Ouch!

Rayne feels an intense pain in her head.

A sharp pain starts behind her left eye, the pain immediately spreads to her entire left face. This is a rare but important pain for Rayne. It means a warning from The Order of The C-MRQ.

The sharp stabbing pain leaves as soon as it appears. A throbbing vague pain replaces it.

Trying not to writhe in pain, Rayne opens her eyes.

“Oh right, his eyes. They are so calming.”

The captain is looking deep into Rayne’s eyes.

“Are you ok?”

Rayne is on the ground, hunched over in the fetal position. She has been holding her left forehead and hiding her face between her knees for the past 4 or 5 seconds. “Embarrassing”

“Um, I am not sure, what just happened?” she straightens her back, she is sitting on the floor a few meters away from exoskeleton Azul. She looks at the calm exoskeleton. The metallic cyber-bug has just finished fighting the mouth and is now recharging. Its armored supporter is standing a few meters away from Rayne. She is a middle-height muscular woman with curly blonde hair and greenish-yellow eyes, Tania.

Tania is holding her helmet under her right arm, looking at Rayne with concern in her face.

“We were just walking back to the tower when you…” the captain suddenly stops explaining. He stares at Rayne. He looks pensive. He reaches for his belt.

The captain is not sure if Rayne is oriented. He kneels in front of her and checks her pupils while opening a pouch attached to his belt.

His instincts tell him to refer to his medical background and examine her mental status. So, he reaches for his medical pouch and grabs an ornamented brass lighter. He turns it on. A purplish flame, the size of a candle appears.

Rayne knows she has to explain herself. She stops his wrist from reaching her with the lighter. When she has headaches, purple light can harm her eyes.

“I think I just had an episode of cluster headaches,” Rayne tries to look calm and kind. She takes a deep breath. “I am ok…” She closes her eyes and smiles. Closing her eyes calms her nerves and soothes the intense pain she has been holding for the past few seconds. She takes another deep breath and covers her eyes with her hands. “Do I have five minutes?”

The captain is impressed. Cluster headaches are rare but one of his men has it. He knows exactly how to deal with them.

“Go ahead take your time,” he puts the lighter in his medic box and reaches for his pocket watch.

“I’ll watch over.”

He smiles at the pun and starts counting Rayne's breathing; they are regular and slow. He takes a few steps away from her and turns to the hallway to check the area. So far so good.

Rayne appreciates being left alone. She takes a deep breath. She hates the metallic smell of rigs. Their acidic airs always give her headaches.

But not cluster headaches.

This special intense pain can only mean one thing: a warning from The Order. “I wish there was a less painful way for them to send their warnings.” She takes another deep breath and tries to remember what just happened.

Oh right, the tongue ripped her coat and retracted itself. Exoskeleton Azul finally showed up and started attacking the mouth. It was not connected to any charging cord, it fought freely with the tongue. Rayne rushed to help the armored-supporter with the arduous task of extending the cord to reach the exoskeleton as fast as possible. The captain ordered Adam to return to the central control tower and he obeyed. The exoskeleton killed the mouth fairly easily because the tongue was stuck to Rayne’s ripped coat. That is when the ...

Stupid headache! The pain is still there and is there to stay. It would get better with good-quality air. But the metallic-acidic air of the rig must do for now. Rayne remembers her own medic box. The box of remedies and candies.

“I am sure I have 5-HT in the box.”

She reaches for one of the pockets on her pants and grabs her box. She finds the patch she was looking for and sticks it to her shoulder. She removes the top layer of the box, takes a lollipop, unwraps it, and puts it in her mouth.

“Much better…”

There are 30 C-MRQ users in the universe. They can send a single-word message to the past if all members of The Order agree. They usually choose pain as the messenger.

In the monitor room, Jane is screening the monitors and matching them with her maps. She loves this task.

“I am sure I can be of some assistance,” Mr. Porgo shouts from a short distance behind Jane.

Jane could hear the obese man walking over the past few minutes. His loud breathing made it impossible not to notice him pass between the employees standing in the monitor hall. Still, Jane was startled by his loud shouting. She closes her eyes and tries to shake it off without showing any signs of getting startled.

