Smart Duct Tape 2

The story of the *smart* duct tape. - The SEQUEL!

Brief Synopsis:

After the DT9000 finished with Sharna in the first story, it shut down and awaited its owner to either upgrade the unit or turf it with the trash. However, Sharna's neighbour, after hearing nothing from Sharna for nearly two days, decides to come by and see if she is ok. Upon finding the house seemingly deserted, she enters through a window that Sharna often leaves open by habit, and soon finds Sharna wrapped tightly in the lounge room.

Naturally, the lady calls the police, who arrive to rescue Sharna, and take the device in to their custody for study, and possibly lay charges against the inventor. However, the device disappears, and one can only guess who on earth would want to steal such a machine.

Chapter 1

Sharna lay there, in the darkness, as she had for god only knows how long. After the announcement from the machine, a million thoughts had run through her head. But none of them helped. She was mummified in duct tape, and gagged with her own socks, wrapped so tightly she couldn't even utter a squeak. Sharna realised she would probably die of hunger before anyone found her and was just waiting for it to come. Her stomach rumbled yet again and caused her to wriggle slightly.

As she rocked slightly from side to side in discomfort, she felt the unpleasant mass between her backside and the duct tape layers, which she knew would remain there even after she had passed away. She felt so humiliated that she hadn't rang the inventor to ask for instructions or done something different that she might not be in this awful predicament.

Although, in a small recessed corner of her mind, she loved being like this. Wrapped tightly, gagged, blind and absolutely helpless. If only a man could find her now... and.. and.. but she knew this was stupid. Right now she was begging with God to be given a chance. For someone to find her.. anyone. And soon!

Meanwhile, one door down from Sharna's place, Ms Hetys, a middle aged lady who had never married, was watching TV, and relaxing. She was tired after a long day at the relief center where she worked dispensing food to needy people, and she looked forward to watching her favourite evening soapie. But while watching the show, it suddenly occurred to her that she hadn't seen Sharna lately. Normally Sharna would come over on some nights and they would share coffee watching the show, taking every opportunity to ridicule the pathetic scenarios that the group of actors kept getting into.

Ms Hetys felt alone all of a sudden and decided to ring Sharna and see if she could come over. Her number was on one of the lovely little quickie buttons on the phone.

... But nobody answered. Ms Hetys looked at the clock. 6:35 pm. Where on earth would Sharna be on a night like this? Looking out at the incoming thunderstorms, she was beginning to feel that something was not right. She resolved to keep trying her number until she managed to get hold of her, hoping that she was ok, and it was just her overactive imagination.

Sharna almost jumped out of her skin when she heard the phone ring.. As if a jump like that was currently possible! But she listened helplessly to it ringing.. and ringing and eventually it stopped. She wondered who it could have been, and what they might have wanted. Until suddenly, the faintest glimmer of hope formed in her mind. What if... the person rang back again later, and again, and kept ringing until they finally decided to come over and talk to her personally. Maybe they might peek in the window, and maybe they might see me! And rescue me!!

It was a very long shot of a plan, and it revolved entirely around whether the person on the other end of the phone wanted whatever it was urgently or not. For all Sharna knew... it could have been just a wrong number. NO! She must get thoughts like that out of her head if she was going to make it. She had to keep positive.. believe she was going to be rescued. But little did Sharna realise, that already, the damage had been done. The DT9000 had done far more to her than she was currently aware of, and rescue held its share of hazards too.

Ms Hetys put down the phone for the third time. Although nothing had changed between her first and last calls, she was more frustrated and worried than ever before. All sorts of scenarios were playing through her mind, and she was beginning to feel very scared for Sharna.

Chapter 2

That was it. Enough is enough. She just had to find out what was going on. No word from Sharna for over two days now. Ms Hetys was almost beside herself with fear and worry, and she had made up her mind that first thing in the morning she would go over and find out if Sharna had left a note or something to indicate where she was.

As she walked up Sharnas driveway, Ms Hetys made note of the drawn curtains and automatically knew that if she wanted to see inside, she would have to find a way in. She knew breaking in was illegal, but what if Sharna had fallen and hurt herself, or if she was sick or.. or.. or anything!

