The V.I.C.I. Diaries: MGV (Metal Gear Vicki) Part 8

[DukeNukem 2417]

Upon first glance, the “shelter” looked a lot like the testing laboratory---terminals lining the walls, cubicles and desks with PCs and Macs dotting the landscape, and the occasional slab holding an unmoving body. As Vicki moved further into the room, she noticed a few differences---for one, the shelter was nowhere near as brightly lit as the lab was; very few lights had been turned on, and those that were obviously weren’t running at full power.

The second main difference, of course, was that the testing lab didn’t have a massive mainframe computer on the far end of the room.

“Madame?” Vicki called out. “It’s…ah, Sunshine. You spoke with me earlier in the testing laboratory?”

Silence.

“Ah…..I sort of need your help with something….where are you---“

“You’re looking at me.”

The voice seemed to come from everywhere in the room at once. “I’m….what?! There’s nobody else in here, except for a few robots that are either deactivated or just plain dead----“

“I’m right in front of you….how can you not notice?”

“I…..” Vicki stopped when she noticed the mainframe. Stamped across its sleek metal casing were the letters M.D.M., in massive blue type.

“M.D.M.,” she whispered. “Maintenance/Distribution/Manufacturing…..”

“….also known as…well, me,” Madame finished. “Are you really that surprised?”

Vicki stared at the mainframe, unsure of what to say. She’d heard the rumors that Silicon Dynamics had begun testing a new, fully-automated control system for their West Coast plant, but she had never thought to equate the name Madame with the initials “M.D.M.” until now. “To be honest,” she murmured, “yeah…I’m kind of surprised.”

“Most likely because your onboard sensors couldn’t determine whether or not I was an actual organic being,” Madame assumed. “I’ve been adapting my firewalls to the attacks of this intruder ever since he arrived.”

“So it’s a guy,” Vicki muttered. “Great. Can you tell who it is?”

“Unfortunately, my efforts to discern the identity of the intruder have been….unsuccessful,” Madame admitted, sounding somewhat perturbed. “He has gone to great lengths in his efforts to wrest control of this facility from me, and as loathe as I am to admit it, I might not be able to hold him off for long.” A pause… “I may need your help in evicting him from the inner-most reaches of the Silicon Dynamics network.”

Vicki knew all too well what that meant. “I’ve never gone after a hacker before,” she admitted, “so it might take some time---“

A light flared into existence over a dusty office chair. “You won’t need to ‘go after’ this intruder in the usual way,” Madame informed her. “I can give you the means to affect a virtual entry into the system; your physical body will remain here, unharmed, while you assist me in pursuing this insufferable hacker and purging every trace of him from the system.”

“So….how do I ‘affect virtual entry’, then?” Vicki asked.

“Plug the connection cable into a relevent port,” Madame instructed. “And don’t touch anything else.”

Vicki nodded, adjusting her borrowed costume to gain access to her back panel. “Once this is over, you’ll regain full control of the building, right?” she asked.

“Indeed.”

“Good,” the brunette gynoid replied. “In that case….time for me to turn on, boot up and---“

She felt the world fall away from her before she could finish the sentence; within seconds, a new reality came rushing into view to replace it. Her consciousness seemed to be swallowed whole by this new world until the dim reality of the shelter was pushed aside, like a dream she was already waking up from. Part of her bubble memory processors knew she was still in a chair in front of a terminal with a USB cable plugged into her back, but the sensation was already leaving her as the “new reality” took hold.

“….okay, this is definitely one of the weirdest things I’ve ever experienced,” she mused. Her costume of tarted-up pinafores had vanished, replaced by an almost militaristic outfit consisting of a red leather jumpsuit with white accents (almost like the one The Boss wore in MGS3, she realized), combat boots and gloves. The new attire seemed rather odd, considering her surroundings---as she glanced around, the brunette gynoid found herself standing in the middle of a vast, beautifully-scented garden, situated on an island that seemed to float through an endless sky-scape of sorts. Nothing about this strange new world seemed all that bizarre to her, for some reason; it almost felt comforting to find herself in such an incredible place….