“Absolutely!," Jane turns to face him. Her face is back to her usual stoic, "your help would be appreciated." She tries a formal smile and continues with her task of checking monitors and writing on the maps on the enormous control board in front of her.

Mr. Porgo spots a pile of maps on the opposite side of the control board, he slowly walks over there while keeping an eye on the monitors behind Jane.

Jane does not want anyone to interfere with her task. She thinks of a way to entertain the old man. “Could you find the oldest map of the rig?”

Mr. Porgo stops at the other side of the control board. He lingers before he answers.

“Sure, it must be here…”

He starts searching in the mountains of paper-maps on the control board, keeping one eye on Jane and the monitors. He notices that some of the monitors are showing corridors that do not have worm infestations.

“May I ask what you are searching for?”

Mr. Porgo tries to sound as polite as he can while keeping the panic in his chest in check.

Jane is writing notes with a pencil on the corner of a map.

“I am calculating the ratio of the medicated worm,” she continues writing as she speaks “The first Lethal Dose 50 of the medication should be reached any moment now.” she puts the butt of her pencil in her mouth with her right hand and starts playing with her ponytail by wrapping it around her left index finger.

The building starts shaking.

Mr. Porgo tries to keep his balance by holding on to the control board. Jane smiles.

“Doug, what’s the situation?” the captain asks on his radio. He is not sure if this is an earthquake or if one of the flames is overflowing. The walls and floors suddenly started shaking. He does not feel a rise in the hallway's temperature; a flame overflow would cause immense heat in the hallways of the rigs and sometimes you could even see purple neon light bursting from the end of the hallways. All rig employees know the protocol in case they see those lights: run to the closest door, get inside and close the door behind you.

Right now, the captain's surroundings are dark and cold. The only lights in the corridor are the dim yellow lights of the wall lamps and their shimmering reflections on the round metallic walls.

“I do not feel any heat, over.”

Rayne puts her right hand on the captain’s shoulder. “Relax, this is a good sign,” she still can barely open her eyes. Her left hand is on her left ear, pushing an earpiece while holding a lollipop, she is listening to her mini-radio. “It means that the worm is half finished.”

The shaking stops.

“Now the fun part of the extermination begins.” Rayne closes her eyes and tries a crooked smile.

Lethal Dose 50 or LD50 is a pharmaceutical term for when a medication reaches the dose that exterminates half of the invasive organism.

In the monitor hall, Karen is explaining science non-stop to any employee who would listen. Talking about science calms her nerves. The dark unfriendly hall and the bright monitors do not compose a welcoming environment for her. On top of that, she just watched her boss and that poor guy Adam get so close to getting swallowed by the worm; there was nothing she could do except hold her breath or bite her nails. Once Adam stepped inside the monitor tower, she felt relief, enough to calm her breathing and stop biting her nails. But now, she cannot help explaining science. "So, the cluster headache attack that my boss just experienced is simply a temporary malfunction of the blood vessels in the cranium. Fortunately, the attacks are not common and only occur when things are calmed down. Like now, with Adam safely rescued and back in the Faraday cage protection. However, we don't need the protection anymore. Once the Lethal Dose 50 of the worm is reached, the creature has no choice but to shed off all of its remaining branches to save the main corpus..." Karen's mouth seems to have a brain of its own.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

RJ has been listening carefully to Karen the whole time. Before the two women arrived, the captain secretly asked RJ to watch over CASTEL's employees in case of his absence. The captain did not fully trust CASTEL and neither did RJ. However, the two women in the monitor hall have been acting diligently so far. Or so it seemed. Mr. Porgo has been watching the tall stoic blonde and RJ has been keeping his focus on the petite brunette wearing square glasses.

"What do you mean shed off its branches?" RJ interrupts Karen.

"Um, I am so glad you asked that question.” Karen is taken aback by the question but regroups her focus, she did not expect anyone to actually listen to her. She clears her throat, and answers in a clear, brave voice that only slightly shivers:

“The mouths that have been opening in the walls are just the endings of each branch. We have successfully medicated half of the worm's weight through those mouths. If we continued, the worm would have died by poisoning. However, this worm is smart, smart enough to change its strategy.” Karen pauses to see if the mustache man in front of her follows the chain of logic.