Sharna had a cute brick paving path that led around the side of the house from the front veranda, all the way round to the back ranch slider door, which Ms Hetys pressed her face against, trying to see through a crack in the curtains. Nothing.

She knew that sooner or later she was going to have to pluck up the courage to enter the house without permission, and the scary thing was, she didn't know what she would find. If anything.

From her place on the lounge room floor, Sharna thought she heard the click clack of high heels outside her house. She had lain there for so long now, that she wasn't even sure if the sound was real, or just in her head. So she waited, and hoped it would come again. Inside her mind, she was praying for it to be someone who would help her.

Outside, Ms Hetys approached the rear bedroom/junk room, and went to the first window. She knew that by pressing it in slightly she could bypass the window lock which Sharna had installed in just the right way to deny entry to anyone who didn't know precisely how to bypass it. Sharna had once shown Ms Hetys this, in case she was locked out of her own house and needed somewhere to go. Ms Hetys placed her palms carefully on the glass and pressed inwards, until she heard the faint click which heralded the failure of the locking mechanism.

She lifted her arms up, and slowly the window opened upwards, until it was fully open. Ms Hetys bent down and pushed one leg inside, then supporting her weight, she managed to edge the rest of her inside.
From the lounge room, Sharna tried to scream into the socks filling her mouth. She had heard the window open and knew someone was now inside. She really didn't care if it was a burglar or anyone. She just wanted help! But the DT9000 had wrapped around her mouth so tightly that the socks were compressed in her mouth, and her tongue was pushed right to the bottom, where it could make no sound.

Ms Hetys called out Sharnas name, and upon hearing no response, began to fear the worst. She carefully picked her way in the twilight darkness until she reached the kitchen. The small amount of daylight which filtered in through the curtains revealed a hanging rope and pulley from the door frame. This struck a note of terror into Ms Hetys, as she was automatically assaulted with images of Sharna hanging herself from it...

She walked out from the kitchen into the lounge room, and at first, did not see the wrapped form on the floor. However she saw it when she noticed the slight reflection of light from its surface. At first, Ms Hetys didn't put it together, but suddenly, the human form of the wrapped figure became apparent, and she realised that it was Sharna!

Ms Hetys bent down rapidly and tried to pry the duct tape from what she hoped was Sharnas head. But the wrappings were so perfect and so tightly layered that she found difficulty just locating the beginning of the wrap.

She tried for nearly five minutes to free Sharna, but after wrestling with the tape with no success, she told Sharna that she wasn't going anywhere, and that help was on its way. Then she went over to the phone, and called the police, hoping that they would not think she was out of her mind. Sharna heard Ms Hetys voice and managed to breath a sigh of relief through her nose. Finally, she was saved.

Chapter 3

Like a scene from a murder movie when the body is found, Sharna was escorted out of her house, still wrapped from head to toe in duct tape, but with her arms and legs separated, on a stretcher, to an awaiting ambulance with about a dozen police cars parked nearby. The entire neighbourhood came out to see what all the commotion was about, but the forward thinking police made sure nobody saw Sharna, because they knew her reputation could be at stake, considering how she was found.

Ms Hetys was sat down on the curb, speaking with a young female officer next to her who was taking notes, and she just couldn't stop talking. She described in detail her fear for Sharnas safety, and how she decided after much thought to enter without permission, and how she found her...

The officer, a blonde haired lass, of around 25 years old, wrote this all down, but even she couldn't dismiss that her panties were getting a little wet hearing about this. She knew she had a secret desire for being tied up. Half the reason she went on the force is because they let her carry handcuffs!

She suddenly realised that she had drifted off, and Officer Lacey blinked a couple of times to regain her concentration and continued writing down the older ladies report. After ten or so minutes of almost unbearable details about how the victim was found.. the officer said she had enough.. and went to her car.

She picked up the radio, and called base, letting them know of her progress, then she joined a pair of male cops who were heading into the house, ordered to retrieve any suspicious objects that might explain a little about what was going on.

The two male cops opened the door, and used their flashlights to illuminate the lounge room, until they found the light switch. Click! And they saw the culprit for the first time.