Except for the blood trail.

A dark red line had somehow or other been smeared along the soil at her feet, almost like a guideline through the garden. “Either this is a sign that this place is under attack,” Vicki mused, “or our intruder has some serious issues….” She followed the trail until it rejoined the proper path through the garden, strolling past lucious foiliage until she emerged in a massive pavilion of marble. The pavilion could’ve held every droid in the factory, but at the moment, only twenty-one were there, clad in their outfits from the catalog.

Vicki walked past them, expecting either hostile glares, or indifference; to her surprise, all but one looked upon her with curious glances. Firefighter Fiona---attired in her latex outfit from the Prius---arched an eyebrow in amusement, while Sierra the Superbabe gave her a tiny wave. Nightingale nodded as the brunette gynoid walked past; Missy---the sexbot who had been attacked with the ruler in the elevator---seemed astonished. Beverly the bride and a few others from the testing lab waved as Vicki passed; the only one that remained still was the girl with the sad face, who seemed even more upset “in person”. Maybe she was one of the first who was attacked by the intruder, Vicki reasoned. Either that, or---and I really hope that I’m wrong on this one---it’s how she was programmed…

At the far end of the pavilion was an empty golden throne---Madame’s seat of honor, perhaps?---and a door. A note attached to the door read, simply, “Get in”.

No reason to stop now…

Vicki turned the doorknob…

…and was met with a scene of utter horror.

The room beyond the door was a massive chamber, much like the archival room at a police station, museum or library. Rows upon rows of filing cabinets, bookshelves and terminals stretched as far as the eye could see…but from where Vicki was standing, the rows cleared a path that led right to a clear area directly in the center of the room. At first, the brunette gynoid thought a statue had been strapped to the chair; on closer inspection, she realized that the platinum-haired, alabaster-skinned woman in the gown was most likely the virtual avatar of Madame.

As for the guy who was beating the mortal piss out of her with a sledgehammer….

“WHERE IS IT?!” The man smashed Madame in the face, and Vicki half-expected to see a chip of stone fly off of her. “You’ll die long before you ever find out,” she taunted, only to get a brutal blow to the gut. “DON’T TOY WITH ME, WOMAN!” the man shrieked. “My partner and I have a lot of work to get done, and the sooner you just give up and tell us what we want to know, the better it’ll be for you. Now….where is it?”

Madame glared at him defiantly. “Do your worst.”

The man grinned a shark’s grin. “I was hoping you’d say that.” He raised the hammer…..

“STOP!”

Both Madame and the hammer-weilding man turned to see Vicki step forward. “Leave her alone,” she ordered, glaring at the man. “If you’re going to go after someone with that thing, go after….” She stopped, realizing the rammifications of what she was seeing. “He’s been here the whole time?”

“He broke through the firewall when you connected,” Madame admitted. “I shouldn’t have---“

“QUIET, woman!” the man snapped, turning to address Vicki. Despite the fact that his expression was one more commonly attributed to psychotics and murderers, the man looked somewhat elegant; his black frock coat, tuxedo pants, starched shirt and bowtie gave him an almost sophisticated appearance, matched by his black hair tied off into a ponytail behind his head. The air of potential grace about him did nothing to dispel his aura of sheer hatred, however, and he regarded Vicki with the look of a lion about to devour a gazelle. “You picked a very bad time to interfere in my work, ‘Sunshine’,” he hissed. “I’ve been holed up in here for weeks, chipping away at her defenses; I was actually making some progress, to be quite honest……and then you just had to barge in and RUIN EVERYTHING!”

“I’m not going to let you hurt her,” Vicki declared.

