24 Pay Attention (1/2)

The shift from the dark stairway to the brightness in Immersive Mode shocks Sia for a short moment. Summoning the Visual Prism, she watches as her body goes down the steps. When they get to the bottom of the four flights of stairs she feels ready to switch back.

”If I keep letting you do things I'll never learn to do anything myself.”

DEACTIVATING tRainQuilT646

When they get to the bottom of the stairs, it opens to a hallway with PVC piping along the ceiling. Sia must scrunch down a bit until the hallway opens to a basement parking area and a large fence. The ceiling is high and when Sia straightens up and gets to the fence she sees a water unit and a generator. The fence is locked. She pulls out the keys and squints to see which one will fit into the fence. She tries one. It doesn't work. She tries another. It doesn't work.

'Aaaaaaaah!'

She pulls out her keychain light and shines it on the key ring and the lock. With her enhanced vision she can see basic details of everything around her, but not any of the colors. With the keychain light shining on the lock and key ring, she notices a few things. The keys on the keyring have different colors on the top. There are red, blue, striped red and green, yellow, orange, black, and even white identifiers on each key. The lock on the fence has a purple strip around it. None of these keys has a purple identifier on them. Sia has retrieved the wrong keys.

'Okay. Back up the stairs…and to the…'

She waits for the Synthetic Intelligence Developer to think of something. It stays silent.

She takes her time strolling back up the stairs, but when she reaches her floor she sits at the last step and thinks.

'Why would they take the keys with them? It's an evacuation leave them where I can find them!!... Or maybe one of the people that trashed the cafeteria has the keys. Where else would someone leave keys?'

Sia puts her head on her knees as she tries to think of a solution.

'Can you look through my memory?'

AFFIRMATIVE

'Did any of the cars we searched have keys with a purple sticker on them?'

NEGATIVE

Sia blows her breath and lays her head back on her knees.

'Where do you put your stuff? Where do we all put away our things if not in our office…it's an emergency. We have to grab our stuff and go…let's get out of here…let's go back to our…'

Sia gives herself whiplash as she straightens up and jumps to her feet.

'THE LOCKER ROOM!'

Sia opens the stairwell entrance door and follows the directions given to her by the Synthetic Intelligence Developer. She turns to the right and beings jogging toward…

ALERT SUBJECT 001 PERI—

CRUNCH

”AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

DORSUM OF SUBJECT 001'S HAND HAS BEEN PENETRATED

TENDONS SEVERED

JUNCTURAE TENDINUM LACERATED

INTENSIVE INFIRMARY CARE PROTOCOL: LEVEL 2 INITIATED

BACKUP SERVICES HALTED

T1M3.out RUNNING

tCOMp4inS4ti0n.Np RUNNING

The cockroach is about 5 feet long and its antennas are as thick as human fingers. The compound eyes can clearly see the many images of Sia's body as they rear their arm back. This organism will struggle.

Sia's body strikes out at the creature and it hisses as it moves away from the strike. A large cockroach's antenna swipes at Sia's body and it moves forward headfirst to bite at her.

PERIPLANETA AMERICANA ATTACKING