[https://i.imgur.com/nhGXauj.png]
concept art for the blu-flo backpack
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Captain Sunderland smashed the steel desk again. It already suffered a deep indent from his previous punch and now his hands punched straight through the table. As he pulled his fists back, the sharp metal caught on his skin, creaked as it was deformed again, and finally snapped. His arm was otherwise unaffected, skin intact with no gash or bruise in sight.
"These pricks! They think they can tell me what to do?! Rifting non combatants! I sacrificed so much so that they can sit there peacefully. ARRGGHHHH!"
He went on a rampage and smacked the table towards the wall in anger. The wall, despite being made of thick reinforced steel, gave way like warm butter as the table pierced through and continued flying forward with its momentum unabated.
The table continued to puncture three more walls before crumpling against the fourth and coming to a stop.
People poked their heads through the holes in the wall to see what was happening.
"Sorry, sorry", Penelope quickly came and defused the mess, "Go back to your work. There's nothing to see here."
She tapped on a holographic intercom on her arm and soon after a hole opened in the ceiling and a pneumatic tube fell to the ground. Penelope picked it up and opened it, releasing tiny nanorobotic spiders that crawled and patched up the holes in seconds.
"Captain calm down. Your anger is unproductive. I have too much paperwork as it is."
He stopped his rampage, huffing. The control room was a mess. Papers were everywhere. Bolted or not, the captain had somehow managed to rip and upturn everything.
Penelope sighed, tapping on her arm, and more pneumatic tubes fell down.
As order restored itself, Penelope walked over and patted him on the shoulder.
"You heard them, this is the Nexus' new solution. We're playing the long game now. I don't like it either, but maybe this is a good thing. Let's just keep our heads down and do our best while we have new recruits, and see what happens. Plus, we can write a complaint in a month's time when they all die because they haven't had any combat training."
The captain picked up a chair off the ground and plopped himself on it, rubbed his face in his hands, and slouched back placing his arm over the top rail of the chair.
He sighed. “Tom and Jason are right. The recruits will be fine. Once they get blu-flo, their bodies will naturally become more oriented towards fighting. They’ll have a lower potential, but if we pair them with more experienced hunters they’ll be able to survive and grow with the system. It’s a minor inconvenience and we’ll probably have 10% less power orbs. Ugh the chief is going to be on our backs.”
Penelope hunted through her bag and pulled out a tea cup and saucer. She walked over to the recombinator in the wall, placed her cup on the tray and selected beverages > tea > hot earl grey, and suddenly earl grey tea was remade inside her tea cup.
"Want some tea?"
The captain grunted.
She sat back down and holding her saucer in one hand, began to sip.
"Hey, how about we play the game as usual." She started to look around on the monitors.
Captain Sunderland took a deep breath, massaged his forehead and closed his eyes.
"I am in no mood to participate in games, Penelope. I will take the first watch. You may go and take a break."
"Sure, then I'll have a break here with you."
She got up and chose a snack from the recombinator. An assortment of chips and biscuits materialised on her saucer. There was a knock on the door. One of the lab techs had brought back the deformed table. Penelope thanked the man and put the table back in front of them. It wobbled with 3 deformed legs. She placed her saucer with biscuits precariously on top. The captain looked at it and grunted again. They both watched the unmoving cocoons.
An alarm rang on the monitor.
"Oh? That was quick" Penelope looked around the mess. "Well, where is it? Aha here". She had found an inconspicuous grey button amongst a board of switches and dials and other buttons. She pressed it. Nothing happened.
Climbing under the counter she found ripped out electrical wiring. Sighing she took out a screwdriver. The end split into a hundred smaller metal pincers and as she brought the two frayed ends of the wire together, the hundreds of pincers microwelded individually all the small frays back together. Penelope finished by tying electrical tape around the exposed wired.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Getting back up off the floor, she noticed the switchboard’s lights were on again. Pressing the button she enthusiastically talked into a microphone, "it's a g-g-g-g-go time, folks!"
Inside the shower room, the concrete walls opened and a number of people in hazmat suits ran in carrying backpacks. They quickly moved to different parts of the shower room, moving cocoons to make space. One by one they took off the backpack they were carrying and placed it on the cocoon, right over the recruit's chest. Mechanical arms spilled out of the backpack along with multiple knives and instruments. One of the mobile arms scanned the chest. The other instruments moved into position and a knife made a small cut in the front of the right upper shoulder. Two small metal paddles pushed the skin aside. The knife continued to make tiny cuts until the instruments dissected past the subcutaneous fat and pushed aside deltoid and pectoralis muscles until a small vein was revealed. A small metal tube poked into the vein and snaked its way across the chest and down into the heart.