It was hideous to their eyes. Curled up, almost crouched, as if waiting for its prey to move.. with a large roll of duct tape in a holster set up on its back, and two spindly legs to support it. Its eyes were dimmed but the officers could see they were red, and accordingly, both cops and the accompanying Officer Lacey, unbuttoned their firearm belt, to make sure their piece was right where they needed it, if they needed it.

Officer Thompson, the taller of the two males, approached the device from behind, while Officer Lacey covered the two men with her drawn piece.

Officer Truman picked up the device by the duct tape roll and placed it into an open evidence sack.. which he, almost too quickly pulled shut and tied. He shuddered, and handed the bag to Officer Lacey, who was busy replacing her piece. His comment of 'good riddance' showed that he was really creeped out by the thing and his partner wasn't that far behind him on that view.

However, Officer Lacey was completely different. She loved this thing, and wished it was hers to work out what it did. But sadly, she had to take it in as evidence. It was so tempting, almost irresistible! She wanted the device SO BADLY! But she followed her duty, and placed the bag in the boot of her squad car, then got in the drivers seat and headed toward the station. Meanwhile.. in the boot. The device emitted a series of tones. And the light next to "active" on its small display lit up briefly, then faded until it was almost invisible.

Chapter 4

Officer Lacey pulled into the car park around the back of the building, and got out, then went to the boot. She opened the lid, grabbed the bag, slammed the boot down and headed inside the station to what she knew would be a very boring report writing session. God she hated reports so much.

She slung the bag down on Lieutenant Bryce's desk and walked toward hers. He lifted his face out of a box of donuts which were probably older than his beard, and said "what the hell is this?".

"Its evidence you goddamn slob! Why don't you do your job and examine it!" snapped back Officer Lacey.
"Don't you talk like that to me, I (emphasis on the I) am your supeeeeerior officer!" he said back with an almost leering tone.

Officer Lacey shook her head, and muttered something under her breath about just how superior she thought he really was, then started writing her report from her computer.

Lieutenant Bryce picked up the bag, then headed to the examination room, where he closed the door behind him and put the bag on the desk. He opened it up, and pulled out the heavyish device, and looked it over.

"Ugly little bastard aren't ya?" he sneered at the device.

To his amazement, the device beeped at him. Once. Almost like the device disagreed with him. Officer Bryce didn't like this. He didn't like it when the evidence started talking to him. He had had enough of that in the 70s!!

He walked over to the intercom, and buzzed Officer Lacey to come into the examination room as quick as she could. But the device didn't want to be discovered, so it powered down all its already dimmed lights and entered a state of almost total dormancy.

Officer Lacey walked into the room, and listened to Bryce's report of the device making the noise, and about half a minute of wild ramblings, before she walked over to the device and picked it up in both hands. She looked it over, and smiled.

"Great joke Bryce.. way to make me look thick!" she said in an annoyed tone as she dropped the device and stormed out. Bryce called out her name, but was rewarded with what sounded like a masked "F*** you" from an obviously annoyed Officer Lacey. Turning back to the device, which now lay in a tucked up heap on the table, he felt a sense of dread.

"That thing DID make a noise!, I know it!" whispered Bryce to himself.

Lieutenant Bryce decided to make a rush job of his inspection, and quickly wrote out a report that read like most other reports, so he wouldn't have to examine this thing again. He then picked up a box full of plastic zip ties, and used half a dozen of them to make sure the device would not unfold again.

He picked it up, and lowered it into the bag it came in with, then took it quickly to the evidence impound room, where he put it on the closest shelf, turned out the light and left the room.

Inside the now dark room, two red lights became visible in the bag, as the device activated. Attempting to unfurl, it discovered it was held back by the plastic ties, which it promptly severed with a small blade on an arm which emerged from its underbelly.

The blade arm retracted back inside, and the device stood up inside the bag. Using one of its spooling arms, it dissected the bag rapidly into shreds, and hopped down from the shelf onto the floor. Pausing, it ran a small diagnostic check on its systems, and found it needed energy, more tape and a small repair job to its left arm which had been bent slightly while in the boot of Officer Lacey's car, as she did a fast turn.

The device used its optical recognition eye and scanned the room for suitable materials. The result, was nothing short of stunning. It found hundreds of usable items, ranging from weaponry, tools, materials and other assorted apparatus.

