Thursday at the lab

Ellen slept well for the first time since Friday night. She slept so heavily that other staff members had already come to work. She was woken by someone knocking on her door. "What?" She looked at her watch. "It's nearly nine." Looking at the door she shouted "Come in."

Bill peered around the door. "You slept well I take it. Did I just wake you up?"

"Yeah. Seems as though I did." Doing her best to cover herself up and not flash her breast by accident. "Sorry Bill. I'm not exactly dressed under here. Give me few minutes and I'll be out there. I take it nothing has turned up while I've been out of it."

"Nothing. Other than the fact that you left the main terminal on and Pat noticed you asked it why."

"Oh, Did I leave it on? Well I thought I'd try something different. Anyway, can I get dressed now?"

"Oh, yeah, sorry Ellen. See you out there in a little while." Bill closed the door behind him and Ellen just slumped back into her bunk.

"Hope I've got some clean underwear with me. These ones are still a bit wet from last night." Ellen went to see if she had another change of clothes in her compartment. Luckily she did, except for a new top. When she got dressed, she exited the room and headed to the lab. "Morning all." Greeting everyone there as she took a seat at the main terminal. "Can I get everyone's attention. No point going to the conference room. This won't take long." The staff all gathered in front of Ellen to hear what she had to say. "What have we done so far?"

Bill, being the main assistant answered. "We've gone over everything we can think of Ellen. Nothing in the construction of the bots can explain it. Design specs haven't been altered since they were finalised. We just haven't got a damn thing. Nice idea with asking the mainframe why though. I take it you didn't get any answers there either though."

"No. I didn't. But I'm now thinking. Maybe it wasn't the nanobots breaking programme. Maybe it was the instructions they were given in the first place." This got everyone's attention. "Maybe when we gave them their command prompt. We wasn't very clear."

"How do you mean? They were told to remove a tumour and repair damage. I think that was clear enough." Replied a middle aged female technician.

"Ok. Lets test the theory. Bill. When I cut myself. What did you command the nanobots to do?"

"I told then to repair damage to a cut on your body. I thought that was a pretty clear instruction."

"That's the point Bill. You didn't state what cut. They went through my entire system and repaired all cuts, and as scars are the result of a deep cut, they repaired them too. That's what I'm thinking. Maybe we wasn't specific enough in our instructions."

"Yeah. You could be right there. But if that is all it is. It still doesn't explain why our patient feels as though he's in the best health of his life. You said it yourself Ellen. Blood pressure and pulse were way too accurate."

"I know. So what if Steven had a hole in his heart and didn't know. The bots would've repaired that too. There's a lot of cases of people finding out they had one when they become adults."

Bill again had a counter argument to this. "I doubt that is the case. Steven had a promising future as an athlete. He would've found out about it by now. If he did have a hole in his heart then it would've affected him at school with all that running. So I think I'm gonna have to rule that one out."

"So what else could be then?" Ellen was struggling to come up anything else to help explain.

"I don't know. But your theory is probably partly correct. We wasn't specific enough. It does explain some part of, but not the whole puzzle." Bill looked thoughtful for a while. "We'll get there. Might take longer than we wished for, that's all."

"Alright then. Get back to what you was doing, and fingers crossed we get something turn up. I'm going to look at the plans for other projects and make sure we don't make the same mistake with them." Everyone returned to their stations. Ellen turned back to the mainframe. On the screen, her question still remained. Still unanswered. "Well it was worth a go."

Just then. A lowly teen lab assistant came into work. Ellen looked at him and then the clock on the wall. "You're late. Good job I'm a nice person. What happened."

The young lad just looked back at her. "Sorry Miss Ellen, but you better switch the news on. You ain't gonna believe what happened last night." Ellen used the mainframe to stream the news and listened intently at the report when it came on. Luckily for Steven, the nanobots sent interference out to cut out any CCTC footage in the nightclub so they only had verbal reports on the incident. When they finished listening, They were astounded by it. Ellen turned to the young lad.

"Thank you for bringing this to my attention. As excuses for being late go. That's a good one. We'll pretend it didn't happen so you don't lose pay. Let's just say you done some work at home."

"Thanks Miss Ellen. You're the best." He then went to work. Bill came up behind Ellen.

"That's unbelievable. No CCTV footage, but plenty of witnesses. And the description of the man in question. This could not be worse."

"I know Bill, I know. Can I talk to you in private later. When everyone has gone home. I really need to talk to you."

"Yeah sure. We'll speak later."

Throughout the day Ellen was on edge. Work was the last thing on her mind so she locked herself in the old C.E.O office using the excuse of paperwork to keep out of the way. When the staff had finished there shift and gone home, Bill came in to see her. "I've told Cathy to delay getting me for an hour. So what's wrong Ellen. You've not been yourself at late."

"I've have to be honest with you now Bill. We can't say anything about this. Luckily only you and I were at the hospital on that day, so only we know what Steven looks like. The others might suspect. We have to keep this quiet."

"I haven't said anything yet. I'm not sure I can get my head round that report. But we don't know for certain it was him."

"That's not the only thing I need to honest about Bill. You see, I broke regulation. I didn't just meet with Steven. I invited him to my home."

"You did what?." Bill was shocked. "Why? You don't even know the guy. And if what we heard this morning does turn out to be him. You could have put yourself in danger."

"I know Bill. But look at his history. For some reason, I knew I could trust him. But it gets worse than that. I don't know why, but. For whatever reason it was, I err, I dressed nicely for him. I let him see me as a young woman. Not a doctor."

"I see. Did he try anything?"

"No. We just talked about his treatment. I explained everything we done to cure him. Then we just talked about, stuff. And I got to know him as a person. He's really sweet. So I doubt he'd want to hurt someone."

"You can't base your assessment of someone on one meeting Ellen. There's something else."

"You're right Bill. There is. You see. Before he left mine. He told me there was something else he wanted to do to thank me. He." Ellen paused." He kissed me."

"So that's it then. You're worried he could end up stalking you or something. No wonder you've been having trouble sleeping." Ellen shook her head. Her eyes starting to water. "So what is it then Ellen."

"The kiss made me feel something I haven't felt for a long time. Ever since that moment, I can't get that kiss out of my head" Her tears intensifying. "I." Again, she paused. "I love him Bill. It's tearing me apart and I don't know what to do about it." She finally admitted to her feelings for Steven.