Chapter Twenty-two
Deep-Dive
Tuesday, March 20, 3AM. 125 S.A
3rd Station of Pyrene-F. Grenoble, Isère. France.
The moonlight illuminated the cloud-free nightscape. It was a serene night and the sound of insects announced the first night of spring.
The green beetles flew over the grass, gliding swiftly, with their elytra unfurled. To anyone who had seen them from a distance with night vision they would not have attracted attention, except for two details.
The twelve were in a delta formation and the second detail was hidden in their wings which had a small metal mesh.
The twelve took flight at a certain altitude, crossing a small forest and rows of trees, and then seemed to observe the structures below them with interest. The beetles continued to ascend, moving with almost mechanical precision. Their wings, beating with a perfect cadence, allowed them to soar effortlessly above the region without being swept away by the night wind.
They were flying over an elevation of just over a few hundred meters high, called Mount Rachais, which was part of a Pre-Alpine chain called the Montreusse Massif. What interested them was the perimeter construction at the peak of that mountain.
The beetles paused in mid-air, hovering for a moment under the moonlight, as they seemed to study the facility below them.
It was a complex of four buildings occupying about a hundred square meters with an enclosed perimeter of at least a kilometer, surrounded by a forest. The main building in the middle had seven floors and, around it, three others of different heights were interconnected by a series of bridges. In one area there was a control tower, a two hundred meter runway, heliport and a small hangar with open doors. Building an airstrip on a light slope would have been a problem in another era, but for the vertical takeoff and landing craft it was no longer a problem.
The twelve scarabs pirouetted through the air as they headed for their destination.
At that moment outside the hangar were two Delta-TABs parked. Inside the hangar only one person was moving around, carrying a maintenance machine. Inside were two DT2s, of the same type as the two ships outside, although they were longer and for transporting more personnel, while the Delta-TABs were only for transporting no more than five people.
The Beetles split up, breaking formation. Two of them headed for the ships outside. The remaining ones went inside the building, entering through the hangar doors. Two of them separated and each went to a ship, settling on the outer shell of the ships and remaining there.
The remaining eight went inside the building, taking advantage of ventilation ducts and small openings in the place.
The place inside was well lit. It had long corridors, different rooms and offices all marked with letters of what they were dedicated to or if they belonged to a single person. But, beyond that, it was quiet in the place.
The beetles split up, each one taking a floor of the main building and placing themselves in different parts equidistant from each other, but which seemed to follow a correlative pattern. While one would hide in the bathrooms on the second floor, another would hide a little further on, but on the next floor. Thus each seemed to have built a spiral pattern that ascended the seven floors of the main building.
But the last of them had not done the same.
That one had gone to the second floor of the basement and entered a service area, slipping through the laser security of the ventilation. It had finally emerged into a paneled room with a glowing cube in the center, resting on a pilaster five feet high. The beetle had not been interested in the cube. On the contrary, it had gone to the base and followed one of the wires that snaked along the floor, until it reached a wall where the wire joined other thinner wires and from there to a cable channel that joined them all.
The beetle landed on the bundle of wires and for a few seconds it circled around, until it sank its jaw into a yellow one and stood still.
No one in the area detected them with their strange movements. At that time the Pyrene station had only twenty members, more than half of whom were resting. The autonomous robots in the underground rooms could not detect them either, and the state-of-the-art autonomous system that alerted of intruders in the area had not detected anything abnormal either. The four large canine robots guarding around the enclosure had also failed to detect them.
However, the beetles were there, waiting.
The security shield stood imposingly on the edge of the base, guarding its perimeter with state-of-the-art technology. It was a masterpiece of engineering, designed to withstand the onslaught of any external threat. Its structure stood like an invisible wall in the surrounding area, except for one detail.
The security shields had a filtering system to allow organisms of a certain type to enter the perimeter. When an insect or a light flying bird approached the shield, the shield was activated with a quick response. The energy grid would instantly adjust, creating an electromagnetic field that acted as a safety net. Winged organisms and animals on the ground were detected, catalogued. This was done so that the presence of the base would not affect the ecosystem as much. However, near the base there were sound and light devices that could repel insects if they came too close to the base.
Although the latter had not helped the beetle drones, being controlled from somewhere far away from the base at that time.
***
The finely decorated automatic street gates closed, under the soft drizzle of the autumn evening.
"See you Friday!" Said the little girl waving from the other side of the gates, looking out into the street.