A blue dye was quickly ejected from the machine, entering the heart and attaching to the myocytes, before being pumped around the rest of the body and attaching itself to every cell it came across. On the machine, a number slowly rose towards 100. The closer it reached, the more the whole cocoon glowed in blue light. Once the number reached 100, the instruments retracted and the separate layers were sewn back into place. The light slowly faded and the only remaining evidence of intervention was an inconspicuous line under the right shoulder that itself quickly healed and became a 1cm imperceptibly fine white scar.
Once this process was completed the machine arms retracted, and the backpack took on the appearance of a regular backpack again. The hazmat person moved the unconscious recruit to the side and brought another cocoon in front of them, repeating the same process until a pile of cocoons lay stacked on one side, completed.
Eventually all the recruits had this procedure completed and the hazmat suits stood up and returned all the cocoons to their original positions before leaving the way they came, concrete doors closing behind them.
Watching this, the captain took out a thermos.
"What is that?"
"It is called a thermos, it was a thermal saving device used before the alien invasions."
"What era do you herald from? Why don't you let the recombinator make your tea? It'll be warmer and fresher."
He put his thermos cup to his mouth and drank in silence.
"Come on man. You're a captain. You have status to uphold, you have to accessorise better. This is why you're stuck here, management keeps looking down on you."
"I don't know what you're talking about. This is a medium between functionality and artistic license. Look at this line here", he pointed to a line where the ends of the metal sheet touched each other after it was curled into a cylinder. "This is clearly a reference to the industrial age. No recombinator will recreate this line. It would make a perfect bottle every time. This bottle was fashioned by hand and it represents a peaceful time before the stress of war and annihilation. I drink this to remind myself of my goal. That one day, we too can walk and live unencumbered by the threat of extinction."
She rolled her eyes. "Then why don't you just fill up your thermos using tea from the recombinator?"
"I want the whole experience. I grow the tea leaves, grind and powder them, sift and stir it with hot water, and watch as the water and foam take on the leaf and become rich and green. It's… spiritual."
"And now this tea that I have in my hand? It cleanses me of my anger. A recombinator can never give me the same experience."
She scoffed and sarcastically said, "oh yes, the executioner known to have killed over a hundred thousand humans for the benefit of humanity demonstrates his method of staying sane."
"Well how do you stay sane?"
"I don't. I get off on it. Only downside is that people have stopped asking me out at the pub. I miss a good scream."
"So you use sex as a stress relief?"
She thought about it. "Actually you know what? You're right, I did."
The captain sniffed, "you'd hardly find anyone worth your time at the pub."
"Trust me that's all I'm looking for. A good one night stand and no responsibilities moving forward."
"Why?"
"We're all going to die one day right? I mean soon. Without blu-flo our test tube bodies will start to degrade, but even with it, there's a limit right? You must feel it nearing."
He paused, "so?"
"So, why should I waste time looking after a kid if I only have a few years left? Time is too precious."
They sat in silence again watching the monitors.
"If you offered, I'd do it."
"Sorry?"
"If you wanted to have a child with me, I'd bear you a son." Penelope was slightly annoyed and raised her chin slightly, intentionally enunciating each word clearly in a direct response.
"Daughter. I want a daughter." Again the captain gave a non answer. Penelope clenched her teeth.
"Well that's too bad because I don't want either. But for you I'd do it."
The captain looked deeply into his tea, contemplating.
"No."
He turned to look at her. "You should spend the rest of your life happily."
They observed each other in silence for a while before the captain turned back to observing the crowd on the monitors. "Your break is over. This is my break. That is why I am drinking my tea".
Penelope's whole body lifted and sank as she sighed. She put her teacup down on the counter and started to type away at the console again.
"Don't place it on the counter. I can't afford a short out."
She sighed again and put her cup on the lopsided table.
They both sat in silence again, save the clacking of fingers against keys and occasional aerating slurp of tea.
"The day you become my superior, I will buy a modern piece of equipment and use the recombinator."
"For real?! Oh Nexus, I am making that day happen". Penelope stood up and performed a little celebration dance.
"Goddess-speed. But for now let me enjoy the process."