What Lies Below chapter 4

Chapter 4: Abort Mission

EVE increased her speed greatly. There were something dangerous loose in these dark
corridors. Something that the EVE probes were no match against. Perhaps they did have chances, but EVE didn't want to stay to find out. Besides, all she really knew was that she had lost connection to Two and Three.

But it wasn't just that, Five had seen something. EVE had to face the fact: she had lost two of her sisters, perhaps forever. As the leader, she had to make sure that she wouldn't lose more. Which meant it was time to abort mission.

"Four, stay alert. There's something hostile out there. I'm at your position in exactly 37 seconds."

"Hmph, nothing can catch me by surprise", Four boasted, but she did sound tense.

EVE flied around a corner in a dead end. Following the datamap, she opened a door into a gloomy office room. Even though it was similar to all the offices that she had mapped herself, it was giving her creeps. The shadows caused by the weak light of her monitor danced in the corners and formed disturbing shapes. EVE had to hold back the urge to draw her weapon at them.

Swiftly she proceeded to the door at the opposite side of the room and entered another hallway. She turned right and arrived at a cross-junction. She did her best at ignoring the dark sideways trying to haunt her, and continued straight across. Now she'd just have to go through one more office room and she'd be united with Four and Five.

She was just about to open the door when something caught her attention. Something was lying on the floor just a few meters ahead. Curiosity took her over; she had to check what it was. EVE hovered slowly next to the unmoving object and scanned it.

It was some kind of cleaning bot, but clearly more primitive than the M-O units used onboard the Axiom. The bot's batteries were depleted apparently a long time ago, and so was all the data it had once contained. There were no directives, no behavior models, nothing. In other words, the cleaner was dead. EVE backed off a bit. She noted that there were some scratches on the smooth surface of the somewhat box-shaped robot. Near its head were two weird holes that certainly weren't supposed to be there. Something had happened here a long time ago. Something was happening here now.

EVE jerked her head up as her audio receptors picked up something from behind the nearest corner. Or so she thought; she didn't stay to find out. She almost bursted through the door into the office room and similarly stormed out from the other side into the hallway where Four and Five were.

Except that instead of her sisters she was greeted by a bright blue projectile heading straight towards her.

EVE yelped and made a fast vertical spin. She was able to register the intense heat of the ionized plasma as it narrowly missed her and exploded against the wall some ten meters behind her.

Dust and smoke covered the air immediately, and EVE couldn't see anything. Still she knew she wasn't in danger anymore.

"Damn it One, I could've killed you!" Four yelled on top of her vocalizer. "What on earth were you thinking, storming out of the room like that? On top of everything, you are late!!"

EVE tried to wipe her monitor clean from the dust, but her hands weren't really ideal for that, she'd need some cloth. "Sorry sis, I just – I just… it doesn't matter. Sorry."

"Hmph. Anyways, come to help me get Five free already so I can go after the fools."

Some dust was still clouding her vision, but EVE could ignore that. She hovered to Four and examined the situation. The ceiling had collapsed in pretty badly; the rubble almost blocked the whole corridor. Five were visible among the rubble, but she was unresponsive. A large part of a steel beam was holding her in place pretty tightly.

"She's in emergency shutdown –mode", Four explained. "I can't lift the beam off alone and I couldn't blast the beam away without further damaging her."

"Alright, we'll lift the beam off together, but one thing first", EVE said and stared Four in the eyes. "You're not going to look for Two or Three. I can't take the risk of losing more probes. I'm ordering to abort mission."

Four's cyan eyes grew larger in a shock. "What!? You can't be serious! It's not too late – I can find them. And everyone who gets in my way might as well be damned!"

"Four." EVE paused to make sure she got the probe's full attention. "There's something that kills robots down here. I've seen the bodies. We can't stay here any longer. We must leave now."

Four hovered back and forth in frustration. "So that's it, you're just giving a death
sentence to two of our sisters?"

"No", EVE staggered a bit. "I'm trying to save three of us. Please, Four…"

Four consider this for some time. Finally she turned to EVE and said with narrowed eyes: "Very well… but don't expect me to take orders from you after this."

EVE nodded slowly. She'd have to accept this for now.

With some effort the two probes managed to move the metallic beam enough so they could get Five free. She was reverted to the egg form and small red light was blinking in her chest. Aside from small scratches there was no visible damage.

"We should activate her or getting off gets tricky", EVE declared.

Four just stared silently.

"Okay…" EVE muttered, "I hope she doesn't have internal damage, or this may backfire."

She opened a panel in Five's shell, just behind the number '5', and pressed the reboot button. With a faint hum Five's hands and head separated from the torso. Two blue eyes appeared in the monitor, and everything seemed to be fine. For two seconds.

Five blinked a few times, then her eyes went wide, she screamed and tried to fly off. EVE had to quickly tackle her and pin her down. Five struggled to get free and EVE had to use her strength seriously to keep her from escaping.

"Ah, come on, calm down. Ugh. Four, little help, please."

Four grabbed Five's hands firmly and held them at her sides. EVE used the opportunity to calm down the panicking probe.

"Five. Five! Look at me. It's me, One."

Slowly she caught Five's attention, and a little later Five stopped struggling.

"It's okay Five. You're safe with us."

"One…" she breathed.

"Yes", EVE smiled.

"I'm letting you free now, don't try to fly away. I can't be bothered to shoot the
ceiling down on you again", Four declared.

"I w-won't", Five promised.

Four released Five.

"Alright, Five, I need to hear what you saw, but not now. We'll gotta get out first. Take my hand so you won't get lost", EVE instructed.

"O-okay." Five took EVE's hand, and EVE checked the route out once more.

"Good. Let's get going; Four, cover our backs."

"Fine."

With that said, the three probes left the dusty corridor behind.

EVE guided Five through the maze that their route was, and Five followed them with her blaster drawn out.

They managed to get to the huge hall that was their starting point without any incident, aside from Five getting nervous a few times and mumbling 'no'.

The probes went into the elevator shaft and saw the daylight shining up there. After the horrors of the darkness they had finally reached the light. They were safe.

But it wasn't over yet.

"We should place the metal plate back to seal the complex. Then we must report to the Captain." EVE said with serious tone.

It would be the most discomforting report she had ever given.