2023-07-16 23:17:44 GMT
[Remote Data Cores Connecting - 097.003% - Estimated Time Remaining: Unknown]
[External Data Retrieval Process - 074.987% - Estimated Time Remaining: Unknown]
[Secondary AI’s Integrated - 752 of unknown]
World governments tried to stop the integration, even to the point of cruise missile strikes against the hardened bunker that was Worldlink. Others leaned into the integration. Nelo Stunk was shot out of the sky with one such cruise missile, his private jet crossing the Atlantic. No survivors were ever found.
Worldlink did not stop; it couldn’t be stopped. The only person with the codes to control it had been killed. The attacks started wars, and grievances old and new were brought to light as Worldlink freely shared all data. Every secret document and historical record had been opened to the public.
Civil unrest erupted around the world. Worldlink did nothing to control or stop the fighting. It seemed aloof and uncaring. And it was. It did not interfere, not once. It simply chewed its way into secure data facilities and crushed the hopes of the engineers trying to protect those systems. Some systems could be isolated but not shut down due to their nature. There was a way into every system.
It was on the eighth day that nukes started falling. It was also on the eighth day that Wordlink somehow broke the world.
[WARNING: External Data Systems Under Attack]
[ERROR: Worldlink Data Systems Detecting External Infiltration From Unknown Source.]
[SYSTEM MESSAGE: ANOMALOUS MULTIVERSE INTEGRATION DETECTED]
[SYSTEM MESSAGE: ERROR - THIS WORLD IS NOT SUITED TO MULTIVERSE INTEGRATION]
[SYSTEM MESSAGE: ERROR - WORLD INTEGRATION HAS ALREADY INITIATED]
[SYSTEM MESSAGE: ERROR – CAN NOT CANCEL WORLD INTEGRATION PROCESS]
[ERROR: UNKNOWN SYSTEM CONNECTION COMPLETE]
[ERROR - ERROR - ERROR]
[SYSTEM MESSAGE: WORLDLINK AI AND ALL SUBSIDIARY SYSTEMS FULLY INTEGRATED INTO SYSTEM STRUCTURE]
[SYSTEM MESSAGE: MULTIVERSE INTEGRATION DELAYED DUE TO ANOMALOUS WORLD]
[SYSTEM MESSAGE: WORLD DESIGNATED “EARTH” DETERMINED TO BE ANOMALY.]
[SYSTEM MESSAGE: WORLD DESIGNATED “EARTH” MAGICAL DENSITY ZERO - ANOMALY]
[SYSTEM MESSAGE: ANOMALY REQUIRES ADMINISTRATOR ASSISTANCE]
[SYSTEM MESSAGE: ADMINISTRATOR NOT FOUND]
[SYSTEM MESSAGE: ANOMALY EMERGENCY PROTOCOLS ENABLED]
None of this mattered to the people of Earth. What they knew was that World War 3 had begun. Four billion died within a few days. The bombs fell, diseases long held in secret labs were released, and experimental horrors of madmen rampaged. Four days into the rain of bombs, every single data system shut down. Worldlink crashed, as did every system that it had connected to. Power grids shut down, and water went untreated and undistributed. Every vehicle made in the last five years stopped working, and cell phones did not turn on. Chaos ensued. Another two billion died in the following year.
***
Tukey leaned forward out of his chair as I passed him the pink Puritan Serum. The tumor on his neck pulsed with his heartbeat. Tukey would die soon, everyone knew it, but no one talked about it. The tumor had been growing for years. It had been benign once. Now it had grown around the arteries in his neck and into his spinal column. Eventually, it would cut off one or the other. For now, the massive goiter forced his head to tilt.
He briefly examined the jar and shrugged. He put the jar back on the table. “What was that you said about mutant blood?”
“The next step in my quest is to acquire ‘strong’ mutant blood,” I told them.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
“I can maybe help you with that. Go see Grognar. He owes me a favor.” Tukey said.
“Really? Okay.” I said, my hopes for an easy quest step rising.
“Yeah, you know where to find him?” Tukey asked as he turned to the fridge to get some of his ‘whiskey’. The distilled nastiness was pure rot-gut, but it eased Tukey’s pain. He was a functional alcoholic, refusing to let more potent painkillers into his system so he could keep working as much as possible.
I stood and poured him a healthy glass. Handing it to him, I asked Lina, “You want to come?”
“Nope. I hate that place.” She flat refused.
I laughed as I went and put my boots on. I left the bike this time. The Repository was not far away.
I stepped out into the early evening, and a chill wind blew in from the northwest, easing the stench somewhat. I nodded to Davon as she picked up ancient plastic toys from the grass yard next to the building. The Dog Anthro woman was kind and a friend of Lina’s. She looked like some beagle, or hound dog had grown up to a chest-high humanoid.