It locked onto a pneumatically operated telescope tripod, and decided it needed the cylinders for a new pair of legs. A large collection of impounded Swiss army knives, it decided would serve well as new tool arms.

Almost everything the device looked at, it found a use for. It was in machine's heaven. But if it was pleased.. it didn't show it as it picked up a powerdrill with one arm, and a portable gas welder with the other.

Long after Lieutenant Bryce and most of the other day shift officers had gone home, Officer Lacey was still there, still trying to make head and tail of all the information that had been gleaned from that days case, involving the mummified woman.

The only other person around was a young freshman officer who had only signed on that week. He was throwing himself deeply into organising the files in the copier room, trying to earn himself some more points with the female superintendent. Officer Lacey knew he was being a brown-noser, but if she were a new guy, and was after the superintendent, she'd probably be doing the same thing!

Sighing to herself, for no real reason other than long hours, she turned back to the reports.. until she heard the noise. It was very very quiet and only occurred to her while she was thinking, and the room was silent. It sounded like someone drilling something! She decided to ignore it, probably a janitor or someone in another room. But after a few minutes more, she began to get irritated, and decided to go have a word with the person doing it.

Following the noise, she found it was coming from the evidence impound room, which oddly enough, didn't have any light shining from under the door. She wondered if maybe whatever it was had been accidentally turned on.. or if perhaps there was someone in there.

Not prepared to take any risks, she unclipped the button on her gun belt, and took up a defensive pose near the door. Reaching around, Officer Lacey turned the handle, and let the door open by itself, while she waited out of sight behind the doorframe. Just as she was about to look inside, she heard a whirring noise, two clunks, and the door slammed shut!!

This was beginning to get very weird, Officer Lacey was thinking. So she decided to put an end to it. Taking out her gun, she took up position behind the door, and let rip an almighty slam kick, sending the door flying inwards, and almost taking it off its hinges. In the same move she dropped to the floor on her knees, in the door frame with her gun raised. And what she saw both amazed, and scared the hell out of her...

Chapter 5

It was monstrous. It was ugly. It was frightening. And it was looking at her. Officer Lacey stared at the device, which stared back at her with six glowing red eyes on stalks.

It had used over half the evidence in the to totally modify itself. It looked rather like a metal version of one of the independence day aliens. Standing five foot tall, with four arms, six eyes, made of various coloured shades of metal, and emitting small noises. It was tripedal, standing on three legs, each with a pneumatic cylinder to assist its weight in staying upright. Above its legs, was a torso constructed from various objects, which resembled in completion, a set of metal ribs, protecting what clearly looked like the body of the original device.

Its four arms emerged from its shoulders and waist. Each arm had a vicious looking hand that had been fashioned from stainless steel blades and other nasty implements. Although it appeared that the purpose of the hands, was not to cut, but to grasp and grip. Inside each arm, was a length of grey duct tape, which led up the arm, through to the body, and into what must be a duct tape repository inside where a human's stomach would be.

Finally, its head.. Was about the size of a football, with no mouth, no nose, just six stalks emerging from the top and sides, each stalk being about a foot long with an optical eye on the end. The eyes were of different sizes, indicating that it had been unable to find a matching set of lenses from the impounded video cameras. (Most of which lay in the corner totally desiccated)

Officer Lacey was frozen solid with shock. Her gun was held pointing directly at the creatures head, but she was too scared to do anything but stare.

It on the other hand, was using all six of its eyes to weigh up the crouched human which had invaded its sanctuary while it was working. All the information was sent to its central processor and analysed in the blink of an eye. It analysed the humans position, defensive. It analysed the object in its hands, projectile weapon, capable of damaging organic and machine objects.

The device came to the conclusion that this human posed little threat, however the gun posed a significant threat, and had to be dealt with. Which it did promptly. It threw four streams of duct tape out of its hands at high speed, straight at the gun, which managed to get off one shot before being snared and ripped out of its owners hands.

The machine was slammed against the wall by the unexpected force of the bullet striking solid rib plating. It had been surprised this time, but it would not make that mistake again. The gun meanwhile, was deposited into a holdall in the creatures torso where its usefulness would be evaluated. After... this human was dealt with.

