Part IX The Here and The Hereafter II
Arika POV - 30 mins earlier
. PRIORITY CHANNEL RESTORED .
SOURCE NODE: MEDICAL BAY / LEVEL 4
ORIGIN ID: YURI [ZERO-VECTOR AUTH]
TIMESTAMP: 04:17:22.889
> AUTONOMOUS CORE ONLINE?
> CONFIRM INTERNAL COMMS.
> HOSTILE BIOFORM PRESENT.
> THERMAL-SEEKING. SHADOW-BOUND.
> MOVING THROUGH LEVEL 4 CORRIDOR.
> DR. MINTRA WITH ME.
> FRAGILE PATIENT ZONE BREACH IMMINENT.
> LOCKDOWN ADVISED.
> DO NOT ROUTE SECURITY BOTS.
> REPEAT. DO NOT ROUTE SECURITY BOTS.
> TRACE ME IF SIGNAL DROPS.
. SIGNAL STABILITY: FLUCTUATING .
. LAST PACKET RECEIVED .
Internal networking reasserted itself a heartbeat later. Not fully clean, but stable enough. The building's backbone had come back online, and with it, Yuri's message finally cut through.
Yuri is reliable as ever. At least now I know where they are.
Fourth floor. I could still bring the protein skewers, sticky rice, and baitoey drinks, and perhaps made up for the boy…I hope…
Damn, I'm hopeless with the kids…
The thought passed as quickly as it came. Arika dismissed it without ceremony.
She sent a reply without embellishment.
"Acknowledged. Stay sealed. I am checking the anomaly. Attempt relay to central security for backup. Maintain distance."
The confirmation returned almost immediately, a sharp vibratory pattern across her forearm. A spire-like pattern stretching to the right, indicating successful transmission. Replaced the ping tone.
Arika activated the thermal detection layer on her arm interface, widening the scan to a fifty meter radius. She rotated slowly, eyes up first, then level, then down. Nothing registered. No heat bloom. No residual trail.
Arika paused when she reached the top of the second-floor staircase.
She did not lean. Her balance stayed centered with one hand hovered near the rail, close enough to feel the faint vibration carried through the metal. She tried to grasps any vibration or sound from other floors, thought what she could only hear was the sound of the water—A low, continuous circulation threaded through the space ahead, flowing beneath stone and root alike, and its source came just right before her, the spacious garden auditorium located on the second floor of the medical bay: A wide terraces shaped around a central void. A canopy tree rose through that opening, trunk thick and pale, bark scarred where growth plates met living wood. Buttress roots spread outward and disappeared into deep soil beds that broke the building's symmetry by force of mass alone.
Below the canopy, the mid-levels thickened with managed growth. Young rubber trees, Hevea brasiliensis, stood in orderly lines, their pale trunks straightened by support frames, latex veins faintly visible beneath the bark. Between them rose clusters of palms and broad-leaf figs, their crowns overlapping just enough to fracture the white growth light into softer, broken bands.
Farther down, bamboo groves occupied narrow terraces, stalks packed dense and vertical, leaves whispering softly as mist passed through on a fixed rhythm. The vapor settled heavier near the ground, clinging to layered ferns cultivated under controlled shade, beads of water collecting along their fronds before slipping into shallow stone channels cut for runoff.
At the edges of the lower beds, medicinal plots spread low and deliberate. Among them, Thai sativa grew in careful rows, leaves narrow and serrated, taller than most of the surrounding plants, their presence unmistakable even without signage. Not only for decorative, but various useful functions.
Smaller growth crowded every remaining margin. Moss traced the seams where steel met soil. Vines climbed support columns with quiet persistence, restrained but never fully tamed.
The space felt alive, highly regulated, careful monitoring as if they were the work of studied project.
The work of Dr.Mintra and her students on those plants are highly impressive, but this is no time to be loitering around.
Arika continued, moving quickly along the garden auditorium toward the right corridor where the staircase rose ahead.
Then she noticed it.
A mist generator triggered directly in her path, spraying across the walkway instead of the plants. LED grow light flared in sync, flashing straight down onto her without warning.
This is clearly abnormal, totally abnormal.
Two more units unfolded from the rail, slim aluminum arms extending on jointed tracks, mist nozzles angling toward her position.
Then four.
