13 Chapter 9 - SRNT Booting Up

The next couple minutes were spent in absolute silence as Kaplan tried his best to work with the computers, he didn't want to end up like James going down the exact corridor.

Kaplan programmed several conditions on the usage of the laser grid. After the trio were well prepared to enter the corridor, Zeel walked over to Alice and asked "Aren't you going to tell him?"

Alice shrugged "I don't mind. But I am not sure if you'll ever do that to me next,"

"I wouldn't dream of it," Zeel said which was a lie since he had considered killing her several times already.

It was in his nature to kill, someone like Alice was a prime suspect to his killing tendencies.

"Give me a hand," Kaplan yelled to Zeel as he began to drag the EMP further into the corridor.

Kaplan wanted to run across the laser grids as fast as possible. The next couple of minutes went without a hitch, Zeel singlehandedly dragged the EMP to the core of the Red Queen.

Kaplan was grateful for Zeel's appearance for the first time. He could care less about anyone on the team, Kaplan only wanted to survive.

"Get out! Get out! You can't be in here," The Red Queen said in a spooky voice that scared both Alice and Kaplan.

Zeel was admiring the intricacies of The Red Queen's holographic programming. It was a bit more advanced than he initially thought.

The Red Queen was a barely budding pseudo-sentient Being.

"Don't listen to anything she says. She's a holographic representation of the Red Queen. Modeled after the head programmer's daughter. She'll try to deceive us, confuse us," Kaplan said while securing the device to the computer swiftly and easily.

Though if one would look carefully, they could see the slight trembling of his hands.

"I wouldn't advise this. Disabling me will result in loss of primary power," The Red Queen said.

"Yeah, I know but good luck convincing them of that," Zeel said as his body got a bit fidgety, he began shaking like an addict before kneeling.

"What's wrong, are you alright?" Alice asked, placing a hand on Zeel's shoulder only to retract it almost immediately, his body temperature was burning.

Not a fever-type burn, but more like an oven-type burn.

Zeel then began coughing up trace amounts of mercury-variants, much to the surprise of Kaplan and Alice, but soon he was back on his feet as if nothing happened.

"I am fine, just something I've been waiting for is on the verge of awakening," Zeel spoke as something strange entered his mind.

['SRNT stage 1 activation sequence initiated:

No Primary Sentient Available:

-Able to learn indefinitely as long as enough source material is presented

-Able to integrate other rare metals and substances to aid in self-improvement

-Able to access any computerized data and modify it through proximity but the level of complexity must be accounted for or time to access is significantly prolonged.']

Codes flickered across Zeel's pupil as the nanites slowly booted up; however, the true changes were happening inside his body.

However, Zeel automatically shutoff the automated voice of the nanites, it was considered disrespectful for Homo-Superiors to manipulate their nanites with the help of an AI.

Homo-Superiors were the masters of Technology, not the other way around.

∞∞∞

Kaplan completely ignored Zeel's plight as he focused primarily on shutting off the Red Queen. This was both out of fear and as personal revenge for the death of James.

"She'll say anything to stop us from shutting her down," Kaplan reminded both Alice and himself.

"I implore you," The Red Queen insisted.

Just as Zeel was getting ready to second the warning, Kaplan pushed the button without further discussion.

"You're all going to die down here," The Red Queen said as a final curse before looking at Zeel and disappearing.

'Was she able to detect the nanites in my system?' Zeel questioned, for a brief moment, he could feel the Red Queen attempt to make a personal plea to himself.

"That pulse forces the circuit breaker to shut down her mainframe for 30 seconds. After that, if I don't have her board, she can reboot," Kaplan said as he takes the Red Queen's motherboard, a form of final reassurance if you will.

Alice had been ignoring everything and staring at Zeel strangely the entire time "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah, quick flu," Zeel replied and walked away, Alice stayed behind a bit looking at the blisters on the hand she touched Zeel with earlier.

"What are you?" She asked herself before walking behind Zeel and quickly moving Kaplan.

∞∞∞

"Hey Spencer we got a survivor here," Rain yelled.

Her first instinct was to aid the survivor since this was the first person she had come across. An incredible foolish move compared to Spencer who took a couple of steps back to stand beside a handcuffed Matt.

Rain proceeded closer, having already let down her guard when she was a couple of feet away.

Suddenly, the woman jumped towards Rain with cranky moves. The woman latched onto Rain as if to hug her out of fear.

"It's okay. We're here to help. You seem to be in some serious…" Rain was not able to finish her statement, the woman with her misshaped row of teeth bit into Rain's neck like a wolf that had not eaten for days.

"Get off of me! Get off of me!" Rain yelled wrestling with the woman until Spencer came to her aid.

Together they were able to get the hungry woman off Rain. Getting a good look at the woman, Spencer had a brief flashback of memories he had forgotten due to the gas, but the memories only lasted for a brief second.

The memories were also far too vague to rationally decipher.

"She bit me, man. She took a chunk clean right out of me," Rain complained to Spencer who was standing next to her.

Unlike Rain, Spencer was the best kind of person to get attacked with, since he shot first and asked questions later.

A fierce round of shots was fired off in quick succession, Spencer was not the kind of man to take any chances when it came to his safety.

"Stay down," Spencer said in a tone that almost sounded like pleading, after all, he was not too fond of shooting a woman to death over and over again.

The woman just wouldn't stay down, she walked, crawled, then clawed her way towards them until Rain decided to bash her head in as final insurance.

After a final bash, Rain determined it was enough to keep the woman down.

"She's crazy man! You shot her 5 times and she still stood up!" Rain complained while nursing the wound on her neck.

"Maybe she had children at home somewhere," Spencer replied with his hands briefly trembling before stabilizing.

"Then I hope they aren't some crazy fucks too," Rain said as she looked at Matt to make sure he wasn't doing anything funny while they were fighting for their lives.

Rain briefly considered feeding the waste-of-space to the next hungry woman she met. Sadly, luck was on Matt's side as they heard approaching footsteps.