Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

We were still looking the old woman’s card over when I heard a commotion from the other part of the room.

Clover: “A-Alice…? What’s wrong?!”

Luna: “Alice!”

Quark: “Oh no…”

Tenmyouji: “What’re you planning to do with that?!”

Phi and I turned around and gasped.

Phi: “Damnit!”

We ran to the other end of the room, and skidded around the partition—

There stood Alice, her hand wrapped tightly around the scalpel.

She didn’t seem…stable.
Her eyes were flat and hollow. Her face was an emotionless mask.
She was not well.

The look on her face was all too familiar

…Quark.
She looked just like Quark had before he went insane.

But that meant…

Alice: “Goodbye…”

Her hand moved, lifting the scalpel up high in the air, then driving it down towards her heart—!

Clover: “Aaaaaaaaiiii!”

*Slash!*

Before I could even process what was going on, Clover had leaped forwards and pushed her arm against Alice’s chest, making the scalpel dig itself into it. She screamed in pain.

Phi rushed forwards, me following close behind. Alice was trying to push Clover off of her and get the scalpel out of her arm.
Phi jumped Alice and pushed her to the ground, restraining her left arm, and pulling on her right wrist.
I tried grabbing her right wrist too, but realized I didn’t have my arms. So instead, I threw myself onto Alice’s legs, to keep her from kicking Phi off.
Tenmyouji pulled Clover away from Alice, and restrained Alice’s right arm.

“Luna! Soporil for God sake!”, Tenmyouji yelled.

“I’m coming!”, Luna said out of my view. In the corner of my eye, I saw her walk over and inject Alice with the injection gun. Shortly after, Alice’s kick attempts became less and less.

“N-no! Why?! I have to die here! We all have to die here! I have to…” Alice yelled out, but struggled to keep going. Unlike Quark, it took surprisingly long for her to get subdued.

“Alice…”, Clover said sadly, looking at her friend with disbelief.

“Clover! You are bleeding! Are you okay?”, Luna asked worried. Clover’s arm had a big cut in in where the scalpel had been.

“I’m fine…”, Clover said dismissively.

“I think radical-6 hasn’t been eradicated yet…”, Tenmyouji said sharply. “If this keeps up, we’re all goners.”

“What do we do now?”, Quark asked worried. “We can’t get out. Miss Alice is sick. And mister Sigma and miss Clover are hurt!”

“Tenmyouji is right. We’ll all die if we do nothing.”, Phi said with certainty in her voice. “We need to find a cure. I’m going looking for one.”

“Good. I’m going looking with you.”, Tenmyouji said determined.

“And me!”, Quark joined in.

“I think I’ll go too.”, I said. “Better to let you not go alone.”

“I doubt you’d be much help without your arms though.”, Phi said without irony.

I looked down. Where my arms should be were massive bandaged-up stumps. With broken off cybernetics underneath. Damn you, Dio…

“Well, I can’t help Sigma with that.”, Luna started, “But I can keep an eye on Alice and help Clover with her wound.”

“Well, the announcer said that all doors opened, right?”, Clover asked, “Well, maybe there is some place that can help us out!”

“Well, I still think I should go and help searching!”, I said with confidence, “Then one of you would have to do the lifting for me. I can still use my eyes to look around with.”

“He’s got a point, you know?”, Tenmyouji said, “I knew this blind guy once, who was still helpful with solving puzzles. So even when you’re as helpless as Sigma here, you can still help out.”

“The only thing Sigma *was* useful for was doing things though. I did all the looking and thinking…”, Phi said with a smug look.

“I heard that…”, I said smiling, knowing she was probably right.

“Well, you two can make out later.”, Clover said teasingly, “For now, let’s focus on the Axelavir. We need to save Alice!”

Me, Phi, Quark, and Tenmyouji had left for floor B. When Quark was unconscious during the moon round, we had all went into different directions.
Me, Clover, and Dio had gone through the red door and found the laboratory.
Phi and Luna had gone through the blue door.
And Tenmyouji, Alice, and K had gone through the green one.

