High Pressure System: First Season Underground (20 page)

Once I had smashed all the moving bits, and Micah looked me over, killing about five more, I wanted to quit everything. I couldn’t help it, I started to cry.

“What’s wrong?” Micah held my shoulders.

I covered my face as the sobs fell out and leaned against his chest. He hugged me, the dogs stretched up on my leg looking for pets. All I could do was ugly cry.

I’m not sure how long it was when I realized Micah was running his hand through my hair. By then I was shuddering pretty hard, and still couldn’t talk.

“Can you tell me what has you so upset?”

I dried my face on my sleeve. I nodded. “All those spiders, they are after me. Only me.”

“What?”

“Yes. Just me.”

“Is it because you’re the only one out there?” Micah struggled to keep himself upright.

“No.” I helped him walk back to the cave and explained everything I went through that afternoon.

“Why?”

I chewed on my lip and fidgeted with the fingers on my gloves. “Because Brandon has a lot of entries on his computer about me. Somehow that NALA computer got that information.”

“All his old school talk, there he is still using technology.” Micah chucked a plastic cup across the room.

“Well, being mad isn’t going to help keep me safe when I leave your apartment.”

“No, it’s not.”

I waved my glove at him. “I need something to wear that’s like this glove.” I sneezed, then sneezed again. I had to clear my throat. “Oh, man.”

“Oh, man is right. Go take some of my stuff over there.”

I was thirsty, really thirsty. Probably from running all over and crying my eyes out.

Once I was hydrated and settled on the sofa with a dog under each arm, I closed my eyes.

Micah felt much better the next morning and he said his hand was finally usable even though it still looked sore. I was sinking, felt like crap, but not enough to commit to a day in bed. At the same time, leaving the safety of the cave garden didn’t appeal to me either. We left with vacuums on our backs and went to find Aaron and Marjie. Just like the day before, the spiders scurried out of the vents and surrounded me.

“This is unbelievable.” Micah jogged down the hall.

“I know.” I had to hold a tissue to my nose as I jogged beside him. Crunching bots was so satisfying. I just wished the numbers didn’t seem to be multiplying. “It seems they’re capable of breeding.” I sure wished we were going down. It was much harder to stay ahead of them going up the stairs.

“I called Jim this morning to see how he was. He said there was a new round of bots dropped off overnight.”

“Why didn’t we know?”

“There was a lockdown last night.”

“Wait. I never heard it.”

“There’s no noise in the cave, remember. There was one. It woke me. Good thing it didn’t wake you or you’d probably feel even worse today.”

We stopped talking until we caught our breath on the floor where the Cooper’s lived.

The hallway crawled with bots. I trembled as they piled up at my feet and I struggled to walk.

“You should have told me there were more. Make it stop.” There was no stopping them and they made it to my legs and rained down on my head. I could feel them poking me and I was unable to stop it or shake them off. I usually wasn’t a screamer but I let a few out.

Micah turned the vacuum on them. He sucked them off my shoulders and worked his way down.

Everything was blurry. I didn’t have time to get weepy about it.

Aaron and Marjie joined Micah in the hall vacuuming me and created a clear path to the apartment. Just barely. They were quickly climbing up the back of my boots.

They ushered me in the apartment and I was plucked free of all the little hitchhikers I brought in with me.

I clenched my jaw so tight, I was afraid I’d split my molars.

“You look better,” Micah said to Aaron.

“I get tired fast. It is nice to be out of bed. I was going stir crazy.”

“Our parents aren’t feeling so well, though.” Marjie looked exhausted. Or maybe it was just her hair was flat and she wasn’t wearing make-up. “I was about to ask a doctor to come check on them. I didn’t know we were so inundated with spiders. They hadn’t bothered me since we sealed the lobby. Then I thought it was because we were sealing the door.”

“It’s actually me that’s bringing them out. You can try going out there now. I’m sure they won’t follow you like they do me. I can’t figure out how they are able to identify me the minute I’m in the hall.” I had to search for a tissue to catch the sneezefest that interrupted me. “How did the spiders get in if we sealed the lobby door?”

“You only sealed one of several weakened areas. The door to the lobby was the most damaged.” Micah motioned for me to sit.

Aaron stopped me and looked over my arms. “Have you been wearing the same clothes since the bots have been chasing you?”

I looked away and my face was on fire. Not from fever either.

“You know she always wears that sweatshirt,” Micah said, meeting my eyes for a brief second.

“Let me see it.” Aaron tugged on my sleeve. I let him pull it off my arm.

