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Tann Angle's Formula
Another side of the mirror

Another side of the mirror

Dr Bino Distry pushed his way through the crowd of reporter-drones with his long thin arms (reporter-drones are robots fitted with recording equipment, that is controlled wirelessly by the news agencies). Finally, after bumping heavily into a few shorter reporter-drones, he reached the entrance to the ‘Medical Centre’.

“Isn’t that Dr Distry? one of the reporter-drone that was blocked by Dr Distry noticed his presence, with its speaker the voice of the actual reporter appeared, “Dr Bino Distry, what is the current situation, is Dr Tann Angle still alive?”

Bino turned to the cylindrical robot that had a long extended camera on its top, “She is fine and alive, and that’s all I am permitted to say. Here, I am in quite a hurry, I’ll answer a few more questions later…”

“Dr Distry…” before more reporter-drones could join the questioning, Dr Distry placed his palm onto the door which automatically unlocked and swung up, he then entered quickly left the scene.

The Medical Centre was as chaotic as the outside, nursing robots, construction robots and other types of automated machines raced around like bees in a hive. Through the dense traffic, Bino arrived at his destination, the intense care room.

“Finally here?” Dr Puler noticed Dr Bino’s arrival and opened the door for him.

“Any good news?”

“She is still alive,” Phurder said quickly. In the centre of the room was a large glass container with a thick junction of wires connected from it into the roof. Under the thin layer of glass, Tann rested ‘peacefully’. Bino walked slowly towards his unconscious superior. At last, he let out a sigh of relief after seeing the tiny movements made Tann’s chest as she breathed from an oxygen mask.

“Please take a seat Dr Distry,” Bino turned to his left and noticed Cotanian who was seating on the ground.

“Why don’t you seat on a chair?” Bino asked as he grabbed over a hovering chair.

“Don’t feel like it,” Cotanian said softly and sobbed. Before more words were said, two more entered into the room, they were Theta Jenner and Cine Graff. Theta walked in front Tann, she took out a small, black-covered book (a rare object in Tann’s world as every literal work had been digitalized) from her brown artificial leather bag, muttered a few words and placed the book onto her chest.

“It’s alright,” Cine patted Theta’s shoulder genteelly, “she’ll be back. There is no way a goddess can lose to the world she created.”

Theta held onto Cine’s hand and took a deep breath to hold her tears back. Together the two settled down next to Bino.

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“Dr Puler, Dr Cotanian,” Bino began, “any progress on the software?”

“Not much really,” Phurder sighed, “Cotanian and I managed to crack in the first layer of bug, but all we got are new bugs, like this one (while speaking, he used his watch to produce a virtual display of different functions). Well, at least we know that she is still active in the system since we saw two attempted log out functions.”

“That’s better than before,” Bino replied bitterly, “anything I can do about the hardware?”

“Thank you Dr Distry,” Cotanian spoke up, a little more confidence had appeared from her voice, “you did spotlessly when transferring Tann from the core to here, but I am afraid there aren’t much you can do at the moment. We’ll ask you to restart the whole system a bit later.”

“No problem, Dr Cotanian,” Bino nodded, then he turned to the others, “as stated in Article 21, page 68, line 4 if the captain of the CREATORS is out of action, the vice-captain needs to step up as the captain. I think it is the time for this line to become active before Dr Angle recovers. So, do we all agree at the moment, Dr Cotanian is the captain of the CREATORS and she will be making the decisions for…”

“NO!” Cotanian cried.

Everyone remained silent, waiting for her next line.

Cotanian leaned back, “I’m going in.”

“Huh?” Phurder almost let out a giggle, “where?”

“I’m going to enter the program and solve the problem internally with the in-program controls and I will meet her and tell her everything’s alright!” Cotanian shouted, eyes closed.

Bino stood up from his chair and squat in front of Cotanian who covered her face under her arms, “I know how you feel right now, but don’t we all miss Dr Angle the same? She is a great captain, she had helped each one of us, no matter its programming issues or salary issues, she was always there. However, the reason why Dr Angle chooses you to be her vice-captain is that she trusted that you’ll be able to manage the CREATORS well if she is gone. It is more important for you to take the leadership role, just tell us what to…”

“I’m going in!” all the shocked faces turned to Phurder Puler, “What’s the matter? There’s no point risking Cotanian into this piece of … program. We’ll probably end up worse if both the captains are gone. I’d always been the lazy one in the team, and I knew it long ago. I know all of you hated my attitude, that’s why I should go in and get her out…”

“Dr Puler,” Bino stood up, “I can guarantee you that no one here hates you to a personal level. You might be annoying sometimes, but we all appreciate your work in managing the whole system. As we all know, this program is currently very unstable. You might end up like Chris Huygen.”

“Don’t say that name again,” Phurder said angrily all of a sudden, “I just don’t want the same incident to happen to Dr Angle again.”

“Chris…that guy is dead!” Bino shouted, “All because he wanted to try some weird stuff with the bots, and guess, the same happened, he got locked in, we lost his signal, his brain deactivates. Now, you can go visit him in his god damn grave!”

Phurder came face to face with Bino, he was about to scream, but he sucked in some air and said with a dangerous voice, “So what? Are you gonna tell me that I’m gonna be dead? So WHAT?! I can probably live freer that way. Dr Angle was the only reason why I could stay here until this day if I don’t risk my life for her…”

“It is not only you who wants to risk life,” Cotanian joined the argument, “Dr Distry, thank you for stating the dangers, but allow me, the captain to make a decision.”

“Cotanian…”

“Dr Puler,” Cotanian stood from the ground, “I want you to stay here, eyes fixed on the control monitor, telling me the situation while I try to rescue Dr Angle.”

“Cotanian,” Phurder laughed hysterically, “do you seriously don’t trust me that much?”

“No…”

“Cotanian,” Cine walked behind Phurder, “Theta and I agree with Dr Bino and Dr Puler, you should stay.”

Cotanian opened her mouth, but no words came out, so she closed it and backed down.

“So,” Bino turned to Phurder, “are you sure about this?”

“As sure as eggs are eggs,” Phurder replied with determination, “I’ll go prepare the entrance.”