V ~ Gremlins.

V. 1. Bee's dream

V. 2. Zats dream.

Characters in this section:

Bee-G-CAN; Brain researcher.
Zat-R-NIK; New citizen to PLN, wearing a ripped uniform.
Random-R
Aratos-O
Neko
Grey-V-MST; "Greymist" Head of Research &Design in PLN
Bill
Rinsai, Greymist's pet docbot.
Jumpyip.

Forum covered in this section:

R&D Main lab, 50.2 -> end page 54


V. 3. Annikki's Brown Cafe

Characters in this section:

Bee-G-CAN; Brain researcher.
Zat-R-NIK; New citizen to PLN.
Anniki-G; servitor
CPUreaucrat-G
Vinnie-R; PLC NPC
#13, Bee's housebot.

Forum covered in this section:

Activity Center » Annikki's Brown Cafe 1 -> 4.3
Trading Post » PLC Mall 22.15 -> 23.7


V. 4. R&D Main lab.

Characters in this section:

Bee-G-CAN; Brain researcher.
Zat-R-NIK; New citizen to PLN.
Bill-O-BOY; R&Der

Forum covered in this section:

Employment Station » R&D main lab 55 ->


V. 5. Testing Grounds. Fireworks.

Characters in this section:

Bee-G-CAN; Brain researcher.
Zat-R-NIK; New citizen to PLN.

Forum covered in this section:

Employment Station » R&D Experimental Equipment Assignment and Testing Ground 3.2-5.6


V. 6. Pills and Gremlin traps

Characters in this section:

Bee-G-CAN; Brain researcher.
Zat-R-NIK; New citizen to PLN.
Bill-O-BOY; R&Der
Quend-R-LON
Dourden-O: Intsec guy with a commie in his head.
Aratos-O: The player is actually scottish, I believe.

Forum covered in this section:

Employment Station » R&D main lab 56.8-


V. 7. Pills 2, Teela club

Characters in this section:

Bee-G-CAN; Brain researcher.
Zat-R-NIK; New citizen to PLN.
Doublethink
Tombking
CMT-V
Farg-U-MAN
Phial-O

Forum covered in this section:

Activity Center » A Corridor 15.11-15.12
Activity Center » Tella-O Appreciation Club Meeting Headquarters 1.4 - 2.4


STILL TO COME

V. 8. Housebot number 13 ~ A humourous Interlude

V. 9. MIRRORMARAUDER!SLAUGHTER!YOU!

and more, of course

V. 7. Pills 2, Teela club.

Characters in this section:

Bee-G-CAN; Brain researcher.
Zat-R-NIK; New citizen to PLN.
Doublethink
Tombking
CMT-V
Farg-U-MAN
Phial-O

Forum covered in this section:

Activity Center » A Corridor 15.11-15.12
Activity Center » Tella-O Appreciation Club Meeting Headquarters 1.4 - 2.4


Bee leads Zat very carefully down the corridor, making sure she doesn't trip or fall on anything.

"ZAT? Can you HEAR ME? Zat, please..."

"B.....Bee?" She stumbles a little as she seperates another strand of memory from reality, the conflicting sensations are increadibly confusing.

.......An unknown orange clone stumbles into the room, looking a little charred, with a few burnt out holes in his jumpsuit, and the odd wisp of smoke eminating from various parts of his body, and asks for Grov. He notices Zats condition and quickly starts typing out orders for a docbot......

The room is covered in dust, a few stackable chairs arranged around a vidscreen playing a classic Tella-O episode on loop.

Bee leads Zat over the threshold of a dusty room, with a few stackable chairs arranged around a vidscreen playing a classic Tella-O episode on loop.
He puts her down in one of the chairs, after brushing the dust off it.

"Come on, we can rest in here for a bit. No one really comes in anymore... "

He turns off the vidscreen.

Zat feels the chair and slowly lets herself into it. Her face contorts and her hands scrape on the chair rather pathetically as hallucinates the time when she was on the electrified floor of power services. This doesn't last long, however, and she is soon sitting quite relaxed once more, eyes flicking about and mucules barely twitching in response to some non-existant stimulation. As she continues to fall through the dream well, the memories are from longer and longer ago... Snippets of vid shows, the molecular formula of a particularly interesting hydrocarbon... She sinks to her first remembered memories. These are dull and faded in her waking memory, but revived to the original vividness of their first perception.

............"Why would you want to remember?" Asks Hendrel, another junior clone approaching maturity. "I mean obviously there is a good reason why you don't!" A care giver inteerupts, "She's right o course... You just relax, Freind Computer is taking care of everything. Come now," she says, calmly, "It's time for you to have another treatment." The word treatment sparks some feeling of discomort in the young Zat, who can't seem to remember why. She supposes that this is just another thing that the computer is in control of. She relaxes and goes with the woman............

Back in te real world, Zats breathing slows slightly.

Bee checks Zat's eyes again, and sees a little dilation.

"Zat? Zat! It's me, Bee. If you can hear me, I'm waiting for you. It's ok, find your memories, but please come back. I need you, Zat. You're not like anyone else I've ever met... please come back... "

Bee takes out the pic-prints of Zat and himself smiling in the lift, and puts one of them in her hands. He looks at the other, and puts it away slowly. He sits alongside Zat, and holds her waiting for a change.

Zat rests her head against Bee, but gives no other response. On some level she takes comfort from the nearness. Her desent through the well slows slightly, and a new memory whirls through her head.

........Zat finds herself waking up for the first time in NIK sector. She is lying on a grey bunk in a grey room, which otherwise contains only a grey table with a steadily beeping moniter and a drip beside the bed. She has a headaiche, and is glad that the room is dim. she lyes there staring at the darkened ceiling, almost vacantly, for a few minutes befire realising that she doesn't know where she is. It dosn't bother her too much. A time later, however, it comes to her that she doesn't even know who she is. The more she thinks about it, the more that it bothers her. After an unknown amout of time, she becomes slightly agitated, just enough that she props herself up to look around. As she moves a fold in the tube is realeased and a bubble rises in the bag. She blinks. The headaich fades away and she stops pondering her identity. She lays back down and closes her eyes, ignoring the beeping moniter..............



Bee puts his arm around Zat, and waits patiently. He takes out his PDC and opens the Etch-A-Sketch program. He looks at Zat in his old male Orange uniform and thinks for a moment.

"Hmm, I wonder what Zat would look like as a blonde..."

He starts sketching a new jumpsuit design on his PDC, which seems much more interesting than the old baggy 'suit.

"I hope you wake up soon. You're much more interesting awake. But then you don't have that cute sleepy look with your eyes open.."

Zat finally reaches the bottom of the dream well. She hits the barrier in her memories and begins to slowly, but not entirely painlessly, pass through. Even if she tried to she couldn't stop this. In the rel world she bites her lip and pushes her forehead into Bee where it reasts on him. Both acions are quite feeble.

Ater a moment she relaxes once more.

........Zat emerges from the other side of the barrier. She now floats gently here, much as she did on the first visit. The 'pack of Lucys' surrounds her, this time they are welcoming...........

Zat stays in this place for about an hour. All the knowledge of her past is availiale to her.With the access to her earlier memories, the block dissintergrates. From now on the only real limitation on her acces to these memories should be that for some years there have been no links made to the memories.

The illusory world fades away, leaving Zat to deal woth only one reality once more. She is still somewhat dazed, though only to about the same extent of a person who has either slept a very long, or a very short time. She lays there a moment longer, blinking for the first time in an hour or so. The glow of the screen hurts her eyes and she squints a little.

"Do you remember Lucy?" She asks softly.



"You're back... thank dave you're all right... Lucy? Um, yeah. I think so ..."

Bee thinks way, way back.

"Yessss... I think I remember a girl called Lucy. She used to make great big sandcastles in the sandpit sometimes. I'd help, and dig little trenches around it so the "Marauding Commie Combots" wouldn't knock it down. Then we'd play in it and knock it down. Then one day she wasn't there, and I was told she was taken away. Then the teachbot wouldn't let me play with the other children for months, and even then it watched me like security camera. They were so mean... Why do you ask? Did you know her?"

"You could say that..."

She thinks through her own memories for a while, then talks in a tiny voice.

"Did I cause so much trouble?"

"Trouble? You? Oh, no... I was talking about Lucy... It wasn't trouble, really. I mean, she left but I don't think she wanted to, and I never found out about it anyway. It wasn't her fault all that stuff happened afterwards, those teachbots were mean all the time. I still wish we could have made more sandcastles, though. Those were fun. She was fun. But she's gone now... I wish I knew where she went."

Zat puts her hand up to his cheek, turning his face to hers. She stares into his eyes for a moment.

"But, Bee, you don't have to wish, she... I am Back. Bee, I am Lucy... or was... now I don't really know who I am."

Bee looks at her face, searching. He looks at her nose, and her hair, and her eyes. He looks into her eyes, and smiles.

"Of all the labs in all the sectors of all the Complex, you walk into mine."

He realises something, and chuckles.

"So what do I call you now? Zat? Or Lucy? Hmm... "

Bee shrugs.

"But then, what's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

Zat does not even pause to wonder what a rose is. She kisses him breifly.

"You know, I thinkthis is another thing we shouldn't tell anyone about."

"I think that would be a good idea. Some people might have... funny ideas about what we're doing. I know one person isn't too happy about us. How do you feel? Are you okay to walk, or are you still woozy?"

"A little woozy, but I think I can walk okay."

She stretches carefully.

"Someone who isn't too happy about us?"

Bee swallows as the men's jumpsuit binds around her chest as she stretches her arms above her head.

"Er, just some guy. It's ok, just keep an eye out for anyone suspicious, and cameras tracking you. I think he's after me, to be honest. I must have "entranced" you, or something. Anyway, you might stop feeling like this if you keep eating normal food all the time. Try to avoid HotFun and Soylents if you can, I'll see if I can get any suppressant suppressants."

"Okay. heh, to be honest I don't really like them anyway."

Bee peeks out the door.

"All clear, I think. Welcome to the Tella-O fanclub, by the way, heehee."

They move out into the corridor.

Zat and Bee move into the corridor quietly from a dark room, to see Tombking clucking.*

***
*this story intersects with another
***

"Hey, it's Tombking. He looks a little ruffled. I wonder why he's just standing there in the path of that forkbot."

Zat listens for a moment.