“Since Sigma and Clover had found that axelavir in the laboratory, I’m gonna take the red door this time”, Tenmyouji said with certainty. “Perhaps the red area houses more antibiotics somewhere.”

“I’m going with grandpa!”, Quark said, “Besides, I want to see that laboratory. Miss Clover said there was some ice cream machine in there. Maybe I can get a root beer float!”

“Heheh. Don’t get your hopes up, kid.”, Tenmyouji chuckled.

“I’ll take the green door. From what I’ve heard, there was a treatment center there somewhere.”, Phi said, “I’d hate to repeat anything Dio said, but maybe they have some axelavir in there”

“Treatment center, huh? I’m going with you then.”, I said determined, “Maybe those machines there can help me with my arms.”

Phi nodded and turned to Tenmyouji. “If you’re done searching the red area, try the right most white door.”, she said while thinking. “We’ll check the most left white door. After we’re done, we’ll meet up in the floor B warehouse. And if we still haven’t found anything, then we’ll search the blue area and the middle white door together.”

“Sounds like a plan.”, Tenmyouji said with a nod, “Good luck, you two”

After the green door closed behind us, we saw that the little room we stood inside of was more than an airlock. There was another door in there that was open.

“Wanna try that one first?”, I asked.

“Better not.” Phi said shaking her head. “It’s possible that room is part of the blue area. Some of these hallways connect the areas behind the colored doors after all.”

The door in front of us opened up and we got into a hallway that ended at a three-way split. Or four-way if you wanted to get technical.

I turned to Phi. “Where should we go first?”

“The treatment center was the middle door.”, Phi said thinking, “So if there is something in there to help you out, we should go in there first.”

“If I get lucky, yeah.”, I said hopeful. “And then we could search the other two doors separately.”

“Maybe better not.”, Phi said hesitantly, “If either one of us falls ill, we’d need to have the other one there to snap us out of it.”

“Are you just saying that, or are you too scared to be searching the place alone?”, I said teasingly.

“Shut up.”

In the treatment center, we found nothing. And the connected hallways guided us straight to the floor B warehouse. So we decided to search the left door next.
But in the archive inside, we once again found nothing special. No axelavir and nothing to help me out. Since the archive connected to the same hallway as the treatment center exit did, we took a shortcut to get to the last green zone room. But inside was something we didn’t expect.

“What are those things? Puppets?”, Phi asked, clearly unnerved.

“Do you not know what a robot is?”, I asked confused.

“Right… Anyway, what is this room then?”, Phi asked, clearly masking her embarrassment.

“Some sort of maintenance room I think? Or storage?” I said thinking out loud.

“Actually, it’s a bit of both.”

“Was that you, Phi?”, I asked surprised.

“Of course not, idiot. How could I even make that voice?”, Phi said annoyed.

“It was me, mate! Look around!”

Behind us stood the last thing I expected. A human-sized robot with glowing eyes.

“Oi, guv’nah! What’re ya lookin at?”

My first instinct was to freak out. I mean, who wouldn’t? A robot, an actual robot, was standing right in front of me, talking to us. But there was something stopping me from freaking out. An underlying feeling that I have done this before. Maybe even more than once. I looked at Phi, and while she too looked really scared, she was keeping her calm too. Which in a way made me want to put on a brave face even more.

“A robot?”, I asked carefully.

“Robot? Well, kinda. I identify myself as a GAULEM to be specific. GTM-CM-G-OLM, at your service. Or G-OLM for short.”

“Like from the folklore?”, Phi asked uncertain.

“Exactly! You seem to get what’s goin on, missy! Me and me mates work at this facility when we’re activated. Doin exactly what young master Zero is told to do.”

“So you’re Zero’s minion?”, I asked a bit confused.

