Each of them looked at each other. Renée was the first to speak. "Do we believe anything she just said?" She slumped into a chair.

Daniel and Farah exchanged glances, joining Renee, "I don't know." Farah said. "But I think we had at least best play along for now. If this technology really does work we'll know soon enough." She shrugged.

Daniel nodded. "System tutorial." He said. "System. Tutorial." He repeated, over-emphasising his words. "Nothing yet, but who knows, maybe it's just to keep us quiet for now."

“System. Tutorial.” Renée said. She shook her head, “nothing, and I feel kind of silly.”

"I think I need a drink." Farrah said, over-emphasising as the others had with their attempts.

"At this time of the morn..." Daniel started. "Ah hell I'll have one too."

"I need a shower.” Renée said, getting up from the couch to head for the shower the second time of the morning.

***

“Dr. Thompson?” Damien asked from the front seat.

“Yes Damien?” Dr. Thompson answered from the rear seat.

“Why did we come here? I thought a client was in trouble.”

“It appears the breach from last night’s re-entry came into contact with two of the people who were staying in that cabin. By all appearances it seems to have killed the two individuals and gone dormant. Somehow…. Anyways, that’s what triggered our sensors. Unfortunately the death radiation is interfering with our sensors, so I’m not sure how much data we will be able to recover. This is the first time I’m aware of that untailored nanotech escaped into the wild. I really wish we had been able to capture more data, but it’s more important that the situation be contained.” what is she doing, body language

“Were the other three contaminated? Do we need to establish surveillance?” Damien asked.

“No, that won’t be necessary.” she paused, as if considering her words. “I wasn’t able to detect any transference. It appears that the nanotech wasn’t able to survive after consuming the bodies of the two it came into contact with. Basically it went into a sort of panic mode as they died, and that’s what triggered the signal. It didn’t have any programming beyond the basic core systems. All it knew how to do was cry for help, so that’s what it did. When no help came it enacted terminal protocols. In many respects we’re fortunate it didn’t transfer to the other three.”

“Were you able to tell if there were any other nanites present?”

“I was able to determine there were no active nanotech present during our visit, and I sent several termination pulses. At this range it should have killed off anything that wasn’t in a host. That said, everyone who was inside should get checked when we get back to base. Just to be sure that I didn’t do any unintentional damage.”, she said dryly.

Damien cocked an eyebrow, “You can do that?”

“Yes, the office of Director of Biotech comes with certain…requirements.”

“I see.”

“You’re wondering if the tactical units shouldn’t have this ability?” She asked knowingly.

“Yes, yes I am. I thought this was something that required a dedicated facility or at least a vehicle size power source.”

“Normally it does. However I don’t have any of the tactical enhancements that you or your people do, so I can afford to dedicate more resources to diagnostic and intervention capabilities. You can’t have it all, Damien.” Victoria said absently, “Not even you.”

Damien nodded thoughtfully.

“I know that look, Damien.” she raised an eyebrow, “If you have any ideas, run them by me. If there’s any way to squeeze more out of the system we’re always open to new ideas, as long as they fit within design parameters and power/resource supplies. “

“I just might do that, Doctor.”Damien said looking out the window, his thoughts miles away.

***

The rest of the day passed quietly. Every time one of them started to say something, they paused and let the moment pass.

By the time the sun set they had run out of idle things to do and were sitting on the deck watching the shadows lengthen.

“System. Tutorial.” Daniel muttered. “Holy crap!” He leapt up, knocking over his beer.

“What? What happened?” Renée and Farrah asked.

Daniel was pawing at the air in front of him. Then he started tapping it like a tablet.

“Do you see something? Did something happen?”, René asked.

“There’s something. Something here.” Daniel said. “It’s like a pop-up or drop-down. It says System Tutorial. My hand keeps going through it.” He continued in vain trying to touch it.

“Let me try.” Renée said, jumping up to join him. “System. Tutorial.”

Daniel looked at her questioningly.

“Nope, nothing yet." Renée said, sitting back down. "But there is something else, something different. Today there hasn't been as much pain as usual. It's like... It's kind of like... oh I don't remember the last time it didn't hurt."

Both of them turned to Farah, questioning looks on their faces. She looked up at them.

“What?" She said. “Ok fine then. System. Tutorial." Her eyes widened. She reached out tentatively. Her fingers seemed to brush something that wasn't there. "Holy crap. There's something here. I can't quite touch it. But there's really something here."

Daniel and Farrah turned to René. She shrugged. “I guess everyone is different. I’ll keep trying. Tell me what you see at least?”

Farrah waved at Daniel. He shrugged and pawed at the air again. "It doesn't seem to be reacting yet. System. Tutorial." He paused, "Go go gadget system tutorial." He paused again. "System tutorial powers activate!" He shook his head. "At least you aren't missing much." He picked up his empty beer and headed inside to get another.

René followed him inside. "Damn, I'm hungry. I don't remember the last time I was this hungry." She said heading for the kitchen.

Daniel looked at her oddly, "Now that you mention it, for the number of beers I've had today I haven't been eating much, and I don't even have a buzz. It’s like something is burning through the booze before it gets to me."

Renee stopped, turning back to the front of the cabin, "Farrah!" René hollered out the door. "You want some food?"

“Yeah, I’ll be right in.”

Renée started to root around in the fridge while Daniel opened the cupboards. Pretty soon they had found enough to make nachos and had them heating in the oven.

"Okay, so you two have something, I have a lot less pain than usual, then we’re hungry as all heck, I guess that means this might be real." Renée said. "Kind of surreal.” She pondered, “Michael and Lindsay are just... Gone. Now we have to trust someone who looks at us like guinea pigs, and we might drop dead tomorrow."

“Well, if I stop taking insulin that’s going to happen soon enough anyways.” Daniel said.

“Fair enough.” Renée said. ”Speaking of which, what does your bionic widget say? Has all this stress changed your levels?”

"I haven't had a single alert all day. Not one.” Daniel realized, “I think it's the first day I can remember my levels have been this stable."

"Well," Farrah said. "We have mostly been hanging around here all day. None of us have been stressing ourselves physically."

"I don't know, I don't even know what to think."

"You two can keep an eye on dinner, and I'm going see what's on TV. All this quiet is getting me down." Farrah said, heading for the couch.

Farrah started flipping channels on the TV. Several of them covered the splashdown of the Chinese space station. Alerts told people to avoid any wreckage found washed up on beaches and to call the New Zealand Space Agency if they found anything. Radiation hazards were cited, and people were warned to stay away.

“Yeah sure, radiation hazards.” Farrah muttered under her breath.

“Dinner time!” Renée announced as she brought a platter of nachos over to the dining room table. “What you got there? Anything interesting?”

“Just the official version of the satellite crash. Makes you wonder how much of the official news has another side after that visit today.”

Renée shook her head as she dug into the nachos. “Save it for later. I’ve had enough for today.”

Daniel and Farrah nodded in agreement. Farrah switched to a movie.