The Penumbra Paradox - ONC 2023

Chapter-10, The sky is falling.

"Fiana! Fiana, listen to me. This is not what any of us expected, but we have to leave everything as is and attend the call for reinforcement." Benji held Fiana by shoulders and explained.

Fiana slid his hands away and yelled, "No!"

"I've tried that, anything else?" Arya put on a poker face and went back to organise her things.

"Wai...wai. wait. I got this." Benji pushed Fiana aside and headed over to the Microscope. "Did you scan the samples?"

"Nope! I barely got time to wash myself after a notorious twenty hour journey. So excuse me, I guess?"

Benji pulled open the thermoregulated bag they had used to store samples and searched for Fiana and Rina's samples.

"AVAH, over here." He commanded the AI drone.

"Sorry Dr Benji, you are third on my priority list, I'll be able to assist you after I have completed assisting Arya."

"What? Who's the second one? You know what? Nevermind, Arya permission to use AVAH for a while?"

"Sure." Arya nodded at AVAH to go do the favour.

"Okay, we got two samples here, gonna put them under the superzooms, AVAH you're gonna sync with this baby and report me ASAP. Got it?" Benji raised his brows, questioning AVAH.

"Understood, sync initiated."

It took about a couple of minutes for AVAH to complete the analysis and return to Benji who was restlessly tapping his index on the countertop.

"Dr Benji, here's the report:
Rina's samples contain dehydrated keratocytes AKA skin cells. The cells are morphologically quite different from normal human skin cells due to spicules over the cell membrane.
Fiana's samples are normal.

Biochemical analysis suggests a deficiency of enzyme necessary to synthesize hyaluronic acid."

"Right." Benji held his fingers to his lips, analysing the report. "So technically they are hyaluronic acid deficient. So will it work if we temporarily supplement that along with some emollients?"

"It could, but I'm not equipped to analyse their generic information for now. There could be other problems pertaining to their vital organs due to mutations from the aquifer water. So just some hyaluronic acid emollients are not gonna solve the problem." Arya explained, fastening her backpack over her thermo-suit.

"Fair enough." Benji nodded, "but you don't got no solution that's better than this for now. So let's just hit the pharmacy before joining the crew. Fiana's happy, Oja's happy and we both are out of trouble. How does that sound for a plan?"

Arya shrugged her shoulders, "what prevents us?"

"Come on." He said slowly jogging towards the doors of bio-dome.

By then, Arya had made sure Fiana had worn her thermo-suit and shoes, Arya had even packed her a back-pack with food and water and some other essentials that she deemed important.

"I got a buddy of mine working in the pharmacy storage, I'll see if I can pull some strings to get the job done." Benji hurriedly explained while going through the lane ahead of the Bio-dome.

Fiana sniffed in the air and turned her head swiftly in random directions, either scowling or wincing her face due to the sensory overload.

Arya could feel her annoyance, even for an underground born and bred woman like herself couldn't bear the atrocious hussle bussle of this place outside the safety of her biodome, she could only feel pity for Fiana and her limitations.