Chapter 2

Andena stood at the door to Miss Danette’s laboratory looking at the keypad. Her core displayed, “Miss Danette did not have any numerical passwords stored.“

She thought about it and replied, “Can you access the AI program’s source code?“

“I can, but I don’t see the relevance.“

Andena had used one of her numerical access codes as a random seed for a program she had written. She knew that it was probably too far-fetched to work but figured that it was worth a try. She chuckled as she imprinted the core with her question, “Did she use any random seeds?“

“Yes, there are several. Do you think one is the access code?“

“I have used that method myself when writing a program.“

“Okay, try 58876.“

Andena punched in the code, but the little light on the console continued to flash red. “Nope that’s not it, “ Andena sighed.

“Try 875086.“

Her fingers flew over the pad entering the numbers but again; no change. “Nope.“

“867309 is the next one.“

The numbers didn’t turn the red light to green, and Andena’s mood was worsening by the minute. She growled her frustration, “Great.”

Her core responded, “257612 is the last one with numbers.“

She punched in the numbers and to her surprise the console played a little range of happy notes while the red light changed to a blinking green dot. She was pleased when she heard a clunking noise but was a little surprised that nothing else happened.

“Well done! Now, you will need to pull the door open Andena. There’s been a power failure as a result of the explosions in the Bionex building.“

“Oh, that explains it!“

For once she was grateful for her enhanced and therefore much stronger muscles otherwise, she would never have been able to force the heavy door open. It felt odd; as if she was breaking into Miss Danette’s place as she tentatively stepped into the long narrow hall. She knew that as soon as she closed the door, she would find herself in complete darkness, and she asked her core, “Can you repeat your trick with those lines again? It will be completely dark in there.“

“I’m sorry Andena, but I don’t have any information stored for this building.“

“Oh, okay.“

Andena thought it was strange that her core lacked any information about this particular place because it had been built here. It left her with no choice than to leave the door ajar until she was able to find a source of light. Andena walked straight on hoping she would end up in the main room where she should find an emergency supply cupboard. There must be a torch in there! The main room was in darkness except for the faint glow of a cross. She knew that she needed to remain on her guard at all times, and was pleased when her core suggested that she should stay close to the wall.

She took cautious steps towards the glowing cross while using her hands to feel for any obstacles that she might stumble across. She found a table which she realized upon closer inspection was attached to the wall. Feeling slightly more confident, she continued to move forward, using the edge of the table as a guide but was startled when she stumbled across something that moved away from her. It took her a long moment to work out that it was an office chair on wheels. The chair came to an abrupt stop when it crashed into something made of glass. The shattering sound was enough to make Andena curse. Fortunately, it was nowhere near the emergency cupboard, and she continued walking slowly towards her destination. As she opened the cupboard door, she found herself blinded by a light so bright that she was forced to look away. The chair had crashed into the glass door of a bookcase housed under the work table. The broken glass, which covered the floor, glinted menacingly in the sparse lighting that the emergency cupboard provided.

Lost in her thoughts, she was momentarily startled by her core, “Look to your right Andena. There are some switches on the wall.“

There was a whole panel with switches which made Andena a little paranoid; there was no way of knowing what would happen if you were to flip a switch. But as she examined the switchboard she was pleased to see that all the switches were neatly labelled and soon found the main light switches. As she flipped the switches, to her amazement the whole laboratory was flooded with emergency lights.

“Wow! Thanks, Z.“

“You’re welcome, A. It’s most likely that this door leads to Miss Danette’s personal quarters.“

She remembered that the heavy entrance door was still open, and she replied, “I’d better close the main door first before somebody else notices.“

As she walked back to the entrance Andena quickly looked into the rooms leading off the corridor and discovered that both rooms were empty except for a few boxes. With some effort, she locked the door and felt her anxiety levels begin to drop. Finally, she felt safe! With a sense of guilt mixed with anticipation, she padded to the door which led to Miss Danette’s personal quarters. Slowly opening the door, she was welcomed by a pleasant and fresh smell. She gasped when she saw the thick carpet and hastily removed her boots; nothing felt as good as walking on a deep-pile carpet with bare feet. She couldn’t believe her eyes as she walked into the most luxurious living quarters she ever had seen in her life. Aware that she was entering a dead woman’s personal domain made her feel more than a little uneasy, and she was genuinely conflicted as she wandered around the stylishly decorated rooms.