“Well, in the same way your foot is your minion. But let’s not waste time with that whole body imagery talk, ‘kay? Especially when one of ya bodies is not even fully functioning properly.”

“Oh, I’m not really offended by that.”, I said quickly.

“That’s not what I mean, mate. What I mean is that I should probably help fix up your body, ya know?”

“Fix up my body?”, I said, looking at my stumps.

“Exactly! Your cybernetics are all crushed and broken. You’re in the GAULEM BAY now, and here we fix broken bits like that!”

Before I could even respond, a big metal claw emerged from the table and grabbed me by the waist and pulled me on to its surface.

“Sigma!”, Phi cried out, and she ran towards the table to get me off of it.

“Relax, missy. We ain’t gonna hurt em. We had that claw installed because another GAULEM was quite the runaway. She didn’t like getting operated on either, so the master had installed that claw thing to keep her restrained.”

Four other claws emerged from the walls. Two of which held two cybernetic arms, while the other two looked more like some sort of burners. The latter two ripped open my bandages and went into the big cybernetic waste inside my arm stumps. All sorts of junk fell out, it was honestly disturbing. Phi had stopped trying to pull open the restraints, but looked like she was ready to throw up.
At some point, the burners went back into the wall, and the other two claws started installing the arms into my arm sockets. It felt surreal, and I felt this really off feeling in my nerves.
After they were done, one of the arms injected something into my shoulder. And before I knew it, I was using the cybernetic arm to try to hit away the claw. These arms… were being moved by my mind…

“Surreal, ain’t it? Well, can’t say I blame ya.”

Surreal… Yeah that was the word. These metal skeleton-like arms moved just like my normal arms would have. These metal… …I felt like I had to throw up.

“W-well, thank you, G-OLM.”, I said hesitantly.

“You don’t have to thank me, mate. I ain’t the one who fix ya up like that. The bay itself is programmed to repair any damaged robotics inside. In a way, you should be thankin the bloke you’ve been callin Zero Sr. He’s the one behind all the programmin in here.”

Blessing to a curse… Did Zero Sr know at some point that I would get my arms damaged? No doubt that he was the one who gave me cybernetic arms in the first place… After all, I don’t remember having them before I got knocked out by the gas…

The claw finally released me, and I rolled off the table. Phi stepped towards me to help me up, but I managed to get up just fine with my new arms. It was still weird to see myself like this, but somehow not as weird as seeing myself with just two stumps.

“The axelavir isn’t here. I had a look around during the surgery.”, Phi said, “I did find some sort of key thing, but I doubt we can use that for anything. I haven’t found any keyholes for it so far.”

“Better keep it with us, just in case.”, I said, trying to forget about my arms.

“I think young master Zero is going to turn off the power in here now. That’ll include me.”, G-OLM noted, “So, you should probably get out quickly before the doors won’t open. I hope you two can find what you’re lookin for.”

“Thank you, G-OLM.”, I said, shaking his hand.

“Goodbye.”, Phi said. And the two of us departed the room.

The room we had left through returned us to the little ‘airlock’ of the green door. From there, it was easy getting to the floor B warehouse: going through the blue door and walking straight ahead. There, we took the left most white door as promised. This door lead to a hallway to the left that ended with a door on the left. That door was the entrance to our next place to search.

“The plaque on the door said ‘security room’.”, I said observingly, “But judging by our surroundings, that kinda feels reductive.”

“Monitors, computers, tv-screens, lights, desks…”, Phi said while looking around, “Yeah… Whoever Zero Sr is, they must love pointing out the obvious.”

For some reason, it felt like Phi was being snarky towards me again. But obviously, she wasn’t. Maybe I was just getting used to her being snarky at me…

After a short search, we still haven’t found any axelavir.

“Nothing of note on this side.”, I called out to Phi, “Any luck on your end?”

Phi was sitting at the computer of the camera feed.

