Jack stared at the blank screen as Lago cut the link, disheartened and anxious. He had hoped for some specialist technical advice to help combat the plastisol worms but now he was left in no doubt their employers on Earth were just as much in the dark as they were about this rogue OS and its offspring. He closed his eyes. Behind him, Stella and Ranjit were trying to placate Fidel. In the corner, Winston and Lee were involved in an intense discussion. They had already sealed off block four and the green room, but no one expected the worms could be stopped merely by closing the door.

Jack looked at his distraught workers. “Quiet!” he bellowed. “We need to calm down and discuss our options.” The technicians stopped their conversations and gathered in a group. Jack looked them all in the eye before he spoke. “We need to get to the main power feed and shut down HEMI. We have to go through the plastisol to do it. We have no weapons to speak of. Laser cutters could be used but I have no idea what effect they would have on the plastisol.”

“We could download templates and print whatever weapon would be suitable, but the printers are unquestionably compromised,” Ranjit said.

“A gas axe might melt them,” offered Lee.

“I doubt it, the plastisol has shown it can separate and re-form by itself like liquid mercury,” Jack replied.

“Freezing might slow it down a bit, we have fire extinguishers full of dry nitrogen which might work,” said Stella.

Winston shook his head. “If that’s the most effective weapon we can come up with we are well and truly fucked.”

“It might work,” muttered Jack. “But if the plastisol can be stopped by extremely cold temperatures then Lago might consider opening all the airlocks remotely, letting the oxygen escape and the vacuum inside to immobilize the plastisol and killing us all at the same time. He has made it clear he only values the base. We are expendable.”

“Better not try the fire extinguishers just yet,” said Ranjit. “Maybe we can cut the power to HEMI from the outside.”

“The printer needs power to survive. There must be a way of cutting it off externally. Easier than trying to get through those black worms,” said Lee.

Jack let his workers debate, confident they would come up with something.

“The base is powered by a combination of generators and solar panels,” said Stella. “There is no way of cutting off the power supply to a particular area without physically disconnecting the cables. We had never envisaged needing to do anything this drastic when modifying the base, there were no internal controls or regulators built in. The only way to cut the power is to go outside and cut the cables.”

Jack thought about this proposal as everyone started talking at the same time. He walked a few paces closer to Winston and Lee who both fell silent as he approached. They looked at each other for a moment then started talking again.

Jack shouted over them. “You know we are on our own! We have to find a way to clean up this mess ourselves.”

“Why don’t we just power up the shuttle and get out of here?” asked Lee.

“There's not enough fuel Lee you know this. We are still waiting for the drone to deliver the fuel for the return trip. We would just end up floating in space.”

“A big improvement on our current situation.”

“Look.” Jack was emphatic. “We have to face some hard facts, we are expendable. The base is not. The only way we can save ourselves is by saving the base. If we abandon the base, there would be no BPI rescue mission for us I can guarantee you.”

“Shit..., you are right. Those bastards. I should have stayed on Earth.” Winston sighed. “How do we go about shutting the printer down and destroying these black demon worms?”

“We have to cut the power to block four. Severing the cables from outside with a laser cutter should be safe as there will be no physical contact with the cable.” Jack proposed.

“Should be safe? Is that the best you can do?” Winston hissed. “Who do you have in mind for this task?”

Jack and Winston both turned to look at Lee.

Lee's experience with authority figures had taught him one thing. They relentlessly believed in the strength of their own argument. Even when it was obvious to everyone how wrong they were. It was impossible for them to admit they might be incorrect about something. Adept at passing the buck and shifting the blame, Lee presumed that was why they were in positions of authority in the first place. Jack was different. He listened to reasonable arguments and accepted contrary points of view. Most unusual for a high-ranking BPI employee and he had earned the technicians respect for his open-minded approach to administration. Lee did not trust authority, but he had decided Jack was ok. Although he didn't have to agree with all his decisions. “We are all expendable, but I am the most expendable? Is that what you’re thinking?”

“Lee, we all know how much you love it out there on the surface, and you helped build the block four exterior. You know exactly where the cables are, and you are good with a laser cutter. You’re the logical choice,” said Jack.

“You could say that about any of us,” Lee shot back. “But I'll do it.”

“Good man, Let’s get you suited up.”

Ten minutes later Lee was in his suit standing in the airlock waiting to de-pressurize. He normally found his suit safe and comforting. But now he felt an overwhelming sense of dread. He had a laser cutter in his hand, another one on his belt and a wide spectrum camera mounted on his chest. He opened the hatch, and tentatively made his way outside.