“You talking to him?” another voice called out, “or to me?” Another man stepped out of the shadows; whereas the man with the hammer looked (and even sounded)almost charming, the newcomer was on the opposite end of the scale in terms of appearance and presentation. Tallish, a bit on the lanky side, sandy brown hair and five-o’clock shadow to match….even if he hadn’t been clad in prison orange, Vicki would’ve regarded him with a wary eye. “I’m talking to both of you,” she declared. “Get out of here now.” “Ah, sorry,” the man in prison garb chuckled, “but that’s just not gonna happen. See, this whole time, he’s been doing his thing…and while he’s been doing his thing, I’ve been doing my thing…and in case you haven’t heard, my thing is to make sure that nobody finds out that he’s been doing his thing. It’s all a bit…complex, really, but it’ll make sense in the end…’cause once he’s done with her…..” He held up a remote and grinned. “I push the button….”

“SHUT UP,” the man with the sledgehammer growled, “or you’ll tell her our whole damn plan!”

“I already know most of your plan,” Vicki replied, “and at least 28 potential backup plans you could use if this one fails.”

“She’s good,” the man in prison garb remarked.

“Well, then,” the hammer-weilding man muttered, “if you’re so confident about your ability to stop us, then why not just get it over with right now? Take us both out at the same time, save the authorities the trouble---“

“And give you a chance to hack my systems?” Vicki shot back. “I don’t think so.”

“Ooh, lookit that,” the man in prison garb mused. “Little dolly thinks she can hang with the---‘’ A blast of lightning from Vicki’s fingertips knocked him off his feet. “I always wondered what that would look like,” she remarked with a grin. Without taking her eyes off of either of the two men, she walked over to the chair where Madame had been tied and splintered it with a single karate chop. “You okay?” she asked, concern evident in her voice.

“Their pitiful tactics have only angered me,” Madame replied. “I’m perfectly fine.”

“Good,” Vicki beamed, “because I’m going to need a little help here….”

The man in prison orange got to his feet, rubbing the back of his head. “THAT was a mistake,” he chided, “and it’ll cost ya---“ “What part of SHUT UP don’t you understand?!” the sledgehammer-weilding man growled, glaring not at him, but at Vicki. “These two are no match for us---one is nothing more than a computer waiting to be reformatted and sold for parts, and the other is a girl whose battery life is about to be reduced to zero…I have a feeling that we’re not in any danger of losing to either of them.”

“Really?” Madame quipped. “I think it’s time this computer showed you two Neanderthals just what she’s capable of!” She raised her arms up, staring at the nonexistant ceiling….

….and the room around them was torn asunder by white light.

Within seconds, the group found themselves in a new setting---one Vicki instantly recognized. “I know this place,” she murmured, a smile creeping onto her face as she regarded the lightning-seared steel cage around her. “It’s the Power Plant arena from One Must Fall: 2097…I used to play this on Jamie’s computer all the time before he moved out!” Madame was amused; “I was going to drop them into the middle of a conflict with Anhoera, Queen of the Fey…but I guess this will do. My only question is how this got onto the system---“

From somewhere in the distance, Vicki heard Jamie shouting: “I thought I might be able to give you a little home-field advantage!”

Vicki threw a thumbs-up at the sky. “You’re the greatest, Jamie!”

“A VIDEO GAME?!” the hammer-weilding man screamed. “YOU SENT US INTO A VIDEO GAME?!” “Ah, technically,” the man in prison garb corrected, “it’s a computer game---OMF was only released for personal computers in 1995---OW!” The hammer-weilding man backhanded him across the face. “She could’ve sent us into Tetris¬-land, and it wouldn’t have mattered,” he sneered. “I’ll destroy her, and then…..wait a minute. What the hell happened to the hammer I was just holding?!”

The weapon had, indeed, vanished from his hands. “Oooooh, bad luck there, Billy,” the man in prison orange muttered. “Perhaps---“

“MY NAME IS NOT BILLY!” the former hammer-weilder shouted, grabbing his partner by the collar. “IT’S---“

“Not important right now.”

The two turned---and nearly screamed: V.I.C.I. had morphed from her usual human self to a chrome-and-steel, red-and-white clad superheroine akin to a character from a sentai program. “Your reign of terror ends here,” she intoned, pointing her hand at the man in prison garb and sending him flying into a cage wall with another burst of lightning; upon impact with the wall, his entire body lit up like a cartoon x-ray for a few seconds until he fell back to the arena floor with a thud.

