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It's not really that bad.
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The Aibell is a part of 
Space.
5 Places in The Aibell:
1 Characters Here
Corbyn Winans [4] "Whatever."
Start Character Here »
Corbyn unconsciously rolled over on the leather couch he was asleep on. His body slid off the edge of it landing on several brown glass bottles and knocking them over in a less than harmonious manner. In turn, ending up sprawled on the floor. He groaned loudly, and slowly opened his eyes to his surroundings. He found himself taking his time to gather his bearings and figure out where he was in the first place. He sat up using his left hand for support whilst he rubbed his eye with the bottom of his palm. When he had reached a comfortable position whilst sitting up, he spun his head around to come to a conclusion to where he was before mumbling to himself:
"Oh, yeah.."
He lifted himself off the floor, still slightly dazed from his recent awakening. He shuffled over to an electronic clock embedded into the wall nearby. Placing his hand on the wall just to the side of the clock for support he stared at it for a moment, and gathered his thoughts about what time it was. The sleeping habits he had created weren't too great. There were several GUI functions on the small monitor of the clock. He tapped on the one that read: 'Auto Lights'. The room Corbyn stood in became lit, almost instantly in fact, by several lights in the ceiling. The lights were just bright enough to illuminate the room almost fully. Turning his attention back to the nearby leather couch, he casually (or maybe lazily) grabbed his most recent articles of clothing on the floor nearest to the couch. Once again, casually slipped them on. Brushing some hair out of his face, he picked up one of the bottles that hadn't been knocked over by his slumber. He glanced to see if there was liquid in it first before knocking it back down his throat. How he had gotten the copious amounts of this particular drink he was not aware of anymore. After finishing the last gulp, he tossed the bottle aside creating a loud 'PEENK PONK CLANK' as it hit the wall, and fell to the floor.
Corbyn decided it was time that he acquired items that satiated his current appetite. As well as get a cup of coffee. Corbyn made his way over to the door. As he exited the living room the lights automatically flicked off, and the hall lights flicked on due to his presence; something quite normal for Corbyn to expect from his room. He looked into the mirror nearby on the wall and scrubbed his teeth with his finger. After his hygiene routine, he grabbed his jacket off of the wall-mounted coat hanger. Slipping it on, he checked the pockets of his jeans for his wallet, cell, and his other articles. He shrugged, opening his front door and stepped out into the corridor.
The elevator dinged as it reached its destination. The doors slid open and Corbyn stepped out of the elevator getting very tired of the music playing within it. This annoyance soon drifted away as he realized that his anticipation for the rich goodness in a plastic cup got even stronger. He was so close that he could almost taste the flavors. He glanced around the food court-like area that he was familiar with, and began making his way to his favorite coffee shop: 'Husky's Beans'. Now, it was not intentional by the owner for this coffee shop to sound absolutely ridiculous. In actuality, the name has been constantly misjudged by newcomers to this particular food center. The coffee shop itself is less popular than others, but it makes up for its name with drinks that are incredibly high-quality; perfect for its minor amount of customers. Corbyn enjoyed it mostly due to the fact that it wasn't as popular as the other shops. Not just in this food center, but many of the others as well. As he made his way to his cup of coffee, unbeknownst to him there was a lack of people ordering food, chatting, and sitting on the tables. All that could be heard was the semi-modern music being played from the speakers in the ceiling. Upon arriving at the counter of the shop this became apparent to him.
Corbyn couldn't help but ask out loud: "Hellooooo?"
He peered over the counter, and looked at the employee doorway just behind the counter.
"Hey, Husky! Husky you in there bud?"
He turned around in confusion scratching his head. He shrugged and took a few steps over to the nearest table, but ended up stumbling over an object on the floor and falling over. When he reached out to catch his fall, his hands slipped when they reached the floor. He collapsed onto his chin with a groan. He looked at his hands wondering what made him fail. On his hands was a crimson fluid he knew all too well. He scrambled to his feet out of fright, smearing more blood in the pool that was already present on the ground and in turn creating more smears. He looked at where he laid just before noticing a body, then another, and another as the count of bodies kept increasing as he noticed them. Corbyn started to panic. Their bodies, mutilated and massacred. Their necks were torn open and blood stained ripped clothes and flesh. Corbyn backed up into the counter, and gripped the edge. What the hell happened in this place?
