Jack Merlin's footsteps echoed through the metal corridor as he decended deeper into the core of the ship. He stopped in front of a door and stood perfectly still as lasers criss-crossed his eyes. The red light above the door faded and a green took its place as the reinforced door slowly pulled itself open to a room that was as unknown to everyone else as its contents.
Lights blinked. Wires ran this way and that. The room was actually a long shaft. A covered catwalk broke through the mesh of wiring and support beams. On its other side was a rotating room; but, in reality, it wasn't the room that rotated. In fact, it was the axis on which the rest of the ship spun around to generate its gravity.
Merlin reached the axis and waited for the portal to come around again. As if he were merely jumping onto a carnival merry-go-round, he grabbed onto a metal handle and leapt into the room.
"Status report," he commanded.
In the center of the room, a man sat encased in circuits, wires, metals, and plastics. His shaved head was littered with probes that entered through the skull and into his brain. The eyes were closed. The body was withered and useless. Tubes both feed and drained him. The man sat motionless, but still answered with a voice that was detatched from his body and very electronic. "LIFE SUPPORT AT FULL CAPACITY. GRAVITY...."
"Let me clarify," Merlin interrupted. "Give me a status report on the situation in Mandelovia."
"MILITARY PERSONELLE BUILD UP HAS INCREASED BY 25%. RESOURCE ALLOCATION AND MANUFACTURING OUTPUT SHOW AN ADDITIONAL 10% INCREASE. TROOP MOVEMENT TO MANDELOVIAN BORDERS SHOWS APPROXIMATELY 53% OF THEIR FORCES HAVE BEEN DEPLOYED SO FAR. ALL DATA COLLECTED AND ANALYZED SO FAR COME WITHIN A 1.39405% MARGIN OF ERROR."
"And Antartica?"
"STATION WEAPONS SYSTEMS ARE BEING UPDATED TO FIT NECESSARY PARAMETERS. MOVEMENT TO PROPER ORBITAL POSITION WILL BE COMPLETED IN 9 HOURS, 37 MINUTES, AND 59 SECONDS." There was a slight hesitation, as though the man were trying to deduce something that fell out of his specialty of scientific data and numbers. "CALCULATED SIDE EFFECTS OF CONTINGENCY PLAN ARE MEASURED ON A GLOBAL SCALE. SIMULATIONS SHOW THE RISE OF OCEAN LEVELS ALONE...
"I know the consequences, Brain," Merlin cut the man off. "That's why it is called a contingency plan. You only use it if you have to. Continue to process all incoming information and relaying it to the main consoles." He stood at the opening for a moment before hoping off and walking back down the catwalk.
The Brain sat as motionless as ever as the world outside his room spun around him. All intel and ship related data was pumped directly into his mind which almost instantaneously processed and redirected it to its needed destination. His mind controlled all of the Nibiru.