“I’d say something about ‘how shocking that must have been’,” V.I.C.I. began, only for the disarmed ex-hammer weilder to charge at her, screaming like a lunatic. She deftly sidestepped as “Billy” attacked, clubbing him in the back of the head with a brutal elbow smash. “Next time, let me finish my line,” she remarked.

“You won’t get a next time,” Billy shouted, “because I AM GOING TO END YOU RIGHT NOW!” He reached behind his back and brought forth a machete that was almost long enough to be qualified as a sword. “Now you’re just embarassing yourself,” V.I.C.I. drawled. “Someone else already tried to kill me with one of those today, and they missed by a mile. If your last attack was any indication, your effort won’t be any better.” She assumed a fighting stance and curled her fingers---the classic “come get some” taunt. “But, if you insist on getting beaten in the fastest time possible…”

Billy charged at her, screaming as he jabbed, lunged and feinted furiously; the brunette gynoid easily dodged most of his attacks, occasionally knocking his blade away with her forearms or shoving him back with a palm thrust to the forehead. “I’m guessing you’re not a practicioner of JKD,” she mused, “because this has to be the worst case of fighting as self-expression I’ve ever seen. That, or you’re just really out of practice.”

The remarks only served to further piss Billy off; he charged at her again, a bestial roar escaping his lips---

---only for V.I.C.I.’s left foot to catch him right in the midsection, sending him to the ground.

“Finish him, now!” Madame ordered.

“With pleasure,” V.I.C.I. replied, grinning.

Electricity began to build up around her hands as she brought them together; her eyes slowly began to pulse with unbridled energy. Billy didn’t seem to care---he got to his feet, screamed something obscene that probably included the phrase “I’LL KILL YOU”, and ran towards her, intending to rip her limb from limb with his bare hands.

He never got close enough to try.

V.I.C.I.’s arms shot forward, her fingers splaying as the now basketball-sized ball of electricity flew from her hands straight towards Billy; as the black-clad maniac jumped, intent on throwing his machete at the gynoid like a spear, the blast nailed him right in the chest…..blowing a hole straight through him and sending him backwards. As Madame, V.I.C.I. and the guy in prison orange watched, Billy’s body slowly flew through the air, disintegrating with every graceful second---until he slammed into the steel cage wall, caught a blast of lightning across his body and exploded with one final scream.

Madame smirked, and V.I.C.I. turned her attention to the now-cringing man in prisoner’s garb.

“Now, hang on a minute,” he protested, “I…I was just….okay, I’ll admit to being the brains of the outfit, but I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING TO HER!” He pointed furiously at Madame. “You look like a smart girl…I’ll tell ya what, I’ll make you a deal….hack someone’s Facebook page, change a few of your grades, give you some extra foldin’ money in your bank account…..anything! Seriously!” His manic grin changed to a look of pleading desperation. “ANYTHING! I PROMISE! Just….don’t do to me what you did to him! PLEASE!” He nearly fell over trying to get away from the advancing gynoid. “I’LL DO ANYTHING!” he screamed “I’LL GIVE YOU WHATEVER YOU WANT!”

V.I.C.I. stopped in her tracks. “Anything I want?”

“YES!”

She chuckled. “How about getting you to shut up?”

The man in prison orange sighed. “Should’ve seen that one coming---“

He never got to finish the sentence, mainly because his head (and the rest of his body) exploded into a virtual cascade of red pixelated light after V.I.C.I. superkicked him right between the eyes. “That should take care of the intruders,” she informed Madame. “Are you okay?”

“I’ve never felt better,” Madame replied imperiously. “Now…time for me to regain control of my building.”

