me go, you fucked-up monster," she screamed.
Ignoring the scream was getting harder, with the increasing nausea. Now was the time to grab a bed sheet and secure her.
Holding her arms firm behind her head, he pushed the chair towards the medical bay he had just left.
Another wave of nausea gathered in the pit of his stomach, but an adrenaline surge pushed it back where it belonged.
He only had one chance and he needed to make the most of it.
"He's there..." she wailed. "My baby's going to die!"
"We'll all die. You first if you don't stop it now," he growled into her ear.
Maybe that'll help to shut up that goddamned voice.
He rammed the chair into the bed, and clasping one arm around Lulu, ripped the bed sheet off the bed. He threw the sheet over her. She burst out into a hysterical laughter now. Exhaling slowly through the nose, in a desperate attempt to block the noise, he wrapped the fabric around the woman's petite body, her arms and the back of the chair.
A moment later, Lulu looked like a failed attempt at mummification, but at least she seemed to be fixed to the chair.
She was still laughing. Or maybe, was that hysterical cry?
He didn't give a damn about it. He'd gag her if he could.
Duct tape. Did they have any duct tape in the hospital?
Lulu leant forward, her feet planted firmly on the floor, and pushed herself forward.
Luckily, he was still holding onto the back of the chair.
Bloody bitch. She'd almost rode the chair away.
In another flash of genius, he pulled the chair's seat all the way up so that Lulu's feet dangled in the air. Now, she couldn't push herself around the booth.
Her cackling laughter filled the room again.
He tried to block the sound. He had a job to do - turn all the lights back on again.
He rolled the chair back into the control room and then slowly around it.
But nothing looked like a power up switch.
"How do I turn it back on?" he yelled at Lulu; whose laughter had dropped in volume.
There was no reply. He leant over her ear.
"How, the fuck, do I turn everything back on?" he said loudly right into her ear.
Suddenly, the laughing stopped. Lulu turned her face and stared at him. Her brown eyes glistened. It was a cold and hard stare.
"Just send some light straight from your fucking righteous ass," she hissed.
He jerked his head away fully expecting her to spit.
But she didn't.
"Don't you dare turn anything back on. He's the one to survive. There's not enough supplies for everyone," she said and started sobbing.
At least, this was a tad quieter. He just had to ignore her and focus on his next steps.
Find help. Probably out of here.
He stood in the semi-dark, quiet room, surrounded by nine dark, quiet bays and one with the lights on. His head was thumping. Between the thumping and Lulu's sobbing he couldn't hear whether the generator was working.
He tried to focus his thoughts, but the pain in his temples was searing.
He looked around.
To his left was a door, leading to what seemed to be a longer corridor. The greenish emergency signs glowed into the distance.
He pushed the chair towards the door.
Fortunately, it opened as he approached it. The generator must have been working.
He rolled the chair out and stood in the hallway, listening out for signs of human presence.
Lulu's sobbing stopped. She must have gotten tired of it.
He listened out.
Where were all the clinic personnel? Why did the place seem like a sinking ship abandoned by all the rats?
Rats… Scratching sounds came from somewhere.
He listened harder.
Nearby, one of the doors was slightly open. Holding on to Lulu and the chair, he strode towards the sound.
As he approached, a beam of light seeped through the gap.
Someone was in there!
"Hello there," Rutger called out.
The light went out.
Oh, no…
He picked up the pace.
"Hey, is anyone there?" he called out again, reaching for the door handle.
The plate on the door read: "Main Switchboard" followed by a series of letters and numbers.
Looked like the right place to be, if you wanted to save the hospital.
Or turn everything off completely.
He tightened his grip on Lulu's shoulders. She groaned, but he ignored it.
Rutger pushed the door open. The room was dark, with the only source of light being the glow of the large screen on the wall opposite. Someone stood there. A familiar silhouette? Or was it his imagination?
"Hey-" he said and paused
"I'm pulling the switch in five, four…" a familiar, female voice said into a small box she was holding.
"Who are you and what-" Rutger said.
"Two…"
Lulu plunged forward, pulling the chair out of Rutger's grip. The chair rolled forward a little and stopped.
"Nooo!" Lulu yelled. "You'll kill my boy!"
"I know Alex," a male voice coming from some sort of speaker said. "Given the amount of damage your son has inflicted on the wider society, it may not be such a bad thing."
Where was it coming from? The box?
"Jax?" the voice added. "Go ahead!"
Jax! That was the name of the person by the screen. Rutger knew Jax.
Jax was a friend.
"Who brought this woman here?' Jax asked, looking over her shoulder. Her voice was tense and threatening.
"It's me, Rutger," he said, fighting off the flood of nausea, shivers and throbbing from his body. "I couldn't leave her in there. What's going on?"
"Jax, you must do it now!" the man in the box yelled.
"We… resetting," Jax replied. "Now."
"Noooo!" Lulu's scream drowned out Jax's voice.