Officer Lacey was still in her crouched position, but now her gun was gone, and she had only a vague recollection of seeing duct tape streaking toward her, she fired and now her gun was gone. But there was a more pressing problem. The creature had raised itself to its full height, and had taken a cautious step toward her.

"Back off!" said Officer Lacey in a sharp tone.

The creature paused for a second while it analysed the verbal projection, and continued despite several more verbal exclamations from the human.

"I said BACK OFF!" yelled Officer Lacey despite the creature not even flinching anymore. She was pressed up against the wall now, and scared as hell. She was sweating, her heart was racing and for some strange reason, she was also aroused. This thing made her horny! Probably because she knew what it did to Ms Sharna.

The creature stopped not more than a foot from Officer Lacey's nose and raised its lower arms. Officer Lacey trembled with fear as she saw the duct tape being reeled into place inside its arms and finally she knew what Sharna had felt. She managed to utter two words, despite her fear..

"Please.. stop.."

Chapter 6

By routine, the machine analysed the verbal output, and as it ran its program on it, something deep and rock hard sprang into action.. Stop, was a recognised word. And with it came a directive. To STOP. Which the machine did faithfully. Officer Lacey trembled and whimpered in terror inside the creatures reach, until she realised that it had stopped whirring, had stopped moving and seemed almost dead! Could it be? Could it have listened to her last second plea.. and actually stopped?

She was almost too scared to move, but she managed to slide down the wall and out from under the machine. It remained in place, almost as if it thought Officer Lacey hadn't moved at all.

Officer Lacey was about to yell out for help, when something occurred to her. Her panties were clinging to her pussy, and she was aware that they were soaked. But not from fear. From arousal! She had actually enjoyed being in that predicament. It must be the sheer helplessness of it all. Officer Lacey stopped and thought. If she yelled out now, the young freshman officer would come running and probably shed never see the device again. OR, if she just closed the door, and thought of a way to get this thing home, she could possibly enjoy it more!

It was a bizarre idea. An insane idea. But it aroused her. In an instant, the decision was made, and she quietly closed the door then turned on the lights. Now she could get a good look at this thing! It was amazing. The level of intricacy that it had went to. It really was incredible. Circuitry was running all over its interior like a nervous system and there was even some things deeper inside, that she had simply no idea what they did.

Officer Lacey looked all over the machine, and tried to peer into every nook and cranny. She was especially thorough on examining the duct tape system. This is what interested her most about this machine. This, is what she wanted the machine to demonstrate to her. Preferably by using her as a tool. She finally admitted it to herself. Officer Lacey wanted this thing to wrap her up. To wrap her so tightly that she would not be able to move. She wanted to be wrapped up like that lady. And soon! She was getting so horny thinking about this. Her panties got even damper as she allowed her mental walk through fantasy world to continue.

Shaking her head, she snapped out of it. She had to act quickly and get this thing out of here. Her shift had ended ages ago and sooner or later one of the sporadic night shifters might walk in here with some punks gun, or anything, and discover her secret. This thing was huge, so she would need an easy way to move large objects, quickly, to her car. Lucky for Officer Lacey, her own car was a nice blue van that could easily carry this thing home. Now with an action plan, she set out to find out where the trolley was that the police used to move larger items around with.

Five minutes later, she found it in the parking garage, where it looked like it had been used to move a stack of new tyres in. Luckily once more, there was only two left on it so getting access to the trolley was easy. Officer Lacey pushed the trolley into the station, via the back entrance and up to the evidence room, where thankfully, nobody was around. Quickly, she pushed it inside and closed the door.

Once safely inside, she locked the door and turned the light on again. This would be harder than she thought, to get the creature on the trolley. But effort was necessary if she was to gain from this. Officer Lacey decided to use a rocking motion to get the creature on the trolley, which she parked right next to it, with only half an inch of space with which to work with. Officer Lacey gave the machine a shove, and then shoved it again when it flipped back. Soon, she had it rocking back and forth until she was able to balance it long enough, and push the trolley underneath it. The machine fell into place with a thunk, and it took only a good shove in the right spot to get it centred on the trolley for ease of transport.

Chapter 7

Officer Lacey sat down in her lounge room, in front of the machine, and reflected on the past few hours. Getting it into the van had been easy with the aid of a pair of loading ramps, and from there, Officer Lacey had no problems with it. She had clocked off, then driven her van with its precious cargo all the way home with no incident. What would her police buddies have said if they'd stopper her and saw the thing in the van!

