The Black Infectious Thingy | Inanimate Insanity AU |

(CH.56) Two Ideas Have Sparked

\\\CW: SWEARING(?)\\\
///TEST TUBE POV///
"Thank you then. And- See ya tomorrow for lunch?"
"We'll see."
I stared at Fan as he left the room, closing the door behind him.
Golly...
I- I can't put my feelings towards this entire situation into words.
I hate it, I hate it all.
The stress, the confusion... It all makes me feel horribly sick.
To think that this was all indirectly caused by me, by my experiments, by my curiosity,
And by the lack of security measurements in my lab.
Sure, it made me befriend some, such as Balloon. But everything else? Not worth it, not at all.
All of my friends are in danger, I don't know where Lightbulb and Paintbrush are, Fan is acting so incredibly weird after the incident... I'm worried.
Not to mention the constant tension between everyone in the hotel.
The hatred that's filling everyone's minds.
The lack of trust.
It's all oh so horrible...
I miss my Fan, I miss my friends.
I- I miss the peace.
It's all gone now...
Heck, it's so gone that I don't even know what's happening in my own social circle anymore!
What is OJ doing with Paper?
What's with Fans sudden avoidant personality?
Where has Balloon gone off to?
The only sort of clue I have of Balloon's situation is from when I asked for permission from OJ to go find him, worried that someone might've kidnapped him, and he assured me that he was just wandering around.
Reassuring, yes, but that left me utterly confused.
Why would he be out for so long?
Have I hurt him somehow?
Why won't he tell me?
Ugh! I hate being this unaware!
Deep breaths Test Tube, deep breaths. You're overthinking....
I took a few deep breaths as I looked down at my watch.
November 22, 3:50 am.
Eight days since the initial attack on Papers birthday, an exact week since the lockdown in the hotel started... And nothing has improved.
We're on the losing side, the amount of BIT-D infected individuals keep increasing.
God knows if anyone else has been infected that we're unaware of.
We've lost nine members of the hotel; Paintbrush, Lightbulb, Cheesy, Paper, Tissues, Box, The Cherries, Salt, and most recently, Trophy.
Their current well being is unknown to me, all apart from Paper, and my guess? They all must be infected by now.
As for confirmed survivors? There's me, Fan, OJ, Balloon, Soap, Nickel, Pepper, Pickle, Mic, Bomb, and Yin-Yang.
Eleven. Only eleven of us left, in just a little over a week.
We'll probably be outnumbered soon, we have no clue if there's a traitor among us.
It could easily be anyone, and as much as I'd hate to be consumed by paranoia, it's only reasonable that that happens given the circumstances.
Taco is smart, way too smart, she knows our weakness, she knows how much we'll suspect of everyone and how easily paranoia spreads.
And everything is happening so fast, nobody has time to process such tragedies that are on-going, it's like they're purposely driving us insane.
Everyday something new happens, every hour is critical for our success.
I haven't had a good night's sleep ever since I was in the contestant grounds.
And that was more out of exhaustion.
I don't think I can do this for any longer.
Worst part? I'm unsure if I can help in any way anymore.
I don't have the potion anymore, there's no way I can formulate a cure for it without it. Unless...
Right! My notebook! The one with my experiments, failed, successful, and on-going ones!
Oh my golly gee, this is great!
I stood up from my bed excitedly.
I should wait for Soap.... But it's been a while already, I don't think I can continue waiting any longer, she's probably asleep already too.
I must go get that book, I must start testing.
I must try and recreate it, the sooner I begin the tests, the sooner this will all end.
But as I walked over to my door, I stopped in place.
Or maybe... Maybe I should reconsider this.
This invention, if Taco got her hands on this new version, or even my notebook... Oh terrible things will happen then.
Ugh... What should I do?
Should I risk giving Taco more power in order to find a cure to this disease?
Or is it not worth the troubles it may cause?
I should ask Fan his opinion.
But maybe, maybe I should get the notebook first, at least keep it close to me for now.
It's definitely still in my lab.
I reached for the doorknob and silently opened the door.
As I left the room, I took out my key to lock the door.
I locked it and began walking through the hallway.
It's fairly late, I'm guessing everyone is sleeping now, I better try to be as silent as possible.