The screen darkened. The room darkened.
A long, guttural howl pierced the silence, making what must have been glass and plastic around vibrate.
Rutger's head exploded with pulsating pain.
Jax
Jax covered her ears. She'd have gladly closed her eyes but something inside compelled her to watch the screen.
SingMa said it'd take about fifteen seconds.
How long can a person… a baby… an embryo, survive without the machinery that had been keeping it alive?
And how long could it survive before tissue damage occurred.
Thirteen…
Lulu was screaming at the top of the lungs. Why did Rutger bring her here?
"Shut the fuck up," Rutger yelled.
Jax pressed her hands tighter to her ears.
Ten…
Or maybe not. It always felt longer when you counted seconds in your head.
She picked up the communicator again.
"SingMa, are you there?" she croaked.
Hopefully, he could still hear her through all the bloody screaming.
No reply.
Jax closed her eyes.
Count down from ten now… Properly.
One-Mississippi… Two-Mississippi…
The screaming quieted. Lulu had switched to sobbing.
"Jax?" Rutger's voice came to her as though through a wall of cotton wool. "Can you hold her? My arms are giving in."
Jax
opened her eyes. She turned around slightly, so that she could still see the screen.
In the faint light coming from the glowing emergency signage outside, she could just make out his tall figure leaning on the chair in the middle of the room.
"She's vicious," Rutger said. "I can't hold her anymore."
"Let her go," Jax said, her voice coming out as numb and wooden as she felt inside. "It's all done now."
"What's done now?' he asked. "Will we all die?"
"The system reboot. And if it fails, we will all die," Jax said.
The sobbing stopped.
"So be it," Lulu said suddenly all calm and solemn.
The room fell quiet. Jax's heart flipped and kicked into a gallop. A massive wave of grief rose to her throat, choking her.
"One hundred, billion and seventy-two – Mississippis," Jax croaked.
The screen blinked. A dot appeared. And then the letters, 'System rebooting' floated onto the screen.
Jax
The next few minutes felt like a twenty-four-hour unending emergency duty.
Emergency.
She'd wanted an emergency. And, boy, did she ever find one. She'd never anticipated her little trick would unleash such… pandemonium.
Geee….
It was more than she could handle. She couldn't think about it anymore and needed to think about some other point in her life.
Selfishness had pushed her to do something wrong, without considering all the potential effects on others. Now she was fixing her wrongs by saving lives – even at the risk of endangering others. Finally, she was being useful.
Well, it was mostly SingMa, who pressed the main switch. She just had to reboot the hospital system. Thank goodness, SingMa realized the hospital had its own system, and one that was independent of the station's backup system.
And thank goodness, that after an excruciatingly long, fifteen seconds, the system was back online again.
Pulling the chair with Lulu still tied to it, Jax walked Rutger back to his bed and reattached the monitors.
When certain Rutger was safe and Lulu secured, she contacted the switchboard. Two people in white suits arrived shortly afterwards. She pointed to Rutger's bed and then to the other bays, and the control console and walked out, firmly holding onto the swivel chair.
Quite an ingenious idea, she admitted.
Well, done, Rutger. I hope you get well soon.
She'd get back to him as soon as Lulu was in a secure place. And SingMa would know what to do.
"SingMa, are you there?" she said into the communicator.
"Sure. On my way. Stay by the control room."
She waited.
SingMa arrived with another familiar figure by his side.
Frank Rosa.
His android team was following him at a distance.
27
Jax
Jax sat at the table outside the café. The lights were on. The air was fresh, with a faint scent of a forest on a sunny day and had returned to the perfect temperature.
Jax took a mouthful of the famous Cleanser Water – refreshing and aromatic, and still with that difficult to describe taste. She'd like to see the food production here. Maybe, with the current delay in her travel schedule, she'd have the opportunity.
The gate leading to the station opened and two familiar figures appeared, one tall and slim, the other a little shorter.
Jax stood up and waved, even though they could see her perfectly well since the square was otherwise empty.
"How are you?" she asked when both men were close enough to hear.
"I'm a bit weak, and my head's still sore," Rutger replied, touching the scar on his temple. "It'll take a while to heal, because of me… fiddling with the site," he added a little embarrassed and sat down.
"Did you really think you could pull the implants out of your head?" SingMa asked, pilling a chair for himself.
They ordered drinks using the automated menu on the table.
"I don't know what I thought, but I did want the bloody thing out," Rutger replied. "Before the virus truly took over my brain."
"You were lucky," Jax said. "The medics are sure the virus didn't touch your tissue?" That was the million credit question.
"As far as they can tell," he replied. Time will tell, but the fact that my implants were not fully integrated had definitely saved my from more serious damage."
"And the humanity," SingMa added quietly. "What got into you to start firing at the research station?"
Rutger's pale face tensed.
"I told you, I think it was the virus. Everything between me seeing that flashing afterimage at the back of my eyes and waking up in the clinic with Lulu frantically turning the life supports off is a blur. I can only guess that the virus got into my implants and tried to spread further."