"His own body? I wonder what thats all about..."

Doublethink-O-FBI-1 pulls out his PDC, hits a few buttons, and then nonchalantly holds it at his side.

"What-ever!"Shouts Phial, engaging the forkbot and surging forward attempting to squish Tombking-Y. He continues to record with his PDC.

Zat stands quite still as Tombking is killed, the body examined by Doublethink, and Doublethink chased off by the forkbot. She stares at the corpse, grey faced.

.Another corpse... to think that such a short time ago I hadn't seen a single person die, except on the vid shows.

Bee watches the forkbot go about its splat tango.

Another corpse... good grief. I wonder who is going to clean that stuff up?

Zat looks over to Bee.

.So much has changed since then.)

Yawning suddenly, she wonders just how long she has been awake; approximatly three dxaycycles,
then blinks as she notices the oddly shaped Farg-U-MAN chasing after Doublethink in his quest to find Jazzer-U.

"Hmm, I think we'd better go get some rest. I'm a bit tired and your brain could do with some recovery time. "

Bee feels a little uncomfortable, as if he doesn't want to go.

"Parting is such sugary sorrow. We'll meet tomorrow at work, right?"

"Hmm, well, I should see you anyway. Although..." She pauses for a moment, bites her lip then says hurridly, quietly, "Greymist wanted me to work in HPD&MC, to try to find some way to improve public image."

"What? No... that's... no... how unfair... "

She's a... not them...

"I... I see... Well, I suppose I'll see you around then, huh? Ahaha... aha... ah..." whimper.

Bee wanders off to the apartments, preoccupied.

After he leaves, CMT-V walks down the corridor draging the beaten body of Lord Matthius, leaving a long red trail down the corridor.

Zat sees yet another body dragged past.

She notes that CMT is quite alright*, then heads off towards the red quarters to get her things.... well thing, anyway.

***
*refers to another adventure
***

Later on

Characters in this section:

Zat-R-NIK; New citizen to PLN.
Bee-G
HB-117; Midnight-G's housebot


Zat-O entersthe RED quarters, looking very tired. And, surprise, surprise, here's another corpse.

She moves over to a crumpled bed, picks up the Tella mirrors, straightens out the sheets and walks out, not noticing or interacting with anybody in the room. She heads to the ORANGE quarters and enters her assigned room, dropping all her belongings on the floor. She removes her tie and falls onto her bed. Other than the numerous occasions when she was unconcious, and the breif nap in R&D, this is the first sleep she has had in three daycycles

Zat's sleep is restless. Her life had, untill a few daycycles ago, been very uneventfull, or so she had thought. The Computer had wished her interesting times, and she had got them. Her mind, unable to throw off hte assault of 13 years worth of 'new' memories, can not shut down, despite her fatigue. Lost in here dreams, she rolls over and falls out of bed. A quiet, sligtly muffled thump can be heard.

-----

Bee-G walks through the lobby, ignoring the cackling giggle coming Midnight's room and into his own. He shuts his door, locks it and leans against it.

She's a... a...

"#13!! Get me a Beercan, Extra Scotchy! Now!"

.....an HPD&MCer!

He lifts his head from the door, and looks at his ripped sleeve.

"#13? Hello?"

The apartment seems completely botless.

"#13? Get your chassis out here now! I'm not in the mood for games!"

Bee searches the apartment, and finds a drawer open. A few items lie scattered about.

"Damn. I wonder where he is."

-----

Zat-O-NIK-1 slowly opens her eyes. She is damp with sweat, just staring to go cold, and needs to visit the bathroom. The sheet is wrapped around her feet and over the bed. She rolls over, wraps it around herself, and stumbles to her destination, then after a time, stambles back again.

Returning to her room, she moves to get back into bed, but finds it cold and damp. Upon turning the matres she finds it to be rather smelly*, She stands there for a moment, then closes the door. The lights don't work. Opening the door a crack, to let in the light. Feeliong a little guilty, she moves to swap the matesses across, decides that her's actually smells better than Maph's** anyway, and goes back to her own bed.

She is cold, but finds herself able to sleep after a time.
***
* Imagine a bed at a youth camp
** Enough to make up for the damp

I had thought I'de posted this stuff before, but it seems I didn't, so here is a long winded explanation about why my character is so very messed up by all this stuff with the memories... Zat is just confused trying to reconcile the total loyalty with the Lucy memories or WHY she was always so very loyal. Well, after restarting in NIK, she was always totally loyal to the computer. NIK sector is one which is centered around hpd&mc particularly the MC bit so Lucy was sent here to be reprogrammed, or whatever word you want to use and ofcourse, the sectors control of the citizens there is quite substantial being as the are focusing all their energy on mind control techniques, and this is why Zat had never seen anyone die before; In that sort of place the secret societies dont work very well and there is only really one center of power. Now she had the memories or the -probebly unpleasant- reprogamming, she has to reconcile the mind set she has lived with for so long with the actual knowledge of the stuff that happened, Oh, and this is where the comic fits.

It's not a very good comic though...
***

Zat wakes up again. She takes her dirty laundry, and herself, wrapped in the bed sheet, down to the bathroom. She cleans up as best as she can without any soap,* then uses the sheet as a towel. Zat then walks back to room 3, (carrying the dripping clothes,) and stands the matrus up to air. She puts the clothes on the bed railing to dry, and the water drips onto the croncrete floor and towards the small drain**.

***
* required for best results on those stuborn Tony stains!
** probebly blocked
***

V. 6. Pills and Gremlin traps

Characters in this section:

Bee-G-CAN; Brain researcher.
Zat-R-NIK; New citizen to PLN.
Bill-O-BOY; R&Der
Quend-R-LON
Dourden-O: Intsec guy with a commie in his head.
Aratos-O: The player is actually scottish, I believe.

Forum covered in this section:

Employment Station » R&D main lab 56.8-


Zat and Bee arrive back from the testing grounds. Zat peers into the room cautiously.

"I think its gone now..."

She enters the room, still looking around for the frog.*

***
* Gremlin! I meant gremlin...

(If you don't know, don't ask)
***

"Okay then... lets see what we have here... "

Bee starts rummaging around in the plasti-glass fronted cupboard marked on the front in crayon "Medicine cabinet."

"Are you sure you want to do this? It might... change things... or make you forget again... it might not work at all..."

She takes a deep breath.

"Yes, I.. I'm sure."

She smiles slightly.

"After all, if it doesn't work there is always that picture."

"Let's see... a couple of bottles of pink stuff, and few thingies... a suppository? Eww... hey, we have a couple of pretty pills here... Red pill or blue pill?"

"Lets try the red one..."

She looks at the pill. It is quite large.

"Don't worry. That isn't the suppository."

Bee gets Zat a glass of water. He looks concerned.

"If you're sure... most of these came out of the Cerebral Labs, but the labels are all messed up. I wish we still had that lab, we could have done this a lot easier."

Zat looks releived, glad she can take this medication oraly.

"Yes, I'm sure,"

She takes the pill and (Hydro*) the glass of water, ingesting the medication. For a moment nothing happens. Then she sways slightly and sits down heavily. Everything is slightly dim, but she does not loose conciousness. She looks up at Bee, not quite able to focus, and giggles.

***
*Hydro, you ask?

Wel... haha...

I said don't ask before right?
***

crashing sounds and Bill-O's voice comes drifting up the hallway in the direction of Lab 87

"Why you little... When I get my hands on you I'm gonnaOOOPH!... HEY!! ANYONE OUT THERE?! TRAPPED CLONE IN HERE!!! COULD USE A HAND OR TWO!!! ... HEY THE LITTLE BUGGER'S TRYING TO FRY ME!!! SOMEONE GET IN HERE!!! BEE?! ZAT?! GREYMIST?! AAANNNYYYYBOODDDYYYY!!!!!!!"

Quend-r-LON, a cheerful RED clone bounds into the R&D area.

"Hello? I'm looking for, um, Jumpyip-Y. On business for CPU! Is he here? Is anybody home? Yoo-hoo!"

Aratos wanders in, gripping a 'gremlin' at arms length.

"Excuse me, ah'm winderin' if maybe ye'd like tae have a look at this wee basturd? It's been runnin aroon Poower Services fer the last few hoors."

Bee sits down in front of Zat and waves his hand in front of her face. He picks up a pen-sized torch from the desk and looks in Zat's eyes in a vaguely doctorish way.

"Zat? How do you feel? Anything happening?"

He looks up at the intruders, then back to Zat.

"Excuse me, we're a little busy conducting experiments. Please return between office hours when a full staff will be more than happy to blah blah blabbidy blah."

He waves his finger in front of Zat's eyes, checking her eye movements. He looks up again at the clones just standing there, and gets irritated.

"Jumpyip is in the Liason office. If he isn't, tell him Bee-G says he's up for the next round of Experimental Flavour testing and he's on the exciting end of the spoon. And get that white thing out of here. Bill-O is experimenting on them somewhere else and it sounds like he wants a hand. Fortunately for you I will fail to mention the fact that you are touching something much higher than your own clearance to anyone else if you leave within the next five seconds."

"ach, fer cryin oot loud."

Aratos wanders off, muttering something about R&D and courteousy.

" AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! "

The now louder scream comes from down the hallway, and the smell of fried Soylent begins to fill the air.

"Sorry to interrupt, sir! I'll go find this liaison office right away, sir, and if Jumpyip-Y isn't there, sir, I'll send him a cmail for you, sir! Have fun, sir!"

Mmm, is that Soylent Red? I love that smell! Wonder if they have Sweet 'n' Sour Soylent Steaks in this sector?

Quend-R does a smart about-face and ambles off.

Bee sniffs the air, and wrinkles his nose. He can hear a far-off screaming as well, and listens closely.

Hmm. Sounds like trouble.

He gets up and walks over to the door. The screaming gets a little louder from down the hallway. Concern fills his heart as he shuts it.

I always miss the fun stuff, but my... my...

He silently tries out the word he knows, but has never said before. He thinks about the pronunciation of the rather simple but unfamiliar word:

...my girrrl....

...my girl needs me.

He sits down in front of Zat again, and takes a sip of the water.

His PDC starts to ring. A cute little FuzzyBobbyBobbleBot appears on the screen and starts whizzing around.

Important! Important news found! Important!

Bee picks it up and takes a look. The 'BobbleBot runs off the screen. He raises an eyebrow in curiosity.