“I can look up some stuff that happened during the game.”, She said, “I just saw you, Clover, and Dio at the laboratory. And Tenmyouji, Alice, and K at the Treatment Center.”

“Can we find out who killed the old woman?”, I asked hopeful, “Or who put us all here?”

“No…”, Phi said disappointed, “The data before Alice escaped from her AB-room is all encrypted.”

“Damn…”, I said frustrated. “Even when the game is over, we still can’t get any answers.”

“Well, maybe we can figure it out ourselves. Say Tenmyouji is right, and we are all infected with radical-6.”, Phi started, “Then one would assume that this is a quarantine facility.”

“Yeah, that would make sense.”, I said, trying the figure where Phi was going with this.

“But…”, she continued, “Then why would there be a bottle of axelavir lying around in the laboratory? And why would Zero put us in a death game to escape?”

“True that is very weird.”, I said, trying to think how it could fit.

“And there is other stuff too.”, Phi went on. “The old woman dead, but not by suicide. And a robot maintenance bay. The treatment center with the ability to freeze subjects. The lunar eclipse advertisement. The fact that none of us were infected before we got kidnapped. Or the fact that there was apparently a pandemic going on in between the kidnapping and now. There are so many clues that still don’t quite work…”

“Maybe Clover is right, and this is all just the work of some maniac who hijacked a quarantine base and put us in for fun”, I proposed.

“Fun, hm?”, Phi said with an eye-roll, “Then whoever Zero is has probably the worst sense of humor out of everyone I know. Even you.”

“Nah, that’s still you.”, Sigma chuckled. Phi ignored it.

“If only I could get through that encrypted data…”, Phi said, staring at the screen.

“Well, we can give it another shot after we found the axelavir.”, I said determined to keep going, “Alice needs us. And maybe Tenmyouji and Quark are already waiting.”

Phi stood up, and we left through the exit back to the floor B warehouse. For some reason, I was struggling to manage a big headache.

Chapter Text

Inside the floor B warehouse, Quark and Tenmyouji were indeed already waiting for us.

“Mister Sigma! Miss Phi! Thank goodness you made it!”, Quark said relieved.

“Hm. Took you two long enough.”, Tenmyouji scoffed, “In case you forgot, there is a deadly sick woman back in the infirmary!”

“Wow! Hey, grandpa! Look what mister Sigma has!”, Quark shouted, pointing at my arms.

“How’d you get those?”, Tenmyouji asked with a tone that sounded more suspicious than confused.

“Long story…”, I said hesitant. I didn’t want to tell that a robot basically operated on me without me asking.

“I guess that excuses you being late though…”, Tenmyouji scoffed. “But we shouldn’t lazy around.”

“Let’s search the rooms behind the blue doors now.”, Phi said. And without awaiting a response, she took off.

We first took the split door to the left, where the B. Garden was. Nothing of note in there. In the Rec Room on the right, there was once again nothing worth mentioning.

“The next room here is the PEC.”, Phi said while reading the door sign.

“The hell does that mean?”, Tenmyouji said confused. “I hope it’s not just an exercise room.”

Inside, there was no exercise room, that was certain. It did have lockers though. But there was no training gear inside. But pressure suits.

“I doubt we will find any axelavir in here.”, Quark said disappointed.

“Still, it wouldn’t hurt to check this place out.”, Phi noted, “For all we know, this can give us access to some new locations.”

“How about you and I pop those suits on, and Sigma and Quark will help us through decompression?”, Tenmyouji suggested.

“Huh? Why can’t I come?”, I asked confused.

“Well, firstly because I don’t want Quark to be left on his own.”, Tenmyouji started, “Second, because decompressing shouldn’t be left to him alone. And third, because of your arms. The metal might scratch the inside of the suit and cause all the oxygen to escape.”

Damn… Didn’t think about that.

