Martian Settlement: The Fight For Mars

Chapter 4: The Last Straw

Location: Martian Settlement, Acheron Fossae

Lucy walked into lab 3, the lab reserved only for electronic based experiments. Grayson, usually called Gray, the head of security and intelligence shook her hand. He held on for slightly longer than normal, evident of his crush on her that she knew of despite his best efforts to hide it.

"Um, and why am I here?" she asked.

Desperately controlling himself from blushing, he replied, "we have just received a shipment of supercomputers from Conglomera. Conglomera is one of the "guilty" corporations in the list sent to Jack by Hesley. He wants us to check if this shipment is sabotaged or rigged with spy cams."

Gray unlocked the locks holding the lid of the huge metal crate and pried the lid off the crate. In the crate were ten boxy CPUs along with holographic monitors, computer mice and holographic capacitive keyboards.

Lucy helped Gray take out the computer components and arrange them systematically on the ground. She swept a handheld device over each component.

"What's that?" asked Gray.

"It's a bug detector that I designed with my colleague Dan," replied Lucy. "I won't go into explaining how it works 'cos if I did that I'd be stuck for an hour."

"All clear," she said.

She then hooked each CPU to a supercomputer on a workstation next to her and ran a software program that checked for spyware or malware.

"Looks like you'll just be running the whole show," said Gray. "Let me help."

"You can help set up the computers later while I do the security stuff now," replied Lucy.

"Hey, it was supposed to be the other way round," Gray said. "You're the techie. I'm the security guy."

Neither of them noticed a spot on one of the CPUs slowly illuminating. The light spun, faster and faster with more fury than ever, like a deadly weapon about to unleash its full menace.

Suddenly, the CPU seemed to blow open. Mist or some semi-opaque gas filled the lab. Gray took a deep breath but found himself suffocating. He groped around, trying to find Lucy. He found her lying on the floor, knocked out cold. He grabbed her hand and coughing, pulled her out of the lab and slammed the door shut.

Lucy found herself surrounded on every side by infinite darkness. She slowly fought to regain consciousness, pulling herself out of the murky depths of darkness. Slowly, the world around her began to coalesce into the main medical facility of the Martian Settlement. Gray was sitting beside her bed, waiting for her to break free from her prison of unconsciousness.

"What ... " she said weakly. "What happened?"

"It was a CO2 bomb," said Gray. "It was placed in the CPU that was supposed to be used in Jack's office. Fortunately, it malfunctioned and detonated early."

"What's a CO2 bomb?" asked Lucy. "I've never heard of such a thing before."

"It's a bomb that contains an extremely large amount of concentrated carbon dioxide squeezed into a small metal container. As you can picture, the pressure exerted by the carbon dioxide gas would be massive, and once even a hairline crack is present on the container the whole thing will just blow up, filling the entire room with deadly amounts of carbon dioxide. If it had detonated in Jack's office, the carbon dioxide would have choked him to death in such a small office before he could even escape," explained Gray. "Fortunately the lab was big enough to diffuse the carbon dioxide to less lethal concentrations and I pulled you out before the gas could do anything."