"I wonder what that's about. He started it, I just said hello. Bah. Nerds."

Bill-O enters with Aratos, carrying an empty vat.

"Ok, right over here in the center of the room in that cleared space."

The vat is set down some distance from Bee and Zat.

"Ach, so, noo ah'l stick some cake in the vat, an then as soon as the wee bastid walks in we slam the lid doon, an' set fire to it an' send it tae HEL sector, richt?" Say Aratos.

"Sure," says Bill "um... basicly, Aratos is going to put a few pieces of cake down here in this vat, and we're all going to hide around the room and wait for a creature to go into the vat, and then slam the lid down on it, trapping it alive! So the more eyes watching for the creature the better, I guess...

Dourden walks over to Bill.

"Ooh thats what you are actually doing, right what can i do to help?"

"Well, as much as I'd LOVE to fry the bugger, I'm afraid we do need to take at least one alive so that R&D can study it, since they apparently turn to goo when they die, so we can't just study the corpse."

"culdn't hae pit it better masel'. Aratos drops a couple of slices of cake into the vat, then looks for a good place to hide.

"ok ill look from over here" Dourden moves over & hides in the shadows.

Why is Bill-O always so angry?

***
An out of chacter comment from Bill:

Oh, and it's not so much that I'm always angry as that's the icon I'm using for the 'evil' personality. I just haven't swapped back and forth much lately, since that'd cause more complications I don't feel like dealing with as my 'good' half is unaware of what the 'evil' half does
***

The group sits hidden around the lab, waiting for... something to happen.

Bill squats behind an experiment with his pointed-end broom laying on the floor beside him, within easy reach. Unnoticed by Bill, the broom is slowly moved behind him by a small WHITE clawed hand. Another moment goes by and suddenly, Bill hears a familiar raspy voice very close to him.

"Bye Bye, Billy! HEEHEHEEHEHEEEEE!!"

Bill turns just in time to receive his pointed broomstick right between the ribs.

" I... don't... think.... they... fellllllllll... fffff.-"

(gurgle)

*Bill-O-BOY-2 has eaten his last HotFun.*

*Four WHITE creatures suddenly appear seemingly from nowhere, going toward the other hidden clones*

Help ma boab!
*Aratos jumps up and starts running away from the gremlins. Unfortunately one of them manages to grab his leg and trip him up before he reaches the door*

Help! This things has sharp teeth!

"WHOA, I aint taking this"

*Bolts for the Door*

"I aind Being killed by one of those little runts"

Argh! Help!
*Aratos kicks the grmelin off and crawls quickly towards the door.*

Zat is only vaugly aware on Bee sitting down in front of her. Her vision fades to the point where you would stop bothering to say she actually saw anything. Her eyes remain open and she is still in a sense concious, but to only a slightly greater extent than of a person who is near enough to being awake that they can hear what is going on around them. Reality and dream run simultaneosly.

Zat finds herself back in the dream well, this time without a guide. She falls, her most recent memories rising around her, then passing out of her awareness.

She feels very alone.

In the real world her eyes flicker about rapidly at things only she can see.

..."Red Pill".....Fireworks....Lunch...."Always wanted"...."Any experiance".....Scrubbing...paying...Docbot!

Her eyes suddenly try to refocus, seeking out Bee's face as the memory of the painful, traumatic experiance continues to play in reverse. Her vision is too dimmed to make anything out. One hand reaches out.

She dosn't want to be alone.

A gremlin jumps up on the table beside Zat with some sort of hypodermic needle about two feet long.

"Fry the bugger fry the bugger! Study the corpse! Hahahahaaaaa!"

Bee draws out his crowbar and knocks it on the head.

"Your pronunciation is wrong citizen. No doubt this will also reflect in your spelling and penmanship."

"Gnurr... corpse... haaaa.... bugger the fryyyeeeheee..."

Little stars float around the gremlin's head as it totters drunkenly and falls off the back of the desk.

"Zat? Time to go, I think."

Bee holds out his hand as he thumps the gremlin on the head again as it tries to climb back up. Zats hand meets Bee's, she says something unintelligable, but probebly ending in a question mark. She stumbles slowly, unsteadily - and blindly - to her feet.

Uh oh...

Bee waves his hand in front of Zat's face.

Not good...

He winces as a gremlin latches onto his leg. He whacks it, shakes it onto the ground and steps on it with a squelch.

"Let's go somewhere safer. Although I don't really know where we can go... "

he takes Zat's arm and leads her slowly out the door.

Zat stumbles along, the memories continuing.

.........I'm sorry, Citizen. I can't help you unless you tell me which medical emergency requires treatment. After all, I could just fix everything I note...but then I'd find out that you can't afford it, and you really liked the broken nose and mismatched eyes after all............

She forces her attention back to the unseen present, trying not to fall over. The pair make it out of the room.

Random stares blankly as everything seems to go straight to HEL sector...shakes himself back to the reality of the situation and runs over to help Aratos-O fight off gremlins.

"Oh wow, this was the plan?....ow... damn... this ...isn't ...working ...ow ....I...think ...we ...need ...ow ...weapons ...or ...something ...oof ...Let's ...ow ...get ...out ...of ...here ...and regroup...damn... "

He runs out of R&D in the direction of Power Services a few gremlins remain attached to him.

"ow...stop that.."

V. 5. Testing Grounds. Fireworks.

Characters in this section:

Bee-G-CAN; Brain researcher.
Zat-R-NIK; New citizen to PLN.

Forum covered in this section:

Employment Station » R&D Experimental Equipment Assignment and Testing Ground 3.2-5.6


Bee-G-CAN comes in, with Zat-O-NIK in his arms.

"Right. We should be safe here."

Bee puts Zat down gently, and pulls a switch closing the blast door.

"Are you okay? Are you injured anywhere else?"

"No, no, I'm fine... How about you, are you okay?"

Conxcerned, she looks to see if there is any obvious injuries he has.

"No no, I seem to be fine."

A couple of drops of blood drip down his cheek from his head.

"Now... oh hey, blood... we're looking for a big red crate. Has some tubes of stuff in it. Should be fun, it was due to be tested sometime this year."

Zat claps her hand joyfully, though also looks concerned about the blood. Fortunatly there doesnt seem to be a great amount, thanks to the hat, which he jams down a little tighter.

"Oh well, it was bound to happen. Let's see now... here cratey cratey crate..."

Bee atarts looking through the piles of equipment and discarded experiment detritus, while Zat helps entusiastically with her good arm, and slightly less so with her less good arm. The eventually uncover a crate.

"I this it?"

"Hmm... "

Bee wipes away the dust to uncover the words "Super FunTime Communist Distractor!"

"Looks like it. Help me push it over to the lift, will you? If you can, that is. "

Bee ipushes the crate into the lift, and waits for Zat to get in.

"I think we want Level R1."

He cracks open the lid, and has a look at the contents. He smiles, and puts it back.

Zat enters the lift, sees Bee smile, and also simles. Her eyes are gleaming with curiosity...

Bee pushes the button for R1. The lift begins to creak upwards, shuddering as it rises.

"So... we really should fix this lift...."

Bee looks around for a couple of minutes, blushing as he tries to find another subject of conversation. The lift finally comes to a juddering halt, ending the awkward silence. The doors slide open with a slight thud.

"Ah. About time. I think you're going to like this..."

Bee pushes the crate out of the lift and onto the rooftop. A layer of smog dust covers the flat concrete expanse, bordered by a low wall to stop citizens from accidentally falling off. From here one can see almost as far as the next sector. Buildings and artifices of all kinds stretch out on every direction, and ahead in the distance lies the power station, its radioactive glow shedding a rather romantic light across the horizon. (Note, alpha complex is underground, so what they see isn't actually the sky.)

"Beautiful, isn't it? Almost nobody comes up here. I don't, not very often anyway. Everyone wants to live down below, they're just too busy for this sort of thing. But I like it."

Bee pushes the crate to the edge of the rooftop.

"Now you, no peeking. I want this to be a surprise! Would you mind turning around and covering your eyes?"

Zat turns around and admiring the view, wondering what the surprise will be.

Clank clank screepscreepscrepp! Kachunk... screeeeepeepeep... flumph. Tic tic tic... schlip! schlip! schlip! Patoinggggg.... wangggg....

"Ouch. "

Screw screw screw... chooff chooff chooff. Whuff... clank. Clank pingggg... schup boinginginging.....

"Ah. "

Tak tak tak. Tok. Took.

"All done. "

Bee walks up behind Zat and puts his hands over her eyes.

Zat, shivers a little and smiles.

Wow, im having so much fun, hmm, i wonder what it could be....

Bee leads Zat carefully to the middle of the roof, and keeps his hands over her eyes.

"Now now. No peeking."

He walks over to the setup he put together which consists mainly of tubes pointed out over the sector. He flicks the switch and retreats as it begins to charge up with a gentle whine.

"Okay, you can open your eyes now. "

The device begins to spit out bright colours far over the sector, which bursts with a cute popping "boom".

"Pretty, huh?"

"Wow, thats beautiful"

***there was another image of bees, but I can't get the link to work***

She watches the sparling colours slowly falling and fading, head tilted back...

"amazing..."

Bee feels his body turn to mush.

"I suppose we should. I don't think we should tell anyone about this though. We, er, love Friend Computer *cough* and that is all the love anyone is supposed to have... Everyone thinks the wrong things. Just imagine if everyone did what we did... er, not with us, but you know, in general..."

Bee very, very reluctantly lets go of Zat with a sigh and starts dismantling the test device. He puts it in the crate and starts pushing it back towards the lift.

Zat watches him walk, then moves forward and helps to puch the crate. She is somewhat regretfull of causing the end of that embrace. She walks along beside him silently.

Bee pushes the crate into the lift, and waits for Zat to get in. He pushes the button for the Testing Facility, ground level. It starts groaning on its voyage downwards, so Bee gets out his PDC and starts typing away quickly. He stands next to Zat and unscrews the lens cap. He puts his arm around her and holds the PDC out at arms length.

"Since memory is such a fragile thing, and who knows what might happen to us in the future. I think we should remember this forever. Smile and CheezeLyke!"

She smiles and starts to say "cheeselyke," but starts to laugh. It is a laughter of the simplest and best kind; (actual) happiness. The picture reflects this and comes out a treat.