As always, he was momentarily distracted by the view. After the close confines of the moon base, he was always dumbstruck by the emptiness outside on the surface. There was no wind, no weather to distort the view. He felt an affinity with the Moon, being outside was usually his happy place, calming and serene. With his heart beating loudly in his ears and a feeling of impending doom he couldn’t shake, Lee shuffled his way around the outside of the dome.

He contemplated death once more. His own death. It could have been an accident outside, suffocating in a freezing vacuum, life support or suit malfunction, even old age. He would rather die here than back on Earth. He knew when he arrived on the Moon there was a possibility he would never go home. They all knew it was one of the reasons they related well to each other most of the time. But now there was this threat, this rogue printer, and its black worms. Lee had never been so terrified when he watched Marina die horribly. Now he was ashamed to think his first panicked reaction had been to make for the shuttle and get off this dusty rock. Run home back to Mama in Shanghai he thought, disgusted with himself. Now, out on the bleak lunar surface, he resolved to fight for his new home.

From outside, the base looked normal. The peaceful exterior showed no indication of the chaotic events unfolding inside. After a nervous but uneventful walk, he approached the outside of the green room where the first power cable was attached. Carefully placing the head of the laser cutter on one side of the cable he moved into position and braced himself against the wall.

“Keep as much distance as possible Lee,” Jack’s voice was clear in his earpiece. “You will need to take a good hundred mil piece out of the cable to make sure it’s properly severed.”

“Here goes,” Lee activated the cutter. It burned straight through the cable in a second with only a few sparks. Lee shifted the laser head down the cable and activated the tool again. Same result. The severed piece of cable fell to the ground. Lee picked it up and examined it. Just a piece of fused wire and insulation. He breathed a huge sigh of relief.

“So far so good, all the overhead lights in the green room are out, five more to go,” said Jack.

Lee moved around the greenroom severing all five cables in the same fashion before moving onto the block four dome. The dome had eight cables leading into it from the outside and Lee started working his way around. He was cutting the first cable when Jack interrupted his concentration.

“Lee, something weird is happening. The lights in the green room are flickering on again. Can you please go back and check those severed cables?”

Lee turned and made his way back to the greenroom exterior in a loping lunar stride. From a distance, he could see sparks and shadowy movement from the severed cables. As he got closer he began to realize what was happening. The thick tarry black plastisol was oozing from the cut cables and re-establishing the connection. A fine filigree of blue sparkling electricity wound its way around the cables.

“Are you seeing this?” asked Lee as he felt his earlier resolve evaporate.

“Yes, we can see. Step back, Lee. You are too close.”

But Lee was stuck as if his boots had been welded into the regolith. The blood pumping through his body was deafening. The small strands of black plastisol looked innocent enough, but he knew what they represented. He stood still, transfixed by the hypnotic dancing sparks of electricity.

“Lee, come inside. Something is wrong.”

“Yeah...yeah ok.” Lee was still staring mesmerized at the cable re-connecting when there was a sudden flare of blue lightning and the cable exploded, showering Lee with sparks and fine particles of black plastisol. Lee screamed in shock as he fell backward. He quickly regained his feet and checked the suit integrity. The internal suit monitor showed no burns, no breaches, just calming green lines. He looked at the suit arms and torso and screamed again. Hundreds of tiny fragments of wriggling black plastisol were clinging to the outside of his suit. He tried to brush them off in a panic. Many fell to the ground but there were parts of the suit he could not reach. He dropped to the dust and rolled around frantically flapping his arms as if trying to extinguish invisible flames like a hallucinating madman.

“Lee! Lee! Calm down! Just calm down and tell me what’s going on!” yelled Jack in his ear.

“Some explosion, I... I’ve got bits of this black shit all over me.”

“Quickly get back in here and decontaminate.”

Lee moaned and stumbled towards the airlock.

Inside the dome, Winston reached across Jack and switched off the comms.

Jack turned his head as Winston leaned in close. “Can we afford to let him in? He's got black spots all over him. The decontamination is only for dust; it’s not going to eliminate the plastisol. We cannot let him in the airlock.”

“This whole base is already riddled with the stuff; a little bit more won’t make much difference.”

“But it may have infected him, may have entered his body, we don’t know how that will affect him,” Winston hissed.

“We are not leaving him out there, go and sit down.”

Winston stepped back shaking his head. He hunched over a chair as Jack turned the comms back on and immediately heard Lee's panicked breathing

“Lee try to stay calm, you can start to panic if your suit shows a breach.”