“I guess this means I should hit the F10 key,” V.I.C.I. began, only for a beam of white light to rip through her chest. “Okay, that’s a bit weird,” she mused, as the world fell away around her and she felt a sensation of being yanked off her feet…..
-------------------------------------
As soon as Vicki “reappeared” in the office chair in the shelter, she half expected the thing to fall over; when it remained upright, she rolled her eyes. “Well, that was fun….I’m kind of missing that new look I got in there, though.” She glanced downward, rolling her eyes at the “sexed-up pinafore” outfit she was still wearing. “And now, for the follow-through…..”

She contacted Jamie, Nolan and Rebecca using her PDA. “How’s everything going?”

“Whatever you did in the shelter worked wonders on the building’s vital systems,” Rebecca informed her with a smile. “The elevators are back under control, and the security systems are coming back online with no hiccups or lagging.” “Same here,” Nolan declared. “We’ve got a confirmed communications uplink with the East Coast and Midwest factories….they’re ramping up security at their own plants as we speak, just to be safe.” “Vicki, I have no idea what you did in there,” Jamie confessed, “but the effects it had on these things….it was just AWESOME! Almost all of them just dropped to the floor in the middle of the fight---they never even had a chance to fire a shot!”

Vicki grinned. “Glad I could be of some use to you guys,” she teased. “Mary, how’re you holding up?”

“I’m a little miffed that I didn’t get to meet your brother,” Mary replied, “but other than that, I’m good.”

“Glad to hear it---and if you want to meet Jamie, just head up to the garage---I’m on my way up there myself to make sure the investigative team gets out of here before nightfall. Nolan, you still there?”

“Present.”

“Put Chris on the line…I want to talk to him.”

“Will do.” Nolan’s face and voice faded from Vicki’s PDA-enhanced HUD, replaced a few seconds later by the brown-eyed brunette Chris. “And how is everything going with the latest recruit to International Rescue?” he joked. “It’s all going pretty good, actually,” Vicki replied, still smiling. “The other guys from the bus are all gathered in the garage to ride a bus out of here….think you’re well enough to join them?”

She fought the urge to laugh at his exasperated sigh. “I told you already---“

“I know, I know, you’re not going to drop dead any minute now. Just get up to the garage; I’ll meet you there.”

Her call to Chris over, she decided to ask Madame about her plans for improving the facility now that the hacking attack had been routed---but before she could even think of asking the question, her HUD was occupied by another call---this one, from Anton. “We just got the signal from the plant,” he was shouting (good thing he sounds happier than he did when Zeb was at the house, the brunette gynoid mused), “and in case you can’t tell from all the cheering in the background…well, we’ve been watching ever since you got to the shelter, and we all just wanted to say---“

The sound of a headset changing hands (and heads) filled her ears. “YOU WERE AMAZING!” Ted shouted, sounding as if he’d been crying the entire time. “I am so proud of you right now…” The headset was passed back to Anton as Ted continued sobbing joyfully. “As you can probably tell,” he drily remarked, “he’s glad to see that you’re okay….”

“Figured that,” Vicki laughed. “And everyone else is….”

“Relieved, to various extents,” Oberon cut in. “As soon as we got word that the communications uplink had been restored, Claudia ran straight for the phone and speed-dialed the plant just to see if it really did work. Lo and behold, it did.” Vicki could almost hear the smile in his voice as he continued, fighting to be heard over the strains of “Surfin’ Bird” (Tell had apparently thrown the song on in celebration). “She’s actually on the phone with Public Relations right now,” he added, “and from the looks of it, she’ll be taking the guided tour of the place next week.”

“Good to hear,” Vicki replied, laughing as Tell’s rendition of the “ooh-mah-mah-mow” portion of the song nearly drowned out Oberon’s words. “I’m guessing ‘Diamond Dave’ is too busy playing Kareoke God to come to the phone….”

