25 Brooding

Sia is not pushed into Immersive Mode. This is different.

She is surrounded by darkness, but a luminescent blue mist is flowing all around her. It vaguely reminds her of her nightmare. Sia feels an odd pressure on her body that makes her move very slow. Breathing feels like a struggle.

"Hello?" She chokes out.

"Hello?....Puter?"

She wanders in one direction and holds her hands out to feel for walls. No matter how far she walks she does not collide with anything.

"Hello?!"

The visual prism pops up in mid air.

"Oh!"

Seeing the familiar object calms her within. The device isn't malfunctioning. This must be an unfamiliar program.

'What is this program supposed to do?'

Sia walks over to it. It is several feet above her head.

"Uh..," She reaches up for the prism, but she can't even touch it with her fingertips.

She jumps to grab it out of the sky. On the third try, she jumps and grasps it with both hands. It releases from its position as she falls back toward the ground. The images inside keep flashing to different walls and doors.

"What the heck, man. What are you doing?!"

She investigates the triangular window and sees a bitten-up lunch table. The half-eaten roach carcasses are a sign that these things are not having a good time themselves. Sia's body must be the last piece of fresh produce in a grocery store, and these guys are ravenous vegans.

'If only. I would trade them for those worms. Any day.'

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The nearest locker room is inaccessible with the infestation following behind It. It needs to lose the horde before getting the keys to the generator area. It runs into the cafeteria and slides behind a turned over table. It starts taking off each shoe.

Roach carcasses are open and left splayed across the room to snack on later. The plastic trays have been torn to bits. From its position, it can see the broken kitchen doors hanging off the hinges. The kitchen is probably completely totaled.

Crouching beside a table that is on its side hides Sia's body from view for a moment. Roaches are streaming into the room. Its shoes are off, so it pulls out the laces. It twirls the laces around each other and watches the rest of the horde stream into the room.

With a burst of speed, It slides past the last roach and slams the doors on it. Weaving the laces into a quick knot takes a short moment while its hands are enhanced. It doesn't hold for long but by the time it snaps open and the doors fall off the hinges, Sia's body is rounding a corner then sliding into the side hallway stairwell.

It rushes up two flights of stairs. The timer ends right as the door to the 3rd floor closes behind it.

0:00

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REHABILITATION NEEDED

Sia jumps as the computerized voice speaks from the sky.

"We're safe. You did well," She waves the prism at the sky.

REHABILITATION NEEDED

T1M3.out DEACTIVATED

The blue mist swirls around Sia and she closes her eyes to stop herself from becoming dizzy.

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Sia stumbles as she is given back control of her body.

'You okay up there?'

STANDBY

Sia blinks at that response and starts investigating the area. The third floor is very similar to the first floor. Her feet softly pad across the floor. Sia is glad she has always favored thick socks. The past few days have been torture on them, but they have stayed intact the entire time. Walking along the cold dusty floors barefoot would have made this a little more unbearable.

The main hall connects to another hall which connects to another…it's a square that meets back at the start. She did not see any other fire exits to get off this floor.

'Did they expect everyone to leave from this stairwell then out to the front? Buildings usually have more than one exit for an emergency.'

She walks down the main hall once again and goes to a door marked in red. The first pass down the halls revealed that, like the first floor, each door has a color marked on the nameplate. Most of them are the same colors that are on the key ring she acquired. She walks over to a door marked in red, a Chemistry lab, and sticks the red key into the lock. Turning the key to the left produces the comforting sound of an unlocking door.

'The keys must be skeleton keys for the specific colors. If only one of them was purple.'

She opens the door and sits inside onto the floor. She wipes some sweat off her face with her hand. A slick substance replaces the sweat and she sighs. It's the one that had been damaged.

She stares at her hand. Flexing the fingers don't broadcast any pain. The hand appears to be the same one.

'It looks the same. Well…,' She notices a scar that used to be on the base of her thumb is gone.

"Well, almost the same."

'How much longer until we recharge again?'

STANDBY

60 MINUTES REMAINING

'An hour…okay. Okay. I can survive an hour.'

Sia settles down and listens from beside the door. It would be just her luck to get insanely close to a solution and be stopped by an infestation. Next, she expects that the deer from before will break in to finish what it started outside. This world keeps revealing its abnormalities, and it is tiring her out. She's not searching for all these answers, just one. Just one revelation is enough for her. She doesn't need to become informed about them all. Don't they understand that she doesn't belong here? Why won't they leave her alone?

