The men who run plasma rigs are descendants of pirates. Their ancestors were mostly unwanted young men who left their homes for a rather short life full of adventures.
The strong magnetic field formed around plasma sources makes these rigs uninhabitable for robots and electronic processors. Old-school steam-powered plasma rigs are run with the help of mechanical machines and the muscles of men. The rig on planet JX129 is one of the oldest rigs ever built in the universe. It has 4 exhaust flares, each with its own surveillance towers. On top of the towers are round surveillance monitor halls with windows facing the flare exhaust. Each flare exhaust on this rig has the diameter of a football court. Excess plasma warms the rig as it exits through the exhausts. The monitors in the surveillance halls can show the rig corridors and chambers in real-time but do not have the ability to record the images, most likely due to the strong magnetic field generated around plasma flares.
The Girl Behind His Window
Knock knock!
A young girl is hanging from a barely visible cord behind the window of the round surveillance hall. She is small and skinny. She has short white hair with a slight purple hue. She has a tattoo of a phoenix-like creature on her right arm. She is wearing a black sports bra, black pants with lots of pockets, and heavy black boots with a green hue coming from their soles. She is comfortably hanging from a fine cord stretching from the top of the window to some apparatus attached to her back between her shoulders; her boots are resting on the wall below the window. A greenish hue comes from the soles of the boots, which seem to be magically glued to the wall.
Before the girl has to knock again, John walks to the window and opens a hatchet. The hatchet is a few meters to the left of the white-haired girl. Using the cord to hang and her boots to stay attached to the wall, she walks towards the opened hatchet and grabs the upper edge of its frame. She maneuvers her abnormally flexible body through the hatchet into the monitor hall, the frame is small but the girl is small too; she easily passes through by curving her body. Once her entire body crosses into the monitor hall, she remains hanging from the edge of the hatchet by her left hand while dislodging the cord with her right hand. The fine silk-like cord dislodges from the outer top of the window and immediately curls back into the apparatus on the girl’s shoulder. Now the girl is hanging from the edge of the hatchet with one hand while her boots provide extra support, relaying part of her weight to the wall below the window.
Without thinking, John lifts his arm and gives a hand to the weird girl with white hair, helping her jump from the window to the floor. The jump is only 1 meter but the girl accepts and smiles, implying “thank you” to John.
A few seconds of awkward silence.
“Captain,” says the girl.
“Doctor”
Replies the captain.
“Oh, you remember me,” responds Rayne with a smile.
She walks to the captain and shakes both of his hands. Before that, the captain had never realized how her smile makes her look like an innocent kid. And she is the commander of the convoy that is supposed to save them. The captain sometimes wonders if the world ever makes sense.
Rule #5 of TBA:
At any given moment during a TBA session, the hierarchy is established and obvious.
“Would you be kind enough to let my companions in? They prefer to use the stairs,” says Rayne as she shakes the hand of Mr. Porgo, chief manager and head financial officer of the rig.
While she shakes Mr. Porgo's hand, the captain realizes that she is wearing two watches on her left wrist, one round golden analog watch with brown leather straps and one black digital watch with a green and purple glowing screen.
“I have told my men to keep the control tower entrance unlocked, you could have used the stairs too,” replies the captain instead of Mr. Porgo. The morbidly obese man seems to be even more red than before. Also, unusually quiet.
“I know,” replies Rayne “I had to adjust my equipment to the gravity of your planet. I hope it was not an inconvenience.” Rayne tries to look as innocent as she can. The captain keeps a stern poker face. Rayne waits for an answer for a second then continues: “I understand that you have a Vermillion worm problem. My companions will explain the biology of the creature shortly.”
The door at the other end of the monitor hall opens and two girls in armored black suits enter. They are not wearing helmets. They are each carrying a large suitcase with them on wheels.
Rayne introduces them: “This is Jane…”, Rayne points to the blonde woman, who is wearing her hair in ponytails and her face is expressionless, “…she is my first assistant.”. Rayne points to the second woman: “This is Karen, she is an expert in worm extermination.” Karen looks slightly shy, she is smaller than all three girls, she is wearing oval glasses and has long curly black hair she is wearing loose.
“Jane, could you please describe a Vermillion worm for the employees?” says Rayne loud enough so that everyone can hear her.