He manhandled it while I shivered. Maybe I was feverish. It concerned me that he enjoyed mauling my sweatshirt a little too much until he stopped and pinched a spot along the waistband.

“Marjie, get me a needle and some tweezers. I might need scissors.”

“Don’t cut it.” I was about to yank it from his hand when Micah blocked me.

“There’s something here.” He fiddled with it until he had the tweezers.

Aaron and Marjie worked together to get whatever it was out. Once they had it in the tweezers, he held it up to the light. “I thought so. It’s a tracking chip.”

We all stood in a circle examining what looked like a fancy grain of rice.

“I bet one of the bots stuck that in your sweatshirt,” Aaron said, turning it in the light.

“You think it’s the only one?” I felt around my jeans. I wouldn’t know what something so small like that would feel like in denim.

“I doubt it. We should all probably check our clothes now that we know what to look for,” Micah said.

“How would it know it was me?”

“Maybe there’s a mic and they can listen to us. Or maybe it tracks where we check in and it determines who we are by where we live.” Aaron handed me my sweatshirt.

Marjie ran to her room. “I don’t want anything tracking me.”

“There’s no point finding them all until we get rid of the massive bot population. They’ll just do it again,” Micah said so loud that Aaron shushed him.

“My parents are still sick, remember. They’ll make us do all sorts of disinfecting if they wake up.” Aaron kept glancing at a bedroom door.

“Sorry.” Micah stuffed his hands in his pockets. “We need to get a team together to figure out how to get rid of them on a larger scale.”

“Is anyone else well yet?” Aaron asked.

“We don’t know. We came here to see if we could have a suit of this rubber made to protect me and the rest of you from the bots.”

“That would take more material than we can get our hands on.” Aaron rubbed his chin lost in thought. “The boots and gloves are already a challenge.”

“Oh, stop it. You barely got some blond peach fuzz down there. Stop petting yourself.” Marjie batted his hand away from his chin.

“Hey, I don’t tell you what to do.”

“That’s because I don’t act ridiculous like you.” Marjie plopped down on the sofa and picked the nail polish off one of her fingernails.

“I think we start by making one for Rachel right away. Maybe one for Brandon. If you have enough material, maybe one or two more?” Micah asked.

“I don’t know that we have enough for that.” Aaron put the chip in a small bowl and set it on a shelf.

“Well one for Rachel at least until they stop going after her or maybe we kill them all.”

“I can do that. Let’s go see if we have any healthy people to form a team.” Aaron looked for his shoes under the table.

“When we leave we can see if that one chip was all that Rachel was wearing.”

Aaron and Micah emptied the vacuums before we ventured out. The anticipation of stepping into the hall and being overcome with bots again had me breathing fast and my heart racing before they even opened the door.

“Are you guys ready?” I didn’t think I could handle another spider mob.

They plugged in the vacuums in the hall. “Come on, we got it,” Micah said.

I walked out the door slowly. They were waiting to start the vacuums until they had a reason to. The hallway was silent and we listened for bots in the vents. Some clicking, but not a swarm like before.

Marjie hooked her arm in mine. “Hey, you sound like you’re having a panic attack with the way you’re breathing.

“I probably am. It looks like they’re not all after me now.”

“Good.”

We were able to go from floor to floor and chase what spiders there were with vacuums.

Some of the people we needed were well enough to meet us later in the day and would meet in Brandon’s hospital room.

We checked in with Jim about the invasion the night before and he showed us the video.

“Where did they get in? Wasn’t my insulation job supposed to keep them out?” I asked.

“That was the easiest way in. Jim, show us the window in the storage room.” Micah tapped one of the monitors.

There was an obvious gap along the bottom where the concrete was missing and the screws held the window away from the wall. A few robot spiders were crawling in and out of the gap.

“Now show us the industrial elevator shaft.”

He changed the view to a large shaft with massive metal doors at the top. We didn’t see any damage.

“Where is that?” Marjie asked.

“That leads to another mound beside ours. It is where the bus parked so it is like a massive garage and it’s where we brought in all the deliveries. It’s sealed pretty tight. In fact the storm activity has been so focused on us right here, that area is not as messed up as our lobby. Most of the building is sealed off from the shaft now. It does look like there is a bit of concrete washed away in that corner right there.” Micah pointed to the center of the doors where water must have seeped through and at the corners. “Not bad though. I don’t see any bots in there, do you?”

We surrounded the screen. I squinted when I saw something on the ledge near the ladder.

“That’s not bots but a mouse or something rodent-like, I think,” Jim said.