The door reopens and pair return to reality.

Bee shoves the crate out onto the grey concrete floor, and puts it back in the corner. He opens the blast door, looking for any little white gremlin-things, and makes his way with Zat to the Main lab.

V. 4. R&D Main lab. Bee/Zat

Characters in this section:

Bee-G-CAN; Brain researcher.
Zat-R-NIK; New citizen to PLN.
Bill-O-BOY; R&Der

Forum covered in this section:

Employment Station » R&D main lab 55 ->


"aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGETITOFFGETITOFFGETITOFF"

Bill-O runs in from the Corridor and starts running around in circles. There's a strange WHITE creature with claws, & pointy teeth attached to his back.

" GETITOFFGETITOFFGETITOFFGETITOFFGETITOFFGETITOFFGETITOFF!!!!!!! AAAAAAHHHHRRRRGGGGTHAT'SIT!!"

Bill-O stops running, pulls out a broom, and starts trying to beat the creature off his back. The creature easily evades the broom, but does jump off Bill's back, so Bill starts running after it with the broom.

" Come back here, you little... "

The creature runs around the room, jumping on various experiments, and laughing gleefully in it's high-pitched voice, it continues to easily evade Bill's strikes, which, unfortunately normally strikes whatever experiment the creature is on at the time. Bill is apparently blinded by rage, and is rather heedless as to where his missed strikes fall.

Bee walks into R&D rather quickly but calmly, followed by Zat. He seems to be breathing rather heavily.

***Dont get any wierd ideas from that, we were just running***

"Right then, citizen, I'm going to show you how we test the anti-thingy devices. Now, where are they? Should be a big sturdy crate full of tubes and stuff."

Zat grins and points to the corner of the labs, where a large crate resides.

"Is that it, sir?"

The gremlin, seeing new 'playthings' enter, jumps up on Bee's head, and begins taunting Bill-O further.

" NEENER NEENER NEEEEENER!! : AAAAARRRRRRRHHHHHH"

An enraged Bill-O, obviously blinded to what, exactly, the Gremlin is sitting on, charges it and begins to take a swing.

Zat notices the gremlin.

"Yarg?!"

"Gah!"

Bee ducks and tries to grab it to fling away from himself.

"Help!"

Evading Bee's grip, the gremlin instead leaps on to Zat and starts climbing all around her.

Bill narrowly misses Bee's head as he ducks and changes targets to where the Gremlin in now, though since it's not simply purched on top of Zat, doesn't swing immediately, awaiting an opening. Zat grabs hold of the gremlin and starts trying to unhook it from her ankle. She loses her balance and loses her grip on the gremlin, which promtly goes down the back of her neck into one of the arms of her jumpsuit, where it snuggles, giggleing, padding just like a kitten: with sharp claws.

Bee approaches slowly.

"Ok, none move. I'm sure if we leave it alone it will go to sleep and not bother us. I hope there aren't any more... Are there any more, Bill-O?"

Bill narrowly misses Bee's head as he swings and Bee ducks. With his 'quarry' gone out of sight, Bill starts looking for an opening for another swing. At this point, some may notice that the handle of the broom has snapped off at some point in the melee, and now has a nice, pointy tip

One side of Zats face twitches each time the claws go in.

PurrrrRrRrRrRr....... PuuuuuurrrrrRrRr...PuuuurrrrrRrRrRr....PurrrrRrRrRrRr....... PuuuuuurrrrrRrRr...PuuuurrrrrRrRrRr....PurrrrRrRrRrRr....... PuuuuuurrrrrRrRr...PuuuurrrrrRrRrRr...

"Aww, he likes you... Bill!? Are there any more of these things?"

"Arrg," Her face twitches again, "likes me..." wince "great, thats so..." wince "wonderfull- ACK!"

The gremlin bites her playfully. It's kindof cute, though.

Bill seems to notice Bee at last.

"What? No there's lots of them... just no more HERE.... Careful... that thing's a dangerous mutant... thing... I don't think it's going to sleep just because it's in your clothes... In fact, if I were you, I'd be getting OUT of those clothes quickly before it does something nasty-"

The Gremlin suddenly starts climbing around inside Zat's clothes. Blood spots start to appear where the gremlin's claws score. It suddenly rips out of the cloths and starts running around the lab again.

"-Like that."

Bill starts chasing it again

Zat blushes. She looks confused at the reaction, but seems to forget about t when the gremlin suddenly bursts out of the jumpsuit.

not another jumpsuit.

Bee runs over to Zat, concerned.

"Are you okay? It didn't hurt you, did it? I wish I could get one of those in Green, but declawed... "

Bee rips off a sleeve and starts bandaging the cuts.

"Dammit Bill-O, haven't you been trained by the Armed Forces?! Do something about this!"

Yeah, but this thing doesn't exactly stand and fight fair, now does it?

" uh, sir..."

The gremlin takes off down a hallway, with Bill-O right on it's heels, while Zat is picked up and carried of by Bee.



"Yes, yes, I'm fine.... Um, sorry about the jumpsuit.... er, jumpsuits."

"Hey, no problem. I'm sure we can get that fixed, and it's replacable anyway. You, on the other hand..."

Bee heads off to the Testing Grounds.

V. 3. Annikki's Brown Cafe

Characters in this section:

Bee-G-CAN; Brain researcher.
Zat-R-NIK; New citizen to PLN.
Anniki-G; servitor
CPUreaucrat-G
Vinnie-R; PLC NPC
#13, Bee's housebot.

Forum covered in this section:

Activity Center » Annikki's Brown Cafe 1 -> 4.3
Trading Post » PLC Mall 22.15 -> 23.7


Zat follows Bee into the PLC mall silently. The tattered remnants of her uniform hanglimp and wet from lying in the puddle. She carries her PDC, which, having been irradiated, gooed, electrocuted and dropped in a puddle is, needless to say, nolonger working.

"Hey, Vinnie." Says Bee, "Got any Hotfun? One for Zat here and lets see what you have in Green foods."

"Nope"

"Huh? Nothing? How can you not have anything to eat?

Vinnie gestures to something vaugly bean shaped.

"No, packing material gives me wind, thanks... And no uniform for Zat? Well, maybe they're selling them on C-bay."

Starts checking his PDC for cheap stuff like GREEN or ORANGE jumpsuits.

"Hey, according to this, you've been promoted! Congratulations! Hey, do you have enough for a new PDC at least? There's only one left on that shelf over there."

"Promoted?" I takes a moment to sink in. "Yeah!" She grins and says more things like 'yay' and 'woo' exuberantly, then gets caught with another dizzy spell. This works to get her to quiet down a little. She coughs.

"Um... sorry, its just I've only been here such a short time, so I wasn't really expecting a promotion so fast." She looks at the PDC on the shelf. "Hmmm, 250 credits... no I can't afford that, not after the docbot. Even if that nice Armed Forces YELLOW (Hmm I still don't know his name) Payed for half of it."

"Oh, DoctorDocbot? I met it once. I don't remember a lot... blades. Many many sharp blades... I know where I can get some uniforms. I'm starting to feel a slight draft... " Bee makes sure his labcoat is covering. Damn oppressive capitalist finanical slavery structure... "If we're going to get food, we'll have to go somewhere else. I'll meet you outside this new place called Annikki's. I'm going to pop home and pick up a few things. I hope #13 has cleaned my old suits."

"Sure... Only I don't know the way."

"Er, as a matter of fact neither do I. Since both of us will have to find it, we should get there at about the same time. Good old logic."

"Indeed, Sir."

-------

"Number Thirteeeeen, I'm home!"

Bee-G hangs up his hat and stuff. He calls out to #13:

"#13? Where are my old jumpsuits? I need you to fix this one for me please... "

Bee pushes open #13's closet door open.

"Hey, are you... er? "

Bee looks on as a number of bots watch an old movie projection screen with the lights off, showing an engineer dismantling a bot in "Bot Maintenance Tutorial #4"

"...and you take a 10.5 screwdriver, and remove the primary screws like so... "

The bots start to bounce up and down and make excited noises.

"...and remove the case carefully not to disturb the diodes or chips. You now have access to the bare circuit board. Take your soldering iron and... "

The housebots jump up and down whooping and hollering, waving their attachments.

"Whoooo! Yeah!"

" Those capacitors have gotta be fake!"

" Look at the parallel ports on that baby! Wooo!"

...Errr.... ok. This is too weird.

Bee turns the lights on. The bots turn around, and immediately pipe down.

"Okay, everybody out! Not you #13!"

Bee sticks his arm out, stopping #13 from passing. He feels a little uncomfortable.

"Well. Er... yes. Um... I didn't see what I thought I saw, did I? I really hope I didn't. "

" Er, nossir. "

"This won't happen again, will it? "

" Er, nossir. "

"I'll just get changed and go. "

" Right sir. Jumpsuits are in your wardrobe freshly pressed, sir. "

"Right. "

Bee eyes #13.

"Okay then. Er... I'll be off then."

-------

Annikki's Brown Cafe is a cosy bar, serving the somewhat more spicy drinks and light snacks (all Computer approved, of course) to customers who are looking for a nice and quiet place to sit back and relax. The bar is open for business 24/7, and is always being tended by the taciturn, but ever so helpful, Annikki-G-FIN-3. How she manages the everlasting work shift is anybody's guess, but the food, drink and quiet are good and so far nobody has been asking too many questions.

The Brown Cafe itself is indeed painted brown from top to bottom. The walls are lined with action pictures of heroic Troubleshooters. The bar is a large rectangle in the center of the room with stools all around it. At one end of the bar, a vidscreen is showing Funball reruns. In a larger rectangle around that are separate booths, enclosed on three sides by woodLyke panels with the opening facing outwards to give its occupants the appearance of privacy. To that end, the Brown Cafe is also visibly clear of camera's. Dim lighting gives a nice atmosphere to the place and nearly conceals the green line bordering the ceiling to indicate the Cafe's clearance. A moody, somewhat blueslike music (but with a happy subliminal beat, because after all, happiness is mandatory) is playing through the speakers.

---
BROWN CAFE MENU (CLEARANCE GREEN)
Food (all sanwiches: +2cr for extra sand):
Annikki's Kelpsalad sandwich (10cr). Made with fresh* kelp imported all the way from SEA Sector and a slice of QcombR.