"See you Rum!" shouted another smiling girl poking her head out of the vehicle and Rum could see other girls waving their hands.
The bunny ears on the backpack waved in the air in time with the footsteps of the little eight-year-old girl.
She had just gotten off a private transport, which was also carrying other children after finishing their dance classes. As the private transport drove off down the road, she continued on her way without looking back, as she took skipping steps down the cobblestone path towards the manor house where she lived.
She had black, wavy, waist-length hair and was wearing a blue coat. The rabbit backpack had been a gift from her parents last week, and she really liked the comical look it had with those long ears.
She was happy that she had learned a new step that day and was looking forward to showing it to her parents. They should be home by now, since her father's car was parked there in front of the gate, around the fountain that dominated the center of the large garden.
She put her hand on the doorknob and the door, reading her fingerprints and facial recognition, opened and she walked in.
"Mommy?!" Rum shouted as he entered.
As he closed the door he noticed something strange. It was cold inside the house, almost as cold as it was outside.
"Daddy?"
Rumenia Ruzicka crossed the wide hallway leading to the foyer and looked toward the stairs where a cleaning robot was currently moving.
It was the only sound that reached her ears. Everything was silent in the house, creating a disturbing feeling of stillness that, together with the cold that reigned in the place, did not give Rum a good feeling at all. She decided to investigate what was going on.
Rumenia crossed the hall, heading towards the kitchen with stealthy steps that echoed in the manor, and there she saw the first thing that was out of place. Next to one of the huge windows, near a small table, one of the vases with fresh flowers from the garden was smashed and the contents scattered on the floor.
Rum stared at it quizzically, but dodged it with a confused gesture and continued walking slowly towards the kitchen. Given the time, it was possible that her mother was already setting up the two robots that would help her with dinner.
As she entered the kitchen, the atmosphere seemed charged with unusual tension. Rum looked up at the ceiling, where his mother's kitchen support robots used to work diligently. In front of the sink, just below the window overlooking the backyard, one of the pairs of mechanical arms moved choppily, raising and lowering its limbs with an erratic cadence. It was as if it was fighting an internal malfunction, puzzling Rum with its unusual movements. Meanwhile, the other pair of mechanical arms remained inert, hanging lifelessly.
The girl's heart raced and her breathing stopped, releasing the rest of the air she still had in her lungs. A sense of unease and dread came over her as she tried to comprehend the anomaly she was witnessing in her own kitchen. With cautious steps, Rum continued her way through the kitchen, circling the center island.
Every noise, every shadow, seemed to take on a sinister importance at that moment. She was feeling really scared. Her mother might be upstairs with her father, or maybe they were both in the back garden. But why was the place so cold? Was there something wrong with the whole house? What was wrong with the robots in the kitchen?
But those thoughts left her mind when, as she finished rounding one of the corners of the kitchen island, she came upon a dreadful scene that chilled her heart.
On the cold kitchen floor lay the bodies of her parents, one piled on top of the other in a final embrace. Her father's face remained hidden, as his body rested on top of her mother's, face down. However, a large red stain on his back stained his shirt, indicating a tragic fate. Her mother, staring into the void, presented a ghastly hole in her forehead, from where a trickle of blood had spilled in a now dry trail.
Rum became agitated, retreating a few steps, her heart pounding violently as horror gripped her being. Reality seemed to fade around her, the shadows of unknowing closing in like a dark veil enveloping her mind. A wave of terror and sadness overwhelmed her, threatening to sweep her into unfathomable darkness.
The world around her seemed to fade into a black abyss as terror enveloped her. Tears slid down her cheeks, mingling with the pain and confusion that engulfed her being.
Finally, the horror before her eyes was too much to bear, and she felt the world around her lose the consistency and color of warmth, as she sank into a desolate darkness.
***
He was badly wounded.
Michael Levin, barely ten years old, walked limply, leaning against the walls every few feet. His basketball shorts and T-shirt, which had once been impeccable, were now torn and stained with fresh blood.
His face flushed with rage. "Fucking bitches!" the boy exclaimed, as he spat some blood against the sidewalk. Night had fallen, and the narrow street was dimly lit by street lamps emitting a sickly yellowish light.
He had won the fight, but at a high cost. The dispute had broken out over the right to use the basketball court, but what should have been a simple game turned into a chaotic battle of horrific proportions. Broken teeth, broken fingers, bruises and contusions decorated his slender body, product of kicks and punches from the other kids. One of those big guys seemed to be able to use thelesis early on, and had used it to change the weight of his fists, making each blow feel like a hammer.
