Issue 1 Downtime

Sara had brought the signal amplification device with the piece of clay stuck to it back to her lab. She hated that she knew this, or worse, was going to try something along those lines herself, but thanks to Faultline she knows that removing a piece of clay form Will at least had the potential to become a seemingly equal copy. Which means that this piece of clay might have witnessed what happened before they dragged Will away. All she had to do was find a way to get it to talk to her.

So now the clay was rigged with a multitude of electrical probes, every scanner she could find pointed at it while she fiddles with the controls, trying to turn the nerve signals still weakly firing inside the 'clay' into a picture or a sound or any kind of useful information.

There were, in fact, some signals there, but very, very weak.

She tries to up the sensitivity and gain to boost the signal read-out, basically turning up the volume.

The signal could be enhanced, it looked like, as the signals got a bit stronger with the increased amperage.

With a signal to work with she tries to see if she can convert it into anything useful by reversing the modulations she uses to control the cells to try and decode the signals.

Everything was fuzzy and faded in and out, and in this case, the picture was entirely blacked out, but something was coming through.

"..ts...l..ter fr.. N..ure..."

"Lets what later from where?" she mumbles and fiddles with the controls to clear up the signal.

Still no picture.

"Moth.. Nat..e?"

That was Will's voice.

"Holy crap, it's working! But why are they talking about nature...?"

She double checks to see if the computer is saving the signals and keeps going.

Again, muffled inflection.

"N., the p..lish..g gro... ...s only ..e of th. bigg..t sc..nt..ic jo..nals th..e is..."

"That... that's me, isn't it? Damn, that's too old. How do i get to short-term memories?" she talks to herself, trying a different amplitude to stimulate the clay.

This time there was a view of...well, it looked like a bunch of feet, and the bottom of a bunch of equipment and things.

"W..l y.. d..'t ..en kn.. wh.. ...s f... Why w..ld y.. w..t ..e?"

"Know what? Wait?" she mumbles, chewing on her lip as she tries to make out what's being said. "This must be it though..."

"Do yo.. hav.. any conc...ns I might be abl. to answ.. for yo.. Sar.."

Was that Stan?

"Huh? Is that still the same memory?" she asks herself, trying to remember all her conversations with Stan.

The image, though still fuzzy, kept moving back and forth oddly, and her voice came through again.

".... don't th..k so. ... me.., I hav.. no id.. wh.. to ..pect, to b.. hon..t, s.. I'm m..tly just w..ri.. if th.. is g..ng t.. work. N.. that .. want t.. say .. don't tr..t yo.. t.. be abl.. t.. solv.. th.., prof..sor! J..t... what .. ther... n..hing of W..l's body st..k ins..e m.., what th..? Us..lly .. can t..l if .. still h..e som..hing ..sorb....."

"Oh shoot! That's from when we were stuck together. Wrong way..." She adjusts the signal in the other direction again.

A fuzzy view of outside somewhere -- leaves, grass.

"...mn, h...'s ...eavy.....I t...ght y.... ..d his ma... was var...ble."

"Now we're getting somewhere..." she frowns at the image of who she can only assume are the bastards who took Will.

"Ye...wel...ma..be it'...a jok... on y..."

"Bast..."

There were clearly two of them, and now the view switched to the interior of the church.

"Okay so they got him in front of the church and dragged him inside. That means someone might have seen them..."

"...'ll we do with him now?"

"It."

"It?"

"It."

"...k, w..t do we d... ..ith it ...ow?"

"I."

"I?"

"I."

*BANG*

"Those bloody monsters..." she grits her teeth. "Come on, please have heard something to help me find you, Will..."

"I...ve the package. Re...sting ....ckup,"

There was jostling for a second as a giant hand came up and scooped up (what must be) the lump of clay Sara and Madrox found.

"...'re going to be ha.d to er.se, but no..ing is too ha.d f.. Black Air."

"Black Air? What's Black Air...?"

And that was wen she got Madrox' message.