I walked past the rooms until I quickly reached the FFF recording studio.
Golly, I'm so grateful to have asked to have my room so close to the studio! And by extension, my lab too, it's such a convenience for me.
I entered through the closed door, poorly blocked by tape.
I should... tell OJ to take these off.
I entered the studio, trying not to break any tape as I passed by.
A rush of nostalgia from the time me and Fan used to record those Fan's Fantastic Features' episodes.
Once we fix this, we will go back to that old life.
And better than ever! I will make him a wonderful new camera, with features that he didn't even know he needed! It'll be amazing, I'm sure of it.
Ah! Getting distracted now won't help that at all! Focus, Test Tube!
I rushed over to the designated door to my lab's 'entrance'.
I opened the door and went over to my machine.
I pressed the power button, but nothing appeared to happen
Huh, weird.
The STDCOTAMFTLTTBIAMOSOVWAWTCB, aka; teletransportation machine, seems... unresponsive?
I looked around, hm...
Well that's weird.
I inspected it, looking all around it confusedly.
Oh? The cable is cut?
That's awfully suspicious. I'll definitely have to look into it later, not now though, I must get into my old lab a.s.a.p.
Luckily enough, I've got something to fix it right away!
I took my backpack off and took out some tools.
Hm.... How can I fix this cable effectively?
As I wondered to myself, I put gloves on. Thick enough to avoid electricity to run through my body, just in case.
I took some tools out of my backpack, a solder and a power bank.
I connected the solder to the power bank and waited.
I won't be able to cover it up... but I don't expect anyone coming back here so this should be good enough.
Once the solder had heated up, I spliced the Teo sides of the wire.
There we go! Easy fix!
I unplugged the solder and left it to sit as I put the power bank back into my backpack, it's quite handy if I'm being honest! It doesn't have much power but it has enough to which I can use it in case of emergencies such as these.
I began typing into the machine and turned it on.
The portal within it lit up, and I entered it.
The bright light surrounded me, and soon enough, I found myself in my lab once again.
Gee... it really is such a mess, well, I better start searching for that journal.
I walked through the lab, past the main room and through the hallway.
I entered my designated information room and headed over to my table.
I opened the cabinets and inspected them, as well as every drawer I had, but the journal was nowhere to be found.
Gee. I wonder where exactly I left it...
I left that room and looked through the other rooms.
It has to be here, the TEO is completely unaware of the existence of this so it's impossible that they'd know what it was and for what purpose.
And then it's when I remembered.
Oh, right. I was working on something before all of this happened.
How could I have forgotten already?
I went over to my research room.
Walls covered in shelves of books regarding various different topics were in front of me.
But I walked past them, as I got closer to the end of the room.
And I saw it.
My unfinished project, the one I had started alongside Fan.
An exact robot replica of the ever beloved Bow, a project put on hold for the sake of Paper's birthday.
We didn't even get the chance to finish its programming, I barely managed to get its body fully built.
Lacking metal on a few spots, the endoskeleton is fully finished but the outer layer barely is.
I approached it and grabbed the journal left behind beside it.
This is honestly quite sad to see.
Such a wonderful robot, so much care was put into it...
I feel for it, I wished I could've finished in time.
Maybe then I wouldn't feel so alone in such hard times.
Huh.... Maybe- maybe I could use its help.
An all knowing robot with equal knowledge on science sure would be helpful in finding out a cure.
Fan is... not too responsive.
And Balloon is sweet but doesn't have enough knowledge on the topic I try to tackle to help out much.
I'll think about it... a robotic assistant sure sounds great, and it's probably impossible for them to get infected which makes this all so much better!
I'll take it with me, I'll look into it.
I placed the book in my backpack and stretched a bit before I picked up the robot and held them in my arms.
It's surprisingly light for being made of metal, still heavy though, but I'm pretty strong.
I walked through the hall and back into the main room where my machine was and turned it on.
The portal began emitting a strong light, and I once again entered through it.
I grabbed my now room temperature solder and also put it in my bag.
I turned around, turned the machine off and walked out the door and the studio, in the direction of my own room.
Good thing it's so early in the morning right now, it'd be pretty hard to explain this robot to anyone right now.
Ah! I can't wait till I turn it on! I'll have to inform Fan in our next meet-up!!!