The Singularity gave us one day to prepare. We watched as thousands of soldiers massed outside our doors, building a network of trenches and counter defilades within the Novan’s old trenches often digging foxholes or building walls right down the middle. No longer were these protected roads suitable for Juggernauts, or grav sleds, only infantry and the single tracked vehicles of the Singularity’s conscripted veterans.
One day was plenty. Twelve Juggernauts now stood guard over the Bunker entrance, each positioned in a firing lane all its own. The Tulverians were moved so as to better stand guard next to the smaller of the two vaults and the tunneling drill the Novans first used to make the bunker was repaired and set to work expanding tunnel five. Now driven by iguana pilots, along with all excavating equipment. With any luck I can bury Singularity with the cover of slave labor, my best attempt at explaining their presence. Still, they’ll be bottled up inside tunnel five when General Zebra arrives.
“Boss, we’re maxed out. All biomass deployed. Hygieia requests we empty the recycler and scavenge biomass from the foundry. A stance Alaea agrees with.” Says Wormface.
“Thanks. Looks like a scouting party is headed our way, go greet them with Helen. I need to have words with my other thirds.”
“Yessir!”
>Terran Athena: Girls, what the hell?! We are not blending people!
>Executrix Alaea: What if they’re pedophiles?
My jaw bounces off my chest. Too stunned to formulate more than a single word question.
>Terran Athena: Explain.
>Executrix Alaea: I’ve been poking around the Factory’s specifications… The Novans wanted certain uh, personality traits for their Juggernaut pilots… Okay look, I’ll just say it. Everyone in those tubes is a psychopathic murderer who will take pleasure in uhm.. Landing their shots on target. Turns out that a subset of pedos have enough self loathing to enjoy having their bodies removed and implanted into an enormous tank that gets to murder smaller things… Yeah, I don’t get it either. Nor do I want to understand. Ask the Novan computer if you need confirmation.
More out of shock than distrust, I comply, interrogating the AI via a chat window, ineffective and slow. But ten minutes later and the computer finally spat out that maybe one human being in the foundry wasn’t a complete piece of pediphilic trash. Although that might just have been a technicality since they hadn’t been convicted.
“Just a week ago I would have left them alone. Cryo stasis will keep them from harming anyone ever again.” I say with a heavy sigh.
But it’s not a week prior. Allowing these viscous mongrels to live will only result in other’s pain.
>Terran Thena: I don’t want to hear about it, or see any part of it.
>Matriarch Hygieia: making the universe safer
[+500 biomass]
In that moment I hate it all. Were I given the choice between keeping my telekinesis, warping abilities, and tri-personality I would trade it all for a single do over. But I can’t. I’m not one of the -nameless- and Kerrigan still needs me.
>Terran Thena: Any progress on Kerrigan? Has the lab turned up anything useful?
>Executrix Alaea: I’ve purged the lab. Five specimens remain, the others were not sentient and did not have the capacity for sentience. Hygieia has their biomass.
[+50 psychically viable biomass [very weak]]
I’m silent for a long moment. Reading her words thrice to make sure.
>Terran Thena: …
>Terran Thena: When were you going to tell me?
>Terran Thena: Are you cooking up another Kerrigan?
>Matriarch Hygieia: uhm… no…
>Executrix Alaea: Hygieia might have left humanity behind, but she’s not a psychopath. Kerrigan isn’t replaceable. But… uh- it’s way creepier.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
>Matriarch Hygieia: So… I know you’re attached to Kerrigan, that isn’t a line I’m willing to cross. But I uhm. Saw how you piloted Hades and got to thinking…
>Terran Thena: Stop.
>Terran Thena: Don’t say it.
Her usage of proper punctuation and caps is enough for me to guess what she has done. It’s impressive, a masterful stroke of straingineering; and the most cardinal abomination I’ve ever conceived.
>Terran Thena: I’m not mad. But we will never discuss that further. Understand?
>Executrix Alaea: Understood.
>Matriarch Hygieia: Understood.
>Matriarch Hygieia: Oh I made a Kerrigan clone too, but that’s only so we could try and figure out what to do with her. Alaea borrowed her brain and I broke the rest of her down.
>Executrix Alaea: Anything to save Kerrigan. You can have the brain back. I think I see what Red did, but really I need hard physical access to the central AI before I’m doing any neurosurgery.
Wormface chose that moment to share his vision, ending all discussion of clones and maybes to show Beefcake the bioweapon standing next to several troopers. Two wear the ranks of lieutenants, a first class and a second class with a handful of aids hiding behind them. If these are flash trained troopers, they received no bravery from the conditioning.