The man has a severe poker face, his facial muscles intense. Karen cannot understand the expression so she continues:

“The main body just cut its connections to all its branches, sacrificing them to save the main corpus. The earthquake that you just felt was the main corpus moving under the rig. It is trying to synchronize with the core plasma source underneath this rig. Synchronizing is important to absorb energy, grow new healthy branches, and attack again. We have about 8 to 9 hours to eliminate the main corpus. Otherwise, we have to do the whole procedure again."

“Wouldn’t it make more sense to make a more potent medicine?” RJ decides to chip in on his own understanding of the situation.

Karen’s expression suddenly changes. Before, she looked anxious, now she looks angry, but her eyes shine from excitement. “Finally, a worthy opponent.” A crooked childish smile appears on Karen’s face.

In cases of plasma overflow, the rig's flame exhaust and its corridors function as heat distributors. The metallic hallways convey heat to the rooms, making them warm and keeping the employees from freezing on the sunless planet. The employees wear jackets that can be taken off any time the rig gets too hot.

“Have you ever ridden a roller-coaster?”

The captain and Rayne are riding the captain’s steampunk snowmobile on the snowy mountains of the northeastern pole of the rig. The sky is black but the purple glow of the lake on the far south gives it a soft purplish glow. The captain and Rayne have been communicating over the radio. The path is rough and the steampunk snowmobile is not a smooth machine. Rayne is hugging the captain from behind, and holding him around the chest as tightly as politely possible. The snowmobile is so loud that the captain and Rayne have been communicating through CASTEL helmets.

“Come again?” the captain was not expecting this question.

“I will explain when we get there. Have you ever ridden a roller coaster?” Rayne’s helmet muffles the noise of the snowmobile but the steam-making metallic machine is so loud that she has to shout as loudly as she can. “You know? Those fast train-thingies in entertainment parks?”

The snowmobile streams on the snowy mountain, the noise of its engine echoes through the valleys.

“Umm, I am not sure if it counts," the captain is confused but he tries to keep up "but fixing the boiler in the processing plant A1 is very similar to riding a roller coaster.” The captain is not sure why Rayne is asking this question, “Don’t tell me your plan is…”

“Yes, the plan is stimulating the worm until it leaves the snow and I am planning on riding iiiiii.....” Rayne is suddenly interrupted by the loud brakes of the snowmobile followed by a sharp left turn. The captain skillfully balances himself but Rayne is pushed forward and to the right, she holds tight to the captain’s belt to stay put from the sudden change of direction.

The captain skillfully finishes the turn. “Go on,” he calmly shouts as they ride in a straight line again.

“Ok…so, where were we?" Rayne tries to remember her last words. The snowmobile is running straight uphill on the edge of the mountain. The black starry sky of the sunless planet has a purplish shimmer on the horizon that reflects on the snow-covered mountains. The snowmobile's bright yellow front light shows the path on the snow for them.

Rayne sits straighter and organizes her thoughts. "Right! First things first." She tries to hold her chain of thoughts. But this ride through the snow in the darkness is captivating for her. She swallows and continues "My team is predicting the location where the worm will be closest to the surface, we call that the Hot Zone,” she checks the map on the see-through green screen of her helmet. "We arrive at the Hot Zone in roughly 14 minutes. There I can use shockwaves to exaggerate the worm's wave-like movement, and hopefully, it will leave the snow at the predicted spot. That is the easiest way to grab onto it."

“Wait, is the worm going to be moving while you grab on?” the captain could think of worse ideas.

“Yes. Unfortunately, that is the fastest way of eliminating a Vermilion worm.” Rayne is not unhappy about this part, actually she is excited. The only fun part of exterminating a Vermilion worm. “I love roller-coasters.” She thinks.

“Are you ready for some science”

“Go ahead, our ETA is roughly 13 minutes,” the captain replies.

This was indeed Rayne’s favorite part.

“Around 3000 years ago, a man on earth wrote a science-fiction novel called Dune.”

