Tin Robot decides to stay in the camp, moving between the injured. He spends the majority of his time with Ram, who is slipping in an out of consciousness. At one point Ram screams out that everyone is going to die. At another, he is telling someone invisible that he normally doesn’t take sugar, but what the hell. Blu sits with Ram, ignoring the slow stream of blood that trickles from the wound and gently strokes his hair, which is slowly becoming matted. She can’t help him. If she started to teach him today how to heal, it would take months, because it’s taking hours at the moment to get Lonely to understand the basics of changing the simplest of things about his image without massive amounts of concentration. (This is not new though. For years women have tried to get their men to change something about their image and it can take years of concerted effort to stop them wearing trainers with EVERYTHING)

The stroking of Ram’s hair allows her to fall into a trance like state, and she is suddenly aware of the energy change on the beach from who she quickly realises is JonB as he becomes infected. The battle is so intense that she has to unfocus from the action because there is so much information coming to her at once. There seems to be a lull, and then someone is hurt.  She knows how to tell this now because of what happened in No Subject.

Today seems to be about pain and suffering and loss.

Then she can see the room raising from the ground. It must have been a glitch that caused the thread to appear underground in the first place.  It then seems to disappear off at very high speed but then looks close and far away at exactly the same time. Blu cuts herself from the vision completely. It’s becoming clear to her that the loss of energy on the island is causing the values of space and time themselves to become more erratic.

There is some heated debate going on in the direction of the beach, as Stone Chalice, Someguy and Subbax try to make their way back to join their friends, but Gunn is telling them no, because the perimeter has to be closed back along the beach because of the explosions from the fighting. More sentry guns have been brought out by Beano, Mod and Gamerluke and positioned so they are almost touching the sea itself. Gunn activates them quickly, much to the protests of the Triple S Crew. Sometimes stopping for coffee and a sandwich can change where you go in life. Well in Mod and Beano’s case, it means that someone else is doing the work for you. Gamerluke in this particular case.

Blu slipped back into her trance again and snapped out almost straight away. There were shadows gathered around her. There must have been at least twenty. They weren’t doing anything but watching her and Ram. They seemed to be concentrated around any place there was activity. They weren’t even shapes from what she could see, just ‘almost shadows’. She had no idea what they were. She hadn’t created them. She looked around for Lonely, and spotted him down near the campfire, speaking with Yoss, who was tied up and had a gun trained on him by Dark Soldier. It took less than a second for Lonely to look in her direction. Yoss also looked at her briefly. He excused himself quickly and left g.man to continue with Yoss and jogged over quickly to be with her.

She grasped for his hand in the same way a drowning man would reach for a lift belt and she shared so quickly and violently that Lonely pulled his hand away from her. He looked around himself to see if he could see anything but shook his head slowly.

‘You sure?’ Blu asked.

Lonely nodded again, continuing to look around as he did so. He looked down at Ram and Blu shook her head.

Lonely sat down and a slow tear trickled down the side of his face.

He touched Ram on the shoulder briefly, wiped his eye and then moved closer to Blu so they were touching.

They shared again the details of the plan.

‘Well I do Lonely, apart from his tendency to hate certain politicians and want to punch Beano, his thoughts are calm. I checked. I’m sorry but I didn’t think this would count as a breach of his privacy. He’s unbalanced. Though show me someone who isn’t right now with everything going on.’ said Blu.

They watched as gamerluke appeared with Gunn, ADKM and Mod. They were trailing about sixteen sentry units between them.

As Blu and Lonely watched, they started to create a rough circle around the injured, getting closer to where they were sat and then closing the circle behind Blu, Lonely and Ram. Beano stayed away for fear of having another black eye from Yoss.

Once everyone was satisfied that the circle had been closed off, the forumites moved out, leaving the injured to the mercy of the sentry units and the infected spambots. It was only Yoss that was left and Dark Soldier had a gun trained on him at all times, standing on his robotic legs, ready to shoot at the first sign of trouble.

Yoss left the circle closest to where Ram was lying, giggling as he did, promising to be back with some bad bad bots. Ram asked him in a state of hysteria to bring back some milk and today’s paper.

Those that were left could do nothing but wait.

‘I guess all we can do now is wait’ said g.man

The rest of the team huddled behind the sentry guns, each had a weapon just in case. Gav had been handing them out to anyone who wanted. He had changed his long jacket to a backpack and was also wearing a worn green shirt. Kow had been handing out sandwiches and glucose sweets to help keep energy levels up.

There was the gentle jingle of bottles as they collided with each other on the shore.

Goober had sworn for a second he had seen what looked like a room of a house fly out to sea.

It was only Blu that didn’t laugh at him.

There was silence across the whole camp, interrupted by the occasional moan by one of Davie’s victims.

Blu replayed the vision of the shadows through her head. The shadows demonstrated awareness within them. She could not detect any form of malice or hatred, just simple curiosity.