“Good points”, I said resigned. I was still curious on what was outside though…

“Don’t worry, Sigma. I’ll bring some dust from the ground for you as a souvenir.”, Phi said a little too smug.

“We can keep looking through the glass, mister Sigma!”, Quark said cheerfully, “We can still see what’s going on.”

“If we manage to go outside, one of you should get a pressure suit too, so we can communicate with you on the walkie-talkies inside the suits.”, Tenmyouji advised.

“How about we go help you two out, putting those suits on?”, I suggested. If I got lucky, I got to ‘help’ Phi put her suit on and off.

“Good idea, Sigma. Tenmyouji is a lot older than me, so he can really use the help.”, Phi said with a grin on her face.

“How very considerate of you…”, Tenmyouji said while rolling his eyes.

A few minutes later, Phi and Tenmyouji were all suited up, and I was wearing a helmetless version for the walkie-talkie. Phi and Tenmyouji entered the pressure chamber and closed the door.

“There are a couple of buttons on the wall over there.”, Phi noticed, “I’m going to press that one.”

I didn’t see which one she pointed at, but after she pushed it, her and Tenmyouji’s suit started to expand a little bit.

“The room has been decompressed. Let’s try that door now.”, Tenmyouji said, “Let’s hope that with ‘all doors will be unlocked’, they included this one.”

Tenmyouji turned the wheel of the door, and yes, it opened. I couldn’t see what was on the other side, but Tenmyouji stepped through the door, followed shortly after by Phi.

“What do you see, grandpa?”, Quark asked a bit worried.

“It looks like a crater.”, Tenmyouji said slowly. “The facility towers above us like we’re squeezed in between sky scrapers. The entire facility looks to be buried down into the crater, or maybe slightly build into its edges.”

“Can you see the sky? The sun?”, I asked hopeful.

“No. It’s night.” Phi said in a careful tone. “I can’t see any clouds, but I can see some stars. No moon either.”

“Tell me more about the surroundings, please.”, I asked, really wanting to hear more about where they were.

“We have moved away from the door, and we’re walking now underneath a part of the facility”, Tenmyouji said, “I think it’s underneath parts of the floor B warehouse or the hallways north of it. We’re walking in a bit of a northwest direction from the PEC.”

“I can see a bit more light over there. I think that is yet again another spot above the sky.”, Phi said, before stopping, “What is that thing there? It looks like a giant metal octopus.”

“Stop! Don’t get any closer than that!”, Tenmyouji said worried. We heard sound of dust scraping, like Tenmyouji had pulled on Phi’s shoulder.

“What is that thing then?”, Phi said a little frustrated.

“It’s an annihilation energy generator.”, Tenmyouji said, sounding terrified, “I think it’s the power source of the facility. But such machinery is very dangerous. We should go back inside, right now!”

Shortly after, we saw two pressure suit-wearing people enter the pressure chamber again. One closed the outside door, while the other compressed the chamber.

“Sigma. Quark. Please help us get those suits off.”, Phi said a little frustrated.

Second chance… I walked up to one of the suit wearers and helped them take the helmet off. Damnit, it’s Tenmyouji again.

“Yeah, better if we don’t go outside there unless we absolutely need to.”, Tenmyouji said, “I don’t wanna get blown up.”

“How do you even know about that generator?”, I asked curiously.

“When me and Quark were searching the rooms behind the red chromatic door, one of them lead to a control room, which is right above there.”, Tenmyouji said, “It gives a view of the generator and there are some manuals.”

“Anyway, we still haven’t found any axelavir. We only have one more room to check.”, Phi said, kicking the last parts of her suit off, “Let’s get to it.”

Room Q wasn’t anything any of us expected. For one, the light were very dim, making it kinda dark. And second, the walls looked like there were movable panels. It could allow the room to change shape to how it was needed.

“Look at this!”, Quark said, “It even has a dart board and a dice game!”

“I wouldn’t mind having some of those panels in our home, Quark.”, Tenmyouji chuckled.