“I have read that book.” Dune was in fact the captain’s favorite childhood book.

Rayne feels a rush of blood on her cheek. She has no idea why. She suddenly gets a flashback of her cluster headache and the warning from The Order. “Oh right, it happened when the captain and I were walking back to the security tower after rescuing Adam.” Rayne suddenly remembers what she was doing when the cluster attack struck her. “The warning came when I was looking at the captain from the back, watching him walk and thinking he was… sexy?”

“The enormous creature has shaken off all of its branches,” Rayne decides to forget about the warning and focus on the problem at hand. “Now the Vermilion worm is desperately moving under the snow in a wave-like pattern to absorb energy from underground plasma and wash away the medication we have been giving it.”

The Order's warning means that one of Rayne’s objectives on this rig will cause her grave consequences. “Well, my first objective is this damn worm. And second objective…” Only Jane knows about Rayne’s second objective, the secret mission they have been planning for this specific rig after the events of 2 years ago. “It’s not the time to think about this... but I won't lose this opportunity.”

"So now we are looking at a Dune-style ride on a giant underground worm?" The captain can imagine what Rayne is talking about. He is not sure if she has the correct equipment. Back in the monitor room, he saw Jane help the white-haired woman put on a very tight armor. The armor was a thin black suit that shaped her body but filled the curve of her lower back. The captain suspects a hidden compartment inside what looks like a lower-back guard in Rayne's new black armor.

“Close enough. Except that Dune got the science wrong.” Rayne sounds very sure of herself shouting this in the speaker of her helmet.

The captain does not agree with the statement but replies "Go on…"

“Well, the fast wave-like movement of the worm this size is only possible through sonic molecular dissociation.” Rayne does not want to get too technical. The snowmobile is too loud and the mountains are too beautiful for argument on the ride. "It is only feasible in snow, a semi-solid. This type of movement on an object this size is not possible in sand because sand grains are true solid. Anyways... I am going to ride on the back of the worm by grabbing onto its back as it ejects itself from the snow. The predicted angle of ejection is 35 degrees to the slope of the location."

Rayne tries not to giggle from how weirdly sexual that sounded.

"And what will happen when you jump on its back?" The captain tries to keep calm on the radio but he has to shout as loud as he can. "I am assuming that you are planning to jump on its back."

Rayne is happy with the question, looks like the captain is too serious to get the innuendo.

"Let me check something with CASTEL before I answer that question. " She pushes the left side of the helmet. “Rose, where are we on the Cosmic Mirror request?”

“Anytime now,” a woman replies on the radio.

Rayne taps on the captain’s shoulder: “Slow down a little please.”

From the horizon, a yellow light starts glowing, piercing the dark sky, slowly growing it finally changes to bright orange. The orange turns bigger and changes color to beige covering half of the sky, the other half twilight. A few seconds later, the beige grows and turns blue, the entire sky shines bright blue. A sun starts glaring through the snow-covered valley.

“What is going on?” The captain has never seen anything like this during his 10 years on this planet.

“Sunrise,” explains Rayne. “Well, actually a mirrored sunrise. We are reflecting the sun from a nearby solar system onto your planet.”

The captain is mesmerized by the view.

He slows down. Partly to let his eyes adjust to the new brightness. Partly to appreciate the breathtaking vista.

“Wow.” The white mountains and the blue sky are a combination the captain had never seen in his life.

“Your planet is beautiful!” Rayne has a childish enthusiasm in her voice.

All rig employees come from pirate ancestors.

They unanimously hate AI. The oral history of the rigs tells them that AI stole their ancestors' jobs and made them useless.

RJ is still not convinced of Karen's explanation. He decides to stop arguing with "the brunette with ridiculous glasses" and changes his gaze to the monitors to check on his captain.

In the monitor showing the mountains of the northeast of the rig, RJ finds the security captain riding a snowmobile... also giving a piggyback ride to the commander of CASTEL, the petite white-haired woman. RJ did not see this coming. "Wait, how long do I have to keep watch in the monitor hall? How long do I have to watch these women? Is it safe to leave the security tower now?"

