NOVEL SIMPLE 76 - Minimum Safe Distance
David silently made his way back down the corridor, ears pricked for any sounds of pursuit. His mind still whirled from the confrontation he'd witnessed between Adam, Wally, and Gideon; the professional hostility a bit alien to him, though he understood they were obviously afraid and stressed. Reaching the junction in the hallway once again, David paused to get his bearings. To his right past the security door he'd weaseled through on his way inside the backup lights continued their arrhythmic pulsing overhead, casting dancing shadows among the rows of vacant server racks.
The light leaked through into the hallway, and David quickly scuttled past, not keen on being revealed by the dim light if anyone happened to look up. His gaze was drawn to the large steel door set into the wall at the end of the corridor soon after, and he was once again struck by the irony of an unlocked and open door sporting a keypad and card reader.
Makes sense, I guess. If the power goes out and the door’s already locked, they'd just be fucked. No way any of us is digging through a reinforced concrete wall to freedom, you'd just… yeah let's not think about that. Wait, does that mean someone was already in the room with it when they hatched, or was the highly secured ‘artifact’ containment or whatever just sitting open to begin with? Weird. I'd bet it was that Gideon guy, he seems like the scientist or engineer type from what I saw.
With a whisper of talons on metal, David lurked through the shadows on the ceiling and nimbly swung through the door and slipped through into a shadowy corridor beyond. He followed the winding passage, talons clicking against the pipes he clung to, until he picked up a strange resonant vibration thrumming through the air. Rounding the last corner, he spotted a set of stairs leading down into a small, dimly lit circular chamber dominated by wide open floor space. It was just barely visible through a series of thick windows set into the wall above the chamber in the small room he’d entered, and David peered through curiously, the ground covered in lines painted in red and yellow.
David leered suspiciously as he allowed himself to hang and then drop down from the ceiling, flaring his wings briefly to avoid rattling the grating that made up the floor as he quickly darted down the stairs to the room below.
In the center of the lab, held in place by a mechanical armature and almost buried under machinery and coils of wire an iridescent crystal shard about a foot long pulsed with an inner glow, shimmering hues swirling lazily within its translucent facets. It was hard to look at, leaving small spots in David's vision that left him blinking rapidly before he simply closed his eyes altogether, chattering out an Echolocation instead. The waves reached the crystal almost instantly, and to David's horror it responded with a pulse of light bright enough to stun him even through his closed eyelids. A crackling rumble of intense energy rippled through the air and ground beneath him, and David reflexively dove behind the nearest sturdy-looking machine.
As David watched, transfixed by the slideshow of images that returned to him, a viscous bead of shining liquid began to form at the crystal's tip, slowly swelling larger. When it finally fell, the iridescent drop had splashed into a grooved collection tray below with a faint sizzle. The dripping liquid was then channeled away through a precarious-looking array of archaic pipes and coiled wiring, snaking toward an assembly of converters and transformers cobbled together from mismatched components. Each time the fluid made contact, ripples of kaleidoscopic energy crackled across the surfaces in surging waves, and David could see the lights through his eyelids quite clearly.
David listened, mesmerized, as the dripping rhythm continued, the hues within the crystal visibly brightening and dimming with each sluggish, viscous drop. The converters alternately whined and surged as the energies were shunted erratically. An alarm began to whine on a nearby station after a few seconds in response to whatever had happened when David's Ability had resonated with the object.
The entire setup looked extremely unstable, just as Gideon had warned. One big power spike or malfunction could potentially destabilize the artifact's outpourings with violent consequences. David felt like he should be leaning away from the entire contraption, for all the good it would do if anything broke while he was in the room. He could feel the power radiating from the thing, and Spooky immediately demanded he steal it for himself. David had snorted aloud at that before freezing and shooting a nervous glance around the room.
David slowly backed away, wincing as his wing brushed against a piece of equipment with a faint clatter. He froze, holding his breath, ears straining for any reaction from the volatile thing. But the dripping continued undisturbed, channeling its steady trickle of light through the makeshift conduits.
Why did it do that when my Ability hit it? Echolocation is just sound, as far as I know. That's definitely the same stuff you puke up when you evolve, no doubt about it. If I could get a better look at it without going blind or the damn thing exploding I might be able to figure it out…maybe.
David's ears twitched at the sound of heavy footfalls rumbling down the corridor before they began to rattle the grating above the stairs as the structure groaned under their weight. Moving quickly and silently, he slithered behind a protruding bank of equipment along the far wall of the chamber, careful to leave himself an angle to safely observe with his back to the jagged crystal. David held himself utterly still, muscles coiled as he extended his senses.
The footsteps grew louder until a massive, bear-like creature lumbered off the stairs. It stood easily eight feet tall, thick ursine muscles bunched beneath a shaggy coat of brown fur. It easily balanced on powerful hind legs, its stride only slightly awkward due to its anatomy as it attempted to fold its heavy clawed arms over its chest before growling in frustration when the limbs simply would not allow for it, letting them hang by its sides instead.
"Major Kozlov," a gruff voice called out as a small stampede of footsteps rapidly followed the gigantic creature down the stairs. "What's the situation?"
The bear, Kozlov, turned as Adam waddled into the chamber, Wally and Gideon on his heels. The porcine man looked warily around the room before fixing Kozlov with a pointed stare.
"I'm not sure yet," Kozlov rumbled. "That last tremor didn't feel like the usual power fluctuations. We may be dealing with the early stages of a larger event, and I hope not."
He nodded toward the central space where the glimmering crystal shard pulsed and dripped its iridescent fluid in a steady rhythm. "At least the siphon is still functional. For now. But Gideon's juryrig was meant to be a temporary measure, not something that would last a week or more."
Exchanging a worried look with Wally, Adam grunted. "Just when we were finally making progress on re-establishing outside contact..."
"Progress?" Kozlov snorted derisively. "That's one word for blindly groping in the dark while draining this thing for all it's worth as a last resort."
Wally bristled, but Adam simply held up a calming hoof. "We didn't have any other choice if we wanted to avoid complete shutdown. Not after…."
"Save the excuses," Kozlov growled. "I'm not putting blame anywhere. I'm just calling it like I see it, which is we've been hanging by a fraying thread essentially looting power from a classified piece of…technology… without fully understanding it."
He shook his head slowly. "And from the way that tremor felt, I'd say the thread is unraveling fast. We're running out of time before something finally gives."
A tense silence fell over the group, the soft dripping of the artifact fill the only sound. David watched, unmoving, as Gideon bounced up onto a console from the ground to huddle over a console, tiny paws flying urgently over the controls as he studied a series of gauges hooked up to a small screen.
"Um...sirs?" he ventured at last, sounding apprehensive. "You're... going to want to take a look at these readings."
Kozlov grunted as Adam, Wally, and he crowded around to view the screens. Incomprehensible data scrolled past, but the look on Gideon's expressive fuzzy features spoke volumes.
"What am I looking at, Gideon?" Adam asked in an ominous tone. "Plain English, if you'd be so kind."
The small technician swallowed hard before responding. "Th-The artifact's energies are becoming increasingly unstable and chaotic on a fundamental level. My hack job here can barely track the rapid shifts anymore, let alone channel or convert the output."
"In other words," Kozlov spoke for him in a grim rumble. "This whole place is about one good fuckup away from going critical as that thing melts down?"