“We could be magicians!”, Quark said with sparkles in his eyes.

“Still, isn’t it weird we have to move all these panels by hand?”, I asked, “Usually stuff like this has a remote or button.”

“I think the power is off in this room, mister Sigma.”, Quark noticed, “Look! Those light up there are probably emergency lights!”

“Guys, over here!”, Phi said, waving her way, “A safe!”

“What’s inside?”, I asked curious.

“Dunno. It’s locked.”, Phi said.

“Locked?”, I asked confused, “But all the other safes were open! Are you sure you opened it right?”

“How hard can it be to open a safe?”, Phi said frustrated, “Look! It doesn’t open! See for yourself!

I walked over, looking at the safe. She’s right. The button doesn’t release the door of the safe…

“Well, we’ve searched everywhere else. If there is any more axelavir in this place, it must be in there”, I said with a bit of false confidence.

“While it doesn’t make sense based on how you said it, I think so too.”, Phi said, “But that’s an issue. The safe is locked.”

“Well, it does make sense that the safe is locked.”, Quark noticed, “All these locks are electronic, right? And room Q doesn’t have power.”

“Is there a way to move that safe?”, Tenmyouji asked.

I put my fingers between the edges, took a hold of the safe and began to pull.

“Hng! Hng! W-well. No. It won’t budge.”, I said, carefully moving my fingers out the edges again.

“Maybe we should head back to the infirmary. Maybe we can come up with a plan to force the safe open from there.”, Phi said, trying to sound optimistic.

“Couldn’t hurt, yeah.”, Tenmyouji agreed.

“Let’s see if miss Luna fixed up miss Clover yet!”, Quark said enthusiastically.

“Okay. Let’s go then”, I said last. And we walked back towards the elevator.

Right after the door of the infirmary opened, Clover ran over to greet us. She had a bandage wrap around her arm and had a look of desperation in her eyes.

“Did you find it?”, Clover asked rapidly, “Did you find any axelavir?”

“Well…”, I started, but I really didn’t want to say no.

“There is a safe in room Q. And if there is any axelavir, it’s in there.”, Tenmyouji said self-assured, and added: “Don’t worry, Clover. Alice will get better. I promise.”

“What do you mean if there is any axelavir?”, Luna asked confused.

“The safe is locked. And there is no power at room Q.”, Phi said, “We came back here to try to come up with a plan to get the safe open.”

“How is Alice doing?”, I asked, looking behind the partition.

“Alice is in stable condition. I make sure to keep up enough soporil to keep her sedated, but not too much that it would affect her mental state.”, Luna stated, “After I treated Clover’s arm, she helped me on checking on her.”

“Luna is the best!”, Clover said with a smile, “She managed to patch up my arm no problem! The bandage is only there to make sure the stitch doesn't get loose.”

“D-don’t mention it…”, Luna said, turning red.

“Speaking of bandages, what happened to you, Sigma?”, Clover asked, pointing at my arms, “I thought we would be bandage buddies! But now you’ve gone full K style!”

“The arms?”, I looked at them a sec, “Ah, yeah. I got these at the Gaulem Bay. Long story.”

“So you searched the whole facility?”, Luna asked curiously.

“Yeah. But some parts of the facility were getting shut down by Zero Jr”, Phi mentioned, “I guess since the game is over.”

“Can’t we re-activate certain rooms?”, I asked hopefully, “There must be a way for us to get some control.”

“Didn’t Zero say he controls the power through the quantum computer though?”, Luna asked rhetorically.

“I think there is a way to bypass Zero though.”, Quark started.

“Oh? How then?”, Clover asked.

“By rerouting the power from the annihilator energy generator!”, Quark announced.

“Rerouting, huh?”, Phi thought out loud, “Hmm…”

“No. No way. Not happening.”, Tenmyouji said firmly.

“Why not?”, Quark asked confused.