Karen has been arguing with RJ for the past half an hour and she is tired of science and the boring logic of biology. She wants to keep arguing for the sake of science but she decides to be more useful instead.

"RJ, your name is RJ!"

RJ turns his head towards Karen. His facial muscles are too tired for a poker face so they show a little surprise "Yes... It is written on my badge."

"Ok, RJ! Nice to meet you, I am Karen."

"Um, nice to meet you." They hesitantly shake hands.

"RJ! Your attention to the details is awesome." Karen tries an innocent smile.

"Um, thanks, I guess." his cheeks turn red. He looks away and continues watching the monitors. "You are very smart, I can tell, 'cause I am smart too." He keeps his eyes on the monitors. Karen greens childishly.

All CASTEL employees must pass courses on "Winning an argument against a man"

The captain and Rayne decided to stop at the peak of one of the mountains, get off the snowmobile and assess the maps.

Rayne is holding her helmet with two hands in front of them. In the dark, Rayne's helmet was seethrough green. Under the fake golden sun, the visor is chrome black. The captain has to shade the. the bright square on the top right corner of the visor to see what the mini monitor is showing. Their destination is barely visible.

They have been having trouble finding their destination, mostly because of the convoluted mountains and the unhelpful map.

"I am sorry about the GPS. We only have one -barely functioning- satellite, so GPS is not accurate on the planet." The captain knows it is not his fault, but he decides to remind the CASTEL employee that he has been asking for better satellite coverage over bureaucratic channels and they have all failed so far.

"I am sorry about that too…” Rayne answers without raising her head, “I understand that the radiations of plasma rigs reduce the half-life of satellites. CASTEL is usually reluctant to buy more than one satellite per rig. I will talk to my sister when I go back."

The captain looks at Rayne. He does not enjoy being predictable but he decides that it is okay. If it means better security for his men, he is willing to swallow his pride occasionally. He tries to keep his poker face but suddenly curiosity fills his face.

"I'd appreciate that."

Rayne looks into the eyes of the captain and nods. They both return their focus to the screen of the helmet in front of them. Suddenly the captain grabs the helmet from Rayne and zooms in on the map.

"I think I know where we are going, hop on," his voice sounds firm and reassuring for Rayne.

The Cosmic Mirror project was funded by CASTEL's charity foundation. The donations resulted in the construction and launch of an enormous cosmic system of mirrors to "Bring light to sunless countries".

CASTEL constantly uses the enormous system for its own missions.

Mr. Porgo is pretending to search between the paper maps on the control board to keep watch. Jane, the tall blonde CASTEL employee, has asked him "to find the oldest map of the rig". The stoic woman is standing 5 meters away in front of Mr. Porgo on the other side of the control table. Mr Porgo can't help but notice that the woman is lean and tall, wearing a tight black armored suit, writing notes on papers, and occasionally, putting the butt of her pencil in her mouth... "Focus man!"

"Oh, I found the oldest map," announces Jane with a fake enthusiasm in her voice.

Mr Porgo is baffled by this news. "Um, let me see the date."

He walks close to the woman and stops one meter away from her on the same side of the control board. "Of course, she smells good too."

Jane has never had a problem keeping her poker face. But seeing the beefy red cheeks of the rig's chief finance manager as the obese man waddles close is very entertaining for her. She has seen his type before; the type that is usually reliable when it comes to her job.

Jane hands the map to Mr. Porgo.

Mr. Porgo checks the map for a second, then removes a monocle from his pocket and holds it against his left eye to read the date on the map, in the left lower corner.

Jane narrows her eyes. "Why is it the first time I have seen him use this monocle?" Jane is slightly angered by the obese man pretending to help her, he was obviously watching her from a distance and did not need the monocle to see better. This means that the old man will not be helpful in eradicating a man-eating Vermillion worm.

"I am guessing you did not need the monocle to find the map for me." Jane can't stop the words from leaving her mouth. She is shocked by herself once all the words leave. It is not like her to lose composure.

"I know the maps by heart, I don't need to read the dates to find them." Mr. Porgo realizes his mistake after the excuse leaves his mouth.

Jane decides not to say anything. "Some people need spanking sometimes."