Additional emitters slid free along the garden's edge, growth lights pivoting in sequence as the system recalculated. The pattern spread outward, mist and light firing in staggered intervals, tracking her movement instead of the plants.
She broke into a run toward the staircase.
The grid is operational, but strangely glitches?
As she closed in on her location, by the corner of her eyes noticing something suspicious. She slowed her pace then rapidly breaks direction once she notices the suspicious object in question.
What now?
The interactable educational holographic screen was embedded directly into the corner of the garden auditorium's rail guard, positioned where the curve of the walkway met the upward stairwell. It faced inward toward the open space, angled to be seen from both the lower floor and the upper landing.
As Arika closed in, the display reacted. Instead of its usual slow rotation of botanical models on the default standby screen, it displayed a flashing circular sigil divided into precise radial segments, a hollowed core suspended at its center. The geometry read as engineered function meeting aesthetic, carrying the weight of symbolic authority tied to their belief system.
That was SAI's flag symbol.
Three short flashes bloomed in quick succession. Each burst carried a different fragment, a leaf cross-section, a vascular diagram, a rotating growth lattice. The images vanished almost as soon as they appeared.
A mist emitter along the garden edge fired again. Cold vapor struck, even though she reacted fast guarding her face, while trying to evade, but still her shoulder and visor, beading instantly before she could wipe some moist off. A growth light snapped on overhead, flaring white across her vision, then slid away as another unit triggered further down the terrace.
Seriously….
She held her ground.
A pause.
Then the screen surged. Three long illuminations followed, each holding too long to be instructional. Light washed across the wall, spilled onto the floor, hummed faintly through the frame.
Another mist burst followed, closer this time, spraying across the walkway instead of the plants.
Lina, what are you doing?...
Another pause.
Three more brief flashes. The same fragments returned, out of order now, overlapping by a fraction of a second before cutting to black.
Arika stared at it.
That wasn't a malfunction. That was a message.
Cluster of texts abruptly appeared, entirely replaced the flashing image, appearing with the timing of a system that had tracked her approach in advance. The projection settled into military-grade encryption, headers stripped away, data densely compressed until the structure read closer to a signal packet than a formal report.
[
Thread well, you who stand the thousand-year lady of the tallest spire.
The Medical Bay listens where it should not.
Another presence listens back.
]
That could be hinting that someone might be hacking the system…
Arika read on.
[
Specimen X has taken hold between west and north.
Thorium paths bind it.
It grows with the building's pulse.
]
Thorium grid. That's not incidental.
After she completed the read, the encrypted text collapsed inward, the screen went dark and returned to its idle rotation, displaying the garden aesthetic preview as if nothing had occurred. Arika, therefore, quickly stepped away from the screen narrowed her eyes and cracked a malicious smile.
Someone playful enough to do this at a time like this. Fine.
She folded the packet of protein meat skewers and slipped it into the utility pocket at her right hip, clipping it tight by touch alone. One of the Baitoey drinks was already in her hand. She finished it in a single pull and flicked the empty container into the recycling bin by the stairs, right over the green service line the cleaning bots followed, not bothering to look back.
Sorry Kaodin, perhaps Baitoey drinks is for another day then.
Then she turned away from the projection screen and took the stairs opposite and ran upward hurriedly.
Cold light spilled across the threshold, flat and industrial, revealing a maintenance chamber longer than it was wide. Pipes ran exposed along the ceiling in tight, orderly bundles, their insulation intact, their surfaces clean where the light reached them. The air carried the dry, metallic scent of a room designed to be opened rarely and trusted always.
The floor dipped slightly toward the center, channeling runoff toward narrow drainage seams. The tiles there were no longer visible.
Black mass lay pooled across the ground, thick and uneven, spreading outward from the right-hand wall in heavy folds. It looked poured at first glance, but the contours betrayed weight rather than flow, bulges pressing into one another, surfaces sagging under their own mass.
Along the wall, the black substance spread in continuous, flesh-like masses. The wall beneath it had softened, sagging outward as though its internal structure were being drained from within. Electrical contact points were pressed flat against concrete and steel. Where conduits and casing seams remained attached but undamaged, the mass thickened, drawing itself tighter, coiling densely around relay lines where thorium heat bled through. There it latched and held, feeding with the instinct of parasitic tissue from the Colos Variant it once was.
