Five minutes later, the radio buzzes again.\n\n"This is Delta-192, that's a negative on a squad before 2100h."\n\nYou sigh again and put the fork back on your nearly empty plate. "Delta-192, what is your suggestion?"\n\n"I requested the squad anyway."\n\nYou make another mark on the Square to indicate as such. You are about to tell the voice on the other side of the radio to call again if something changes, when it speaks up on its own.\n\n"What the hell...?" it says, quietly. Then, more loudly, "Unidentified subject is moving towards Delta station."\n\n"Delta station, do you have shielding power?"\n\nThe voice cracks a little. "Yes, hopefully enough to last until the Teldra squad arrives."\n\n"Alright, Delta-192, go ahead--power use is authorized." You tap a button on the Square and a little section on the worldmap marked 'Delta' glows blue.\n\nOn the other side of the radio you hear a faint humming sound start up.\n\n"That's a relief, anyway." the voice mutters. "Thank you, command."\n\n"Delta-192, do you have a fullmetric bioscanner available to deploy?"\n\n"Give me a moment to check, command--a lot of them went out with the last Delta scout group." the radio clicks into silence.\n\n[[> try to finish dinner|Bioscan]]
You begin to spoon rice out of the pot and onto your plate. Your stomach grumbles in anticipation. You fetch a little jar labeled "plum sauce" from the pantry and spoon some on top of the grains. You sit down and begin to eat, letting the simple dish warm your stomach and your heart.\n\nThe radio sputters to life again. "This is Delta-192."\n\nYou swallow a forkful of rice. "Go ahead, Delta-192."\n\n"Wanted to make a notation, scanners show the unidentified subject is making its way back now, towards Delta station."\n\n"No progress on figuring out what it is?"\n\n"No, scanners can't pick it up. Definitely not a Delta station worker. Hold on, now--mark it down that the subject seems to be moving more quickly, still heading towards Delta station."\n\nYou make the relevant notation on the Square. "Delta-192, can you send out a scouting party to intercept?" you ask.\n\n"Negative, we have no available scouts."\n\nYou sigh. The lack of manpower here is more of a problem every day. "What's the nearest station to you, Delta?"\n\n"Teldra station, I will radio them and ask about a squad."\n\n"Good, keep me up to date." You sign off and turn back to your rice. Hopefully this won't turn out to be too complicated. Whenever that happens, you never get to finish a meal.\n\n[[> eat|Unidentified]]
As you contemplate what to do, the voice comes over the radio again, sounding horrified. "I can hear him outside. He's screaming. Oh my god."\n\n"Stay calm, Delta-192." Your mind races as you try to work out a solution. You hadn't been notified of any sort of meltdown within the mines. Something must have happened with some of the nuclear-boring equipment. The Square begins to flash red. "Delta-192, can you confirm that the medscan is estimating the man's remaining lifespan to be four days?"\n\n"Yeah. Yes."\n\nYou grit your teeth. "He is almost completely saturated with radiation poisoning, but the medscan estimates only small amounts of radiation actually went in to his body...and it puts the event at...1800h." You feel a little lightheaded. If this man was truly irradiated only a few hours before, by so little material...\n\n"Command, he's screaming for me to let him in. He's pounding on the shielding." the voice is quiet and trembling.\n\n"Steady, Delta-192. If these readings are accurate he could contaminate you just by breathing near you. Can you send out a medical assist bot?"\n\n"Not if I want to lock down the building. We haven't gotten a fresh power coupling in a week, and with the shielding..."\n\n"I'll send out an all-points alarm." you say, trying to sound calm. "Something must have gone wrong with some of the mining equipment...something must have burst, or become unstable..." You can actually hear the banging on the other end of the radio now, the man's cries for help are getting louder.\n\n"Command, what do I do?" the voice pleads. "We don't have enough shield energy to keep him from getting in for much longer unless I put the station into lockdown."\n\nYou consider your options. You want to help the man, but it's possible that it could backfire and he could irradiate Delta station. A lockdown would protect the people inside Delta station, and possibly the surrounding area, but it would leave the poor bastard to die a miserable, painful death--and you might never find out what happened in the mines.\n\n[[> order delta-192 to send out a medbot|Medbot]]\n[[> order delta-192 to lock down delta station|Lockdown]]