JLTs (Jalapeno/Lettuce/Tomato sandwich, 14 cr). Green vegetables, including green tomato on green bread. Now 92% Fungus Free!

Soylent GREEN (15cr). Makes you wonder how you ever could eat its RED brother. Also guaranteed** without clone bits.

Wholemeal (21 cr). A cube of brown BreadLyke stuff Mystics seem to like because "It's like, kinder to your intestine, dude. Your colon is your best friend." Impregnated with different flavours per customer choice.

CrackleCrackers (7cr). A bowl of these crackles your brain and sparks your mind. Favorite with most R&D'ers.

Drinks:
Mega-Brown ChocOshake (8cr). Hot, sweet, creamy & brown***. Immidiate dental hygiene is required after ingestion.

Capsicum Juice (15 cr). Also doubles as anti-crowd control spray.

Whatka (30cr). A shot of this feels like getting shot. Repeatedly. Not suitable for use as pain killer.

B3, CoffeeLyke, TeaSir, MoreTeaVicar and AppleJoocy also available.

*Provided PLC used frozen transport and delivered on-time.
**Not really, but more so than in soylent RED.
***Known to suppress hormone suppressants.
---

"Greetings Annikki-G. One B3 and two kelpsalad sandwiches, not too much sand, please. "

" 'K "

CPUreaucrat pays for his sandwiches and B3, picks up an issue of the T3 from the bar and enters a booth in the back of the Cafe to eat his lunch. Sounds from outside penetrate the booth as no more than a soft static noise.

Bee-G walks up wearing a resplendant Red jumpsuit, Yellow hat and labcoat, and peers in the windows.*

Classy. I wonder how cheap they are?

Zat-O arrives, a short time after Bee. Her RED jumpsuit is far from resplendant... In fact it could well be called... a rag.

"Hello, Sir."

Bee turns around and gets a look at Zat's ankle through the torn suit. He immediately looks at the ground.

"Oh, er... Hi! I, er..."

Bee holds out an Orange jumpsuit.

"I, er... I thought you might need this... there's like, a tie and everything... thought you might catch cold, ahahaha.... ahem...."

Zat takes the jumpsuit appreciatively, wondering again at why the GREEN citizen looks so embarressed...

"thankyou."

She strokes the pristine ORANGE fabric. It smells good... sort or sweet and tangy. THe RED rags do not smell good. They smell a little bit like soylent... She looks around for a conveniant changeroom, doesn't see one nearby and simply turns around and undresses on the spot, not thinking anything of it.

"Gak... "

Bee Faints.

"Zat quickly redresses in the ORANGE jumpsuite. The men's cut of te suite is a little constricting, but all things considered in all not too uncomfortable. Adjusting the tie, she turns back to BEE. He is lying on the floor. "

"Thanky- Er, Sir?"

She kneels down beside him.

"Sir? Sir, are you ok?" She crouches down and taps him lightly on the nose, since some of his clothes are above her clearance. She can see he is breathing fairly normally. She sits back and waits.

"...gah... skin.... "

Bee gurgles.

"Er, skin, sir?" Zat looks confused and loosens the tie a little. "Sir, are you ok?"

Bee sits up.

"Er, yes. I don't know what came over me. It must be the pharmatherapy changes, not used to them, ahahaha... Right, um, I'm starving. Shall we eat?"

"Um, yes, Sir." She hesitates to enter the Brown cafe, though she doesn't actually notice the GREEN stripe. "Um, am I allowed im there?"

"Is there any reason you shouldn't be? I hear this place is pretty "swinging" and "hip"."

Bee pats his pockets and looks for his ME card.

"Any reason? No, not that I know of. Just that it looks so nice... and, um, brown." She looks a bit embarressed. "Er, never mind Sir."

Bee pushes open the door, and wanders up to the counter.

"Well, let's see... I think I'll have a Mega-Brown Chocoshake, annnnd...... er, just the 'Shake, thanks." He says, sanning the menu, and searching his pockets for credits.

"Zat? What are you having?"

Zat thinks for a moment. "Um, just some Cracklecrackers, please." She gets out some credits.

"Now now, I'm sure I can get all this back if I claim it under research expenses... "

Bee swipes his ME card.

"Okay, we'll just take these and... "

His PDC starts ringing immediately. Bee slaps his hand over it.

"Right then, oh look, what a nice table. All tabley and level. I like that in a table. Tableness. Yes."

"Indeed."

Zat transfers the food to the indicated woodlyken table, which is indeed very like a table, as well as being exceptionally smooth, flat and brown.

"I'll be back in a sec... "

I bet that's my credit balance reporting my bankruptcy. Crud...

Bee trudges off to the washroom. Faint sounds of PDC button-pushing come from inside.

You have... two... new messages. Message... one...

Damn... bloody capitalists...

Message... two...

WOOHOO!

Bee skips out and hurriedly stashes his PDC away. He waltzes up to the counter.

"Right, I'll have a Wholemeal, no, make that two Wholemeals and a couple of JLTs. And a Mega-Brown Chocoshake for my companion over there. "

" 'k. "

*Bee swipes his ME card with a flourish, and goes back to the table.*

Bees overly enthousiastic 'WOOHOO' disturbs the quiet in another booth. CPUreaucrat looks up from his empty plate, checks his watch and leaves the booth. On his way to the door he nearly bumps into Bee.

"Greetings Citizen Bee-G, "

He looks at Bee's tray, filled to the last corner with food and drinks.

"You must be very hungry. Has PLC been out of food for that long? Or are you still dealing with that priminity issue you mailed me about? You should try the kelpsalad sandwiches. They've got a slice of QcombR on them. Also quite handy for use as a tooth pick. Being GREEN clearance sure has its advantages. Too bad my housebot doesn't quite seem to be one of them..."

"Hungry? No, I'm sharing, but I sure am hungry. I wonder what Vinnie was playing at, not stocking food. If he wasn't the only clerk there I'd demote him to FoodVat tasting. "

"Oh, and about the paperwork stuff? Jumpyip should be in contact with you soon about those. I assume he'll be at work, or at least in his office. No one does any work around here I swear... hey, wanna try the JLT? I wonder what the J stands for. Anyway, I was just wondering how many clones had progressed to the end of their six-pack already. There are sure to be lots of citizens needing their template cleaned because of error creep.

"I'm not sure Vinnie is to blame for the lack of food in PLC. Ever since Jazzer disappeared PLC has slipped in a state of deterioration. And I don't think we can rely on Santa-R-CLS to provide everyone with nice food all yearcycle round. Thanks for setting Jumpyip to work. It's about time some figures emerged from that office. So far, I'm not quite satisfied with his efficiency. I'm sure I could find you some Number-6-clone figures in the archives, but I think you will have your numbers faster if you ask the clone bank techs directly. They should be keeping records about such stuff. Did you say you were sharing? Be careful about that, it could be seen as underminging the CompConomy. I've served food vat duty for that once. So, no thanks, but I'll skip on the JLT. Who's your companion?"

Zat waits in the booth. She hears the two GREENs talking and politely doesn't listen.

"Oh. Er, no one in particular, just someone I know... is that the time? Jeepers, I'd better get eating or I'll be late for work. Don't wanna scrub vats for the rest of my template family now do I? See you later when you get those numbers crunched, right?"

"Sure enough. Enjoy your meal."

Bee whizzes off to a far booth, a little preoccupied, and CPU leaves the Brown Cafe towards the GREEN appartments.

Zats eyes widen slightly at the amount of food that Bee brings in.

Thats a lot of food... I guess GREENS get paid well...

"Apparently that little pay hiccup seems to have worked itself out. Boy, it feels like I haven't eaten for a couple of months! I haven't been here before, so I'm not sure what the food is like."

Bee picks up the cube of Wholemeal and inspects it.

"Or even what it is. Oh well, I guess it can't be worse than the Soylent Red you're used to. "

He distributes the food between Zat and himself. He takes a tentative sip the Chocoshake, and tries the Wholemeal.

"Hmm, not bad. Sure beats the cafeteria."

Zat smiles tiredly, giving an appropriate (but essentially meaningless) reply. She chews on some "wholemeal".

"Mmmm..."



Zat chews on a Cracklecracker while Bee talks, to help her think.

"So, what happened in that device then? I tried it once, but I can't remember much about it. But then I tried it again and it wouldn't work! Hmm. I remember that it doesn't, but not much else about it. I can probably try again soon though. That is, if it wasn't broken. Did it work okay?"

Bee takes out his PDC and stylus, ready to take notes.

"Well sir, It's like you say, I don't remember much of it... But I know it worked... Trying to remember past a certain point is like trying to remember through a brainscrub..." She pauses and looks confused. "Well, I'll tell you what I do remember; I was in a dark place, and a voice asked me questions. I didn't know the answers... then.... then..." She brings a finger up to her mouth, and is about to start sucking in it in an unthinking gesture of thoughtfullness. She stops and looks at it, slightly confused, since this is not something that she usually does.

"A voice, huh? Hmm, I recall some sort of deep voice too. Didn't say a heck of a lot though, mostly showed me things."

"Anything else? Er, is your finger okay?"

"Um, yeah, I don't know why I did that... Deep voice you say? The one I heard was resonant, but quite high pitched, now I think about it..."

She eats another cracker, trying to remember more.

Bee inspects the JLT suspiciously. He prods it, and lifts up a piece of the bread. Everything is a rather bright shade of Green.

"I see. Maybe its different for everybody. I wish whoever had invented it had left a manual or something. Trial and error is all very well, but when error can turn your brain to mush it tends to sharpen your focus a little."

Bee drums his fingers, and looks around distractedly. He tries the JLT.

"Erk... spicy. So... NIK sector, huh? What brings you to PLN?"

"Well... boredom mostly. NIK is very quiet. I saw a vid show about transfering across sectors and thought it would be interesting. It... has been."

"Ever been anywhere else? I remember the old days in CAN sector. Of course they are all the same, but still... the PLC never ran out as often. Well, almost slightly less as often. And the water tasted differently, I'm sure. Ha, I remember spiking my creche watcher's B3 with this stuff called "Laxalot". I thought it was just chocolate, but he spent a long time in the bathroom after that. Some of them weren't very nice... "

Bee looks at his hand, the one that always got slapped when he did something wrong.

"And those crechebots were built all wrong. Far too mean to a young citizen such as myself. I don't remember much, but I recall fixing up some sort of program to make them think they were combots for a day. Ha, should have seen those bot engineers panic..."