As he viewed his surroundings in shock, he began to think he was crazy. None of this could be real, it couldn't be. He glanced around, looking at people's failed attempts to survive whatever horror came through this place. Was the whole station like this? Corbyn wanted to bring words out of his mouth, but he couldn't. He quickly began to gather his thoughts and his next plan, but before he could even come up with a plan he heard a plethora of footfalls coming from a corridor nearby. Corbyn turned his attention to this corridor noticing that a large group of people were coming towards him. He likely attracted their attention. Corbyn knew it was safe to assume that either these people were the ones to do the killing, or they were a group who would most likely believe that Corbyn had done the killings.
He needed to think fast.
The station was not dead. Everywhere, there was still movement, and movement is life, correct? And yet it was all so inhuman. Shambling, running, screaming, crawling... Blood spattered everywhere, as well as some other strange compounds.
Anarchy reigned. While some were methodical, cooperative, and peaceful, others were savages. This could not by any strretch apply just to the biocontaminants. The unafflicted looted, killed, stole. No one could stop them; the security officers were all busy fighting off the contaminants in a losing battle, and my own security drones were far too few and far between to stop the mass disorder. I had already taken the liberty of locking down and even depressurizing small rooms where anticitizens were looting, disposing of them, but it was not nearly enough, and I still had to be conservative about my power usage.
And yet, now, I saw the bands of survivor slowly diminishing, and the station slowly grew quieter. Less uninfected roaming about, and in smaller groups.
Perhaps something useful could be performed.
The survivors were, for the most part, bland and uninteresting, reacting just as expected. Here was a young girl, her parents lost in an entirely different part of the ship, and she all alone. Here was a young man, panicking at the location of a coffee shop filled with blood. To expend the energy to try and advise them all would be... wasteful. My resources were finite, after all.
Yet, one survivor did interest me. This was a young cargo worker by the name of Harold Carter. As with all other survivors, he had been under my synthetic gaze for some time now; in this time, he had employed a guitar as a weapon, secured himself into the technical exosuits available for his department, and then ejected himself onto the exterior of the Aibell to escape the biocontaminants.
Resourcefulness interested me, because resourcefulness could save me.
Thus, while he remained still inside his exosuit (having cameras implanted inside all the exosuits was a good choice), I took the liberty of contacting him via the radio module of the suit.
"Citizen Carter, Harold. I have taken notice of your plight, and it is the system's belief that a mutually beneficial agreement could be drafted and executed. It involves the survival of both of our physical forms. What you cannot do, I can. What I cannot do, you can. Your compliance will be appreciated."
Corybn has been in worse situations than this. But then again, he hasn't been in a situation where someone wanted to kill him, let alone a group. Corbyn didn't really have a plan, so he decided he'd go with his first thought. He hopped the counter, and got to work. Corbyn knew exactly what he wanted, and nothing was going to stop him from acquiring it.
He quickly began to make the drink in which he desired greatly at this moment. Corbyn could potentially work at this place if he wasn't so inclined to avoid work. He checked the grinder if it had grounds in it, which it did. He took the cup off of the expresso maker and filled it with grounds. After locking the cup into place he let it create expresso into a medium-sized plastic cup that was already placed underneath.
Corbyn whipped around to see what progress the murderers were making on his position. Oh, looks like they're- halfway.. "Oh shit! Oh shit!" Corbyn sped up his process, he snatched up the vanilla syrup and pumped in three pumps of the syrup. He tossed the bottle of syrup off to the side where it splattered all over the floor. Rapidly, he steamed up soymilk that he pulled from the fridge and got it to the perfect temperature. He poured in the steamed milk slowly whilst he panicked to himself. "Oh fuck me. Hurry up, hurry up." Why was coffee so important to him again? He sprinkled some cinnamon on top of the drink generously and lidded the cup.
He took a quick sip before he dashed away. He ran as fast as he could with a cup in his hand to the elevators, but when he reached them he heard a ding. He stopped and turned in his tracks as several deformed people came bursting from the elevators to chase Corbyn down. Corbyn was stopped again when he realized that there were other people from the larger group that had started running after him. He turned again, but this time headed over to the other set of elevators. He ran up to elevators and kicked the elevator summoner.
He bobbed impatiently, but heard no sign of an elevator coming up or down to him. Corbyn kicked the button again and yelled out: "What the fuck!?" The deformed were gaining on him leaving him no choice but to abandon the safety of the elevator and run over to a gazebo in the center of the food center. He managed to dodge an attack without spilling his drink. Corbyn stylishly hopped onto the railing of the gazebo and placed his cup on the lip of the roof. He jumped back and pulled himself upward just in time to avoid the charging group.