“A Vermillion worm is a subspecies of segmented worms” explains Jane loudly in a monotone emotionless voice, “the name Vermillion is given to this worm not only because of its red color but also because the worm is formed on the border of disposed organic matter and a highly magnetized energy source, such as the plasma under this rig.”
Karen looks at the confused faces of the employees and explains: “Poop exposed to the radiation of the plasma turns into a worm.”
Rayne is not listening to any of this. She is focused on rapidly scanning the surveillance monitors.
The captain has to make sure the women do not mess with his security system. He quickly checks outside the window, the exoskeletons surround the surveillance towers, five stories beneath them. It looks like they are positioning themselves with the help of their handler. The cord attached to their back extends very slowly. The captain knows that the exoskeletons must remain connected to their cords because of their short battery life. He also knows that this is a huge disadvantage for these weapons. "They must have a backup weapon for these slow junk," thinks the captain. Behind him, the girl with glasses continues explaining biology to the confused employees. He turns to glance at the crowd and is surprised to find the white-haired girl standing right behind him.
“I studied the maps of the rig on my way here,”
Her swift inaudible movements remind the captain of something.
"The White Weasel"
The words come out of the captain's mouth before he can stop them.
"Excuse me?" says Rayne looking slightly confused.
"Um... this is your code name in CASTEL... right?" the captain holds his breath. His memory is not very good with weird names but this name is too weird to forget.
Rayne's face is expressionless.
"YES!" she finally replies with a shy smile. The captain releases his breath. He tries a crooked smile on his face.
"So I was saying, I need your help," Rayne pauses for a second and continues "I studied all the maps I could find of this place, this place is a confusing maze. And it is one of the oldest rigs we have in our files."
The captain returns to his stern face; he knows what is coming.
"I could never know this place as good as its security captain.” Rayne looks at the captain hopefully: “I need your assistance.”
Before the captain can answer, his thoughts are interrupted. Karen nervously continues explaining to the anxious and confused employees in the monitor room: “…also the creation of the worm requires a seed. The seed starts the chain reaction of turning organic matter into living matter, forming tubes over tubes, and when it finally matures, usually over one or two years, it starts its reproduction cycle and that is when it starts feeding on humans to turn their bodies into egg-beds…”
“Thank you, Karen!” Rayne interrupts.
The air feels heavy; the rig employees nervously look at each other under the lights of the monitors. Their faces are barely illuminated but their panicked eyes glow in the white and yellow light.
The captain tries his best to get the horrifying image out of his head and focuses on answering Rayne: “Tell me what you need.”
Rayne approaches the main control boards. She stands behind one of the boards and looks at the controls: “I would like access to all your security cameras. Plus the most recent and the most detailed maps of the rig.”
The captain glances at Mr. Porgo.
Mr. Porgo has a weird expression on his face that the captain neither understands nor needs to understand. The captain looks solemnly at Rayne and nods.
“One more thing about the worm…” shouts Rayne loud enough so that everyone can hear her “…the worm does not usually infect a Faraday cage, not because it can’t, but because it does not see the inside of the cage and hence does not know it exists.”
The men look slightly more nervous than before now.
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“… so, I ask you all to remain calm and quiet until the worm is completely exterminated. The worm does not see the inside of the cage but it may be able to hear us if it gets too loud here.”
Later Rayne argues that “the presence of hidden corridors in the rig indicated that neither the captain nor the chief finance manager was honest [with her]”.
“I believe I got it, thank you.”
Rayne thanks the head monitor supervisor, Doug, after he explains the camera controls. Rayne needs to get ready for high-paced analysis for the next 4 to 6 hours depending on the size of the worm. She opens one of the pockets on her pants and removes a small box. She puts the box on the control table and opens the lid. Inside, are syringes and patches. Rayne removes the protective layer of one patch and sticks it on the skin of her left shoulder. She then pinches the middle of the syringe box and removes its first layer; the box has a hidden second compartment. Inside the hidden compartment…
The captain cannot see so he walks closer…
…it’s a lollipop, five lollipops to be exact, all flat and of different colors.
“No, nothing makes sense in this world,” thinks the captain.