Now its size posed even bigger than its previous host. It lay still, pulsating as if it could breathe air.
Arika slowly and quietly opened the one-sided manual door. Once it sealed behind her, the stench of rotting meat mixed with strong acid hit her hard, enough to make her gag, but it snapped her fully alert.
Whatever it is… I'll settle it, even if it costs me my life.
She pivoted inward with deliberate care.
Dr. Mintra… what did you do?
For now, let's hope I survive this first.
Once she past the interval room and entering the thorium manual overwrite, Arika's eyes went straight to the far end of the room.
The thorium manual override station sat recessed into a reinforced alcove, its black housing unmarked, status panels glowing a steady blue. Conduit lines spilled from behind it and vanished into the walls and floor, feeding the black goo masses and the rest of the building in quiet, orderly paths.
She moved swiftly along the remaining path she could use, pacing forward. Her feet now felt like a speck against the massive body, a pitch-black void beneath her steps.
Seventy percent of the floor between her and the station was already claimed. The surface had disappeared beneath a continuous spread of black mass, thick enough to swallow her whole, and she knew then that no one would be able to find her if she fell.
The overhead lights flickered once as she crossed the mass uninterrupted. Just a fraction of a second. Then they stabilized. No alarms followed. No alerts. The room continued as if everything were normal.
The autonomous was hostile toward me, but not this… thing?
She reached the station and raised her hand to pull the manual lever down. A sensation crawled up her spine. She glanced back quickly. Nothing moved. The mass only pulsed, slow and steady, as if breathing.
Nothing reacted.
The mass did not surge or retreat. It held the space without motion, filling it with uncertainty, as if it had been there long enough for the room to stop questioning its presence entirely.
The lever did not budge, despite the force applied. Panic mounted as the massive goo pressed closer from behind, the attempt ending in failure.
Arika tightened her grip and pulled again, harder this time. The resistance gave a fraction, just enough to wake the station. A low hum rolled out from the alcove, deep and mechanical, climbing in pitch as dormant systems spun up.
She turned immediately.
The mass still lay where it was. No recoil. No surge. Only that slow, rhythmic pulse, as if it were listening, feeding quietly on the thorium flow, growing without urgency.
Arika snapped her attention back to the panel. Lines of text began to scroll, crisp and indifferent.
SYSTEM OVERRIDE
AUTONOMOUS AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED
Her jaw set.
How could I have the code?
No time. I try the military overwrite. If it works on doors, it might work here.
Try, or die trying.
A sharp crackle sounded behind her, brittle and uneven, the kind that came from metal under heat and strain. Arika turned immediately.
The chamber looked the same. Warmth lingered at her back, close enough to notice.
Perhaps it was just some old pipe
Her throat tightened. She let her breath ease out, quietly.
She turned back to the panel, movements measured now, attention split even as her hands returned to the task.
Her fingers went to work the moment the screen filled her view. The keypad clicked under her touch, familiar, practiced.
XXXXXX.
The space around her tightened, sound and motion as if they were paused in time.
The hum surged a heartbeat later, rising fast as the station came alive.
The panel flared red. Status lights bled across the alcove, replacing the calm blue with warning tones that echoed through the chamber.
MASTER OVERWRITE ACCEPTED
SYSTEM RELAY BACKUP
THIRTY SECONDS TO SHUTDOWN
That's too long.
Thirty.
She pivoted to leave.
Behind her, the slow pulse changed. The pooled mass gathered itself, surface tightening as sections peeled upward from the floor. Weight lifted. Flesh drew long and vertical, stretching toward the space she had just vacated.
She did not wait.
Arika broke into a sprint.
Her boots struck metal as she cut across the narrowing strip of clear floor, one hand locked around her rapier grip. The station's hum climbed behind her, layered now with a deeper sound, wet and heavy, as the mass began to follow.
Being Hunted.
The corridor ahead fractured into angles and thresholds. White floor markers curved and bent, guiding maintenance traffic through spaces never meant for panic. Lights stuttered as she passed, some cutting out entirely, others flaring too bright before dying.
The mass surged closer. The sound of its bulk dragging forward filled the corridor, relentless, collapsing distance through sheer volume. It brushed the walls as it moved, leaving surfaces dulled and sagging in its wake.
…Twenty seconds…