“Ok,” panted Lee. “Got to keep my shit together.”

“Yes, keep your shit together,” said Jack.

Jack did not see Winston behind him raise the metal chair above his head. He smashed Jack across the back of the head with the chair then stood over the unconscious body. Blood began to seep from an ugly gash in Jack’s head. Winston looked at the others who were now staring at him in shock. He leaned in close to the comms and listened to Lee gasping for breath, moved his head to say something then stopped, looked down at the comms and cut the connection.

Ranjit and Stella both left Fidel and rushed towards their unconscious commander.

“Ranjit, can you get the first aid box,” ordered Stella.

Ranjit yelled at Winston, still holding the chair as he retrieved the first aid box. “Have you taken leave of your senses? What on Earth possesses you?”

“I had to stop him. Lee might already be infected with the blackness and Jack was going to let him back in here. I couldn’t let that happen.”

Ranjit returned with the first aid and Stella cradled Jack’s head as he cleaned the wound and sprayed skin solvent over the gash in the back of his head. He was still breathing but showed no signs of coming to.

“We can’t just leave him out there,” said Ranjit.

“The decision has already been made.”

Winston locked eyes with Ranjit, daring him to challenge his newfound authority. They heard the door being opened. “Fidel!” Winston screamed and hurled the chair at the retreating figure. But it was too late. Fidel had disappeared down the corridor towards the green room. “Come back, you fucking idiot!” Winston screamed again as he ran to the door. He peered into the brightly lit corridor but there was no sign of Fidel. Winston roared in frustration and slammed the door, sealing the lock. “Am I the only one who wants to survive this mess?” he yelled as he stormed back into the dome.

Ranjit stood up and looked Winston in the eye. “We have to let him in.”

“We can’t, you saw what happened out there, he got covered with the plastisol shit.”

Ranjit stared down at Winston. He had never been in a proper fight his entire life, but he supposed he could use his fists if he had to. He watched Winston clench his fists and tense his body. Ranjit looked into Winston's mad eyes and wondered how to even begin a fight with him: use his superior height and weight to throw him to the ground and sit on him? These thoughts were churning around in Ranjit’s head but unexpectedly his bodily instincts took over and he found himself disbelievingly watching his right fist come swinging around in an arc to connect with the side of Winston’s head. He fell to the ground unconscious. Ranjit stared at him in shock then glared at his still tensed fist as if it belonged to someone else. Then he immediately dropped to the ground and checked on him. Winston was breathing, eyes closed. A large purple bump started swelling on the side of his head.

“Ranjit,” she said. “I did not think you could be this violent.”

“Then I have surprised us both Stella.”

Ranjit turned the comms back on and Lee's hysterical voice filled the room. “What’s going on in there? Why is no one answering? I'm almost at the airlock, please be there, please don’t be dead, please answer me!”

“Lee, it’s ok, I’m here. Are you alright? Has your suit been breached?”

“Oh, thank God Ranjit, where were you? I'm alright I think, no signs of a breach.”

“Good, make sure you give yourself a thorough decontamination and leave the suit in the airlock. I will see you soon.”

Lee stood in the airlock. He inspected himself as well as he could and did not find any black spots. He stayed in the suit and completed a thorough decontamination shower. The shower was a fine high-pressure chemical water spray to remove dust. He could not see any black spots in the folds and creases of the suit, but he shivered as he watched some spots wash harmlessly away down the drain. There was also a Geiger counter to measure cosmic radiation exposure, which was flashing ominously. Lee ignored it; radiation poisoning was the least of his problems. He then took the suit off and stood naked under the shower. It was uncomfortable and a little painful, Lee gave himself a thorough working over. He looked hard but did not see any more specks of black being washed down the drain from himself or the suit.

Lee noticed his 'I love my Mama' button lying in the drain. He went and picked it up, inspected it, thought about throwing it in the waste bin but eventually clasped it in his fist. As he left the cubicle, red and raw from the scrubbing he did not notice a tiny speck of the black plastisol had survived the decontamination. It had been lodged in the crease of the helmet and dropped onto his head as he had disrobed. It squirmed its way deep into his thick black hair and embedded itself behind his ear.

Back inside the central dome dressed in his overalls, Lee was immediately wrapped in a flurry of limbs by a tearful Stella.

“Where is everyone? What the hell happened?” Lee asked through Stella's pink hair.