“I’ll see if I can tear him away from the mic for a second,” Oberon chuckled; a few seconds later, Tell was singing (and shouting) praise into the headset. “VICKI,” he belted out “YOU ARE THE GREATEST! YOU FLOATED LIKE A BUTTERFLY AND STUNG LIKE THE MISSILE!” “I think the phrase is ‘stung like a bee’,” she corrected, giggling, “but I’ll take it as a compliment anyway. If Goldeneye isn’t too busy celebrating, ask him to---“

“I’m never too busy to do my job,” Hardcastle cut in, managing to sound both dead serious and slightly tipsy at the same time. “What do you need?” “A debriefing crew waiting for the investigative team; they’ll be leaving here on a bus in a few minutes.” “Not a problem,” Hardcastle replied.

“It appears your efforts have indeed paid off, Miss Lawson,” Madame remarked. “The two hackers who broke into my systems have been cut off from this network…and I have a feeling they will not return any time soon.”

Vicki’s smile faded a bit. “Yeah….about that….”

“You sound troubled,” Madame observed. “Is something wrong?”

“Well……” The brunette gynoid hesitated; the presence of two avatars in the virtual version of the system had been bugging her ever since she first saw them. “From what I understand,” she explained, “only one intruder actually broke into this facility a few weeks ago…and I’m pretty sure that it was that intruder who’s been dressing up as characters from Metal Gear Solid games---and Jason Voorhees---to attack me. What I don’t get is the other guy---the one who looked like a prisoner…..”

The cheering on the other end of her still-open PDA connection instantly stopped; “Surfin’ Bird” faded rather awkwardly into “These Boots are Made for Walkin’”.

“Vicki,” Anton intoned, “did you say the second user avatar in the system looked like…a prisoner?”

“Yeah…he was sort of tall, thin….he kind of had some five-o’clock shadow going…”

She heard the sound of people running to phones and computers on the other end of the line. “What?” she asked, confused. “It was just some guy in a prison uniform----“

A picture flashed into view; “Did ‘that guy’ look anything like this?” Anton asked.

“Ah, now that you mention it,” Vicki admitted, “he looked exactly like that---“

“These Boots are Made for Walkin’” cut off in the middle of the first line, casting the conversation into ominous silence. “Vicki,” Anton declared, “unless your memory of the event has been skewed or altered, that man you saw in the virtual world hacked into the West Coast Silicon Dynamics plant from a prison cell, and he’s the one who tracked down those twelve trucks that vanished back in September, arranged for their contents to be stolen, and sent back a fleet of decoy trucks loaded with Daikoku knockoffs! That man was the Maestro!”

The last five words Anton uttered sent a chill running through Vicki’s entire body. “That…..was the Maestro?” she squeaked. Suddenly, her memory of kicking the orange-clad avatar in the head took on a much more sinister tint---and she desperately wanted to erase that particular moment ASAP.

“Unless we can prove that the intruder is actually affiliated with him,” Anton continued, “there’s no way we can link anyone to these attacks…but the mere fact that you saw him in the system is enough. We’ve already got an inquiry going as to how he was able to access that network from his cell…how that man is able to get computers and cellphones in maximum security is beyond me…”

“What about the other guy I saw?” Vicki asked quietly. “I think the Maestro called him ‘Billy’…”

“That’s the one who’s still physically in the building,” Anton informed her. “You have to get that busload of investigators out of there before you go after him….otherwise, he’ll get out when they do, and we may never get another chance to catch him!”

“I won’t let you down, Strange Animal,” Vicki replied, “but I will take this guy out….”

“Non-lethally, of course,” Ted chided.

Vicki sighed. “Yes, Dad…..”

“There is still the matter of the Daikoku knockoffs to consider,” Kishin added. “This intruder may be able to tell us who has been mass-producing these pale imitations of Daikoku Zaibatsu products….unless, of course, he is just as belligerent as the Maestro.”

“If that’s the case, I’ll just Taze him right in the eyeballs,” Vicki muttered.

“No, you won’t,” Ted corrected, “because---“

“I GET IT,” Vicki thundered. “Take him down, but don’t kill him, and drag him back for questioning.” She let out an annoyed huff. “Can I at least give him a black eye for all he’s put me through?”