Zat giggles.

"CAN sector? Hmm, sounds familiar." She shrugs. "I may have been other places. I don't remember anything before my thirteenth yearcycle."

She takes a small sip of the chocOshake.

"Oh well. I'm sure it'll all come back to you one day. Those Tech Service geeks don't know one end of a hippocampus from the other."

"Well, maybe, but you would think that if it was related to the hypocampus that I would be suffering from anterograde amnesia, but im not..." She pauses. "Sorry, It's stange. I havn't thought about it for about for about four yearcycles..."

"There's probably something in the medicine cabinet at work for that. I'm sure we can get around it if you're really determined. Anything blocked from casual access has to be fun."

Bee takes a slurp from his shake, and leaves a slight moustache.

"Yummy. You can really taste the choco. Whatever that is."

Zat puts down the shake and finishes the wholemeal.

"Could be interesting... Say, do you think it would work to retreive the memories from the... device?"

Zat forgets how awfull she felt (and really, she still doesnt feel all that good) after testing the other device. Her eyes fill up with the need to satisfy curiosity; the drive to experimentation. She eats another cracker.

"See? Good food is good for the old curiosity humours. Let's see... my word this is spicy... I think it's possible to reverse the current flow to drag things out of it after they've gone in... in other words once it starts to work on you you can retrieve anything you like via the probes and processing power. That is, so long as it doesn't do anything odd like fritz out. But like that would ever happen. You haven't touched your sandwich."

"no, sir... I havn't. It's just that it's very GREEN you see, and well, in any case I'm not sure that I could handle spicy food at the moment."

"Oh. Er, well then. If you insist, although I'm sure I could authorize you in any case... " Bee glances around for cameras, and is satisfied he sees none. "But if you don't want to, that's fine. I suppose your stomach is a little delicate after the experience. I felt a little odd too. Like after this 'shake." Bee shakes his head. "Too much food after being so hungry, I guess. So, is there anything you want to try first before we try and get those memories out? It is definitely not your last chance to enjoy a life free of crippling brain damage. I mean, while we're out and about. We're here now... might as well enjoy it..."

"Crippling brain damage? Well, I certainly hope not..."

still, I wouldn't mind getting a backup of my clone template....

"...Hmmm, can't think of anything I'de like to try."

Zat drinks some more shake.

"Mmm, its very sweet, isnt it?"

"Is it? I hadn't noticed. Although I've been able to cut down on my pills lately, and, er, strange things are happening. Things, taste better, colours are brighter, and I'm noticing... stuff. Yes, stuff, much more than before. I wonder if anyone else feels like this?"

Bee leans across the table and puts his hand on Zat's, a glaring violation of clearance statutes and hygiene laws.

"Wanna go do something... fun? Like... together?"

Zat looks shocked for a moment, then smiles. She feels different since the machine. One could say, less blindly obediant.

"yes"

"Great! Lets go!"

Bee jumps up and runs out the door pulling Zat after him, hand in hand.

V. 2. Zats dream

Characters in this section:

Bee-G-CAN; Brain researcher.
Zat-R-NIK; New citizen to PLN, wearing a ripped uniform.
Random-R
Aratos-O
Neko
Grey-V-MST; "Greymist" Head of Research &Design in PLN
Bill
Rinsai, Greymist's pet docbot.
Jumpyip.

Forum covered in this section:

R&D Main lab, 50.2 -> end page 54

Jumpyip is, once again, inexplicably standing in a daze. The bot Rinsai wheels up slowly behind him.

"Citizen, what is the sound of one hand clapping?

"Er, I don't know. What is the sound of one hand clapping?"

Rinsai whacks Jumpyip in the head.

"WHO CARES? NOW GET BACK TO WORK!"

"Er, yes...perhaps I should do that."

He exits, and Grey-V-MST walks through.

"All right. So much has happened lately, I'm taking a break."

Bee marches in, extremely PO'ed.

"Bee, you're authorized to provide authorization, just not under my name."

Zat-R snores softly. The eye visible to observers is still slightly open.

"Greymist! I... oh. Well, have fun."

Authorization? Great. I authorize everyone to smeg off! Bloody nitrogen. Bloody stuff is everywhere. Bloody Tech Services.

He sits down at his desk, and puts down his load. It sticks to his hand frostily.

Bee takes a deep breath, and thinks happy thoughts. Friend Computer's Big Giant Eye inside the visor of a whining petbot at the bottom of a well, or something.

"Would someone please help me?"

Bill walks in from the ex-CCC Lab, tapping the snoring Zat-R on the way by.

" Say, Zat-R! Mind giving me a hand with this vat? Two of us should be enough to roll it over to this room. Looks like we need to test this a little bit here before we take it over to Power Services... "

He makes sure lid is secure on vat.

Bee looks around.

"Zat? Where?"

.... then looks down...

"Oh. Hello Zat? Hello? Wakey-Wakey! Some hot water please, or something,"

"Zat stirs a little. The eye closes, then opens a litle, blinks and looks blearily around. It sees the GREEN citizens YELLOW boots, travels up the YELLOW jumpsuit and RED lab coat and finally reaches the face. A moment of recognition is replaced by confusion, which is immediatly forgotten.

"Sir?"

"Some hot water, please. I need to unfreeze my hand from his thing... And by hot water I don't mean HotFun, warmed up ColdFun or anything -Fun. Ordinary hot water is just as exciting as most forms of nutrition, and nicely watery."

"Yes, sir. Although if I may, wouldn't cool water be better for a frozen hand?"

She looks for a clean beaker to fill at the nearest boiled-distilled-water despencer. Not seeing one very close, she deciades that speed is probebly more important, and pours some into her hands. As she turns the tap, the word "fun" is revealed to be written on the side previously out of sight...

GREENY takin' my help... oh well... I'll have to see to HIM later... Thinks Bill-O, then sighs and starts trying to inch the vat across the floor toward the ex-CCCP lab door.

SCCCRRRRRAAAAAAAAPPPPPPPPPPEEEEEEEEEE

Random strolls in nonchalantly

"Sooooo... how goes the heavy lifting? Hope I'm not to late to do my part... He looks expectant."

"Please quit the scraping noises." Interjects Bee-G "Citizen Random-R, kindly give him a hand. Zat? Quickly now."

Random goes over and helps Billy move the vat to wherever he's moving it to.

"Wow, this thing is really heavy, citizen... uhm are you sure that lid is secure? I have'nt gotten a response to my requisition for hazmat gear yet and would hate to get any of that stuff on me."

Aw, is da widdle GWEENY annoyed at da howwible noise? Good! Serves ya right ya little... Ya know he used to be a pretty ok guy back when we were both REDs... must be something that happens when you get above YELLOW clearance..

" HAZMAT Gear?! I hardly think that'll be necessary! I was just talking about gloves and goggles! Oh well, if they don't have them, they don't have them."

"Anyway, we're just moving this over here to this door, where I have a bit of a mess to clean up before we head back over to Power Services... Where IS Aratos, anyway?"

Bill and Random manage to 'roll' the vat over to the door without too much more scraping noise. Once at the doorway, Bill removes the protective lid to reveal to bubbling, steaming contents.

" Ok, we need to slowly and carefully pour some out onto the floor here... goood... gooood... goo..AH VATCRAP!!"

Rinsai apparently decides Bill has been standing in one place too long, and whacks him one in the shins, causing a good deal more 'stuff' to pour out... about half the vat... before Bill and Random wrestle it under control. A huge puddle of 'stuff' pours rapidly into the ex-CCC lab.

"Zat! Hurry up! I hope you're not using the Fundamental Particle Oils tap. We don't have much of that stuff left."

"No sir, it says Boiled Distilled Water f- er, water, sir."

She notices that the conainer is nearly empty, gives up and carries the whole thing over. She rushes over to Bee-G and turns the tap, hurriely, tipping the container slightly. One drop falls. She gets ready to increase the angle.

As the drip falls towards Bees hand, Zats PDC makes a noise that sounds rather like "Wlreeereeegrrrel."

(If you have ever heard the noise of an old mobile that has been ran over several times but is STILL RINGING makes, you know what I mean.)

The ringing causes her to hesitate a moment. The drop hits Bee's hand with an ominous plik.

Time slows as the drop falls towards Bee's hand. The PDC rings in a deep slo-mo tone, and Bee's eyes blink and flick down, watching the drop. His mouth opens slowly...*

"Nnnnooooooooooo........"

The drop hits....

"..........oooo! not like that. More water please, don't worry about the device. It is waterproofed. I think."

Zat sighs and upends the dipensor. Some of it splashes and trickles down Bees boot, some more splashes on the pdc. It keeps ruinging, sounding only slightly moreirritatng.

Bryyoooondg-hhiooooonrrrnnnrrn-weeeeerrrop

Bee unsticks his hand with a velcro sound.

"Ah, thank you."

He looks at his boots.

"Ah. Oh well."

Bee prods the device. It doesn't do anything. He frowns, and reprods.

"I think we'd better test this. And I can't, not this soon... "

He looks up at Zat. He smiles.

She looks back, and returns the smile trustingly.

"Sir?" (Brrrrriiisnnnnnng)

She then looks a little worried,

"sorry, about your boots..."

"Hey, no problem. Frost is above my clearance anyway. I'm sure an adventurous citizen like yourself would jump at the chance to test one of my, er, special devices! 42% pain-free! And only half the calories!"

"Um, sure... to be honest, if I'm going to be moving to HPD&MC for a while I'de prefer to have at least a little time in R&D, sir."

She looks at the device, them wipes some liquid of it.

bluuuurgle fnnoooorrrtllllbbbbrrrrrreeeg

"Er, mind if I cheak this message first?"

Bee-G waits, patiently for a citizen of his clearance. He drums his fingers.

Zat cheaks the PDC. It continues making unhealthy souning noises, though less annoying now.

The Message wrote:
ϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛ gϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛauϛϛ
ϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛ ϛϛϛ ffϛϛϛϛϛ ϛ
ϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛ ϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛ ϛϛϛϛϛϛ ϛϛϛϛ ϛϛϛϛ
ϛϛϛϛϛϛ ϛϛϛϛϛ ϛϛϛ ϛϛ ϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛ ϛϛϛϛ ϛϛϛ
ϛϛ uaruϛϛϛ ϛ ϛϛϛϛϛϛϛshϛϛaϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛ ϛ
ϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛeϛϛϛϛϛϛ ϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛϛ

Zat sighs.