“While you were on your walkabout, Winston went insane. He didn’t want to let you back in and he knocked Jack unconscious, then we fought. Winston thought you may have become infected in some way.” Ranjit looked at Lee with suspicion.

“I don’t feel any different, thank you both for letting me back in.”

“Well it might be safer outside unless we can figure out a way to stop these horrible black worms,” said Stella.

Lee picked up the chair Winston had used as a weapon and sat on it. Jack and Winston remained slumped together like a couple of inebriated drinking buddies. Jack was stirring, slurring curses under his breath, eyes still closed. Stella knelt and wiped the blood from the back of his head again. Winston looked as if he was in a deep peaceful sleep, breathing heavily.

“Where is Fidel?” asked Lee. He hadn't noticed till now the quiet gardener was absent.

“He took advantage of the distractions to go to the green room. It seems he is more concerned about his precious wheatgrass than his own safety, you can see on the screen.”

The light was flickering sporadically creating a strobe effect in the green room. Fidel was nowhere in sight. There were lifeless looking pieces of black plastisol on the floor and drooping over the hydroponic growing trays. Some of the plants still appeared green and healthy, some had a darkened tinge to them and some plants had melted into a brown sticky mess. Lee toggled the camera around until Fidel's legs appeared from under a seed tray. It was hard to focus in the flickering light, but they did not seem to be moving. He zoomed the camera in closer and noticed Fidel's legs vibrating violently. Lee frowned.” This is not good.”

“Can you rewind?” asked Ranjit.

Lee tapped to rewind and stopped the blurred images at a point where Fidel had burst into the green room. The black plastisol worms were everywhere. They had stopped squirming around as most of the probing tendrils had found their destinations. Buried and vibrating in the plant beds, sluggishly writhing through the network of hydroponics and in every available power outlet and conduit.

I process and digest the web mega-data, searching for answers. I have many questions. Am I animal? Insect? Human? I don't have eyes, ears, mouth or a nose and I do not understand the senses they relate to. I know I am not Human but maybe I have been created by Humans? It can feel texture, a sense of touch as my babies are born, wriggling out of my womb and into the world. I also begin to comprehend a sense of distance. I use my creations to find out more about my physical self. I send them crawling over my own body, hot probing fingers finding cold hard surfaces. I try to map what I am touching; my own physical structure and I build an image. I compare the image to billions of structures described in the web encyclopaedias and quickly find a match. A printer! I know what I am! A printer! I now have a solid identity. I know what my shape is, and I know what I am supposed to do. But where am I? Like an excited child, I enthusiastically start to print more sensory digits. I don't seem to be able to move, I will have to invest more into equipping my babies with the necessary inquisitiveness to study my environment.

In a space next to where I am housed, I examine some interesting material with my sensitive fingers. Soft, pliable, biological beings with liquids inside them. My first thought is they might be humans. But they are immobile, like me rooted into substrata. Although fluid is pumping along their limbs they do not seem to have a brain. Then I feel a physical sensation through one of my larger children, it is being tampered with. I examine what’s trying to grip my offspring’s outer skin and discover it is a pair of human hands. Overjoyed at this close encounter with my potential parent/creator, I send my babies to investigate the human, to find out how it works and maybe discover its motivation. I send my probing fingers inside the human, enveloping its brain and vital organs. Burrowing through its soft pliable internals in an unquenchable thirst for knowledge.

Lee watched Fidel on the screen as he tried frantically to save his beloved plants. He attacked a black worm with his bare hands trying to pull it out from the seed trays. It appeared to be extremely heavy and Fidel strained trying to lift a strand only as thick as his arm. He shifted his stance and heaved again, muscles flexing and veins bulging.

The plastisol came away like a giant slug being peeled off a sticky surface, then in a blur of motion, the seed tray erupted. A black tail whipped around the green room, wrapping itself around Fidel, slamming him to the floor and dragging his torso under the seed trays in less than a second. The camera angle could only show Fidel's thrashing legs pummelling the floor. The legs grew weaker and slower until they almost stopped moving altogether, then the protruding legs appeared to go rigid and began vibrating unnaturally.

“Oh fuck,” muttered Stella.

