Sarah and the Steam Dragon
Chapter 13

“Hurry up and get the door open” Carmody said to Achmed. They were both standing at the furthest reaches of the corridor, a solid metal security door in front of them. It was labelled as the ‘Main Computer Stack Room – Authorised Access Only’.

“If you would stop saying that to me every ten seconds, I would be able to concentrate better” he muttered in reply, bending his mental energy towards the electronic lock once more. He was leaning against the door itself, his hands splayed across its metal face so he could read the signals clearly. This door was proving the most resistant of all, resetting the locking program as fast as he could disable it.

“Why is this one so much harder?” Carmody could not help herself from saying aloud. Achmed sighed and released his ability for a moment.

“It’s like there is a programmer on the other side actively working against me” he said in frustration. “I have had experiences like this before when I was diving in the Network. Another programmer was running routines at their end to keep me out of what I was diving into”

Carmody gasped in shock. “You’re a hacker? That’s illegal, Achmed!”

“I prefer the term Net Diver” he answered. “And it’s only illegal if I get caught” He bent his mind to the security door once more, tracing the images of the programming like pictures in a book or on a screen. This should be easy for him, even a secure access door like this one.

“I think it’s illegal even if you aren’t caught” Carmody muttered under her breath. “No wonder you are such good friends with Sarah” She wished the words had not come out as soon as she said them. Sarah was a troublemaker, no doubt about that, but a goodhearted one.

Achmed was no longer listening to her anyway, his whole mind focussed on the electronic signals only a Scanner could see. He tried to vary the coding changes he inserted and watched as a new code was set to overcome the changes he made. With grim certainty he knew something or someone was deliberately working against him.

He slumped in defeat against the cold metal door, his cheek pressed hard onto its unyielding surface.

“I can’t do it, Carmody” he groaned. “They are too focussed on me, so they keep blocking everything I do”

Carmody thought for a moment and looked up at the corridor ceiling, lined with emergency lights but also a sprinkler system for fires.

“Achmed, if the fire alarms are triggered, wouldn’t that release all the exterior doors and shutters?” she pondered.

“Well, yeah” he said slowly. “But then whomever is working against us would re-set them to close again”

“But while they were doing that, would they be diverted from blocking you at this door” Carmody continued. “Maybe not for long, but would that work?”

Achmed’s face lit up with delight. “Carmody, you are brilliant!” He leaped to his feet and gave her an excited hug, until Carmody fended him off with her cricket bat.

“I’m glad you like my idea, but you are not the boy I want to be hugging” she said primly. She scanned down the dim corridor and spotted a manual fire alarm. “You get ready here and I’ll set the alarm off”

With that she ran down to the alarm. It was a small red button behind a piece of glass with a sign that read ‘In case of fire, break glass’. She hefted her bat then thought better of that and just tapped it with the tip, hard enough to crack the glass cover.

Wailing alarms started up, a different timbre to the previous security alarms. It did cross Carmody’s mind to wonder if every type of school emergency had its own alarm sound. If so, was there one for stuff like an outbreak of head lice? Or when the school canteen ran out of hot fries at lunchtime? Those were real emergencies in her opinion.

She ran back to Achmed, who gave her a triumphant grin as the security door swung open.

“We did it!” Achmed cried out to her and then froze as he saw what lay within the computer room.

“Welcome, children” said Creepy Bob, once the school head janitor. Now though he was meshed into the computer stacks, long thick black tentacles running from his body into the hardware. They pulsed and writhed like they were pumping fluids from his ragged body into the computers, feeding his life into the machines.

“I think we found who was working against me” whispered Achmed, his mind numb with terror. He looked at the janitor’s head, long veins of organic matter erupting from his skull and cheeks, connecting him directly into the Network. His Scanning ability showed him the signals running from the body of the man into the computer, then out into the rest of the school.

“He’s trapped here” Achmed realised. “The school network has been isolated by the Archimedes AI. Bob can control the school network, but can’t get outside of it”

“That’s right, little boy” grinned Creepy Bob, showing rotten teeth to them, black slime dribbling from his mouth. “But pretty soon one of those fancy Guards or even your friend Eric will be captured by my servants. Then I can use their quantum processors to fight Archimedes directly”

“So we need to stop you, is that right?” said Carmody, hefting her bat. “We take you out and we get the doors open plus stop you getting access to the rest of the City. I’m up for that!”