Rayne takes a lollipop, unwraps it, and puts it in her mouth. She closes her eyes, puts both her hands on the edges of the control table, and takes a deep breath with her nose while her mouth is closed around the lollipop. She opens her eyes, takes the lollipop out, and starts giving orders on her radio:
“We have 9 exoskeletons and 16 supporters. I will guide 5 exoskeletons and 8 supporters through the western port, the captain will guide the other 4 exoskeletons and 8 supporters through the northern port.”
CASTEL exoskeletons contain bioengineered tissues that form muscles inside the exoskeleton. Their design is inspired by the anatomy of an insect. The human pilot inside the exoskeleton acts as the central nervous system while the bioengineered tissues provide the motions. A neuro-connector gel connects the pilot’s skin to the engineered muscles inside the exoskeleton.
The pilot must keep constant contact with the neuro-connecter gel through the skin of her fingertips, shoulders, neck, and soles of her feet.
Each exoskeleton walks on six legs and has two multi-functional arms.
The left arm is equipped with a powerful clamp and a torch that easily cuts through flesh.
The right arm is equipped with a clamp that hides a medicine cannon which shoots a chemical cannonball into the flesh of any infecting creature.
“Why doesn’t it eat the chickens?”
The captain has been guiding the second exterminating team through a mini radio Jane gave him. In the past 80 minutes, he has been checking the cameras from all possible angles and guiding each exoskeleton unit through its corresponding corridor. It took 10 to 20 minutes for the units to locate the mouth, fight the tongue, grab it, cut it, and shoot a medicine-cannonball down its throat. The chemical in those cannonballs was so potent it would kill the entire branch connected to that mouth, turning the red flesh into grey powder. The act has been giving the captain uncanny pleasure, especially since the effects were immediate. The only problem with the exoskeletons was their short battery life, around 3 minutes, which meant they had to keep attached to the thick cord that provided constant electricity to them. Handling the cords was the cumbersome responsibility of the armored supporters; they extended very slowly from the source -the positive portal- and this significantly slowed down the progress of each unit through the corridors.
The captain has been busy guiding the girls under his command through the corridors and halls. However, this one question wouldn’t stop bothering him the whole time. He needs to know the answer.
“I know Vermillion worms usually like chicken.”
The two women keep silent and look at Rayne. The captain looks at Rayne. She does not want to answer the question. She keeps silent.
“There is a mouth inside the chicken farm but it won’t grab any of the chicken.”
The two women look at each other with concern while Rayne is silent.
“Why does it only grab my men?”
“Because it does not do this out of hunger,” Rayne responds suddenly “There is plenty of food source for the worm on this planet. It has infinite energy and an infinite supply of human waste. It does not need to do this…,” Rayne explains while keeping her eyes on the monitors “It wants to do this as part of its reproductive cycle. And it needs humans for that. Not chicken.”
“This is an act of pleasure for a creature with a refined palate,” Karen adds, trying to cut the tension by being poetic.
There are currently 9 exoskeletons and 16 supporters actively exterminating worm branches. 4 Exoskeletons and 4 supporters remain in the flame tower guarding the central control tower and the C-MRQ crystal.
“Captain, here on the map it just says sewers.”
The captain was checking the monitors to find a route for one of his exoskeleton units. He was interrupted when Rayne stood beside him holding a folded map of the rig. She points to a spot on the corner of the map, the captain looks, this is a folded piece of the floor map of the lowest level of the rig. “Do you have a more detailed map of the sewage system?”
“There isn’t much there to map, the entire sewage system of the rig ends up in this pipe here…” captain points to the spot right before the sewers, “…and it empties there.”
“How often do you inspect the area, if you don’t mind me asking?” says Rayne trying to sound innocuous.
“We inspect annually, per CASTEL protocols,” replies the captain with a stern voice. He tries not to sound irritated. He was expecting CASTEL’s envoy to start meddling in the rig’s business and scrutinize their every routine, however, not this early in the middle of the active extermination process.
“Do you perform the inspections yourself?” asks Rayne immediately, keeping her voice as innocuous as she can.
The captain swallows his frustration: “Can this…”
“Cinza-3, ACTIVITY OVER YOUR HEAD!” Rayne suddenly shouts on her radio. She can see dust falling on the exoskeleton Cinza-3 on the surveillance camera in front of her. The exoskeleton unit called Cinza has been exploring the gym, they were focused on a mouth formation on the ceiling about 10 meters to their left. Now suddenly Rayne suspects that they have been distracted by the wrong hole. Something is happening on the ceiling right on top of the exoskeleton Cinza-3.