She did not like that she did not know what they were. It put her off balance. It made her feel slightly paranoid. She had to focus though. Even though she had played the plan through her head again and again, she knew that as soon as you got humans involved there was going to be a whole pile of uncertainties thrown into the mix.  She was sure Yossarian wouldn’t let them down. She was also sure that her hypothesis regarding the infected spambots was a close to a theory as possible. She was nervous about everyone being armed and angry. There was a lot of anger about the place. She was concerned that when the first bot appeared, it was going to end up being shot up, just for the hell of it.  

They had even avoided the obvious plot hole surrounding the sentry units that had already been placed. Gunn had worked with Gav and had given Yoss an emitter that he wore around his wrist. It amplified the energy that he was producing, which was slightly above normal anyway. It also amplified the energy of anyone that he came into direct contact with him, giving them the similar energy signature. This energy signature could be programmed to be ignored by the sentry units. So as long as Yoss had a hold of them, then the units wouldn’t fire at either him or the target.

It took ages for the next six minutes to pass.

‘This is taking too long, I would prefer to be up in the air again. Give me a Cobra and the skies over this hiding in the sand nonsense.’ said Goober.

‘I dunno, some of those spambots look a lot like lampposts.’ said g.man.

‘That was one time. You put me off. I’m no good with compliments.’ replied Goober.

‘Or lampposts.’ smirked g.man.

There was a laugh in the group, a small chuckle, which broke the tension but was then echoed at the edge of the trees.

The other chuckle was coming from Yoss who was dragging in a Spambot into the circle of sentry guns. The right hand of the bot was glowing slightly and it was repeatedly trying to infect Yoss by hitting him. Every time he touched him there was a slight glow and Yoss let out a guffaw like someone had tickled him.  The silver eyes of the bot glowed even brighter, as though it was registering some kind of anger and frustration at this turn of events.

‘I was surfing through your Email and realized that despite having a great design; it was not ranking on any of the search engines (Google Yahoo and Bing) for most of the keywords relating to your business.’ It said.

‘Will you give it a rest? I’m going to let you go and infect someone. It just happens that it’s not going to be me! And stop with the hands already, I don’t even know your name.’ Yoss replied

The spambot twisted out of Yoss’s grasp and stood for a second, poised in a flight or fight stance. It looked at around at its surroundings, saw Ram lying on the ground and pounced on him, not attacking but grabbing his hand with its own right hand and all the time talking away about search engine optimisation from India.

There was the slightest flash as the infection was passed.

It took a moment for the bot to rise. When it did, it turned back to face Yoss and started to walk towards him.

It managed three steps before three sentry guns triangulated a burst of fire that removed its head.

‘That worked better than I expected it to.’ Whispered Gunn, smiling.

‘Top stuff Gunn’ said Elm.

‘I thought the guns were there to take the forumites out if they turned.’ said Lonely.

‘I don’t think we can keep them running just in case.’ said Wookie.

‘I would have thought that Ram would have changed by now.’ said Beano

‘Maybe you should go and ask Yoss?’ said Mod.

‘Maybe you should go and ask Yoss.’ replied Beano.

‘Maybe you should just go.’ replied Mod.

‘Maybe I will.’ Said Beano

‘Go then’ said Mod

‘I’m gone’ said Beano

‘Well, you’re not.’ said Mod

‘I am.’ replied beano.

‘Really?’ replied Mod.

‘Beano’s got a point though. I thought the infection would have taken hold.’ said Lonely.

‘It didn’t with Yoss, it took a helicopter ride down and a couple of bad jokes from Revel’ said g.man.

‘It’s not too late to have you demoted to a bit part.’ replied Revel.

‘But you’re writing this bit so technically it’s your fault I’m even saying that.’ replied g.man

‘It is? BAD DOG’ said Revel and cowered in front of himself.

It was an erratic way to proceed but it seemed to be working as blu had planned. The bots tried to infect Yoss as they were dragged into the circle, then either tried to infect those outside the circle, which resulted in a shot to the head, or they made a beeline for the nearest uninfected injured badger, which also resulted in a shot to the head as well.

It became quite awkward watching the scene after a while.

Stopharage was the last one to be infected in the team, his bot tried to run back out towards the trees but was taken out. The body managed three more steps before dropping to the floor. Yoss headed back out into the trees anyway, much to the annoyance of the forumites. Gunn switched the wristband off so that Yoss could not bring another spambot into the camp.

There was a mixture of gentle happiness and anxiousness in the camp. None of the forumites had changed. Ram now looked completely unconscious. Tin and Blu ran between the guns and into the clearing, swiftly followed by some of the others, who were less eager to be running into a potential death trap.

Blu ran up to where Ramsteelwood was lying. The bleeding had stopped. The wound had a slight glow around it and inside the flesh and blood appeared to have a metallic sheen to it.

Lonely joined her almost as quickly.

‘Why haven’t they changed?’ asked Lonely.

‘I don’t know. His body seems to be stable and the bleeding’s stopped. I don’t know why he hasn’t changed.’ replied Blu.