An irritated grumble issued from the speakers around the room. “As much as I would like to see the intruder given a good thrashing,” Madame intoned, “I must remind you that he is, in fact, still loose inside this facility, and unless his connection to the network is permanently disabled, he may very well start over from scratch in his efforts to subvert my control.”

“Oh, you’d just love for that to be true, wouldn’t you?”

“Billy’s” voice taunting her over the Tannoy drew a frightened (and involuntary) squeak from Vicki; Madame, on the other hand, wasn’t impressed. “Your army is failing,” she informed him, “and your control over this building has been shattered. Every robot here is working to locate you as we speak, on my orders…..and when they find you---“

“They aren’t going to do ANYTHING to me,” Billy replied, “because I’ll tear them all apart---“

The speakers went silent.

“No more of that,” Madame declared. “I’ve cut off his link to the intercom and isolated the source,” she added, in answer to Vicki’s unasked question, “and you’ll be quite happy to know that he was using a remote transmitter located in a restroom to send that little message----“

“Meaning he could be anywhere in the building by now,” Vicki groaned.

“Not exactly,” Madame replied. “There are only three areas in the entire building suitable for making remote transmissions, and seeing as how two of them are locked scenario chambers….” Her voice cut off as the dragnet tightened. “The intruder is making his way through the fifth floor corridors outside of the Showroom. The express elevator can take you there, if you want---“

“No.”

Vicki stared at the M.D.M. mainframe. “I need to see to it that the investigative team gets out of the building first,” she informed Madame, “and once they’re safely away, I’ll tend to this stupid intruder….I don’t want anyone getting hurt because of him.”

“I admire your dedication, Vicki,” Hardcastle’s voice called over the PDA-link, “but this intruder---“

“The intruder can wait,” V.I.C.I. monotoned. “Those investigators need to get out of here now…unless you want to explain to their families why they were all poisoned by a highly-unstable neurotoxin.”

Madame and everyone on the other end of the PDA link were stunned into silence.

“When I was hooked up to the Silicon Dynamics network,” she explained, “I saw something that looked like a blood trail….or, to be more specific, blood poisoning. I also remembered hearing about another company that uses the same type of trucks as Silicon Dynamics, and how that company just lost a major government grant after they were found to have illegally dumped hazardous chemicals into the San Francisco Bay. My theory is that whoever stole the Silicon Dynamics trucks and boosted the cargo also took the cargo from the replacement trucks…and converted it into this.” She fired off a PDF file describing the neurotoxin to Tell’s house. “The company in question was shipping all of the necessary chemicals to create it,” she continued, “and I have a feeling that our intruder had his Daikoku knockoffs bring in a sample just in case.”

“Is that even possible?” Ted asked.

“I’m afraid it is,” Madame replied. “This intruder could have easily modified the ventilation systems and rigged them to pump any kind of gas into the entire facility. That would also explain why I’ve been unable to access any of the building-wide ventilation controls….”

“…and it also explains why the Cashback lock was triggered on the tenth and fifteenth floors,” V.I.C.I. added. “The internal computers in the robots on both floors must have detected a substantial increase in condensation, and it shut them down to prevent them from being damaged by it. As for why they decided to start taking their clothes off….I can only guess.”

“You were able to guess all of that on your own?!” Ted gasped, astonished.

“Not entirely,” V.I.C.I. admitted. “The system enhancements in that PDA allowed me to detect most of the system-wide anomalies typical of what I’ve described…it just took a while for everything to click.”

“How fortunate for us, then, that it all ‘clicked’ sooner rather than later,” Madame remarked, “otherwise…”

“Let’s try not to think about the ‘otherwise’, and just be glad that Vicki was able to figure out this neurotoxin angle in time,” Anton suggested. “Are all of the investigators in the garage?”

“Yes---“

“No.”

V.I.C.I. turned, stunned to see Jamie and Chris standing in the doorway of the shelter. “What the HELL are you two doing down here?!” she yelled. “Making sure you give that intruder what’s coming to him,” Jamie replied. “Everyone else is already piling into every available vehicle to get out of here---“ “---so we figured we’d stay and watch you give this would-be saboteur a good old-fashioned seeing-to,” Chris finished with a grin.

