Free Living Hell by Catherine Jinks Page B

something, I can’t prep the RARs with this – I need more.
    ’ The RARs were our Remote Access Repair Units. They were large robotic troubleshooters, which could be activated in the case of serious impact-based damage, or if the nanosystems failed to respond on an atomic level. Conal shook his head.
    ‘Somehow I think it’s beyond RARs now,’ he muttered.
    ‘Hang on – wait.’ Arkwright was calling for silence. He made a damping motion with his hand. ‘Did you say three samples, Ottilie?’
    ‘. . . fshzzsamples ,’ Ottilie responded, from Arkwright’s voice patch. Her picture had vanished from the Array, engulfed in random flecks of light. ‘ Two collagenous , one . . . there’s a resemblance to chondrocytes - ’ ‘Cartilage,’ Mum interjected.
    Cartilage? I gaped at her. As in noses? And knees?
    ‘. . . some nucleic acids . . . ’ Ottilie buzzed. ‘. . . atypical, though, because it’s bound up with vshomshh . . .
    ’ ‘Ottilie? Ottilie!’
    ‘Ark, there’s a lot of distortion here,’ said Lais – and she wasn’t talking about the Audio Interlink Network. ‘Ark, I can’t get my fingers out of the screen !’ But she did – abruptly – yanking them so hard that she stumbled backwards, and fell. When she hit the floor, it yielded.
    It yielded like sponge.
    ‘Arkwright!’ Lais yelped. Her little heart-shaped face was suddenly dead white. She scrambled up, with Conal’s assistance. She tried to wipe goo off her hands.
    One of Arkwright’s staff bolted for the door. I don’t know how many people noticed. There wasn’t a single challenge as he made his exit. Everyone’s attention was fixed on Arkwright.
    ‘Ask her about the fluid!’ Mum exclaimed. ‘Arkwright!
    Ask her about the excretions, are they toxic?’
    ‘Ottilie! Do you read?’
    Through a fuzz of interference came the reply. ‘ Yes, I read you .’
    Then my own voice patch beeped. Once again, it was Merrit. Her signal kept dropping out, like Ottilie’s.
    ‘ Cheney, it’s Merrit – can you hear me?
    ’ ‘I hear you, Merrit.’ My lips felt numb.
    ‘. . . RARs . . .
    ’ ‘What?’
    ‘ They’re malfunctioning! ’ Suddenly, her voice was as clear as a bell. She was sobbing, and my heart nearly leapt out of my chest in fright.
    ‘Merrit? Merrit?
    ’ ‘. . . Dad saw them! Spraying the struts with acid – tell Tuddorvzshmmm . . .
    ’ ‘What? Merrit?’
    ‘ . . . hydrochloric acid . . .’
    The link went dead.
    ‘Merrit? Merrit!’ I tapped my collar. ‘Merrit 705 linkup!
    Hello?’
    But there was nothing.
    ‘Hydrochloric acid?’ echoed Mum, who had heard every word. We stared at each other. We both swallowed.
    ‘This diagnostic’s stalled, Arkwright!’ Lais wailed. ‘The whole display’s a mess. I can’t . . . it’s all distorted! The plasma’s clouding up!’
    Arkwright headed straight for one of the junction ports. I knew about them, thanks to his careful training: they were behind an access panel in the bulkhead. When he slapped at the pressure catch, however, the panel didn’t behave as expected. Instead of sliding back, it flinched open, like the door. It flinched open like a heart-valve I once saw on our mimexic tour of the human body.
    The human body?
    I looked around as Arkwright plucked a photovoltaic tool from somewhere beneath his pressure suit. The entire compartment was now a different colour – no longer white, but a strange mixture of slippery pinks, waxy yellows, and livid purples. There were puddles of gloop everywhere. You could vaguely see the dark, stringy shapes of wires and cables through some patches of console, which had lost much of their density, becoming glutinous and transparent. The ribbing of the seams was much less defined. The samplers . . .
    The samplers seemed to be throbbing.
    ‘Aagh!’
    It was Arkwright. He had opened one of the electrical sub-conduits, only to be splashed by a spray of fluid. His laser pen clattered to the floor. Grey-faced, he staggered back,