"okay, sir, what should I do?"

"Alrighty then... put your hands on the console, and think happy thoughts. Then the antennae come out. Bend them towards you and then... well, you'll see."

"Okay, sir..."

She puts out her hands and places them on the console.

Im serving loyally! :)

nothing happens

the computer is my freind? =)

nothing happens.

In this sector ill probebly get promoted soon? =D

The antennae pop out, and zat bends them towards herself.

"There we go... now just relax and... oh. Yeah, you got the hang of it quick."

Gee, that really isn't very pretty...

Zat looks surprised for a moment then slumps. The antenae, firmly planted in her temples, follow her down with a zwwwwlip noise.

--------------------

A stange, juniorclonelike female voice speaks

Desire...Desire...desire...

What?

Exactly, what? What do... do you desire?

Nothing/loyalty only/something?

Nevermind.... Come deeper.

Zat follows, swimming after a small undefined shadowy figure down a well that gets darker the further they go. Oddly the figure gets brighter and more defined in the darkness.

What did you desire?

I don't know?

the dream scene changes, Zat is back in NIK sector, speaking to the computer.
Freind Computer... I don't know what to do.

The big eye slides across the screen, it's pupil contracting questioningly.

Well, it's just... the don't really need me here, and I think I would be able to serve you better elsewhere.

Possibly.

"I was watching that vid sho-"

I know

"er, of course... Well I was thinking-"

I know that too.

"right, well can I?"

Yes.

"thankyou, freind computer!"

Transfering you to PLN sector - May you live in interesting times. Report to CPU, tardiness is treason

The door opens and Zat leaves through it, heading back into the tunnel. It is simultaneosly brighter and darker than before.

What did you learn?

I... What do you mean? That was just a memory...

I suppose...

...what did you desire?

I don't know.

come deeper.

As they move deeper the surroundings make less and less sence. They float downwards through a vast cavern, falling and flying as the walls press in around them. The figure can now be seen to be a junior clone with black hair, though the detail are still vaugue.

White tendrils on the girl in a black dress enfold Zat,the void dissolves and she is standing on sand. She if surrounded by a huge croud of the child. None of them are exactly the same, and they do not glow like the main incarnation. They whisper in the darkness.

Do you remember us?

Do you- Do you remember?

no

when? how far?

do you rem- do you remember?

Do you? tell us?

Well?

NO!
She doesnt remember

dosn't she care?

What did we do wrong

How could you? You're PATHETIC

YOU ARNT REALLY LOYAL! ITS JUST A FARSE

YOU DONT EVEN KNOW YOURSELF!

The whispering rises to an angry pitch, the figures rushing towards her, bacoming ghostly, menacing and distorted; Mouths gaping and clawed hands evtended they decend, and Zat cowers.

What did you Learn?

Zat lies sobbing, sprawled on a vast white surface. She opens her eyes blearily. The girl points upward. Above them a scene of the crowd rushing at Zat suddenly unfreezes. The mob swarms in and she cannot see her self. She hears herself scream, and a single drop of bood falls to land on her unturned face, mingling with the tears. The scene fades away, leaving only the spot of blood. The girl stands before her, leaving no shadow. She raises her head and looks directly in Zats eyes. Both pairs are the same startling green.

That is all that is left, do you understand?

Why?

Do you know what you desire?

...please...

They are the present, did you know? Is this the future?

The spot of blood dissolves, and the area grows cold. It is dark once more, and the girl is some distance away.

----------------

WHITE smoke begins to come out of the CCC Lab door

"Uh oh! Uh, HOU Sector, we have a problem! Random! Help me get this vat out of the door so we can close it! HURRY!!"

Bill-O starts pushing the vat back away from the CCC Lab door.

He helps as best he can, straining with the effort

"At least... it's not...quite as heavy... as before...there!!! phew... that wasn't such a chore then."

"We could probably carry it to Power Services fairly easily now with just three clones, don't you think? Although I don't think any of us should hang around after we dump this stuff onto the affected area..."

Lying on the floor as she fell, Zat had tenced up after a time. She had broken out in a sweat, and was breathing heavily. For a moment her whole body goes rigid.

----------------

Hehehhahaha! Come and play with me!


..........Play! ................Come and play! .....................Hehhehehahaha!


Mist rises in the darkness.


Huh? Whats going on.... Wait!


The girl doesn't seem to hear. She runs off into the mist after something only she can see. Time passes and Zat takes a tentative srep forwards. With each movement the mist grows thicker. After a time the mist is so thick that Zat cant even see her own nose.


.....................Hehehahaha!...........


Zat follows the sound of the laughter. The mist thins to reveal the girl playing with another junior clone in a sand pit. The two seem quite happy an content, though Zat feels immediate, though underfined anxiety that borders on panic at the sight.


No...


She starts rushing towards the pair, but can make no progress fowards. The girl whispers something to her playmate, who blushes.


You can't change it.


What?


Zat whirls around. The girl is standing behind her, chewing on a finger.


You just can't


No... I know.


You remeber now, don't you?


I... Yes... Well, a little.


Zat kneels down and looks into the identical green eyes.


You're me, arn't you? As I was... before?


Behind Zat, the same little girl, Lucy, is being carried off by the teachbot, to the distress of the young Bee. The girl takes the finger out of her mouth, looks at it, then speaks.


Sort of... Let me see if I can explain.


Lucy's eyes close. When se opens them they are white. Superimposed over the young girl is the same seven foot tall INFRARED that Bee had seen in his dreams. Their two voices intermingle as they speaak.


We are a part of all things.

.....................................of all things.


All that ends, and all that begins.

.............ends..............begins.


All you see and hear.

......hear.


And every thought and dream.

..........every dream.


It all comes to us.

....................will come to us.


She is of you.

.......you.


As you are of us.

..............will come to us.


But not now.

You don't belong here yet.


The cloaked figure vanishes, and Lucy and Zat are once more alone. Lucy wipes her finger and smiles, taking Zats hand, and starting to lead her back the way they came.



It is you who are you, whoever you decide to be.



I am you, yes, but I am so much more, and so much less.



You may even find the truth in PLN. Is that what you desire?



Zat pauses.


What do you mean, Won't I remeber?


No, the block in your mind is stong, that you must come this deep to see me...


But...


You should come.


As they drift slowly up the tunnel of the well, the walls grow brighter, and Lucy grows fainter, once again a mere shadow. Zat stops, looking confused.


Who did you say you were?


There is the sound of distnt laughter. As it dies away Only the echoe of one word can be heard.


Desire...desire...desire....

-----------------

As the dream fades away. The last of the tension drains out of her body and she smils slightly, sucking on a finger and sleeping normally.

"Er, guys?" Says Bee, "I have a volunteer here who isn't able to move by herself... and I'm not sure when she's going to wake up..."

Bee looks down and scratches his head.

I hope I don't look like that when I'm in there. I wonder what she's doing?

Random, resting from the exertion of moving the vat, sees Zat asleep on floor.

"Oh...good, she was looking a little stressed out earlier. I'm glad she finally got a chance to get some rest."

"I just wonder how long she'll be out...oh well, it's not like that mess in Power Services is going anywhere..."

Random slumps to the floor.

"I'm not ready to sleep myself, but I can rest here till she comes to."

"Ohh, you mean in Power Services?"

Bee thinks for a moment.

"What the heck are you guys trying to clean up in there that is so bad you can't be in the same room as the stuff?"

"Citizen Bee-G, were so preoccupied with your own actions with Zat that you failed to notice what just happened with the mess we just cleaned up over there?"

Random points in the direction of door.

"I'm not particularly enthused with the idea of hanging around here any longer than necessary, but we need Zat in order to move this vat to Power Services, sir."

"Oh. Yeah, whatever. I just thought no one would be silly enough to create a dangerous situation here without prior approval, that's all."

Bee watches Zat sleep peacefully. He notices her clothes are ripped somewhat, with patches of skin showing here and there. He shakes his head, as if to clear it.

I wonder what those hormone suppressants I flushed down the toilet actually suppressed? It's not like I'm not allowed to alter my pharmaceutical intake at my rank... plus I'm a scientist, I should know these things...

He drums his fingers hurriedly, waves in Random-R's direction irritably.

"Just so long as you closed the door. Or you'll have to clean it up before you leave, and that might take a while."

Bee mutters under his breath.

"yeah...without proper cleaning it would take an inordinately long time...which is why we are in this mess in the first place."

Random remembers where he is and to whom he is speaking.

"Oh... sir yes sir!"

Bee jumps at the loudness.

"Yes. Er, thank you. What IS that stuff, anyway? Not above your clearance, is it?"

Random stands to attention.

"Don't know, don't care, sir! Just trying to do my bit, sir! I know nothink...nooothiinnkk."

he drops to knees pleading and snivelling.

"Please sir *sniff* I'm just a simple clone trying to serve friend computer any way I can...*waaaa*" He begins the serious bootlicking, "I'm new to this sector, sir... unaware and ignorant of its protocols," looks over at Bill-O, "Besides which, I was acting under orders from Bill-O... it was all his idea."

"Ignorance is treason, citizen. You do realise that, right? ... Sigh ... I'm not accusing you, but I'd keep an eye out in future. We have no traitors here in R&D, ok?"

Aratos wanders in, lookign rather quesy.

"Ach, yer still here? Ah was wondering if ye'd got it tae Poower services whilst ah was away being kilt by a docbot. Oh aye. and a msitake in the clonebats with me voval cords has left me speaking wi a NED sector accent tae boot. Ach. Anywho, we gonnae shift this thing or whit?"

Randomjumps to his feet.

"Yeah, now we have three clones for the lifting... That's the ticket!"

He rushes over to help lift the vat.

"wella ctually laddie, ah wis plannin' own supervisin' you lot, ya ken?"

"Excuse me..." Bee reads the name tag, "Aratos-O? Why don't you help lift as well? Bill-O is lifting, and they need three to carry it all the way there. Why don't I supervise, until you get out the door, at least?"

Hmm. Power is fun. No wonder all the capitalists abuse it.

Random looks dejected. He shuffles his toe around on the floor in small circles with hands behind his back.