“SHIT!”
The entire worm mouth protrudes from the ceiling and swallows exoskeleton Cinza-3 from top to midway to the legs in an instant.
The exoskeletons are too heavy for the tongue, this time the worm extended its entire mouth out of the ceiling to swallow the whole exoskeleton from above.
“Cinza-8, use time-bomb, NOW!” Shouts Rayne.
“Roger!”
For one moment the world turns pitch black and reappears in front of the captain. He feels nauseous. As if his inner organs have moved slightly out of their places and back. He is not sure what happened. Then, for one second, he feels that under his feet the entire building jitters.
“Unit Cinza, you just used a 100 seconds time-bomb. Do NOT proceed until we analyze,” says Rayne while checking her two watches on her left wrist. The gold analog watch seems to be functioning normally while the green and purple screen of the black digital watch shows noise.
“Roger,” says Cinza-3 on the radio.
“Roger,” says Cinza-8 on the radio.
Some girls on the radio start whining and complaining. “Kudos team Cinza!” says one of the girls on the radio sarcastically.
The captain checks the camera showing unit Cinza. The exoskeleton Cinza-3 and the supporter Cinza-8 both look fine now. Although they are standing a few meters away from where they were a few seconds ago. As if the events of a few seconds ago never happened. “What the hell…!?” asks the captain.
“It seems the hole in front of you on the ceiling is not an orifice, it is the body. Do not attack it. Let me find the active orifice. It is in the ceiling digging somewhere else…ah! There, 9 o’clock! Cinza-3 do you see dust falling from the ceiling on your 9 o’clock?” says Rayne on the radio.
“I told you that was not the mouth! Look at the waves you idiot!” says Cinza-8 angrily to Cinza-3 on the radio.
The captain never liked cyber technology. For centuries, the rig has protected men from technology that turned humans into useless house pets. This time-bomb or whatever..., he just was not sure.
Rayne sees the concerned and slightly disgusted expression of the captain and explains: “A time bomb reverses the direction of time within its radius for 100 seconds which means that the ones experiencing inside the radius go back around 15 seconds in time, and the ones outside the radius go back 15 seconds divided by their distance to the power of gravity. Gravity in your planet is 8.4…. So, for us, it was a fraction of a second and for them, it was 15 seconds”
The captain now looks obviously confused.
“Don’t worry it took me 4 years to understand this confusing math.”
“How much is the …space… radius of the bomb then?” asks the captain, regaining his focus.
Rayne is slightly surprised by this question. “This one had a radius of 80 meters….” Replies Rayne; she also looks slightly relieved.
“Oh, before I forget;” says Rayne “inside the impact radius, some objects may become… loose. You know….” Rayne looks at the captain with an embarrassed face “So, make sure you check the area with your men later for... unstable stuff. Sorry”.
Fun fact #1
You can only use a time-bomb once per 30 hours in a space unit.
If used more than once, a time-bomb may rearrange an entire partition of the universe by causing a massive paradox cluster.
The first analysis is in
“Girls, the first analysis of the trunk is in,” announces Rayne on her radio. She is looking at what Karen has been preparing, a 3D reconstruction of heat signals from satellite scans.
“…and it’s a big one. Estimated length 235 meters, diameter 26.”
The captain can hear the girls on the radio expressing concern. He is not an expert on the size of Vermillion worms but this sounds like an enormous object, and it can move on its own. Massive objects that could move on their own were not rare on this extremely unstable rig and it has been his job to make sure they don't crush his employees for the past 10 years. This worm … the captain takes a deep breath… is just another enormous moving object he has to control. Things are starting to make more sense now.
“How many main branches?” One of the girls asks on the radio.
“Wait a second on that… ok it's eight adult main branches. Five budding branches. You don’t need to worry about the budding branches for another 6 to 7 hours...”
“Has anyone seen Adam!?” Rayne is interrupted by an employee shouting. She turns towards the voice looking alert.
The captain looks in the direction of the shouting employee. His men look at each other with confusion. “Adam is missing?!”