One hour later…

She pulls her backpack around and opens it to get some food. After preparing the MRE, she eats and ignores the weird taste. Her eyes wander around the room as she chews. There are tables, chairs, and two desks off to the side with computers on them. There is a whiteboard that was poorly erased. Mathematics equations are only half cut off. There is a storage room. The shutters on the windows block out the world outside. They are tan shutters and appear to be the heavy sort that protects occupants from broken glass if a storm damaged the windows.

She eyes the door at the back of the room.

'There is a storage room.'

She leaves her backpack behind while she inspects the storage room. There are locked storage cabinets. She pulls out her key ring and fingers the keys on it. The striped keys seem odd. None of the rooms she has seen have striped colors on them. She holds the red and black key and the red and green key up. She tries the red and green key first. It's too small for this lock.

The red and black striped key unlocks the storage cabinet. Some squeeze bottles and other containers are the only things that remain. The rest of the cabinets are empty. Sia sighs and walks back into the main room.

She walks over to a shutter and peeks outside. The sun has officially set, and it is pitchback outside.

She goes back to her backpack and drinks some water. It goes down the wrong pipe and she chokes a bit on the fluid.

"Gaaah…. aah. Survive all of that and I'm taken out by my own water," Sia chuckles at herself.

She hears a scratching sound and freezes. She looks around without moving her head. The scratching stops. After a few minutes, Sia's heart calms down. She holds back a sigh.

'I can't let this be it. I might be able to contact my family if I can just get the power on and work these computers.'

She gets up and puts her hands on her head. She walks around some tables and sets her water bottle down on a table. Her slow pacing doesn't help clear her mind.

'I just need to hide until I know how to kill those suckers. Fuuuh…It would be roaches, wouldn't it? The one species of bug that can survive a nuclear blast.'

She picks up her water.

'Why couldn't they be like that robot's pet roach. It's like the universe is against me getting home.'

She grasps the bottom of the bottle and shakes the last drops into her mouth. When she sets the bottle back down, she sees that the dust from the table had gotten onto the bottle and coated it with a dusty mud-like substance. She shakes her hand and wipes it on her pant leg.

"Bleh."

She wipes again and it's off.

'16-year-old dust. Worst kind.'

She starts walking over to her backpack but stops short.

'Wait a minute. Déjà vu. I remember a moment like this. I can't put my finger on it.'

ENHANCING MEMORY RECALL

'You can do that?'

30%

60%

90%

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"This room hasn't been cleaned in a couple months. It's the best place to have you start. Get this room cleaned and any room after it will be a walk in the park." Ron said before the door closed behind him.

Sia glared at his back and walked over to a table to sit on it. She had put her hands down on the table and paused. The moisture on her hands had cleaned the dust right off the table without even a second of pressure.

"Ewww. Clumping dust. Worst kind." She said before she wiped her palms onto her clothed thighs.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

'No wait. Go farther back.'

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"The building here isn't used anymore, so we use it for practical purposes. You'll be tested on proper ways to clean a lab, infestation, and biohazards." Ron said as he pushed a janitor trolley along.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"No, no….forward like…."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ron picked up the boric acid from Sia's trolley.

"Now you made the same mistake as the usual first hires. Excessive usage of boric acid. Now even if you don't see any insects it is our policy to do a light dusting in some corners, just in case. This stuff gets on the skin of something and it is a killer. If they ingest it…. whoa boy. Nasty surprise. Scentless, but deadly. I've used this in my own home. Dusted some on a nice tasty treat. Roach came around and ate it. He thought he'd won. Bahahaha." The man's belly bounced as he laughed and set the boric acid box back onto the janitor cart.

"You know cockroaches eat anything. Any of them that ate the stuff died a few minutes later. They brought some of the treat home, and everything that consumed it there died. If they stop eating the treat and decided to just ingest a dead buddy. HAHAHA. Dead too. They must have been so confused. SERVES THEM RIGHT. Ron's house ain't no place for slackers. If you don't pay the bills you got no business there. Living off my hard work."

Sia's brows met while she grabbed her safety glasses off a table and tried to busy herself with packing up.

'Seems like we're talking about more than some dead bugs. Issues much?'

Ron continued talking when they left the room and until he left Sia at the locker room. He gave her a combination lock and went on his way.

