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Pixie Dust - Scene 8

July 7th at 23:25pm
The corridor is too long and narrow and Commissar Bryce knows the weapon the soldier is carrying too good; She could not get to the room before she was shot. The alarm still does not go off and the quiet air is only broken by the muffled voice behind the mask of the soldier's battle helmet. With a gesture of disgust, the commissar turns around to retrace her path when... "CLONK!"

A heavy sealed gate closes right in front of the woman blocking her path. She turns quickly to see how another similar door, possibly of fire containment closes on the other side of the corridor with a similar rumble leaving her trapped in a rectangular segment of the corridor.

The commissar looks both ways and feels the walls in a useless gesture of despair. The recycled air carries a chemical disinfectant aftertaste as it begins to to be absorbed by the ventilation ducts located above her head. She grunts and jumps clutching one of the ventilation terminals, which comes off easily. If she could get an arm and the head in...

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Still Mikur clenches his teeth and growls in anger. He is sure that he has delivered the message through the network of the building as that the damn doors of the main cogitatorii room did open on their own. The night watch that was supposed to be quiet was turning into a mess he will have to explain tomorrow.

The communication channels were shut down and he was isolated inside the dark room. The only possible way out was through the door or through the windows, but they were in one of the highest levels of the hive which made them virtually inaccessible.

The hooded figure he had seen approaching down the hallway must still be behind the corner of the corridor. He knows that without a grenade, his best option is to maintain his position, easily defensible, and await reinforcements. He checks the battery of his rifle with an expert gesture product of thousand of continuous repetitions and fixes his lenses back at the end of the corridor. If the attacker shows even a finger, he would be waiti...

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A horrible crunch echoes in the quiet room above the hum of the condensers and cooling mechanisms hidden in the walls of the room. The soldier's neck, unable to withstand the weight of his attacker's fall, snaps when the commissar falls on him and twists it with an expert technique designed to eliminate opponents cladded in heavy armors. In the same fluid movement, she inserts the rudimentary blade of a kitchen knife between the joints of the armor of the neck and the armored body of the soldier falls to the ground with a rattling noise.

The commissar groans again in pain as she places her shoulder back, dislocated after her short journey through the narrow ventilation ducts, and heads to the command console. With quick movements she opens the console of the main cogitator revealing a mess of cables and other elements surrounding the physical drives of the memories.

Suddenly, a buzzing artificial metallic voice resonates from the brass speakers in the room.
-First rank Commissar Lady Katharine Bryce. Ignore the physical memory drives and take with you the LIV container. You have one minute to complete this course of action safely and another minute to evacuate.-

1:59…
A timer on the big central screen of the room begins a two minutes countdown and the Commissar looks around uneasily. Indeed, on the upper part of the console she just opened there is an
armored compartment with the gothic numeration for number 54 that opens with a hiss and a cloud of liquid oxygen that evaporates quickly revealing a semi-cylindrical, opaque metallic vessel half a meter in height.

Both objects seem very heavy and the Commissar can only take one (or none) with her. In addition, the threat of the countdown continues...
1:48…


What should she do?
 
-She could investigate the contents of the hard memory modules right away and leave them in place afterwards.
-She could take the memory modules to investigate its contents later.
-She could instead take with her the mysterious container.
-She could try to stay and interrogate the mysterious voice.

Darius Craine

-"Pixie Dust over Chagoth" is a Choose-your-own-adventure kind of story currently running in Patreon!-
https://www.patreon.com/Eatatau