As she looked across the rest of the injured, there was the same metallic glow across all of them.  The shouts and moans of pain had stopped. There was just silence in the clearing and the quiet noise of the clinking of bottles out in the sea.

‘We should be able to move them now, shouldn’t we?’ asked Lonely.

Blu  touched Ram on the forehead. She smiled at Lonely while she did.

‘His heart has slowed right down.’ Blu said.

‘We should get Tin over here then.’ Said Lonely urgently.

‘No, Listen’ and she grasped his hand and shared.

It wasn’t like his heart was beating every couple of seconds. It was more like his heart was in the middle of beating and that every beat itself was taking a couple of seconds.

‘So there isn’t enough energy for them to change? So they are in this zoned out state?’ said Lonely.

‘Yes Lonely. They won’t change until we move them off the island. The Chinese Spambots must have arrived, sapping all the energy from the place. It must have been why the spambots avoided Yoss when he became infected. Maybe he would have sponged off more energy than they could give. I must admit I don’t know. This place is no longer my island.’ answered Blu

‘Why don’t we just leave them here then? If they are stable, then we can go and search Bear Island without the risk of being attacked by our own.’ Replied Lonely

‘Their own. Not ours.’ said Blu.

Lonely frowned at this statement.

Blu touched the side of his face.

‘Ram is dying. The only difference is the speed. His heart has slowed, and we can leave him here. He will die though if he doesn’t change. We have to move them off the island. Look at his eyes Lonely.’ said Blu.

It was terror that lived in Ram’s eyes. His body had slowed down but it was clear that Ram’s mind was alive and aware of what was happening.

‘He’ll go mad before long before he dies.’  Blu added.

Lonely thought for a second, then nodded.

‘We have to get everyone together and move as soon as we can. I’ll go and tell g.man.’

Lonely stood up and walked off to find him.

Tin came to check on Ram moments later.

Blu told him what she had seen and Tin agreed without so much as a word. He told her that everyone else was in exactly the same state. It was almost like they were in the grip of some form of night terror. It was a slow dying where they were locked in their bodies and couldn’t scream for help.

 

It took some time to bring everyone back to No Subject. It took longer to get everyone to settle back into their groups, make sure everyone was fed and watered. The perimeter was restocked with ammo, any wounded were attended to, and the forumites were almost ready to move out.

The RPG and Dark Souls guys couldn’t be found. KRS tried to reach them several times with no success. Her cracked screen was getting worse but Superflyninja had promised to replace it.

Blu told Lonely that they had gone completely off radar.

Blu thought it had something to do with the floating room she had seen earlier. She couldn’t be sure. She couldn’t be sure of anything. She had held on to his hand tightly when g.man was speaking but not shared. She had felt more comfort from the way his thumb had been gently rubbing back and forward across her hand. Like her, he didn’t have fingerprints, so his fingers were completely smooth. He was keeping her calm.

The shadows were at the edges of No Subject. Blu was a logical being, so she was able to dismiss them as not a direct threat and therefore something to be dealt with when they decided to show their purpose.

They would be dealt with when they decided to show their hand.

She realised she was missing out on what was being said. She asked Lonely and he brought her up to speed.

It wasn’t really much of a plan. Workid was to fly as many of them across to Bear Island as he could. The Shmuppers couldn’t help because their ships weren’t designed to hold more than two people at once. It was going to be slow progress. Very slow progress. No one wanted to say. No one wanted to be the one that said it wasn’t going to be fast enough. No one wanted to be the one that said they thought we can’t win this one.

It was only when Cindemon walked into camp carrying a pile of Oranges and Turnips and was going towards the hub when he stopped suddenly, noticed the ring of sentry guns, the rest of the gathered mob and the bodies lying on the ground.

‘What’s going on here then?’ he asked to the gathered populace.

‘What are you talking about? What are you doing?’ asked Goober

‘Well I’m off to Outlaw’s town on the other island to give her these perfect oranges to plant, and to sell these turnips for 597 bells each!.’ answered Cindemon.

‘So how you going to do that then, just float over the sea, dodge the spambots, fly perchance?’ asked Elm.

‘Nah, I was just going to nip into the New Leaf station in the hub and get the train there. I’ll put this stuff in the locker so I don’t have to carry it and just get it on the other side.’ Cindemon replied.

Everyone stared at cindemon.

Then a couple of people started to grin.

g.man walked over to cindemon and put his hand on his shoulder.

‘Tell me about this station old bean,’ he said.

 Some five minutes later, amidst the grind of the rumour mill, g.man told the some of the others what he knew.

‘Ok Team, Let’s do this.’

 

Nexx and Dubs drew their swords and guns, grinned at each other from their vantage point in the trees.

‘Ok Boys Let’s Do this.’

And they leaped.

 

Tempy got out from his hiding spot under the ridge, dusted himself down and stood up

‘Ok Let’s Do this.’

 

Bollockoff finished cutting two holes into a cardboard box, crouched down, placed the box over himself and crawled out from his hiding place into the crowd of Spambots.

‘Ok. Who’s First..’