He clutched his stomach as it had been twinging from the kicks for some time.
The boy named Michael knew that his mother would not be happy to hear what had happened. He imagined the look of disappointment on her face, the scolding and lectures that awaited him. He had, once again, let anger take hold of him, let violence take the reins of his being.
The boy ran the back of his hand across his nose, wiping away the blood, and put one hand to his head and the other to the right side of his ribs. He stopped, leaning against the wall and tried to breathe. He had been having trouble breathing normally for a while now, and the vision in his right eye was turning red, because the bullies had targeted that side of him when he was on the ground. One of the kicks had hit his forehead on that side.
Michael looked up at the star-studded sky and wished he could have been born up there, in one of the countries of the Orbital Belt, which at that moment was passing over him.
He was pretty sure that up there there must be enough space to play basketball, without worrying about stupid fights, not to mention that the games with diminished gravity were incredible. He hoped that in the near future he could have enough money to buy body enhancements and become a meta-athlete.
A sting in his ribs brought him quickly back to earth, leaving his dreams to turn into attempts to try to get air into his lungs. Barely audible sounds came out of his throat as he tried to catch his breath, sounds that were almost inaudible and were silenced by the noisy summer insects that were squeaking everywhere in the gardens on the other side of the street.
Michael was in a state of confusion and disorientation as he struggled to keep his thoughts straight. The dizziness was overwhelming, clouding his mind in a murky haze. Yellow warning flashes flickered on his Neurowire, but his ability to interpret them was impaired, leaving him in the dark about his own state
His eyes temporarily lost sight, plunging him into an eerie blackness. His balance betrayed him and he collapsed onto the sidewalk, still warm from the heat of the day, but getting even dirtier in the process. He landed on his side, feeling the rough, dirty asphalt against his skin.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
From his fallen position, Michael turned his gaze to the other side of the street. The view seemed blurred and distorted, as if he were looking through a filter of altered reality. The street, illuminated by yellowish streetlights, seemed an empty and desolate expanse. There was no sign of life, not a soul crossing his path or witnessing his unfortunate fall. No one passed by, nor did anyone see him.
Stan began to close his eyes when it seemed to him that the noise of the insects had completely quieted ominously. And perhaps his eyesight was deceiving him, but he was seeing some sort of shadow creeping in his direction.
He focused his gaze and caught a glimpse of how this time the Neurowire was showing a sign that it was calling the nearest emergency services.
[Massive internal bleeding. Cerebral hematoma in the temporal lobe and precentral fissure. Damage to ribs and sternum. Perforation of the right lung. Nanoplatelet system will not act adequately, immediate assistance is required. Estimated loss of consciousness in 180 seconds.]
Stan didn't care about these messages. Now that he had focused his eyes he was seeing that jelly-like shadow crawling in his direction. The road was barely ten feet thick and was not for large autonomous vehicles. Mostly motorcycles and other small vehicles passed by. So that slowly crawling thing would catch up with him too quickly.
With infinite patience, and without haste, that kind of stain or shadow, which he could now see somewhat more clearly, seemed to have a thick liquid consistency. What was more alarming, the closer it got to him, the more it seemed to be adopting a form that looked too much like a hand.
Before his eyesight went black Stan tried to scream, but no sound came out of his mouth, as the hand-shaped thing lunged towards his face and advanced through his mouth and into his body.
A place that it would never leave.
***
Ignis, Enfer and Dr. Barbier watched the scenes projected on the holographic cubes silently and seriously.
Dr. Barbier, an old man, was the opposite of his last name, as he did not have a single facial hair on his wrinkled face. But his hair was graying on the sides in a disorderly fashion and his crown was bald. He wore a white PVC coat with his credentials hanging from his chest. He was the director of the medical section of the station and, at that moment, he was watching how the two technicians readers were carrying out the Deep-Dive reading of Stan and Rum.
The room was large and several meters high, divided into four parts. In the central part there were two huge floating cubes that were projected by holographic technology. In front of the huge cubes were the two special agents and the doctor. On either side of the room were the other two divisions, separated from the others only by acrylic walls.
In each of those divisions were Stan and Rum in closed sensory deprivation capsules in a deep sleep state with a helmet on their heads. Both were immersed in a saline solution. They were each accompanied by a technician, who controlled an external device and sent the activity and readings of their brain signals to the central cubes. The images of the two inside the capsules were transmitted to another screen that displayed the deep sleep data of both, while others showed various graphs related to REM activity and other information.