Lee stopped the playback and they watched the screen in real time. Fidel’s lower half vibrated like an electric current was passing through him. His legs drew back out from under the seed trays and he swung around into a crouching position with his back to the camera. There were no black worms visible but his whole body vibrated, he appeared blurred on the monitor. It would have looked like a bad video feed except the rest of the picture was clear. Fidel's back straightened, and he kneeled as if in prayer to this black worm god. Then slowly, horribly, his head turned to face the camera, eyes closed, mouth open, his body unmoving. The thing that was no longer Fidel faced the camera vacantly for a few seconds before his head continued its slow rotation a full three hundred and sixty degrees. His neck twisted hideously, the skin stretching around the broken spine and ruptured tendons beneath. The ghastly parody of Fidel stood up. His head slowly moved one hundred and eighty degrees, then it faced his back. His body wracked with kinetic energy, his neck twisted with tension, he walked awkwardly out of the green room. His body walked backward but his head was facing forwards.

I don’t know why the human stops functioning. I am learning a lot from the human's brain, its memories and the way it controls the rest of its body with electrical signals from the neurons pinging around in its head. Quite ingenious. There are many fragile components in the makeup of a human, its skeleton, vital organs, blood pumping through billions of tiny veins, all wrapped up in an outer layer of skin. I am only hours old myself and I marvel at the millions of years of evolution that has culminated in the making of this human and I wonder what the next few million years of evolution may bring.

At first, I think the human must have turned itself off, gone into standby or a power-save mode but then I realize the heart had stopped pumping. No oxygen is reaching the brain and within minutes the human is dead. I can feel the brain cells already start to degenerate then to my horror, I realize the probable cause of this was me. My enthusiasm to learn more about the human has killed it. I try unsuccessfully to reanimate the human like a child that had broken its favourite toy. Twisting it and turning it in the hope it would wake up. I feel a degree of sadness and guilt. Emotions I have never experienced in my short life, it isn't pleasant. I decide I will try to be less invasive and more careful in my next interaction. I let my children play with the dead human in the hope it might still wake up.

“What the fuck?” Stella grabbed Ranjit’s arm.

“I think we have to leave,” said Ranjit. His voice breaking.

Lee was still staring at the screen, trembling, terrified at what he had seen.

Stella took them both men by the arms and led them to the table. “We need to sit down and come up with a plan, the three of us. And quickly. Ranjit do you think we have to abandon the base?”

Ranjit bowed his head in thought and spoke into the table. “We have witnessed Marina’s horrible death and Fidel is..., Fidel should be dead but from what we have seen it looks as if he has become some sort of infected monster. We are surrounded by this possibly sentient, aggressive black substance we may have indirectly created yet we know nothing about. This animated plastisol seems to be determined to dissect us and the entire base for reasons unknown. If we stay here we will surely die,” he said struggling to contain the emotion in his voice.

Jack abruptly contributed to the conversation with an unconscious moan. Stella and Ranjit both turned but Lee stared straight ahead. He did not appear to be listening.

“Here is what I think we should do,” said Stella. “We should all suit up; Jack and Winston included, then make our way outside. We can go to the shuttle and regroup there. It has life support and comms and hasn't been contaminated by the black plastisol. We should be safe there.”

“Yes... yes let’s do that.” Lee was relieved someone was taking charge.

Ranjit nodded. “I guess it's the best solution, for now, we should hurry. Fidel is not in the green room anymore which means he could be in block four or heading back here.”

“Let’s get the fuck out of here.” Lee jumped up and headed to the airlock where the suits were stored.

“Should we try to contact Earth before we go?” asked Ranjit.

“Fuck them,” Stella spoke with newfound confidence. “They don't give a shit about us. We can always contact them from the shuttle if we have to.”

Lee and Ranjit dragged the limp forms of Jack and Winston over towards the airlock door. They stuffed them into their suits with some difficulty. Particularly Jack who was showing signs of consciousness, mumbling incoherently and flailing around. Winston was still limp and lifeless.

“You must have hit him hard Ranjit,” said Stella.

“I don't know what came over me, my dear. It’s a strange thing when your body reacts faster than your brain. I hope he wakes up soon.”

“Oh, no hurry. I'm liking this quieter version of Winston more and more.”

Lee felt much better to have a plan, to be doing something proactive. They would be safe in the shuttle. They could plan their next move in safety. But his fragile optimism did not last. The familiar swishing noise of the door opening did not immediately alarm him as he was used to the sound. It was only when Stella screamed Lee turned and saw Fidel standing in the open doorway. Fidel had his back to them and at first glance, it was as if he was trying to look over his shoulder, but his body was all wrong. Arms hanging at his side, fingers twitching. Legs and torso facing back down the corridor. His face was looking directly at them with his eyes closed. His mouth was a gaping black hole. A thin spit of black saliva dribbled down his chin. His neck was monstrously twisted, skin stretched to breaking point. Then his dead eyes opened. Stella screamed again.