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Swarm Chapter 2: Outbreak
Posted By: monitor101<wasup1989@hotmail.com>
Date: 12 March 2005, 1:44 AM
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Chapter 2: Outbreak
(1900 hours, September 12, 2551, Military Calendar / UNSC controlled space, ONI Engineering Research Facility EX-221-7, ONI Department of Special Weapons Projects, Lambda Serpentis system, planet Jericho II)
The control room of the SWP Engineering Research Facility EX-221-7 was dark except for the wall-sized monitors that faintly illuminated a small section of the large room. The view screens displayed security readouts and containment procedures. The man sitting in front of the screens tapped furiously away at the keyboard before him.
Lieutenant 1st Class Jim Hall yawned as he finished the nightly shutdown procedures...all except one. Hall leaned back and yawned deeply. It had been almost two days since he slept. Since high-ranking military and navy commanders and members from the ONI oversight committee came to see the swarm in action. He had spent all of yesterday going over line after line of code debugging the nanobot's basic operational systems. Now that they were all gone, he had nothing to do except run the nightshift in the control room, making sure that everything ran smoothly. Dr. Webber had worked every one of the facilities' fifty workers to their limits. Now they were a ghost crew stranded on a desolate planet on the edges of UNSC controlled space. Again, Hall yawned and he remembered old times long since passed.
He remembered growing up on vids of Admiral Cole's fleet retaking the Harvest system and wanting to be a starship pilot and fly with the ol' war hound, battling Covenant, and saving the human race. When he graduated from Naval OCS, he was plucked up and thrown into circulation almost instantly. He flew a few missions and acted as a Ship's Ops officer. Hall witnessed many battles and many planets glassed. It was the farthest thing from his childhood dream...in fact it was living proof of hell. He had volunteered for ONI spec ops and passed the training with flying colors. He was thrown into the development of top-secret projects and was glad to be away from the bloodshed. Now he looked forward to his sleep cycle, which came much sooner than he expected. Lieutenant Hall's eyelids became heavy and he nodded off into the beginnings of a deep REM sleep.
In the recesses of Facility EX-221-7, in the holding cells of projects that were "in development" something happened. A clear vapor escaped from one of the holding cells (long glass cylinders that connected to the floor) which was followed by a hissing sound. The vapor turned black and began to cascade out of the top of the cell.
The vapor seemed to spread throughout the facility in a deliberate manner, as if something was controlling it. It also flashed different colors as it continued to float and spread. In parts of the vaporous cloud, it flashed a fiery red and those parts vanished literally into thin air. The cloud turned from black to blue to yellow, then to green. In other parts, it swirled and scattered as it hit streams of air that blew out of vents.
The cloud filled the holding area and spread throughout several parts of the facility. As it did so, the cloud moved as if it knew where it was going. It spread to the landing platforms where a Pelican dropship was sitting in the darkness. The cloud surrounded the dropship and began to study it, moving from part to part and entering the bowels of the dropship via vents and microscopic openings. The Pelican's engines and cockpit seemed to be of particular interest to the cloud. When the mist was finished with what it was doing, it scattered to anything else that had working parts, memory, and data. The cloud was eager to learn.
Hall suddenly awoke to a flashing red light. He glanced at his watch to see how long he had been out. Ten minutes, damn. Rubbing his eyes Hall tapped a series of buttons and a data report popped up onto the wall monitor. Apparently, there had been a malfunction in
part of the security camera system. Hall shook his head and typed in a series of commands. A new image popped up on the screen showing live images from the cameras. Hall examined each picture, every camera showed the same relative peace at night throughout the facility except... "Got ya!" Hall muttered and maximized the image of cam 3-20A, the enlarged image showed the hissing gray of static. The camera must have short-circuited. He minimized the image and relaxed a little, Hall would see that it got fixed in the morning. Suddenly two more cameras went out and both showed static.
"What the...?" Hall whispered and typed in another command. The cameras were from the holding cells, landing platform A-2, and the mess hall. So much for fixing it in the morning, Hal thought. He keyed an intercom. "Ferrell, get up!"