The Deep-Dive method was easy for them to do, it simply consisted of controlling that they did not wake up while they proceeded to read memories.
Deep-Dive was not a method intended only for security and related agencies. In fact, it was also used by foundations and organizations dedicated to Memory Banks. Many people accessed Deep-Dive to maintain memories, while at the same time relieving the burden of recall. Often, when access to a specific memory was required, all the person had to do was to connect remotely to their private memory bank.
This was a method that had been created particularly with human memory and its limitations of memorization in mind, a method almost designed in conjunction with the resignation of DFCs, and to prevent memory fragmentation.
At the same time, the Memory Banks could count on an extra service to copy the entire personality of the user in case of accident and death. Another capability was to be a remote medium, in case a synthetic body needed to be accessed to go somewhere else, although the latter was a more expensive service that only certain organisms could afford.
The differences of the Deep-Dive type lay in their methodology.
Memory banks relied on the consent of their users, while security agencies required consent as well, but could do without it in case of public security matters. At the same time, in case of crimes, police, law enforcement agencies and other security-related agencies could ask for permission to access the memory banks of certain individuals.
The method used in Stan and Rum was painless for them, but required some control, since Rum was very good at accessing neural networks and cracking Neurowire. The Neurowire of both had to be turned on in the procedure, because it was the main link to the helmets and transmitted the data from the long and short term memory in electrical impulses that, when sent to the supercomputers, could then be rendered and transformed into three-dimensional images.
Artificial intelligence support was often called upon to fill in the gaps that might arise in rendering and projection, but this did not seem to be the case with Stan and Rum. Although there were black parts that could not be accessed, but that was mostly due to psychological and experience-related traumas.
Especially in the case of Rum, who seemed to have lived really horrible situations when she was a teenager.
After that scene from when she was little more had followed. Images of an orphanage where she had been mistreated by the other children. An escape she had managed at the age of fourteen, after injuring one of the security guards who guarded the place. More images of her walking through streets where no one seemed to pay attention to her, stealing to survive and sometimes escaping from unscrupulous human-shaped devils that had tried to abuse her.
Petty thefts that had escalated over time, until one day she had found a companion in conditions as miserable as the one she found herself in.
In Stan's case, images of being treated by doctors followed. Then images of his adolescence at school, where he seemed to have been teased for his artificial thelesic abilities. Despite that, the boy had managed to graduate and had plans for the future to go to a university with a medical field of study and a sports campus.
Those dreams didn't go too far when he was blamed for a crime he didn't commit. Given his special ability, and the fact that the real perpetrator had chosen to hide near his home, he did not help in the defense of the boy named Michael Levin.
He fled and wandered through various parts of the United States, until, finally fed up with life there, he had boarded an orbital transport ship, stealing an identity and offering himself as part of the cleaning staff. On one of the trips he simply disappeared in the European Union, where one night he found a girl, two years his junior, feeding on food in a dumpster.
https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/42dd80f9-5ac6-42d5-8ccc-bcea020b6152/dg92hm6-16ccbf3a-83e1-4400-beb5-5357397f2b5d.jpg/v1/fit/w_828,h_1172,q_70,strp/nevermore_enygma_vol_3_chapter22_by_hasegawakein_dg92hm6-414w-2x.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9MTIyOCIsInBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcLzQyZGQ4MGY5LTVhYzYtNDJkNS04Y2NjLWJjZWEwMjBiNjE1MlwvZGc5MmhtNi0xNmNjYmYzYS04M2UxLTQ0MDAtYmViNS01MzU3Mzk3ZjJiNWQuanBnIiwid2lkdGgiOiI8PTg2OCJ9XV0sImF1ZCI6WyJ1cm46c2VydmljZTppbWFnZS5vcGVyYXRpb25zIl19.O72fGhfZTcAhXCtulrOT8NAWeV44FE7ecmw3oya_geo [https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/42dd80f9-5ac6-42d5-8ccc-bcea020b6152/dg92hm6-16ccbf3a-83e1-4400-beb5-5357397f2b5d.jpg/v1/fit/w_828,h_1172,q_70,strp/nevermore_enygma_vol_3_chapter22_by_hasegawakein_dg92hm6-414w-2x.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9MTIyOCIsInBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcLzQyZGQ4MGY5LTVhYzYtNDJkNS04Y2NjLWJjZWEwMjBiNjE1MlwvZGc5MmhtNi0xNmNjYmYzYS04M2UxLTQ0MDAtYmViNS01MzU3Mzk3ZjJiNWQuanBnIiwid2lkdGgiOiI8PTg2OCJ9XV0sImF1ZCI6WyJ1cm46c2VydmljZTppbWFnZS5vcGVyYXRpb25zIl19.O72fGhfZTcAhXCtulrOT8NAWeV44FE7ecmw3oya_geo]
Michael Levin and Rumenia Ruzicka were dead. But that night the team of Stan and Rum was born. Underworld criminals offering their services to the highest bidder to survive in a crappy world, but there didn't seem to be any better.