“I will not have anyone near that damn thing.”, Tenmyouji said with an absent look in his eyes.

Was he having a flashback or something?

“Well, I think we should do it.”, Phi said with confidence in her voice, “This is the only way to gain more control of our lives like Sigma said.”

“I think we should do it too!”, Clover agreed, “We need to get that safe open to save Alice!”

“I think it’s risky, but if it’s the only way to save Alice, I’m in too.”, Luna said with an uncertain tone.

“I’m in too obviously.”, I said a little too cocky than I intended.

“Grandpa… Come on!”, Quark said while pulling Tenmyouji’s leg.

“Okay then, but we have to be very careful.”, Tenmyouji said reluctantly, “We need to plan this very carefully on who does what.”

Shortly after, we were all split up. Phi, Quark, Alice were in the security room. Alice was still unconscious of course. Phi to control the cameras, and Quark to help decipher the needed camera feed for the generator. They had taken some soporil injection fluid with them and an injection gun just in case Alice were to wake up.

Me and Clover were in the control room. I would be on the controls to reroute the power when possible, which included some pretty heavy switches. Clover was here for the calculations.

Luna and Tenmyouji were in the PEC. They would go outside to change the output signals of the generator manually and give Clover her calculations. Everyone else went to the PEC first as well, to get ourselves some radios.

“Okay everyone! We have decompressed. Me and Tenmyouji are about to go outside.”, Luna said.

“Good luck”, I said encouragingly.

“We can’t get you on the camera yet.”, Phi said, “I just got Quark the first code to decipher.”

“Don’t rush the kid. He knows his stuff, trust me.”, Tenmyouji said.

“Are you sure you guys think I can do this?”, Clover said nervously, “Alice was the genius when it came to math and codes.”

“You’ll be fine.”, I said reassuring.

“I know you can do this.”, Tenmyouji joined in.

“You can do this, Clover!”, Luna said encouragingly.

“Miss Clover, you’re very smart, you know?”, Quark said.

“Aww, thanks you guys…”, Clover said a bit embarrassed.

“Anyway, we’re almost at the generator.”, Luna said.

“Phi, one of the two screens to check the verification codes is out of vision for us.”, Tenmyouji noticed, “But there is a camera nearby.”

“Roger that.”, Phi acknowledged.

“I deciphered one of the encrypted codes!”, Quark said enthusiastically, “It’s actually very simple. It’s a question with the letters all a certain way. And I think answering the question and translating it back, forms the code needed to get the feed!”

“Entering the code right now…”, Phi said while typing, “It shows the treatment center on camera.”

“Huh? But we didn’t need that one, right?”, I asked.

“Yeah, but I don’t know which encryptions cover which content.”, Phi said defensively.

“I got a calculation for Clover to make.”, Luna said, “H56N23K96R21-V71J53G87-H66K10T79U31V48-N31G45X76G88T29”

“Got it!”, Clover said, and began writing down formulas.

“Miss Phi, I deciphered another one!”, Quark shouted.

“Got it.”, Phi replied, “Hmm. This one shows room Q. Not needed yet, but it will soon. Good job, Quark!”

“Aww, thanks!”, Quark said happy.

“I got the first code too!”, Clover said.

“Good.”, Tenmyouji said, “Sigma. Pull the big lever labeled 1 first. Then Clover must enter the code she calculated on terminal 5, and then turn valve 4.”

“Got it.”, I said. I walked over to lever 1 and pulled it. Clover walked towards another terminal and typed in something she had written down. When she put her thumbs up, I started turning valve 4. That one was especially difficult to turn. You really needed robotic arms for that.

“The screen here says ‘transfer completed’!” Great job!”, Luna said cheerfully.

“We’re not there yet. The screen on top has to be done now.”, Tenmyouji warned.

“I almost got it…”, Quark said, “Yes! Another code solved!”