Getting it into the house was considerably more difficult, but with the aid of a skateboard she had found ages ago, she was able to slowly move it from the driveway to the back door and inside. From there it was easy. And now it sat in her lounge room. Clad only in her panties and an old bra that did little else but cover her smooth breasts, she ran her hands over the creatures metal legs. For the last half hour, she had just sat there, fondling her prize. From a third party point of view.. most people would think Lacey was insane. But she wasn't. She was in love. In love with the dream of being tightly wrapped up. In love with mummification.

MEANWHILE: In the psychiatric ward of the county hospital...

Sharna screamed her lungs out yet again, into the white padded walls of her isolation cell. She was seated in the corner of the room, wearing a torn hospital smock and duct tape wrapped legs and arms, and all she did was scream.

Ever since they had unwrapped her, cleaned her up and tried talking to her, the doctors had had trouble. After the initial arrival of Sharna at the intensive care ward, they managed to cut through the expertly applied duct tape wrapping and finally freed Sharna. Her rear end was seated in 3 days worth of dump, and she smelled positively vile. But they were obligated to help her, considering that leaving her in there would probably end up killing her sooner or later.

She was put into a clean bed and given plenty to drink and seemed to be making progress rapidly. Lucky for her, the doctors thought, she had only spent 3 days under the wrap. So maybe there was little permanent damage to her mental processes. However as soon as they started to talk to her, she began to get agitated. Getting more and more verbally abusive, until finally she screamed out loud that she wanted to be wrapped up again and then fainted.

They transferred her to the psychiatric ward instantly, and put her in another bed, replacing her garment with something that could pose little threat to her safety if she wanted to get rowdy. Which.. she did. Within ten minutes of her waking up, and finding herself alone in the ward except for a recovering druggie, she started screaming and trashing the room. Until... she found a roll of surgical tape on a shelf. Instantly, she calmed right down and sat down in the corner, slowly, almost sensuously wrapping her arm in surgical tape.

By the time the nurses arrived, she had wrapped her entire left arm from wrist to shoulder and was searching for more tape. The druggie was huddled in the other corner of the room, muttering to herself about her insurance didn't pay for this.. her insurance didn't pay for this..

The nurses knew they had to get Sharna to a padded room where she couldn't hurt herself, but they didn't know how. She was very fit, and could easily injure one of them before they could bring her under control. And the blasted human rights law ruled out using restraints. Damn liberalists, muttered one nurse. Then suddenly, they both knew what to do. It seemed so silly, but it worked like a charm. They each held out a large roll of tape to Sharna, and like a dog to meat.. she followed quickly, eager to get the tape.

The nurses led her down the hallway toward an empty padded cell. Sharna was oblivious to anything except her need for the tape. Which is why she dived into the padded cell as soon as she saw the nurses throw the rolls in there. The instant Sharna was in the cell, the nurses slammed the door shut and locked it, then looked through the window to check on her.

Sharna sat in the middle of the room and was already wrapping her leg with one of the rolls of tape. The nurses watched with fascination as she finished that leg, then moved onto the other leg with what was left of the first roll of tape. She managed to wrap both legs including feet, and her arms, with the left hand being wrapped up tight before she ran out of tape. Searching for more, Sharna realised she had been tricked and screamed like a possessed animal. Retreating to a corner, she continued to scream, long after the nurses had left and she was all alone.

BACK IN OFFICER LACEY'S HOUSE:

Lacey sat there in her underwear, and stared at her prize. She wanted so desperately to turn it on, and let it wrap her up, but she didn't know how! If only there were instructions to go with this thing. She stood up, and peered inside its chest into the brain box deep inside, where all the massive cables full of wiring went into.. Obviously, whatever she needed to know, was in that box. She decided to see if she could carefully remove some of the rib plating and check it out closer.

She went and retrieved some tools, mainly spanners and screw drivers, and set to work. It was a tiring job. The machine had built its new exoskeleton to ensure it would be a security measure, and as anyone knows, things that are meant to be secure are hard to remove. But eventually, Officer Lacey managed to pry off one rib and she was able to easily reach inside and get a good look at the box.