"What the hell do you want, do you have any idea what time it is?" a voice crackled back over the intercom.
"Its only 1900. Look I need you to go to the holding cells and repair the security cam."
"What for?"
"It short-circuited, so go out there, fix it, and then you can sleep till your hearts content."
"Alright, I'll do it but after this you owe me...big time," Technical officer Ronald Ferrell replied in a reluctant voice.
"Shut up and get it done, but don't go making too much noise, I don't want Webber all over this," Hall said.
"Yeah, whatever, you want me to switch my portable com to your station?"
"Yes do it, but make sure it's a one way line, I don't want any eavesdroppers, Ron."
"Why are you so jumpy? Just calm down, it's only a camera."
"Make it fast!" Hall replied and killed the link. He waited for the green light that indicated that Ferrell had connected his com to his station.
Ferrell took out a flash light and made his way through several hallways to the other side of the facility to the holding cell area, he cursed Lieutenant 1st Class Jim Hall all the way there. He walked up to the large pressure doors that blocked his entry into the holding room. "Hall, open to the doors to the holding cells."
"Roger," came the reply, the red lights on the door blinked to green, and the doors slid apart revealing the large, dark holding room.
For some reason unknown to Ferrell he cautiously took a few steps forward, something did not seem right. He shrugged off the feeling and walked in. He walked past several of the cylindrical cells and stopped in front of one that caught his eye, it wasn't sealed and steam hissed out. He shrugged. What if somebody was up testing something or if the tubes' contents had been moved to a different cell and they were airing this one out? Ferrell walked on and stopped in front of the back wall and looked up at cam 3-20A. It looked fine except for its indicator light flashed red. He inserted a key into the wall and the camera slid down to his height via a small sliding track. He disconnected it and opened up the camera's side. He found the problem, a dead circuit. Ferrell quickly replaced it, put the camera back on the wall, and pressed a button causing the camera to slide to its original height. Adjusting his lip mike, he spoke into his com, "Check it now."
"Yeah, the pictures on, what was wrong with it?"
"You were right; a busted circuit."
"There are two other cameras with the same problem."
Hearing this Ferrell flushed with anger. "If your saying that you want me to fix them the you can forget it, pal."
"No, no, I just wanted you to fix this one so that Webber wouldn't bust a cap. The other two are in areas that don't need as much security."
[indent["If he finds out about this then your going down, not me."
"Shut the—" as Hall was saying this the com link died.
"Hall, Hall you hear me?" Ferrell said. He took off the head set and walked to the door. As he was about to exit he sensed movement behind him. On impulse, he whirled around and looked, his flashlight danced across the dark room, nothing. He walked on but suddenly stopped.
His nose itched and he sneezed. Ferrell shook his head and was about to exit when his leg went numb. "What the fuck?" He murmured as a strange, cold feeling ran up his spine. Suddenly his leg wasn't numb anymore, but the numbness had moved to his right arm. He rolled up his sleeve to the elbow and looked at his arm. It hurt suddenly and his skin turned ghostly pale, the kind of pale that dead bodies turned, not a normal color. Suddenly his hand began to clench itself without him thinking to do it. A pain filled his chest and he began to cough. At first, the coughing was light, but it gained momentum and turned to hacking. He fell to all fours and spewed up a warm liquid that dripped to the ground and onto his hands. Opening his eyes, Ferrell saw that it was blood and he vomited. Ferrell felt it coming up and then coming out; it splattered to the ground out of his mouth and covered his hands. To his horror, he discovered that he had coughed up his own entrails.
A pain filled his neck and the base of his head, so intense he blacked out instantly. Ferrell went limp and slumped to the ground, face first into his own visceral matter and blood. By now, he was bleeding from his eyes, nose, ears, and mouth. It came out in rivers and formed a puddle around him, which quickly grew to a pool. Ferrell became conscious and felt his entire body pounding with each heartbeat, which was accompanied by more blood. He opened his eyes and looked up to see a black cloud hovering over him. He tried to scream but fear tightened his vocals and all that he was able to produce was a guttural choking noise from deep within his throat. The cloud closed in on him and another presence overtook his vision...blackness.
To Be Continued...
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