Rayne puts her lollipop back in her mouth and starts rapidly scanning the cameras; Jane and Karen join her. “Where was Adam immediately before the worm attacked?” asks Jane loudly while keeping her eyes on the changing images on the monitors.
The shouting employee sprints towards the captain. “We were in our dormitory in D when the worm attacked. Adam came here with me, he was standing right next to me before that weird blackout, I don’t understand…”
“Occasionally, a time-bomb causes a disturbance in timelines,” Karen explains nervously “A crucial decision may be altered in that area within the past few hours, causing alternative outcomes…”
“There!” says Jane. She points to a monitor.
On the monitor showing dormitory D11, the captain can recognize the huge figure of Adam in the corner; Adam is a big man, he is 195 cm tall with almost 100 kg of pure muscles but he seems to be sitting on the ground, hunched over in fetal position. He is holding something in his arms, pressing it firmly to his chest.
“Is that a cat?” Asks Karen.
Crunch!
Rayne chews the lollipop off its stick and swallows it in one angry gulp. She starts scanning the maps rapidly “Jane, give instructions to the nearest unit.“
The employee that noticed Adam’s missing, walks closer to the monitor to see better, he is a hunched-over muscular man with a huge belly and a face burned from standing close to the generator ovens “I told him to forget his cat and run to the central tower. He listened and came here with me. I don’t understand what is going on now,” he says nervously.
Everyone looks at the girls for an explanation. Rayne is talking to CASTEL on her earpiece while rapidly scanning the maps and cameras. The captain can hear her say:
“… calculate…
calculate…
… what’s the 95 percent CI?
... choose.”
Karen looks at Jane. Jane explains: “Timeline is slightly changed. In the current timeline, Adam made the decision to go after the cat first. Looks like it was the wrong decision, he is trapped in the dormitory now, and he seems to be frozen in panic. This is a common reaction, the brain cannot fathom the contradicting memories of the two timelines.”
The captain turns to talk to Rayne but Rayne is already standing behind him, looking at him with serious eyes “The timeline change occurred in the D area, one of the worm branches in that area is also altered. My girls are working on that. The closest exoskeleton to Adam is unit Azul, it will take them 11 minutes to reach Adam. I am going there to keep him safe until unit Azul arrives. Jane and Karen will assume my position until I return.”
Rayne grabs a pair of large black headphones from Jane and rests them around her neck and on her shoulder. She also grabs a thick black jacket and puts it on. She strides to the windowed wall.
“The worm has detected Adam. It is digging a mouth on the wall to his right.” Jane says in a monotonic voice.
Rayne does not look back and keeps walking.
The captain grabs the rig’s loudspeaker microphone and shouts: “Adam! Can you hear me? You need to move! Now!” The captain’s voice resonates in the tower. The employees are sure Adam can hear the captain; however, the loudspeaker is very weak in the D dormitory. Adam barely reacts. He starts rocking back and forward in his place.
Rayne strides all the way to the windowed wall under the still-open hatchet, jumps, and grabs the upper frames of the hatchet; she starts curling up through the frame.
The captain cannot stand there and watch. He runs to Rayne. “What exactly are you planning on doing?”
Rayne stops midway, jumps back on the floor, and turns to face the captain: “I am very fast but I cannot carry heavy objects. I will try to get Adam to safety by guiding him and distracting the worm.”
Rayne puts her black headphones on her ears and pushes one of the ears, the headphones rapidly change shape: they extend backward and cover her entire scalp, then a greenish glass extends from the anterior edge of the headphones and forms a green semi-see-through visor in front of Rayne’s face.
“If you choose to come and help me, remember that the worm is attracted to the yellow worker’s helmet.”
The captain opens his mouth to say something but stops himself, an image he saw earlier comes to his mind, of the worm tongue trying to remove the yellow helmet of the volunteer when they were moving charcoal bags to the portal.
Rayne steps back and jumps up to the hatchet in the window, grabs the upper edge of the hatchet frame, and curls her body through... like a weasel. Once through, she pauses for a second and assesses the flame tower while hanging on the other side of the window.
Whoosh!
Rayne is no longer at the other side of the window, within moments she appears at the bottom of the tower, just near the east-side gate, the entrance to D area. The captain is not sure but he thinks he saw her slide on some large invisible spiral slide inside the tower walls. Rayne enters the gate to the D area and disappears.