Look over the ball of ice with my vision modes and then pick it up.
You flip through your vision modes. Thermal shows that it's cold, big surprise. X-ray shows not a whole lot; whatever it is it's dense enough to prevent you from getting a good look inside it. Motion tracking and infrared don't really help either.
You shrug and take a step into the room to pick up the ball. You don't really see what happens next; you catch a blurred glimpse of the ball unfolding, each furrow widening into a gap as tentacles curl out away from the lopsided octopoid head. A tentacle lashes out, like a striking cobra, and punctures you right through the left bicep. Another slashes across the room in an arc, and the razor tip of it catches you straight in the chest and carves a gash through your ribcage, just below the sternum. It misses your heart and only punctures one lung but, leaves you with a great sucking chest wound. You manage, despite your injuries, to leap back and punch the door close button before stumbling slumping down against the wall opposite the door. Despite the severity of the injuries, you're bleeding very little. The blood, and indeed the flesh immediately around the wound, appears to have frozen.
Morph pimpcane into pimpcane.
The gray powder is ash. I do not regret this occurrence.
You return the pimp cane to pimp cane form.
There's a sort of click, a metallic "CTICK", and you see a small spark leap between the metal boots. The flame is triggers cascades off the boots and rolls across the ground like a ripple in a pond, spreading out in all directions. It coats the ground in a fraction of a second, crawling across your feet and legs as it burns the heavier than air gas that has settled to the ground. When it reaches the walls of the chamber, it climbs and then it catches the gas that is still mixed into the normal atmosphere. And the room ignites.
"What do you have over there, anyway?"
You see Trier step into the room and then stumble back a few seconds later, a great crescent gash in his chest. He stumbles and collapses, sliding heavily down the wall and landing in a sitting position, his chest heaving rapidly. You run over to help him and just as you're about to examine the wound, the hall shakes violently. The door leading back the way you came, the one that slammed shut behind you and separated you from the other half of your team, explodes open, and a wall of flame and smoke rolls down the hall. The fire dies before it reaches you but the shockwave knocks you flat on your back and the entire hallway becomes a blind haze of black smoke. Your ears are ringing and everything sounds distant and muffled, as though you're underwater.
Lock the door; keep an ear out for what's going on outside. If someone calls for Arty, answer.
Make a cursory search on the computer for logs. See if I can understand what kind of program is connected to the shelves, and if there is a control interface. Upload a backup to the cloud or save a compressed version on the wrist pad. Take a couple of the robots and put them in the backpack; if I can assign them to do my bidding, activate a third.
You close the door and you're just sitting down at the terminal when something explodes very near by. The entire room shakes; you have to brace yourself on the desk to stop from falling out of your chair and the shelf of robots swings back and forth uneasily, threatening to fall. You get up and catch it, pushing it back against the wall before it falls on you.
What the hell was that?
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Topic: Deep Infirmary: The boning begins again (Read 53420 times)