“At least we have some good news,” Aaron said

“Unless there just aren’t any people there and the bots know it,” I said.

“I believe that area is quite secure. The ductwork does lead into the shaft to go to the climate control units but they are sealed off in there with no vents. That is good news that the bots haven’t found their way in the shaft. It would be another easy place for them to hide and would be very difficult and dangerous to remove them from there,” Micah said.

“We have to go meet with everyone in a few minutes.” Aaron rested his hand on the door handle.

“Anything we need to tell Brandon, Jim?” Micah asked.

“Tell him I think we don’t have to worry about killer storms while the bots are here. The stuff I’ve seen roll in is rather normal looking. With the drones carrying bots out there and their fragile little systems, I bet we are left alone while they do their thing.”

“I wouldn’t get to comfortable with that idea,” Micah said.

“Believe me, I’m not. But it gives us more time than we have had to try and take care of things.”

“That’s true. It does and we can’t waste any time.” Micah held the door open for us all as we left.

A handful of men arrived for the meeting in Brandon’s room. The hospital staff wasn’t too happy but Brandon informed them that as long as he was there, they didn’t have any choice. He only looked slightly better than the day before. It was probably because he was able to do his job finally and
not
doing it was making him stir crazy.

“We have figured out why the bots were chasing Rachel. Everyone will need to look through their clothes for chips that look like grains of rice. Especially if the bots still have access in your apartments,” Micah said. That caused everyone to start patting all over their clothes. “You can do that later. We have other things to discuss.”

Brandon was staring at me. I backed away slightly so I wasn’t in his direct line of sight. It still made me squirm when I was in the same room with Brandon and Micah.

“Jim says more bots entered the bunker last night. He also mentioned that the drones also picked up some of the spider bots. Rachel sealed the main entry. We still need to seal the other places where they are getting in. Then we can come up with a solution to get rid of them far more efficiently than using vacuums.” Brandon pushed his body up higher in the bed. His hair was flat in the back and wild up top. He desperately needed a haircut.

The discussion went on for some time on how best to kill the bots in large numbers more effectively. It was over my head so I waited out in the hall. I wasn’t sure why I was feeling growing tension because of my presence there. I felt as if I did something wrong. Micah was never impatient while they brainstormed. I did notice the glares he gave Brandon when my name was brought up. When Brandon looked over at me, it made me uncomfortable. No doubt Micah was bothered over the danger I was in because of Brandon. As I sat down in the chair in the lobby, I really felt what was wrong. My stomach turned. I hadn’t eaten much at all but I needed the restroom. I was frantic looking for the right door when the nurse pointed to it.

The nurse knocked on the door after I lost everything I had eaten in the past three days. I wasn’t sure it was ever going to stop.

When it paused long enough so I could finally sit on the floor, I crawled over to the door and let the nurse in.

It wasn’t just one nurse, it was two nurses and a doctor taking my vitals right there in the bathroom, making a huge fuss over me.

“We told you to take precautions. You probably shouldn’t have come here so often.”

“I did take precautions but all the bots decided I was their favorite. I couldn’t help that.”

They helped me into the next room.

I debated on whether to have them tell Micah where I was or if I should let the team deal with all the problems without me since I had been hit hard with the sickness. Actually the sickness already decided for me. No point in distracting them. It would just slow them down.

However, once the team had left and the doctors determined I had a flu, the doctors decided to send me home. I didn’t want to leave. I had no way to tell Micah I was at my apartment without telling Jim first. Then they’d all be worrying, not doing their jobs. I couldn’t get into Micah’s apartment because it was only programmed to unlock with his thumbprint and I failed miserably at breaking into apartments the way Aaron and Marjie could.

I hugged my chest as Nurse Becky escorted me home.

“Why wouldn’t they let me stay?” I asked. The bots were roaming the stairway and fortunately  weren’t all that interested in me or the nurse. I still felt that they might turn on us at any second and I was jumpy. “I was safer there.”

“They just want the sickest people in the beds. You’ll probably be fine in a day or two.”

“That’s not what I mean and I don’t have a day or two to wait.”

“You sound like Brandon. Now that some of the others are better, it is your turn to let them take care of things.”

We were at my front door. I really wanted my dogs and felt rather weepy about it. I just smiled at Becky, and thanked her before opening my door.

“You know Brandon says your name in his sleep? I think he’s having nightmares though,” she said.

“Probably. I’ve had that effect on a few people lately.” I gave her a weak half-smile.

“That just means they care.”