She sighed and said out loud, “Oh Z, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if I can stay here.”

“What is the problem with these quarters? Miss Danette is dead, and has no use for them anymore.“

Trust her core to be so blunt! Andena shook her head and said with a groan, “That’s why I have such a problem with it. I feel like I am taking advantage of her, and it feels wrong, Z.”

There was a moment’s silence, and it was all that Andena could do to stop herself from laughing at her core’s next question, “Are you going to trash the place, Andena?“

“No, of course not! I will cherish it, to the point that I will be afraid of damaging it.”

“So you will use the facilities with the utmost respect?“

“Yes, of course, I will.”

“In that case, I don’t think that Miss Danette would have minded.“

She frowned as she mulled over the remark and sincerely questioned her core, “How can you possibly know that?”

The silence was palpable for Andena, and she started to tremble as she read the text, “She treated you with respect, Andena.“

A tear ran down her cheek when she realized that her core was right and confided in a whisper, “I guess you’re right Z, but I think it is going to take me a little while to adjust to this situation.”

“You will, Andena. Now, there is a bottle of white spirit in the laboratory which will take care of the grease on your hands. You don’t want to ruin the sheets with your dirty hands.“

She was stunned by her core’s response, but she was quite pleased that she didn’t have the chance to dwell on it any longer. She slipped into her boots and headed back to the laboratory to find some rags and the bottle.

Alice leaned her back against Lunn’s warm chest. She had seen the footage of the collapsing building more than enough, but her lover kept re-running the recordings all the time. She was unable to keep the annoyance from her voice, as she asked, “Why are you still watching those recordings, Lunn?”

She loved to feel the rumbling of his chest as he chuckled. “I’m doing your job, my dear.”

Alice huffed and teased, “So, deputy head of security: what did I miss?”

She was unprepared for his response, “You missed the fact that someone exited the building just before it collapsed.”

She turned her head to look into his gorgeous eyes and asked with a hint of uncertainty, “Are you joking?”

His serious tone of his voice told her that he wasn’t teasing. “I’m positive.” He gave her the remote control as he climbed from the bed. He strolled to the screen which showed a still of Bionex’s building in the seconds before it collapsed. He pointed to the side of the building and said, “Let it run frame by frame, and keep an eye on this door.”

Alice started the grainy recording and was perplexed when she saw a person running out of the building at an incredible speed. She replayed the recording at a normal speed and suddenly understood why she had missed the person escaping from the building. She had it dismissed as a glitch in the recording. She murmured, “That is unbelievable!”

“Yes,” Lunn replied, “now rewind the recording to the beginning and tell me what you think happened.”

When she played the recording from the beginning, Alice saw people running for their lives out of the building. Intrigued, she asked, “Do you know what time the recording started?”

“Five minutes after we fired the EMP. Why?”

She understood that the power surge at Bionex which had been triggered by the EMP was why the staff were fleeing the building. However, no matter how she tried to wrap her head around it, there was no plausible reason for this mysterious person to exit just seconds before the building collapsed. She asked, “Do you think that whoever this was, took the opportunity to blow up the building?”

Lunn narrowed his eyes which she found both scary and sexy at the same time. He thought about this for a few moments before he replied, “No, the explosion was too powerful to have been caused by regular explosives. It would have taken months to smuggle the amount needed into the building.”

Alice was shocked by his remark and said, “So, what else could have triggered this?”