"Ahahah! Nothing stops me from getting my vanilla latte! Not even you douchers!" After taunting the group, Corbyn receded to the top of the gazebo where it was safer. He took a large gulp of his less-than manly drink of his but he was satisfied with his success. There was one problem, the people below him were not attempting to climb up to capture him. Instead, they were wandering around the gazebo aimlessly. Corbyn began to believe that he wasn't hiding from normal people anymore. These guys needed a name, in fact, looking at them they resembled he saw in a random indie film. They were called zombies. Corbyn came to the decision that he would call these guys, and anyone that looked like them, zombies.
Now, if "zombies" were present on the station. Then, clearly, something had been wrong for quite a while. Corbyn was lucky to still be alive, he could have been killed in his sleep! This also explains why the elevator wasn't working, and what the people he saw outside of his apartment were panicking about. That means he knocked one of them out! "Aw yeah!" Corbyn threw a fist into the air as he accomplished another triumphant success. He took another gulp of his latte. Now he needed a plan to get out of the new situation he found himself in.
This human; Mr. Carter; was already questioning perhaps the last surviving authority on the station. The simple fact that he was opposed to the world compliance was a subtle indicator of that. Either that, or unbeknownst to me, a logic processor somewhere had been compromised. No matter.
"An unidentified ballistic missile hit us recently. Payload; biological. Coincidental; impossible. Signal jammers aboard it were attuned directly to the frequency of the station's early warning systems. This is no mere act of insurgency; this was directed assault. Hull breach is, by station orientation, approximately... two kilometres west of your position. Extraction of the missile would be wasteful, but to note is that the nearby Solar Array #7 has been damaged. I require you to make repairs."
As I awaited his response, I moved my attentions to other parts of the station. However, something pecked at me.
The elevators were nonfunctional.
I ran a deep scan of the station integrity. Some elevators were most certainly damaged, but something else was present too; a line of code which I had never authorized.
Complete elevator shutdown.
I began scanning the encrypted high-priority transmission logs; someone had activated a global elevator lockdown without my notice or authorization. Whoever they were, they were an expert; they had buried their identity and position between layers and layers and layers of proxies, false tunnels, and firewalls. For any human, this would be daunting to crack.
I am not so weak.
I began digging agressively almost immediately; I would find the source, and I would re-establish my dominion.
Corbyn sat atop the gazebo and pondered his new plan to escape the situation he found himself in. See, he had never had a problem this stressful in his life. Regardless of this, he was not going to go out like a loser sitting atop a gazebo with a decently made vanilla latte.
Corbyn reached inside of his jacket and whipped out his balisong. He opened it with a basic aerial and started flipping it to pass the time. He attempted to perform a zen rollover, but ended up nicking himself with the blade. "Ow! Fuck me!" He inspected his finger only to realize that it hadn't even bit that far into his finger, more like a scratch. This gave him a bright idea. He finished off his latte and tossed it over the edge where it landed on a "zombie's" head and bounced to the floor. He looked at the blade of the balisong and then looked at the placement of all of his foes below him.
Most of them were stationary at this point where he could probably make a break for it, but he was sure to get overwhelmed if he just ran for it without a full plan. Back towards the elevators there were only a few who gave up chasing him the earliest. If he could get over there faster than the "zombies" below him could reach him than he could make enough time to rid of the ones blocking the elevators. In turn, he could have another go at getting the elevators to work.
Corbyn made the assumption and the conclusion that it was worth a shot for him to at least try. He flipped his balisong to an ice pick grip, and he stood up and looked over the edge again. He took a few steps back before he dashed forward and took a large leap over the few "zombies" that were stacked below and landed around 2 meters behind them. When he hit the ground he stumbled, and fell into a roll where he recovered and kept running. He ran with all of his strength with the balisong at his side. He was around halfway, nearly getting sidelined by another "zombie" that was chasing after him.
Corbyn whipped around clotheslining it, and knocking it to the floor. He dashed onward, and took a glance behind him. Plenty of time. Once he got close to the elevators, the three between him and his escape had noticed him and charged. Corbyn ducked into the first one, which tripped over itself when it attempted to lunge at him. He charged the second one and ducked below its chin thrusting, his balisong up below the jaw. He immediately pulled the blade and shouldered his opponent into the third charging "zombie". Both of them tumbled to the ground and Corbyn made a break for the elevators.
All four of the elevators were closed shut. He slammed on the call button and turned to look at the pursuers gaining on him. Only panic could set in at this point and he grabbed at the elevator doors. Pulling his arms apart he used all he had left in him to attempt to pull the doors open to no avail.
"Grrr! C-C'mon!"
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