"Delta-192, send the station into lockdown. We can't take the risk of him infecting anyone else."\n\n"Yes, command." You hear the 'station lockdown initiated' warning in the background. The banging on the station walls also gets louder, the screaming a bit more hysterical. "I'll...uh, radio back when things calm down, command." Delta-192 mutters, clearly uncomfortable.\n\nThe radio clicks off. You poke at your rice with your fork, suddenly sick to your stomach. You try not to think about what's happening to that man right now. There was nothing you could have done--it would have been too dangerous to let him in to a station filled with people.\n\nSo you wait. And wait. Your stomach seems to be doing backflips.\n\n"Okay, it's...quieted down." the radio has clicked back to life. "The, uh...the bioscanner isn't registering lifesigns anymore."\n\nYou put your head in your hands. "Okay, Delta-192, I'll send out a bulletin for a cleanup crew to take the body away. You can take the station off of lockdown, but keep the shielding up until the body has been dealt with."\n\n"Okay, command." the voice says shakily. "The way he was screaming, I..."\n\n"We did the right thing, Delta-192. The station is safe. It was too risky to let him in." You hope you're right.\n\n"...Okay, command. I'm signing off now." the voice says quietly, and the radio clicks off.\n\n[[> sit|Lockdown End]]
The readings arrive on the Square and you can't hide your curiousity. The infrared "impression" the bioscanner took is odd.\n\n"Delta-192, you're certain the station has no record of the unidentified subject?" You say as you look over the readings again, confused.\n\n"Yes, command. We have nothing except what the bioscanner picked up."\n\n"That's odd. Stand by." You take a second and read the results one more time. The readings give a guess at a height of 5'11", 180 pounds. "Delta-192, the readings and the infrared picture seem to be of a human being, probably male. Can you confirm?"\n\n"Just a minute, command, secondary results are coming in now--sending them over."\n\nYour eyes widen as you read the second set of results, the product of the bioscanner's more advanced operating mode. "Delta-192, am I reading this correctly?"\n\n"Yes, command. Unidentified subject is a human male irridiated with massive amounts of iodine, caesium, and xenon."\n\n"Fuck." you mutter. "One of the miners?"\n\n"Most likely."\n\n"The radiation must have been what prevented you from identifying him."\n\n[[> pause|Dilemma]]
You sit, and sit, and think. Delta station is safe, and so are the other outposts, for now. But that man died an agnonizing death, and you don't know why. What happened in the mines to cause such a thing? Will you ever find out? Will there be more incidents like this because you don't know? Was there something you could have done differently? You have no way of knowing. But the fact that Delta station and the surrounding outposts are safe for the time being reassures you a little.\n\nYour rice is cold.\n\nYou hope you did the right thing.
The sky is dark, and dotted with stars. Looking up gives you a dizzy feeling, as though your feet could leave the ground at any second and you could float away into the abyss. You shiver a little bit. It's cold out here, and you're not wearing the correct clothing. The rocks beneath your feet crunch a little as you turn and head back to your little hut. You open the door and go inside, the warmth from your dwelling enveloping you in comfort. A pot bubbles on the stove; your dinner must be nearly ready by now.\n\n[[> check the pot|Dinner]]
You open the lid of the small pot on the stove. Inside, white rice soaks up water more slowly than you would like. Another couple of minutes and it should be ready to eat. Your stomach is excited by this idea, and your brain knows you will have to make a trip to get more rice soon.\n\nOn the small table in the center of your home, a radio crackles to life. "Hello? Hello?" a voice on the other end says.\n\n[[> answer the radio|Radio]]
"Hello, yes?" you say, picking up the small device. Holding down a little button will let you speak back into it. You think whoever thought of it was pretty clever.\n\n"Oh, good, someone's answering." the voice says. It's slightly distant, as though it's talking to someone else entirely, and sounds male. "Look, we're out here on the border and thought we might've seen something. Wanted to get in contact."\n\n"What's your ID?" You ask, as you pull a plate out of the drawer your plates live in.\n\n"Delta-192." the voice answers.\n\n"Go ahead, Delta-192."\n\n"Scanners registered unknown activity along the border at approximately--hang on--1900 hours. Delta station unable to confirm the nature of the activity."\n\n"Are you still registering movement on the scanners?"\n\n"Yep, whatever it is, moving south along the Reyes axis."\n\n"Stand by, Delta-192." you grab the Square off of the table and turn the power on, quickly making a notation--'UA, 1900h, S Reyes'. "Okay, Delta-192, radio back if anything changes."\n\n"Will do." the radio goes silent again, and you turn back to your rice.\n\n[[> get the rice out of the pot|Eating]]
