Posted by TT on 12/5/2007, 1:32 pm
86.135.46.154
As they made their way through the building to the offices at the back their surroundings seemed to take a trip into the twilight zone. Metal structures all around them had frozen drips of molten metal where they’d cooled like Salvador Dali’s picture of Melting Clocks, vat’s were bent and buckled out of shape, scorch marks were blazed into the wall and a car had been sliced into pieces and welded together again.
“Almost looks as if the welder was trying to be artistic?” muttered Lestrade as she weaved around the various scattered obstacles on the floor. Holmes didn’t reply as he examined the car sculpture minutely and then chose a route parallel to Lestrade’s that infuriatingly took half the time to negotiate.
As she scrambled over the last piece of frozen equipment she finally caught sight of the office doors and a distressed police officer standing outside. When Lestrade explained they were there to take over the interviewing the man practically hugged them.
“I can’t tell you how glad I am that you’re here.” He said dry washing his hands nervously. “I can’t tell whether those two are lying or not without Hal.”
“Hal being?”
“My interview partner.” The man stammered. “I’ve been using him for years now. A modified secretary droid series 6 and a wonder to boot, I just can’t seem to remember how to do this without him.” Friday confided, then seemed to realise what he was saying and recovered himself. Clearing his throat to hide his embarrassment, he handed her a paper notepad and pen with the confused notes he’d managed to make.
“The two men were the only ones in the building when this all went haywire. One Harvey Johnson and a Liam Nicks both garage workers overseeing the droids, no priors on either of them.”
“From the looks of his scrawl I bet Hal does the writing as well.” Lestrade said as officer Friday picked his way back to the front of the building.
“We shouldn’t be too hard on him Lestrade, this is an unusual situation we find ourselves in.”
Lestrade shrugged nonchalantly and pushed through the doors to the main office.
Harvey Johnson and Liam Nicks jolted upright in their chairs as Lestrade came though the doors. At first glance they seemed to typify the garage workers of New London. Johnson was a young man who if he had been standing would have towered over Lestrade and Holmes both. Muscles bulged on his arms where his overalls cut off and it was no leap of logic for Lestrade to assume he did most of the heavy work on the plant, at the moment one massive forearm was wrapped in silver bandages. His college Nicks was the smaller and more portly of the two, around middle aged with a sharply receding hairline and a cheap suit covered by worn overalls, he was likely to be a computer or electronics engineer. Like Friday the man was dry washing his hands and after a second she realised that Johnson was nervously tapping his leg under the table.
Holmes took the vacant chair near the back of the room, leaving Lestrade to make herself comfortable opposite the two garage workers.
“I’m Inspector Lestrade and this gentleman is Mr Holmes. We’re just going to walk you through some questions about the incident this evening.” The two men looked at one another warily, Johnson’s leg tapping became faster.
“We’ve already gone through this once lady, is this really necessary.” sighed the younger man, Lestrade gave him a tight smile before continuing.
“We’ll start at the beginning. What time and where did you notice anything…strange about the machines?” Johnson sighed and tilted his chair back against the wall, bored with the interview already, Liam Nicks however seemed to inflate with self-importance, Lestrade could only imagine how boring the man’s life was if this was exciting for him.
“I believe it began at two o’clock with the model 562 repositioning units.” Lestrade’s smile froze.
“I’m sorry, the what?” Johnson bought his chair back down to earth with a metallic bang.
“Packers and Stackers, those nut job padded arms, they’re meant to move the cars from the service area and drop ‘em on the ramp for the drivers… ”
“I think it was model 3.” Nicks chipped in not to be outdone, Johnson nodded.
“…Big Bertha. Though she weren’t piling the cars at that point, just missing the ramp.” Lestrade made a note.
“And then?” Nicks glanced at Holmes and Lestrade nervously and clenched his hands, his face whitening even so slightly, Johnson looked away and began fiddling with one end of the bandage.
“I plugged in one of our droids to repair the machines code…and…” his voice failed.
“And.” Prompted Lestrade.
“…and…” the little man scrubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, Johnson clapped him on the shoulder, taking over the speaking.
“…It began actin’ up, dropped what it was doing and went looking for others, pretty soon they were all stoppin’ work. When we went over to put them back they shut us in the office and jammed up the door.” Now Nicks was visibly shaking while Johnson’s knuckles cracked as his fists clenched. Lestrade looked up.
“Is that when you received the injury to your arm?” Johnson shook is head.
“No, they forced us in the office alright but they didn’t hurt us. Treated us rather like kids they wanted to be somewhere else." Holmes leaned forward on his chair.
“When did this change.” Nicks buried his head in his hands and began to sob uncontrollably.
“It weren’t your fault Liam. You did what you had to do.” Liam Nicks muttered something unintelligible behind his hands.
“What happened?” Johnson looked up and took in both Lestrade and Holmes in one long calculating stare. When he finally spoke his voice was thick with emotion.
“It all start going loco when Nicks tried to access the mainframe to fix the system, we thought if we could activate the computers own virus protection software everything would fix itself, or at the very worst shutdown. I don’t know when we started hearing the beam but it wasn’t long after we got the computer panel off.”
“You’re saying they turned the laser welders on you!” Liam finally looked up through bloodshot eyes as Johnson rubbed the bandage irritably.
“Those are the only pieces of equipment in the entire complex that are not computer controlled” said the little man his voice raspy with emotion. “The company cannot risk a malfunction on the 980 lasers, at full beam they could cut through the entire building, the droids had to have used them. The beam cut through the walls like butter, if Harvey hadn’t pulled me through the service hatch into the floor I’d be dead. WILL YOU STOP PLAYING WITH THAT.” Johnson dropped the edge of the bandage. The little man began shaking again and buried his head back in his hands.
“What happened next?”
“One of the automated alarm systems on the lasers went off. Five minutes later the police showed up and dropped the Stat grenade, set my teeth on edge having to walk passed all those frozen robots. I never want to see another droid as long as I live.”
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