“I can see the generator now.”, Phi said, “Clover, the code is V22T47W81U36V90-K63U99-V71J58G44-M20G65A83”

“Got it!”, Clover said, beginning to write the code down again.

“Sigma, when she’s done, pull the big lever 2. And when she puts the code on terminal 7, turn valve 8”, Tenmyouji said.

“Roger”, I said, positioning myself next to lever 2.

Clover stood up and walked up to terminal 7. I pulled the lever, and she started typing. When she was done, I turned the, also very heavy, valve 8.

“Power transferred. Power access towards control room optimized to 90%. Only the number 9 door and critical life support systems will remain powered through the Quantum computer.”, the speaker throughout the facility announced.

“Sigma, Clover. Now put the code SWCPVWO into terminal 1.”, Phi said, “That is the code for room Q, so maybe that will grand that room power.”

Clover walked up to terminal one and typed in the code.

“Power to Quantum room restored.”, the announcer said.

“Look, miss Phi! The lights in room Q got brighter!”, we heard Quark say.

“We did it!”, I cried out.

I grabbed Clover and held for in a hug.

“Woah! Let go, you weirdo!”, she protested, “Metal arms aren’t very comfortable, you know?”

“Miss Phi, please! You’re embarrassing me…”, we heard Quark say too. I guess she had pulled him in for a hug too.

“We just got out of the airlock.”, Tenmyouji said, “Come down to the PEC room, so we can put those radios back.”

A short while later, all of us were at room Q. We managed to beat its puzzle, because of course we first had to solve that, and then the safe opened.

Inside the safe were, kinda useless now, the remaining star keycards. And two bottles of axelavir!

Luna immediately grabbed one bottle. “I’m taking this to the laboratory. Clover told me there is a machine there to replicate this.”, she said.

“I did?”, Clover asked confused, “I only said there was an IG replicator there.”

“That’s just it!”, Luna said, “And with that machine, I can make sure you all get cured from that horrible disease.”

“Don’t forget yourself”, I said laughing.

“Right…”, Luna said a little embarrassed while turning red, “A-anyway, take the other bottle to Alice. You know how the injection gun works, Clover?”

“Yeah. I know how to.”, Clover said while grabbing the other bottle, “Hang on, Alice! I will save you!”

She ran off, while Luna left too towards the laboratory. Tenmyouji, Phi and Quark left the room as well. When I was about to leave, a buzzing sound caught my attention. I saw a glowing disk on the ground. A light illuminated from the middle, and suddenly an image popped up above it. It was Zero Jr.

“So, Siggy… You and your pals hijacked my kingdom, huh?”

“The game was already over, Zero.”, I said furiously, “And we refuse to die in here!”

“Ooooo! Wow. So determined. Well, I gotta say: you won fair and square! Maybe even better than Zero imagined you’d do. You certainly got a better outcome than B.O. and Potassium out there…”

“What is with Dio and K?”, I said worried.

“Sorry, can’t tell. Probably still alive though. Probably.”

That little…

“Anyway, that’s all I gotta say. With you in control over most of the power now, you can make this place your own little sanctuary. What is a prison if not a little bit luxurious, amiright? Have a nice trap!”

The disk turned off. And I turned around, back to the infirmary.

“Oh, Sigma. You made it back. Good.”, Luna said calmly.

Phi, Tenmyouji, and Clover were lying on the beds of the infirmary asleep with an injection mark on their arm, just like Alice.

“Miss Luna injected them with the axelavir. She also injected some soporil, so the anti-bodies could work faster.”, Quark said, “I think it’s best if you go rest now too.”

“Yeah, maybe I can use some rest anyway.”, I said with a yawn.

I went to lie down and pulled the blanket over my body. Luna walked up to me and used to the injection gun on my neck.

“Goodnight Sigma.”, she said smiling.

“Goodnight mister Sigma. And thank you for saving me.”, Quark said.

And that was the last thing I heard, before I fell into a deep deep sleep.