'Finally. This guy loves the sound of his own voice a bit too much.'

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sia starts to chuckle to herself.

She leans onto a dusty chair and tears seep out of her eyes as she tries to hold in her laughter. After a few moments, she gains control of herself and wipes at her eyes with her biceps.

"These f%$#s don't know who they are dealing with," she whispers harshly.

She straightens and put her backpack on. She needs to find the nearest supply closet.

"Today just isn't their day."

The supply closet she finds has a lot of supplies for the upkeep of the building both inside and outside. She cackles softly as she looks around the room. She doesn't ask the device to highlight any useful chemical mixtures. She has already gone through the Explorertech Chemical Hazard and Toxic Substances training course. They taught them multiple mixtures to avoid in the workplace to stop accidents occurring to janitor staff and careless scientists.

Sia puts down her backpack and fills it with multiple aerosol cans. She doesn't look too hard at the labels, she is familiar with the colors and pictures on each can. She pulls out her respirator and checks it for any damage. It seems to be fine. She places it on her face. It fits like a hug. She slips on a pair of thick gloves and makes sure her clothing is tucked beneath the gloves. Several pairs of rubber boots are lined up for when an employee mops or uses the polishing equipment. She tucks her pants into the rubber boots. Then, she grabs a pair of safety goggles from the shelf.

Finally, she checks the bottom shelf area for an item she isn't sure would be in stock.

'Ooooh. Nice.'

She grabs the anti-slip grippers and puts them on the bottom of the rubber boots. They'll help avoid any slippage that might happen with these rubber boots on.

"Better safe than sorry," Her muffled voice says before she grabs a few bottles and marches out of the supply closet.

Sia opens a door marked with black. She checks all the windows and shuts all the doors tightly. She checks for vents and finds two of them. The vents are stuffed with rags before she walks over to the doorway and sets down two aerosol cans.

She walks back into the hallway to push four mobile mop buckets into the room. She goes back out to retrieve a few jugs of bleach. Also, she made sure to raid all the bottles of rubbing alcohol that had been on the top shelf for medical emergencies. She pours one of each into each bucket. She continues this until she emptied every bottle and jug.

'That should be enough.'

She backs out of the room and shut the door. Before walking away from the door, she takes the black key off the key ring and leaves it inside the lock.

Back in the supply closet, she collects drain cleaner bottles, shoves some more rags into her pockets, and goes out to set them around the corner. She lines them neatly beside the wall. She has six bottles. She takes out a rag and rips it into strips.

"I just wanted to put some lights on and they gonna bite off a girl's hand. As if I was asking for it. As if I was bothering them. Now they gonna see who's bothering who." Sia mutters as she sticks the strips into each bottle.

Returning to the chemistry room she first settled into, she drops her bag of aerosol cans next to the door and goes to the storage room. The storage cabinets are still open. She retrieves a few squeeze bottles and sits beside her backpack. She takes out a few days' worth of food and frowns as she counts out the bait.

"I stole it anyway," She tries to rationalize away the fear of starvation, "I can find some more later."

She takes the food and the bottles to the supply closet.

She pours collects the boxes of boric acid. There are only 4 boxes in here. She pours some into the two squeeze bottles. Those will be used for the food. Then she pours 2 boxes into a bucket. The last box is sprinkled along the main hallway floor.

"I would have left them alone, but noooo. Had to go and bite off my hand like I'm some sort of cracker. Wack a@# cracker eating bast@#$#," Sia mutters to herself as she sprinkles boric acid onto the floor from the box.

It's a light dusting of it on the ground. It looks very similar to the dust already formed on all the floors.

The contaminated food is dropped near the stairwell door, in the hallway, and beside the black room door.

The chemistry room door is shut as Sia moves a wooden desk into a corner as quietly as she can. She then moves all the chairs to surround the desk. Then she climbs over and puts a table in front of the door.

It might not stop them, but it will give her a moment's notice that something has entered the room.

With everything set, she climbs back to the desk and slips underneath it. Her large frame doesn't fully fit underneath it, but her head and shoulders are hidden while her legs stay bent outside the desk. She feels more protected knowing she can kick anything away that comes at her and won't have to worry about anything crawling into her ears.

Her mind flashes back to the long antennas of the roaches and shivers.

'Everything fine up there?'

AFFIRMATIVE