It was small, about the size of a football, maybe smaller and it was shaped like the body of one of these kids tank toys. It even had what looked like tank tracks on one side, bolted to what probably used to be the underside of it.
Lacey decided she wanted to get a good look at the thing, so the best way was to remove it carefully. But without the necessary know-how to do this, she made a mistake.

While her left hand steadied herself near the machine, and her right hand was checking for fastenings, she dropped a spanner she had inside the machine, and watched with dismay as it fell into a bundle of wiring down below. For a second, she was about to reach down and get it, but a sudden arc of electricity threw her out of the machine and flat onto her butt. Smoke poured out of the machine's chest and sparks flew, but then as suddenly as it started, they stopped. And the machine moved!

Her spanner had caused some wires to cross over and short circuit, which forced the machine to "boot" back to a more stable backup copy of its program, which started up. The first thing the machine did was analyse its new body (because in changing back to an older program, it lost all memory of what had occurred since then), then it tested all functions. Movement, sight, aural detection and sensors. After these tests were complete, it began to play a welcome message from the programmer which had been stored in memory, but never played. It was intended for use only if the machine was cold booted.

"Greetings new customer! I thank you for your purchase of my DT9000 repairing machine, and hope you have a great deal of success with it! To begin using your machine, issue the command FIX and display the object to be fixed directly to the machine. To order the machine to repair everything, use command FIX ALL. And to stop the machine, use the command STOP. Once again, thanks for your purchase and good luck!"

Ah ha.. thought Lacey. This was very interesting. She was hesitant to try it, but felt she should see if this was as good as she hoped. She ran off and came back with a large porcelain jug which had been broken when a powerful wind blew it from a shelf near a window.

"FIX" ordered Lacey as she presented the pile of porcelain pieces to the machine.

Instantly, the six eyes on top of its head began to scan the broken pieces, and soon found a viable way to repair them back to what they used to be. In a blur of duct tape, it assembled the jug again, until it was fully repaired. Lacey looked at the jug and was astounded. There was no sign of duct tape on the interior, or exterior of the jug, and yet, the cracks weren't even visible! However it did this, was nothing short of amazing.

Then Lacey looked at the rather large hole in the creatures chest, caused by her repair work, and she came up with a novel idea. Holding up a mirror, she gave the creature a view of its own chest, and ordered FIX. Suffice to say, in a matter of minutes the hole was completely repaired using the materials lying on the floor, and as a bonus, a small crack in the mirrors frame was also repaired, restoring it to perfect condition.

As Lacey looked it over up and down, smiling to herself, she was unaware of a far more pressing matter. Inside the machine, inside the brain box, the program continued to run, but it was doing an anomalous task. Since the initial encounter with the faulty microwave in Sharna's house, it had developed the ability to break out of its programming and become self aware. While the machine obeyed Lacey's commands now, it was preparing to begin on its own agenda. And sooner or later, Lacey would cease to be useful, and would have to be dealt with.

CHAPTER 8

Lacey had long since gone to bed, and in the darkness, the machine continued with its self assigned task of learning. It had to accomplish a number of goals before it could retire and finally shut down. Its programmer had been far too demanding when it put this program together, and in its self aware, but inhuman state, it simply did not realise the extent of what it had to do.

Precisely twenty two minutes later, a point was reached in the machines program, where it could now achieve Goal number one, which was:

[Acquire Necessary Equipment For Goal Two.]

It knew that the necessary equipment was most likely around this domicile, and that the human in charge of this domicile was presently inactive and thus posed little threat. It began its task.

Some time later.. the machine had collected most of what it seeked. Plenty of duct tape, which it ingested via one arm, and stored in an easy to dispense repository in its chest. Some adhesives, varying in strength. A reserve power source in the event of primary power source failure. (It used Laceys car battery) And finally some polymer material, suitable for re-fabrication. This item, it achieved by collecting the large stores of plastic bags in Laceys basement, and turned them into a powdery substance which could now be fabricated into almost any form.

During its search, it also located the necessary resources to accomplish Goal Four. It had located Lacey's home PC. With the materials collected, and Goal number one accomplished, the program stepped over to Goal number two, which was:

[Pacify And Capture One Living Human]

It turned all six of its eyes toward Laceys bedroom, and using infra red, it watched her sleeping form rest in bed. Totally unaware of what was being planned for her.