The radio activates itself again after a few minutes. "Positive on the bioscanner, command."\n\nYou run your hand through your hair, thinking about all the paperwork you'll have to do. "Dispatch it, Delta-192."\n\n"Command--" the voice sounds a little shaky.\n\n"Yeah?"\n\n"Unidentified subject is getting closer, still negative on any biometric readings."\n\n"Just dispatch the bioscanner. Remain calm, Delta-192, and do not put Delta station into lockdown unless I give approval."\n\n"Understood, dispatching bioscanner now." A few moments pass in uneasy silence. "Bioscanner has found the unidentified subject. Readings are coming in now..."\n\n"Anything useful, Delta-192?" You look longingly at your rapidly-cooling dinner, one hand poised over the Square.\n\n"Yes, command. Sending over the readings now."\n\n[[> look at the readings|Readings]]
The Rice and the Radio
You sit, and sit, and think. You know what caused the accident, and you know how to fix it, but at the cost of everyone in Delta station. Was there something you could have done differently? You don't know. You have no way of knowing. But the fact that the irradiated sites will be cleaned up could save other outposts from Delta station's fate.\n\nYour rice is cold.\n\nYou hope you did the right thing.
Amy Isaac
"Delta-192, send out a medbot. We have to see if we can save him."\n\n"Right away, command." the voice sounds nervous. "Medbot is away."\n\nA few minutes pass. Your rice is forgotten on the counter. You realize you're breathing more quickly than normal. You hope the all-points alarm you put out has reached the other outposts by now.\n\n"Subject has been injected with temporary radiation-muffling serum and is ready to be moved to isolation."\n\n"Okay, Delta-192. Bring him in. Ask him what happened--quickly, before you move him."\n\nYou hear a slight commotion in the background; voices, groaning, the whirr of the medbot. "Command?" the voice says, returning. "The subject says he was working in mineshaft 17705 when a pipe in the nuclear drillborer he was using ruptured unexpectedly. He said they didn't have the safety equipment they needed to deal with it, and he's the only one that survived long enough to find help."\n\nYou breathe a guilty sigh of relief. It's not good news, but if the accident only occurred in one isolated mineshaft it can be dealt with more efficiently--and hopefully, you can avoid more lives being lost. "Well done, Delta-192. I'll call the central outpost for a safety and cleanup crew right away."\n\n"Thank you, command." suddenly, you hear an alarm go off over the other end of the radio.\n\n"Delta-192, what is that?"\n\nThere is no response for a moment. You can hear yelling, and what sounds like crying. Panic. "That's--that's the radiation alarm, command. Apparently..." the voice sounds far away, like it can't believe what it's saying. "The amount of radiation in the subject was so intense that it ate through the radiation-muffling serum more quickly than expected. The medical staff doesn't know what to do, the radiation is killing him so quickly, and...he wasn't in isolation yet."\n\nYou feel like you could pass out. "Delta-192, I'm sorry."\n\n"Command, please help us--there's got to be something that can be done, don't let us die here--"\n\n"I'm sorry, Delta station, if there was anything I could do, I would do it. If the radiation alarm is going off, it means the whole station is going to be infected. I...I'm sorry."\n\nThe voice doesn't say anything. You can hear someone sobbing in the background. Finally: "Command, you should know that the shielding is holding. Any radiation will be contained inside Delta station."\n\nYou sigh and you realize your hands are shaking as you prepare to press a button on the Square. "Good. I'm sorry, Delta-192. You'd better go, and...tend to things."\n\n"Yes, command." the radio cuts off, and you take a deep breath.\n\nYou press the button over the Delta station icon that reads "irradiated". A text box prompts you to schedule the station for demolition and cleanup. You follow the directions. The box says "thank you for scheduling promptly".\n\n[[> sit|Medbot End]]