"Oh, yeah I see... It was just that when we needed four clones for the job you seemed more willing to pitch in is all... and what with Bill-O generously giving of his time and energy to help out... I just figured...naw, you're right... a high clearance clone like yerself, probably would'nt want to put hisself out to get a necessary job like this done for Friend Computer and all... "

He looks up expectantly with big puppy dog eyes.

"ach aye, I see yer point. Ah mean, if there aren't enough tae do tha job then of course ah'll have tae help. A bit of exercise ne'er did onybody any harm efter all. So, where's the vat goan tae?"

"Hmm.... help the common worker to carry out a task regardless of rank or station? I'd love to, really I would... sounds a bit commie though. Plus I'm still waiting for results on this device Zat is testing."

Zat continues sleeping... For the moment there are no dreams. Some would think that lying on a pdc in a puddle, drenched with sweat wouldn't help you sleep... But it would seem that reviving memories lost by brainscrub isnt particularly good for you, and that the stress on the mind translates itself to the body.

"oh aye? This is the same Zat who was assigned to cleaning up at Power Services? Can I assume we're expected tae find oorselves a new cleaner on top ae moving this cleaning stuff?"

"If this stuff works as expected...we won't need to do much else beyond getting it there... then running like HEL sector."

"oh, that's braw that is. Jings, it's amazing what R&D comes up wih, isn't it?"

"yup."

"I know I'm just a lowly R&D scientist," interupts Gee-G, "or perhaps one might say a "boffin" (although I really should have white hair sticking out at odd angles and spectacles), it might be a good idea to weld that thing shut, in case the lid comes off. Accidents to happen, and are treason. Unless of course there is anything volatile in there, in which case I'd forego the welding and leave notes for your next clone. Lucky we have six, huh? ..... Hmm. That is a puzzle... a conundrum, if you will. I wonder how many citizens are on their first clone still? I know a nice CPU collator who might help... "

Bee begins typing a PDC message to CPUeaucrat, and after a time gets a reply.
-----------
cMail wrote:
From: CPUreaucrat-G
To: Bee-G
Subject: Re: URGENT! URGENT! URGENT!

Congratulated on making GREEN you too. I have taken up GREEN appartment #3. I really like the space, but it looks like I got stuck with the surly bot again. If he sticks to that attitude for long, I might even start to miss Scrubby.

As for your request, you haven't even picked up the new Service Group Employment Charts you requested before. That makes sense because they are not finished yet. And that would be due to figures lacking from... yes, R&D! I'm confident that you will make sure I receive those figures soon.

Don't worry too much about clone numbers. It seems to me like you are just overly anxious about losing your priminity. That's only natural and you will get used to it soon enough. As they say, once bitten twice cloned.
----------

Bill looks up from over near the door to the CCC lab.

"Ah, good! Aratos! I was starting to wonder... Anyway, yeah, we just did a little test of the... stuff... in here. It seems to be working REALLY well... in fact, so well, that we didn't even need to scrub anything... everything in that room is clean as a whistle... "

He looks doubtfully at the door a moment.

" think the ventalation system should've taken care of the smoke by now... let's have a look at how well it worked, hmm"

He opens the door to an utterly SPOTLESS room... everything in the room is a gleaming WHITE, and the only contents are the bits of metal and very hard materials that the stuff couldn't eat, and a few wisps of WHITE smoke still lingering.

" Hmm... looks like we'll have to get some VIOLET (or maybe ULTRAVIOLET, since that's the color of the room now) citizen to authorize a re-painting of that room... but it's quite clean, though... Now then, shall we head over to Power Services? There should be enough left to take care of whatever needs cleaning there... "

Random resecures the lid.

" I think the lid should be sufficient to keep it in. We don't have any welding equipment even if we wanted to weld it shut... besides... I don't know how flamable this stuff is... it seemed pretty chemically active when we used it on the CCC lab, though... I'm sure the lid will be good enough... Zat? What happened to her? Oh well... I guess we can try it with just 3, I suppose... Going to be tougher that way, though..."

He positions himself with his back to the vat in preparation for lifting.

"Ok, ready everyclone? Aratos, you'd better lead the way, since you know where the mess is."

Bee glances at the message, and makes a note for jumpyip to do some work once in a while. A flash of white and a strongly chemical smell catches his attention. He gets up and looks in the door.

"Hey guys, is that rooooooo... " His eyes goggle, "WHAT THE VAT-LOVING CRAPSTINIAN GOOGAJOO HAVE YOU DONE?!?!?"

"Cleaned the room, like you asked..."

"Ach, ah take it there'll be a wee bit less structural damage when we use it at poower services? Ach."

Aratos grabs the other side of the the vat.

"...my... my... my lab... Ultraviolet clearance..."

Bee sways, and feels a little faint.

"My... it was my... I loved that place... the brains... the smell of polypromokaliphectilin dioxin... I'm speechless..."

Bily stares at Bee-G for a while.

"I think he likes it... well, let's get this vat over to your mess, hmm?"

"ach, off we go then. "

Aratos leads the carrying of the vat off to A corridor"

"Fine, leave me. I can't get into my favourite lab in the whole wide complex, Armed Forces blowing it up, you guys bleaching it a clearance way above me... damn it. All my favourite brain jars were in there too! Maybe I can focus on something other than brains for a while. Weaponry is fun, but everyone does that these days. Pharmatherapy, perhaps. With a smattering of biology. And gravitational physics throw in for good measure. Octal note arts? With a little mega-culture engineering... can't forget that... what was I supposed to be doing again...? Oh right. Zat. Still asleep. Better wake her up before someone comes in and finds her. They might think she's slacking off or something."

Bee bends down and gently shakes her.

"Time to wake up now. Time for breakfast. Or lunch, I'm not sure. Dinner, maybe. Oh well, you'll get whatever you desire."

Zat wakes up slowly, just catching the end of Bee's sentence.

Er, Desire?

Neko waks dow the hall and right before he gets to the door, starts to speak,

"Sir, so far I have... Oh, wait, he's not here. Oh, hi Bee! I haven't seen you for a while, is everything going well?"

Greymist strolls in casually.

"Ahh! Mandatory Vacation is wonderful at Violet Clearance! So, what has happened since I've been gone? Is Neko here? If he is, I want a report. If he isn't, he's fined 10 credits, and I still want a report from whoever is here. And I want a full report, not what CPU gets. Nothing is too small to be left out. What projects have been worked on? How's Rinzai? How's the docbot?"

"Greymist sir! I tried to do as you ordered, however I did not get even halfway through, but that is because of the other service groups."

***The following section (in italics) is not relevant to the Bee/Zat storyline***

"Immediatly after waking up I headed off to PLC, and tried to find someone there, however I was accosted by a monitor which tried to transfer me to PLC, and I returned here quickly to try to get you to prevent it. I wasn't transfered, but Bill stalled me a little bit trying to get me to light myself on fire so he could melt a clone shaped chunk of plastic. He then left to find something to start the fire, and I returned to PLC, finally managing to find somebody, who said that he was the only person he had seen there. I briefed him on what we wanted, and he said he would do it. Due to the fact that nobody was there except for one person, who was apparently hiding and waited for a while to come out, thus costing me time, I was late.

"I headed to the main lab to see if you were here, so I could inform you that I had completed that first step, but you weren't here. I saw Rinzai, bopping a lazy clone, and the DocBot was humming happily to itself in the corner, or buzzing happily, or just doing something happily in the corner. I then left to continue with my job.

"I hurried over to CPU, to find somebody there. Fortunatly no one tried to convert me there, but there was also no one there. I searched the premises, during which I saw a report on a vidscreen within my clearance that said something, which although I am not trained in CPU jargon it seemed to me to say that no one working for CPU had reported in for an overly long time.

"I then made my way quickly to HPD&MC, and to my surprise, there was nobody there either! I searched there also, but to no avail. I sensed a patter, and was about to leave to go to the next place, The searching of course set me back even further, then I got the report from Friend Computer, hail him, to spend money so as to not be communist horders!

"I, a loyal citizen, rushed over to the PLC mall, and attempted to purchase items, however there were many other citizens in line, and when I got to the counter there were only two things I could afford, Inner Happiness pills and a PDC. I made sure that those were the only things I could purchase, then acquired a couple packs of the pills, then returned here, looking for you so I could give you a status report, then you showed up, and so I am giving to you this report."

Neko releases a sigh, finally able to take a breath after unleashing all those words.

"Anything else, sir? Shall I continue with my duty where I left off or shall I head to those places which were previously vacant, and try to find somebody again."

"Yes, Neko, continue on your way. Good job, Bee, on keeping the place from imploding or exploding at the same time. It's almost a record."

"Ah. Professor Greymist, sir," Bee straightens up, "Welcome back. I hope you enjoyed yourself on your time off. I understand there was some sort of disturbance here, and the CCC labs got trashed. Well, I asked Bill-O to give it a quick clean and... well... he used some kind of experimental cleaning agent. Let's just say no one can go in right now, unless you get promoted of course... I think we'll have to arrange a repainting. Until then we're left without a specialty lab, so I'm just finishing up my brain research now."

Disire... hmmm The word reminds her of something, but she cant quite think what.

"huh? Oh, s'you, Sir." She sits up slowly. Sudden nausea driving all thoughts pertainnig ti the word 'desire' quickly from her mind. She holds her head in her hands for a moment. "Uhg..."

Zat looks up at Bee, wincing as she pulls out the probes. Her face is still slightly moist and she is shaking slightly.

"Er, Zat? Zat? Are you ok? You really don't look so good. I think we should go get some breakfast. Er... lunch. Whatever."

Bee glances at Zat's slightly ripped uniform, and swallows hard.

"...And a new uniform, I think. Got any credits?"

Greymist glances at Zat.

"You know, Zat, you seem to go through more uniforms... Perhaps we should look into more durable fabrics..."

...Greymist?

Zat finally notices the VIOLET. She stands up too quickly and swoons, leaning on something while Bee speaks to Geymist and her vision returns to normal. She notices Bee asking her a question.

"Erm, yes, sir..." She pauses a moment. "At least I think so... Yes I have some credits..."

Hmm, he looks a little uncomfortable... Must be because of the VIOLET.

"Right. We'll pick up some HotFun at PLC, you can get a new uniform and you can tell me if the machine worked. I hope Vinnie has some left, I hear supplies are getting a little scarce..."

Zat nods and follows Bee out.