"Energy and spread," SingMa murmured. "That's what the virus wanted. So it made you do it."
The corners of Rutger's mouth dropped. His brows furrowed. Jax set her jaw.
"Let's not talk about it. Not now. The investigations are under way, aren't they?"
SingMa nodded.
"Do you need to stay here until it's all healed?" she asked.
"Not medically necessarily, but I'm staying here for a while anyway. The investigations," Rutger explained.
"I've got an interview scheduled for tomorrow morning, too," Jax said. "I can't believe it's been only… what? twenty hours since we landed."
"Eighteen, I think," Rutger corrected her. "We all need a proper sleep."
"Maybe when it's all over," SingMa joined in.
The café's service drone arrived with their glasses. Rutger and SingMa reached for their drinks.
"I've got quite a few appointments scheduled for tomorrow," SingMa said, having taken a sip from his glass. "I might get a slap on the wrist for endangering the country-"
Jax gulped.
"No, that's my sin," she said quietly. "It was all my fault. You can’t get told off for shutting the station down."
"What? Why you?" Rutger and SingMa asked almost in unison.
Jax exhaled slowly.
"I've got a secret," she said and glanced at Rutger. "Sorry, I didn't tell you about that one, but that's part of the… baby thing." Her throat tightened. Apparently, her unborn baby was safe and sound in its little incubator. "The piece of code we brought on TNUSSA is my fault. If I hadn't shot that flying piece of rock, all this would have never happened. I need to tell the authorities about it. I hope they aren't harsh with me."
"Stop blaming yourself," SingMa said. "If you didn't do that, that piece of rock would have hit one of the explorer machines and it would have got infected and passed that piece of code on to the network anyway."
"And since this was an Earthian equipment-" Rutger cut in.
"PanAm, as far as I know," Jax replied. "I guess, you're right. That code seems really malicious and determined to complete its goal of destroying our civilization."
"Yes and no," SingMa said. "The code is malicious, alright, but its goal is its survival, not our destruction."
"It's just happens that we're standing in its way?" Rutger said.
"I think the code used us and our systems in an attempt to achieve its goal," SingMa explained.
Jax tightened her grip on the glass.
"But it hasn't achieved its goal, right?" she said.
"Not that I know of," SingMa replied. "It's safely sandboxed, and the best AI brains are working on it right now."
"Why aren't you with them?" Jax asked.
SingMa smiled.
"To be honest, I'm not really top of the tops," he said, the tip of his nose turning red. "But I have been invited to join. And I will. I just need to catch a breath and get things right in my head."
"The whole Lulu thing?" Rutger asked.
SingMa nodded.
"Conflict of loyalty, I guess," Rutger said.
"Sort of," SingMa admitted. "I knew her well. At least, I thought I knew her well. Professor Li, or L
ulu, is not a bad person. She's… neither good nor bad, like all good scientists. And she is a very good scientist, very smart," he carried on. "She's dedicated to discovering the truth, without casting a moral judgment over the findings, but…" his voice trailed off. He reached for his drink again. "Obviously, having Alex involved in the situation must have clouded her judgment."
Jax took another sip of her Cleanser Water. The drink was helping her think clearer.
"Alex is her son, right?' she asked. "The one you said that had done a lot of damage. What did you mean by that?"
"Ah that," SingMa replied, his voice quieter now. "Long story. I know Alex Brown from way back, when I still lived in India. We worked on some crazy projects, gray area ones, if I may say so... But we were both very young. I was trying to earn some money to buy an entry to PanAm Confederation and then to RR," he carried on. "Alex? I don't really know. He did that for fun, I guess. But, when I and the other guys grew out of playing dirty, he carried on. He has always been an arrogant person who thought that rules and norms didn't apply to him. He got into one of the best universities in AAPC, studying digital security and working on some government funded projects."
"Digital security sub-branch spying?' Rutger asked.
SingMa glanced at him and shrugged.
"In AAPC everything is probably link to spying. And to be fair, Alex was very good at all sorts of secret, shady stuff. At first, a lot of people were tolerant of his attitude because he was very talented, learnt quick, was able to achieve amazing things. But with the time, and increasingly disturbing behavior, he fell out of favor. From what I know, he's in deep trouble with AAPC authorities." SingMa paused. "Deep trouble," he repeated.
"Resocialization?" Rutger asked, just as Jax opened her mouth to utter a different, even scarier word.
"I think it's gone further than that," SingMa replied. "I've heard that Professor Li has been offered help for him in exchange for her service to the Republic. That was the deal that brought her to Segedunum on board your ship."
"Help for him?" Jax asked, confusion stirring in her head. She reached for her drink. "Were the New China implants about to explore in his head, out of the excess of bad point? And the Si-Carb was to fix this? I thought those exploding heads stories were meant to scare people into obedience. It's not true, right?"