“Sure.” I tilted my head to the side. “But what if the dreams those people are having about me are the same. What if they are being told something really bad is about to happen to me?”

“I doubt that’s the case and it isn’t likely.”

“Maybe not. But it could be.”

“I think it’s the flu talking. Make sure you rest, all right?”

“Yeah, sure. I probably won’t have any choice. I’m really feeling it.”

“Good.”

I was wrong. Not having the dogs was not helping at all. I could hear the bots clicking in the vents and I was paranoid they would get in.

I had no idea when I fell asleep while I was genuinely freaking out. When I woke to pounding on the door, I felt pinching on my hands and face. I sat up to find bots all over my bed. I screamed, shaking the blanket, launching the bots all over the room.

“Rachel!” Micah beat on the door.

I scrambled across the bed and my head was throbbing. Trying to leave the room, I crashed into the doorway and cried out in pain.

“Rachel!”

“Coming,” I couldn’t walk in a straight line. I didn’t have shoes on either as the bots scurried into my path. I froze once I stepped on two at once and it hurt. Bunch of little spider legs in the tender parts of my foot. “Micah!”

“I can’t open the door. I tried to break in and I can’t. Can you make it to the door?”

I clenched my fists and exhaled real slow. They were crawling up my legs. If I shuffled my feet, maybe I wouldn’t step on any. I made it and swung the door open.

“What the…” He didn’t have a vacuum.

“Get them off, get them off, get them off,” I was shaking all over. He hit them off me and stomped on a few.

“Are you frozen in fear?”

“No, I don’t have shoes on and they hurt my feet.”

He searched the room for my boots.

I batted bots off my legs and midriff until he returned.

He helped me slip my foot in the boot.

I could finally take care of little invaders.

“They are all over in here.”

“I know. They were all over the bed. Good thing you woke me up, they were poking me.”

“Why did you come here?”

“I was sick and once the doctor decided it was a mild flu, they made me leave.”

“Why did you come here, though?”

“Because you left and I can’t get in your room”

“You could have called Jim. He could have unlocked it.”

“I didn’t know that.” Tears welled up in my eyes. “I miss my dogs. They would have told me the bots were in here.”

Micah pulled me under his arm and started to lead me out of the apartment.

“Wait.” I grabbed my sweatshirt, a change of clothes, and my pajamas before we left.

I was having a hard time seeing where I was going because my eyes were burning.

“Man, you’re hot. You must have a fever.”

The bots followed me down to Micah’s apartment. “Not again.”

“They probably stuck another chip in your clothes.”

When we were finally safe in his apartment, he helped me into the bed in his cave room. My dogs snuggled right up next to me.

“You think I’ll get any sicker now that they had their fun with me?” My eyes burned.

Micah handed me a washcloth. “I hope not. You should wash where they stung you.”

Once I was settled,I couldn’t decide if I was overheated or cold. Micah’s finger gently brushed against my face, pushing my hair to the side. “We have a plan. I think it’s a good one.”

“You’re going to fix things without me?” I pretend pouted.

“You might help attract them for sure.”

“That’s one reason I’m not all that miffed.”

“I’ll make you something that will help you feel better and help you rest. I’ll let you know how successful we are when I come back.”

I shivered. Darn, I was cold and that meant my fever was even higher.

“I promise I won’t be gone long. Since the doctor failed at keeping an eye on you, I’ll make sure you’re okay.”

I nodded as I dozed off, waking only slightly when I shivered.

Dog barking woke me up. I was disoriented and covered in sweat.

“Gross.” I rubbed my chest and dried my hand on my shirt before I pulled the curtain aside.

“It looks like we might need you after all.”

“Why’s that?” I realized my hair was stuck to my face. It must have been crazy by the weird smirk Micah gave me.

“Our plan was a success. We ran an electrical current through the ducts to fry the bots. When it is just us, they scurry all over and plenty of them escape before we get the job done. Aaron brought the chip we took out of your sweatshirt. They are pretty adaptive and it knows it isn’t attached to you anymore. So it did nothing. They suggested we find the new chips the bots tagged you with earlier and keep them close to you until we try again tomorrow. You will need to be the one to hold the blasted things while we try to nail them again.”

“Won’t they come out of the vent after me?”

“We have that covered. I brought you some soup. Eat and rest and we’ll see how you are in the morning.”

“Lovely,” I said sarcastically.

“What? You don’t want to watch us fry them all at once?”

“Sure. What I don’t like is being the bait.”

“There’s more to this plan that just that. Wait till you hear the rest.”