Basically those two had been like two dogs licking each other's wounds. That thought crossed Ignis' mind and she took a deep breath.
Ignis glanced at Enfer, as both of them had also gone through something similar when they had arrived on Earth, and later when they joined together to form a team. In her case, she fell into the fey trade, until one day she burned all the bastards and that did not make her happy, because she was persecuted by the law of that time for murdering humans. As much as they were scum, the law was on their side and it was a time when the feys had no protection whatsoever.
In Enfer's case he fell victim to a belief as ancient as it was stupid that consuming part of a fey body would grant immortality, and he was held to be cut into pieces, only to be regenerated again and the cycle repeated for two hellish years. He had been nothing more than a nice piece of juicy steak that could be cut endlessly, without thinking what he had to say about it, as he himself used to say.
Ignis and Enfer was not a name they chose because they liked it. But to remember and not to forget what they had been through. The team name they had: The cremators, decided twenty years ago when they became partners, was a synonym of danger for anyone who tried to get in their way.
It must have been the same for those two in front of them in a state of deep sleep.
Ignis would be lying if he didn't say that the image she was seeing didn't make her feel sorry for them in a way. She was seeing how their criminal lives had been created.
"What exactly happened to these two as children?" asked Dr. Barbier, though it was a question more for himself than for Ignis and Enfer.
Enfer cleared his throat without taking his serious gaze off the projections. "We're going to have to go to the social services courts, because the official profiles have the information sealed by the juvenile courts. But apparently the girl's father was involved in a defense project related to a spin-off of the Goldeneyes System."
"The one with the back doors?" the doctor asked.
"The same one."
"Apparently the father was against the implementation of the system because it was an overreach of defense agencies."
"Well... unfortunately it didn't do much good. I find it curious that just this girl would do something very similar by accessing other people's NWs when it was her father who objected." The doctor scratched his chin and looked at Stan's projections. "The boy however, strikes me as very odd as well."
"What were the results of the blood tests?" Ignis asked.
"Something a bit unpleasant. I speak from the point of view as a human."
"What do you mean?" asked Enfer.
The doctor gestured and sent the medical report to their Neurowires.
Enfer read it and after a few seconds frowned and pursed her lips. "Phew, don't worry, I find this somewhat unpleasant too."
Ignis read it and raised an eyebrow. "A parasite shapeshifter?"
"Yes. What I don't understand is why the young man's files are sealed. As much as it's a delicate matter it shouldn't be secret," the doctor argued.
"Does he have anything besides genetic mutation?"
"The mutation inhibitors are not like in a normal shapeshifter, it's more like he can't change for a period of time after he uses his ability. Which doesn't happen in the common parasite type, or the fey shapeshifters."
"We're going to have to ask for information on it."
The voice of one of the technicians pulled them out of their conversation. "Doctor, the synchronization is ready."
"Oh good!"
Both Ignis and Enfer paid closer attention. It was the most important part of the procedure.
"Expand projection," the doctor ordered.
"Expanding and overlaying rendering," said one of the technicians.
The two cubes grew in size and began to approach each other.
Assuming that in the event two minds had occupied the same place, a much more detailed scenario could be created with an enhanced three-dimensional projection. That was what was being achieved with the overlapping of the two memories. A third point targets could be filled in by the artificial intelligence and triangulate a virtual observer of the scenario.
The group watched with interest everything that had happened in the last few days. They had really stayed close together most of the time, except for a few rare occasions.
Thanks to this they were able to recreate what had happened in Edinburgh first. How they had been hired on a freelance basis by an individual. How the situation had taken a turn, that had forced them to act rashly, stealing the identities of two forensic technicians from the Edinburgh police. Then, impersonating both of them, they had stolen the body and locked out two other techs in the back.