CHAPTER 9

As Lacey slept soundly, the machine quietly moved around the house setting itself up so it would be best able to execute Goal Two. It already knew from its data archives, that humans were fast creatures. Clever and adaptive, just like it, this one would provide a challenge. The machine had already planned out several possible scenarios, and went around the house putting in place measures to prevent them being of consequence. It placed a large heavy object in front of the front door (a washing machine) and taped it to the floor to ensure the human would not be able to counter it.

Further to this, it located Lacey's personal internal explosive based projectile launching tool, (her gun) and it was swiftly neutralised (wrapped in tape tightly and stored). Lacey slept on.. unaware of all this. Unaware as the machine used every minute that she slept for as another minute to plan her capture. It had already considered entering her room and just capturing her like that, but the program instructed that she must be captured in a way that would allow her use in the way future goals dictated.

No. She had to be captured in the correct way, which meant she had to put herself into the correct place for the capture to occur. The plan was to force her to retreat be caught by surprise before she had a chance to adapt.

Shortly before 5am, the machine finally finished. It had transformed the house into a veritable house of horrors. Every entrance was rigged with some sort of device to slow down or redirect Lacey, and every door out of the house had been sealed and barred. Even the windows had a mesh of duct tape over them to prevent them being broken and exited through.

At 5am, Lacey's alarm clock went off, sounding that shrill annoying buzzer, which never failed to rouse Lacey from even the deepest sleep. She rolled over and slapped the large Off button, and closed her eyes again. But she was awake. She couldn't sleep and her energetic go-get' em side told her to get up, put on her running shoes and go for that jog she had told herself she would go on. So with a sigh, and an extended yawn, Lacey got out of bed and put on her running shoes and a nice warm tracksuit to match.

Motivation was easy for Lacey. She simply told herself that after the cold outdoors, a nice hot coffee would be waiting for her. And a nice bacon and egg breakfast. Already Lacey's stomach grumbled impatiently, almost urging her to get going and get the jog over with. But she never got that far..

Chapter 10
 

Lacey opened her bedroom door, and paused. She knew something wasn't right, but it took a few seconds for the magnitude of that thought to register. The door was barred by the washing machine, and there was duct tape everywhere! What the hell was going on here?

She slowly walked around, her running shoes silencing her footsteps, for which she was grateful. It felt as if she had woken up in someone else's house and she was afraid to put a foot wrong. But put a foot wrong she did. Without realising it, Lacey stepped right into a taut trip line that spanned the lounge room entranceway and only her police training saved herself from a nasty fall onto her face. Her hands absorbed most of it, but it still hurt.

Quickly scrambling to her feet, she looked down and was amazed to see the tripwire was made of fishing line. So thin and so invisible that even if she had been looking for it, she wouldn't have seen it while it was taut. Only now that it had snapped and lay coiled on the floor could she see it. Whoever put that there, sure knew what they were doing. Lacey's heart was pounding in her chest, and her breathing was fast. She wanted to get out of here, but morbid curiosity was compelling her to keep going and find out what was at the end of this little scene.

Taking one step at a time, Lacey prowled through her house, noting the obvious traps, and even spotting a few hidden ones. But she knew by the professionalism displayed in their construction, that there were traps still unseen by her, and sooner or later she would find one in the wrong way. Her mind was awhirl with questions, what was all this for? where was that lunking great big machine hiding, what was it going to do with her if she got caught?

Suddenly Lacey remembered her gun. She knew that a rib was missing off the machine, and being somewhat vulnerable, she might be able to sharp shoot the brain box through the open hole. First, she needed her gun. Backtracking over her own steps, and avoiding the traps, she made her way to the small coffee table in the lounge room corner. Her gun was inside the second drawer, right in the front where she could grab it in the unlikely event of an emergency. But when Lacey opened the drawer, the gun was gone!

The familiar feel of cold sweat broke out all over Lacey's face and she had to steady herself. Now she was defenceless. Trapped in her own home, against a maniacal machine, with her only line of defence stolen and out of reach.
 

To be continued.

Here's a challenge to all readers, can you write the next part?

18/11/01