“Just who are you?” said Achmed in awe as Carmody ran into the computer room, her cricket bat held aloft like some legendary weapon. The ex-janitor laughed as she came and thick black tentacles lashed out from his body towards her.

The first one met her wildly swinging bat and the dark flesh exploded in a shower of black oil. Creepy Bob screamed in agony, the noise reverberating around the room. Two more tentacles met the same fate, leaving dark smears over the young girl’s face and arms, her clothes totally stained with the foul substance.

“What Realm are you from?” whispered Creepy Bob, dark eyes regarding the fierce young girl before him. “Are you sent by Avalon?”

“Avalon?” said Carmody, her bat held in two hands. “No, I’m a Pan City girl, born and bred” She gazed with a mixture of pity and disgust at the man who had been so totally overcome by this dark creature. “If you surrender to us, we will try and replace a way to help you” she offered.

“I am beyond redemption” Creepy Bob gurgled and then his body erupted in a swarm of black tentacles, lunging for Carmody.

Achmed could only stand back out of her way and give her room to fight. For a girl who claimed to have never picked up a bat before, she was devastating. Every blow shattered a tentacle, bursting them like so much rotten fruit. Some managed to grab Carmody around her ankles yet she stood firm and crushed them with wild yells and fierce blows.

Soon enough it was over, Carmody standing like a penguin caught in an oil spill, coated head to toe in black goo. The thing that had been inside of Creepy Bob was gone, having drawn all of itself from his body to try and fight Carmody. The janitor was slumped against the computer stacks, unconscious but still breathing. Achmed could sense that his signals to the computers had faded away to nothing.

“You are seriously scary right now” Achmed told Carmody and went to the access terminal set on the side of the main stack. Pieces of Creepy Bob’s tentacles were slowly oozing down the sides, making puddles of black goo on the floor.

“I think I need to shower for a week” the girl said and leaned tiredly against a wall, all her energy gone. She felt the unexpected anger and fighting spirit fade inside of her. It was not gone, she knew that, but for now it had done what it needed to. Carmody had no idea where it had come from yet weirdly it seemed a natural part of her, a part she had never known about or needed until today.

She looked down at the cricket bat, undamaged despite all the violence she had caused with it.

“I hope they let me keep this bat” she said to herself. It was a good fit to her hands she thought and had a decent heft.

“Since you are saving the school right now, I am sure they will” answered Achmed. He was tapping industriously at the access terminal, using his Net Diving skills along with his natural Scanner ability. With a grimace he flicked a piece of black goo off the touch screen then hit the ‘Execute’ tab.

All the alarms still wailing in the distance stopped and the regular lights flickered back on.

Achmed activated the internal cameras for the ground floor and displayed the images on multiple screens. In each one they could see the security doors opening and parents and students rushing outside, freed from the auditorium at last.

“You did it!” cried Carmody and gave Achmed a big hug as he sat at the terminal.

“Eeeww!” he said, pulling himself out of her grip. “You are covered in that black goo!” He started trying to brush it off his school uniform but the damage was already done, with long oily smears running down his jacket and sleeves.

“Anyway, you are not the girl I want to be hugging” he said, mimicking Carmody’s own comments to him from before.

“Is that so?” she replied with a grin. “I will have to tell her that when we catch up”

“Don’t you dare!” Achmed said in alarm and Carmody had to laugh at his panicked face.

“Seriously” she snickered “You look more frightened now than when we faced those Zombies!”

“Yeah, well, Lilly is just a good friend” Achmed said quietly, blushing a little.

“So it is Lilly you like” added Carmody. “I mean it was pretty obvious, but I am glad you confirmed it”

“How about we take Creepy Bob to the staircase and call for help?” Achmed suggested , quickly changing the subject and going to the fallen janitor. Carmody smiled to herself and followed, resting her cricket bat over her shoulder as she walked over. Together they managed to drag the unconscious body out of the room and down the corridor.

Once they left, there was no one to see the black goo ooze across the oil smeared floor. It collected in bigger and bigger puddles then flowed to a drainage vent set into the floor. They were installed to prevent flooding of the basement rooms like this one and connected to an extensive underground pipe network.

The last of the oily sludge drained itself from the room and disappeared from sight.

On the monitor screens, the views switched to the external cameras showing the main courtyard. The escapees from the auditorium were milling about in confusion in the open space, joined by blue uniformed members of the Guard and Police Auxiliary. Everyone was looking upwards at the sky, terror evident on their faces.