He chuckled. As he climbed back into the bed again, he said, “Mr. Yousima wasn’t averse to using illegal equipment. He was a control freak. As far as I know, the whole building was completely self-supporting in terms of its energy supply. So I guess he must have used power plants which had been banned because of their instability.”

Alice loved the way he was caressing her legs, and it took every ounce of willpower that she possessed to stay focused on the matter at hand. She sighed and murmured, “That still doesn’t explain why he left the building so late.”

“It wasn’t a man.”

Alice was surprised by the absolute certainty in his statement, and she raised her eyebrow as she queried, “Oh? How do you know for sure it’s a woman?”

“She is short; her legs have feminine curves, and her gait is different than that of a man.”

Alice snorted, “I’m impressed you can come to such a conclusion from the few frames in which she is visible. Any idea who our superwoman is?”

Alice thought that Lunn’s smirk made him look like a smooth criminal; one with whom she craved intimacy. She gasped as he moved his hands under her T-shirt to cup her breasts. She recognised his lustful expression and her body tingled as he growled, “There’s only one superwoman here, and that’s you.”

She was unsurprised when he claimed her mouth possessively with his own. She loved his musky smell and moaned as she felt his body pressed close to her. She grabbed his shoulders and allowed herself to melt into him. As they stopped to get some air, she purred, “You make me feel like a superwoman.”

Meleda was startled when the alarm on her phone alerted her to the fact that she needed to take her medicine. She hated being confronted by the inevitability of her own demise. Her hair would start falling out within the next three weeks, and it wouldn’t be long after that before her teeth fell out too. That was assuming, of course, that she was still able to breathe. Meleda had already decided that at that point she would ask her brother to end her life. Brushing the misery that she felt to one side, Meleda concentrated on the task before her; that of supporting her brother, Haruz, in the aftermath of this terrible disaster. She glanced anxiously in the mirror fearful that her ex-lover Harrold would be repulsed by her appearance when she arrived at the control centre. She deliberately kept her makeup to a minimum without letting her feel naked. She knew that the wrinkles made her look a little older but was surprised when she felt the unmistakable sensation of butterflies in her belly, as she fantasized about how Harrold would respond when he saw her again. She chuckled at the silliness of her thoughts and headed quickly to her brother’s office. She knew that she would be wracked with nerves upon entering the building and as the sound of her low-heeled pumps reverberated off the hard surfaces of the shiny floor, she tried her best to control her anxiousness.

Meleda tentatively entered the hall of the office, and she was very pleased to find Wendy manning the front desk. She said cheerfully, “Hi, Wendy, nice to see you again so soon.”

Wendy’s serious expression instantly changed into a warm smile when she saw Meleda standing in front of her. “Hi, Meleda! I’m so pleased you’re back!”

As Meleda signed the register, she replied softly, “I don’t know what Haruz has said to you, but I’m only going to be here for a few days to help him out.”

Wendy laughed and then whispered conspiratorially, “Your brother was so relieved when you decided to come. You’ve made him very happy.”

Meleda smiled and sighed, “Oh, I am not sure if I’m all that happy to be here again.”

She saw Wendy’s face turn a little sad as she responded, “Let me guess; Harrold.”

Meleda was shocked by how much the mere mention of his name affected her. She could feel her face becoming flushed, and she didn’t trust herself to speak, choosing to nod instead. Wendy took her hand and said softly, “He is a nice man. He’s always kind to my colleagues and me.”

Meleda knew she had made his life miserable, and quickly swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat before muttering, “I know.”

She sincerely hoped that the situation between her and Harrold could be managed sufficiently so that they could, at least, both do their jobs. She knew she needed to avoid falling into the same trap as before. She mustn’t give him false hope that he could be a part of her world. It was difficult enough coming to terms with the fact that she barely had months to live, without having to worry about Harrold’s feelings too. She was startled out of her thoughts by a warm voice, “Is that you, Meleda?”

As she turned to face the man she had tried to keep out of her mind, her whole body responded, yearning to be with him. She gasped, and could only whisper, “Harrold.”