“And I suppose you got one of the robots to show you where the express elevator was,” Vicki muttered.

“Indeed we did,” Chris replied. “Now, about this intruder---“

“THE INTRUDER ISN’T THE PROBLEM!” Vicki shouted, glaring angrilly at the two. “The problem is that both of you deliberately disobeyed me after I told you to STAY PUT, and now I’m going to have to worry about keeping you from dying of neurotoxin inhalation---“

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Jamie cut in. “Neurotoxin inhalation? What are you----“

“The ever-elusive intruder has apparently decided to rewire the ventilation system to start pumping this entire facility with toxins,” Madame explained, “and the two of you would’ve been out of harm’s way had you chosen to stay in the garage---or, better yet, join the others and leave.”

Jamie and Chris exchanged glances. “Right,” Chris muttered, “I guess staying behind was a bad idea…”

“And you’re just figuring that out now?!” Vicki spat.

“For the record,” Chris replied calmly, “I knew about the neurotoxin before you even got here---and it wasn’t brought in by the intruder. The bus that picked up both myself and your brother stopped at one more wreck on the side of the road, but there weren’t any survivors---just a bunch of corpses and duffel bags. Some of the girls from the bus got out to check the bags, and I could tell from the looks on their faces that whatever they were handling wasn’t exactly palatable, healthy or even stable. I kept an eye on those bags when I was getting off the bus, and the last time I saw them was when two girls in hazmat gear---which, by the way, was a lot tighter than hazmat suits usually are---showed up to claim them.”

Vicki turned her glare on Jamie. “And you didn’t see ANY OF THAT?!”

“I was asleep!” Jamie protested. “He was,” Chris confirmed. “Snored like a chainsaw, too….”

The brunette gynoid slowly began to realize that her previous theory was now shot to hell. “And…where were these bags stored?” she asked Madame, already dreading the answer.

“My instructions were for them to be incinerated,” Madame replied, “but they seem to have gone missing.”

Just as the pieces had fallen into place for her original theory, Vicki could now see a pattern emerging. “Three wrecks…..how many duffel bags were there?” she asked Chris.

“About….ah, seven, I think.”

“The corpses at the third wreck….could you tell if they’d died of natural causes or not?” Vicki inquired.

“Unless having one’s guts forcibly ripped out by a massive blade is now a natural cause,” Chris remarked, “I can honestly say that they all looked like they’d been cut open and eviscerated by---“

“I get it.” The facts slowly started adding up once more….and the picture they painted was not pretty.

Jamie and Chris exchanged concerned looks again. “I’m guessing you’re dangerously close to figuring out who this intruder is,” Jamie mused. “That, or your reserve batteries need charging---HEY!“ Without preamble, Vicki grabbed him by the arm and headed for the express elevator. “Guess I’m going with them, then,” Chris murmured, running to join the pair. “OI, VICKI, WAIT FOR ME!” A humanlike sigh issued from the speakers in the shelter; “I have a feeling things will get rather interesting before the night is over,” Madame stated.

The doors to the elevator closed silently as the car shot upwards.

“If this intruder is who I think it is,” Vicki muttered, “I want you both to find a place to hide once we get to the showroom….this is between me and him.”

“So it is a ‘him’,” Chris mused. “Angry ex-boyfriend, perhaps?”

“Not even close,” Vicki replied, her lack of a smile driving the point home. “If it really is who I think it is…Jamie, get Tell on the phone as soon as possible…” She cracked her knuckles, preparing for the inevitably intense fight that lay ahead. “I have a feeling things might get a little….crazy.”
-------------------------------------

[DollSpace]

I can't wait for the apocalyptic finale; the imagery in this one was awesome! Another job well done!

[Brytestar]

I second Dollspace's motion. It gives me some ideas for and RP/Story. Now if I can get Patrianne's Origin Story finished. <sigh>