"I find it interesting that she didn't get into the NWs of those two to shut them out," Enfer observed.
"As much as she would have disconnected their Neurowire, they still had to move to the rear to knock them out. A grenade was much faster. They just took the body and retreated," the doctor explained.
Finally an old port, a lighthouse, and an exchange.
There they saw a muscular man in a suit with a ponytail, accompanied by a deathly pale, boyish-looking fey.
But what mattered most to them were the people around them. Not much evidence had been obtained given the scarlet explosion that had taken place after the confrontation, but there was no doubt it was the same profile that had been shared by the SID. Those people had been the ones who had attacked the cops and a member of the FRT, using some strange movement techniques along with high caliber ammunition, and that did not match any off or on duty weapon records.
"Well this is a good thing. At least we have something for Nevermore as well," Ignis said, looking at the photo of the pigtailed man and his companion.
"Losing coherence," the technician with Rum reported.
"Probably a nightmare. Try to relax the amygdala," the doctor ordered.
"What the hell did that guy offer in payment?" Ignis asked.
"It's a fractus core," replied Enfer.
"A weird one," Ignis pointed out.
"Coherence is still slipping," said the technician with Rum.
"Expand the relaxation of the entire limbic system!" said the doctor.
"Detecting an external agent," reported the technician with Stan.
"What?" the doctor asked, frowning.
Ignis looked toward Rum and then Stan. "They're bleeding."
The doctor looked carefully at both sides, concentrating on the screens transmitting images of the inside of the capsule and saw a trickle of blood coming out of their noses.
"Coherence lost, sleep states disrupted," one of the technicians finally reported.
The cubes had just separated and only white noise could be seen and heard. The images of both cubes had just been lost.
"Disconnect everything!" The doctor ordered, looking at the bleeding and ran to Rum. The top cover of the sensory deprivation capsules retracted to one side and there appeared the bodies of Stan and Rum dressed only in their underwear.
"What happened?" asked Ignis, approaching.
Enfer peered into the other cubicle where the technician was removing Stan's immersion helmet. "Why are they bleeding?"
"I don't know. But I'm very interested. We're going to have to do a more detailed analysis now. If the helmet doesn't work we have to try a Deep-Dive with the natural method... unfortunately we don't have a technician here but we can order one from the main base in Paris. I already ordered one for the old man we have in the medical wing underground, but they haven't sent it yet."
Ignis looked at the doctor, given what had happened in the last few days she had almost forgotten him. It seemed like weeks had passed since he had been transferred to the station. "What happened to him?"
"He's still the same. He's asleep and we couldn't do any invasive tests. He has a high white blood cell count, but we can't do anything about it if we can't test him and give him IVs. Has a nano pack of vitamins and to support hydration but there is nothing more we can do. The closest we can think of is that he is an encapsulated system fey. But if so, it doesn't explain why he was conscious when they pulled him out of the water. He's on one of the basement floors with a nurse support robot that will alert us in case he wakes up."
The doctor carefully removed the helmet from Rum's head and the technician helped him, as the water where they were submerged began to recede. Dr. Barbier examined Rum's nose, while on his Neurowire he tried to externally analyze the brain temperature and neural activity transmitted from the girl's Neurowire.
"Move them to the medical wing. We're going to run a Neurowire analysis to see what happened here."
The water had disappeared from the capsules, absorbed by one of the lower connections. The two technicians nodded to the doctor's order and in the cubicles some doors opened on the sides walls. The techs activated the levitation system of both capsules and directed them to the sides doors, disappearing from the scene.
Ignis looked at the floating cube that, now without connection to anything, was of a white color that did not show anything. There was something in the last part of the projection that had caught her attention. "What was the meaning of what that man who hired them said?"
"The last part?"
"Yes. That things were going to get bumpy here."
They went on talking for another few minutes about it but couldn't come to any conclusion as to what it might be about. Surely the SID agents would know better. They stood for a few moments in silence thinking about that as the lights in the room went out.
They looked up.
"Did they change the cubes? At this hour?"
"That's odd," the doctor said.
There was a rumble that shook the whole room.
"What the hell was that?!" Enfer asked.
He had hardly finished asking, when there was another rumble and they could hear explosions in the distance.
On one side of the room a red light began to flash. At the same time an alarm also appeared in their brains.
[Special agents: protocol N43. Proceed to your posts according to AI projections.]
N43.
The protocol for an external attack on a station had just been activated.