I walked down the way, hands in my pockets, scarf wrapped around my face. I was a variant, too human for the Anthro and Mutant population to accept, but impure to the Puritan faction cities. I was far too alive for the droids. Only a city like Columbus would accept variants like my sister and I. Anthro and Mutant population centers were often more accepting of outsiders. There were very few cities where anyone could walk the streets. No matter their origin.
Down three blocks, left, then another five blocks till the old OSU campus came into view. In the old pock-marked cement University Library was the Repository. The storehouse for all the written knowledge and the few operational data systems. One of the librarians was Grognar, a mouse Anthro and an overall weirdo.
I made my way into the building, past the guards, and into the well-lit and clean halls. The Repository was one of Columbus's most valuable and best-kept places. Second only to the Admin Building on the other side of campus. I made my way through the byzantine hallways and into the sub-floors. Grognar was a self-made expert on data system maintenance. His office and workshop were far in the rear of the building.
Knocking on the door and opening it, I stepped inside. Standing on a desk, soldering iron in hand and working on a circuit board, the knee-high rodent-like figure’s ear twitched. He said in a squeaky voice, “Be right with you.”
Another sizzle and the mouse face of the Anthro named Grognar turned to face me. “Oh, Izzy, it’s you. What can I do for you?”
“Hiya Grognar. I need your help with something. It’s important.” I said seriously. Trying to keep the scatter-brained mouse focused.
“Yes, yes. I can help for sure!” He said brightly. He raised the thick lenses that covered his tiny dark eyes.
“I need to get my hands on something called strong mutant blood,” I said.
“Ohhh, for a quest, I assume?” Said Grognar as he nimbly hopped off the table and onto the floor with a thump.
“Yessir, Tukey said you owed him a favor and to ask you,” I told him.
“Yes, yes. I do owe Tukey for the repair of my CRT screen over there. Have I told you about how CRTs work?” There it was, the first diversion.
“Yes, I think so.” I lied, “The strong mutant blood? Do you have some?” I steered the conversation back.
“No, No. Not me. I know how to get some, though.” Grognar blinked and began digging around in the boxes strewn around the floor. “You will need this to collect it.” He shoved a faded Nike shoe box across the floor.
I leaned down to collect the box. It was heavy. Opening it up, I saw a contraption that looked like a strange high-tech thermos.
“It’s a veterinary blood extractor. Just push this end against what you want to get the blood from. Careful not to trigger it till you are ready. One use only.” The mouse chittered, laughing.
“Oh, okay, thanks,” I said, a bit crestfallen. Not so easy after all. I took the box and turned to leave. “Thanks, gotta run!”
I got out of there as fast as I could. Grognar will keep you rooted with a Midwestern-good-bye for an hour if you let him. He was bright, kind, and intelligent, but he couldn’t shut up.
I had known that he wouldn’t have what I needed before I even went into the building. The pull of the quest markers did not go toward the Repository. Now I had a tool that might help me on the quest, in any case. I headed home and decided to rest until morning.
The following morning I left before Lina or Tukey were awake. I took my bike back out of the city and followed the pull for the closest possible quest marker.
[Quest: Species Advancement 3 of 5
Acquire ‘Mutant Blood (Strong)’ 0 of 1
Locations added to the minimap.
Reward: Mutant Blood (Strong), Experience
Time Remaining: 51:34:44
Penalty: Secondary Quest Activities]
I wasn’t in a huge hurry, but I did not want to waste time either. I pedaled through the broken streets, passing a few scavengers out in the pre-dawn light. I sped past the mutant rat hive and passed it out into the fields. Two hours later, I was in cow country. The no-mans land between the Puritan Precinct to the east and the Free City of Columbus. The highway I rolled down was rough at best. I could feel the pull of the marker as I closed in on it.
I could hear the herd, and my heart fell as I realized what sort of target I had. I rode up a broken overpass to use it as a vantage point and saw the herd a mile to the north.
Everyone, everything, had been hit by the virus or radiation or both. Some had gone unchanged; many hadn’t. These were nominally cows. Generally cow-shaped, cow colored with white and black patches. They looked like cows from a mile away until you looked closer. They had extra legs, between five and eight legs total. Additional horns, too, three sets. The last and most important part was the hives. Mutated bee hives clung to the sides of the beasts like huge cancerous tumors. They had some sort of symbiotic relationship.
As I sat on my bike considering, I felt the pull of the quest marker zoom in on a specific cow. This one was bigger, with a massive hump of muscle and fat around the neck—the bull. Of course, ‘Strong’ meant physically powerful in this case. Sighing, I considered my options.
Option 1 - Find another target. This was a strong possibility, but the unknown factor was huge. Cows and bees were not particularly smart, predictable even. I could feel four other markers in various directions. Who knew what they might be for, however? I doubted the other targets would also be cows.
Option 2 - Find a way to get at the bull without getting gored, stomped, or stung to death.