“Guess Jim didn’t lie about everything. Some people won’t be turned into warriors. Damn, I really hope there is a farming world out there that took most of Earth’s citizens.” I hope aloud.
“Boss, the bioweapon wants to survey the bunker.” Wormface says.
The absolute worst case scenario is on my doorstep. I don’t even have a proper name for these things and one just invited itself in for tea and god damned crumpets! Their guns are unique to them, without any logical ammo containers or power cells and I have no idea what this particular monster’s abilities are. We have no established countermeasures nor any idea on how they function or even how they MIGHT function.
“I want to hear it speak. Tell him we’ve-”
-my throat swells shut, saving me from saying ‘we’ve killed them before’-
“-ahem, I’ve seen them go insane before. Start seeing former friends as enemies.” I finish.
Wormface relays my message and the bioweapon places his hands together in a bow.
“My apologies for previous encounters. Not all of my kind are stable and all too often we discover instabilities through the rigours of frontline combat. I am one of the few stable creations, and am willing to remain outside the bunker or participate via tight beam communications chained to me from your conference room by unarmed troopers.”
A second stretches into a minute while I process the magnanimous words. He speaks more honestly than any bioweapon I’ve ever heard tale of, and far more coherently. Then he said the words I cannot ignore. He’s stable. A stable bioweapon. What we hope to turn Kerrigan into. No way can we pass up this opportunity.
“Bioweapons can kill with anything and everyone, if he wants in, everyone in the entry team must unload their weapons.”
For the second time in one day mandible bounces off my armor as the troopers -officers included- remove power cells or magazines from their weapons, including a number of odd looking earth pistols, I’ve seen them in movies but have no idea what they are. Dad only taught me how to use guns he owned, like the FNX, a few Glocks which all work the same anyways, and 1911s an American classic that was more a status symbol than fancy sportscars or Mohecan ATVs.
Helen leads the way, escorting them to a recently cleared out supply room in tunnel 4, where decontamination and sealed rations are waiting, both captured Singularity rations and Technomancy sealed jars. A quick scan is performed by two aids, both wearing red crosses on their flak vests, medical staff who give the rations a clear bill of health. But then something strange occurs, 1st LT looks to the bioweapon, as if asking permission.
“Decon first, don’t want to mix Alpha or Beta particles with food.” Beefcake advises.
“Yessir.” 1st LT snaps, saluting in singularity fashion.
“Damnit.” I mutter, wishing they had chosen some other salute.
While the kinematics of human arm structure means simple salutes will inevitably be recycled across different cultures, the straight arm raised makes me think NAZI! Shorting out my brain as the flashtraining asserts -emphatically- that it only means ‘For the Glory of Mankind my Brother’.
Through the suit cams or eyes of symbiote driven technicians, we watch the delegation carefully. Should a fight break out I need the spinolings and combat troopers to be an unexpected quantity. Same with our squad of four roaches, all Hygieia could spare as our customized roaches pull triple duty. Biomass reclaimers, ship scavengers, and brood guardians.
Soon the freshly scrubbed war criminals are headed my way, en route to the ‘ambassadorial’ closet we’ve prepared. A room packed with every luxury on base, and not ten feet from Red’s laboratory. Or a parked Plasma-naut and two armored grav sleds with a combat detachment. With a second checkpoint mirroring the first 100 meters down the tunnel, providing plenty of time for the tanks to charge weapons and return fire should anything go awry.
80 / 80 Biomass (Hygieia’s pool of available biomass)
834 / 2000 Courier Ship Progress (roaches have scavenged 100 biomass from shipmind)
80 / 80 Mechanized armors
30 / 50 Vehicles
1 / 1 Protochronian Artefacts
12 Nanofactories
1 MacroFactory (Foundry) Novan Primary Fabricator
20 / 100 Project ‘ODIN’
[+50 psychically viable biomass] (goes into a separate reservoir where Hygieia will refine further. Why make fifty weakass empaths like Helen when you can boil it down and make 5 kickass Kerrigans?)
(Actual TLDR: I consider this story a complete failure, to the point that this version will be deleted. Your votes will determine if I rewrite and reupload or if It stays deleted and I go back to writing more loved stories under my primary penname.)
Catastrophic. I'm horrified and forced to look inward.
preposterously suspicious. Especially when you consider that this story does not have a single half star rating... Like, wtf?
What should I do? (two answers)
