Interlude XX
BiPrism Interactive Control Tower I
WANNKK-WANNKK-WAANNNKKK!
High pitched alarms went off in the control room of the tower, it was a call to arms. Everyone who had their rotations in the tower, or who had their apartments located within the tower were right now being awakened and forced to muster at their positions.
“ALL HANDS ON DECK, THIS IS NOT A DRILL, REPEAT ALL HANDS ON DECK!”
Prince Lee for his part just stared at a panel of screens that all showed the same image from multiple different directions.
As he watched, he could see the spiking use of resources. Hundreds and thousands of petrabytes of data processing resources all going to showing the monster that had somehow defied convention.
Redundant Drive Corruption Rate: 5%
Prince read a readout of a monitor that he hoped would never be needed, but was suddenly alive and blaring to life at the moment.
“Prince, there are resource allocation issues, automatic shut down on external feeds initiated. Emergency broadcast protocols initiated on all live streaming services.” GAIL, the Generational Artificial Intelligence Liaison, said, her voice sounding calm despite the desperate panic that was going on in the building below.
Prince for his part was in the commanders tower, one where he could both see the the entire operations floor below. Where even now people in half dressed uniforms were running into their assigned cubicles and issuing automatic overrides and readouts as necessary.
“What happened?” Prince asked, though he could already make some assumptions based on the fact that the only thing that still seemed to stream into his office was the one remaining feed of the destruction that was ongoing.
There on the screen, he saw a horror that he never thought would be possible. For there on the screen in 360 degrees of coverage was the image of a long finger first scraping against an invisible barrier, and then finally that same finger finally managing to shatter the barrier.
“We have an external breach of the internal server world,” GAIL answered succinctly.
“External, as in from Earth?” Prince asked, his voice confused as that looked like nothing he had seen on Earth, not even in the darkest parts of the internet.
“No, this is from the source,” GAIL explained.
“The source?” Prince asked, but found his question going mute as he first saw the long finger reach out from the rift and touch, each of the three black pods that had been placed.
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With the touching, the finger turned back in on itself, as if it had scratched something off that was worth inspecting. The way one might accidentally stick their finger in a dap of ketchup and look back to see how much ketchup was in fact there.
But the amorphous tentacle blob that followed the finger was not done with tricks, for it quickly formed two massive yellow eyes that caused a shiver to run down Prince’s spine.
Then to Prince’s astonishment, the eyes blinked as if in confusion at the odd energy signature.
Simultaneously the three dimensional image of GAIL flickered for a moment, as if this new interaction and recording of the interaction was taking up too many resources for it to answer accurately.
Redundant Drive Corruption Rate: 11%
“Suggest allowing, adaptive measures to be taken,” GAIL finally managed to state while flickering into and out of existence.
During this same time, the mutating finger monster of horrors scratched free all three pod systems.
By doing so, three of the most disgusting creatures ever seen in the game were brought to life. Seeing them still moving, the long finger grabbed them, wrapping themselves around in the same way a tentacle would.
Immediately upon being seized the pod monsters all fought back. One going so far as to reach down and bite the mass of mutating skin that held it. From the images and the states of being, it was clear that the three newly awakened creatures were close to feral.
Upon seeing the bite, the eyes just stared at the creature for a moment. Then as if a mental judgement had been set, the creatures were then stabbed by sharp stone like projections that erupted from the skin of the invading monster.
Redundant Drive Corruption Rate: 16%
“We need to do a hard reset!” Prince demanded.
“Impossible, we have already tried, thus the surge in resource waste and the fact that 99.9% of all monsters, actors, and participants are all locked,” GAIL responded.
“Wait, those three are moving?” Prince noted, but then looking around he could see that what GAIL said was accurate.
“Yes, but only those three in Timult. There are more in World’s End that are also able to move. We believe that one will likely be able to help with this,” GAIL said.
As she spoke Prince saw that GAIL was right. Other than the three Cuthulu horror monsters that Cass had left behind, nothing else aside from this invading monster was capable of movement.
Redundant Drive Corruption Rate: 23%
“Who do you mean?” Prince asked, and almost as if anticipating the question one of the screens changed to show two Cassiopeias next to Mallory, amongst a handful of unfrozen other Midnight Hunter Guild members. Then seeing the image and that seemingly a good portion of the Midnight Hunter Guild members were able to move, Prince asked, “I assume there is a reason why those can move?”
“There is, but that is not important right now. Do we have authority to take all corrective measures as needed?” GAIL asked.
This was big, what was being asked was huge in the grand scheme of things.
This was the equivalent of asking a computer with a virus to reformat its own hard drive while remaining operational the entire time. Or a human equivalent version of performing open heart surgery on yourself.
“Can you fix it?” Prince found himself asking.
“Can we fix it? Clearly not, otherwise it would be done.”
Redundant Drive Corruption Rate: 28%
This was nearing dangerous territory. Corruption that deep would mean that swaths of data would be permanently lost, and might not be available even on the deep freeze storage back up systems. Ones that had data from a year ago or more at this point in time.
“Then who?” Prince asked, but staring at the screen, he saw what the system had already come to.
“Oh come on, half the world shuts down and you think it is somehow my fault?” The slightly defensive and childlike voice of Dr. Cassiopeia Spiritlight came through.
Hearing the words, Prince could almost imagine the laugh track that was often added to many of her episodes that were being made for mainstream media.
Redundant Drive Corruption Rate: 32%
Seeing the marker tick down again, Prince readied himself.
“Do whatever you need to do to fix this problem, but then revert back to normal protocols once this specific issue is fixed.” Prince stated.
With that GAIL, nodded “acknowledged. Emergency protocols being initiated to deal with corrupting elements.”
BRRRINNNG!
At that moment a call that Prince had been expecting came through almost immediately. Seeing the number, Prince instantly knew it was his boss, CFO Charles Rainquist.
“Hello Charles, I was just about to call you…” Prince began, but was instantly cut off as an irate Rainquist began screaming on the other end.
During this time, Prince was so distracted that he failed to see the pixie like smile that momentarily flashed over GAIL’s features as she went about passing along the commands given to her, orders that she intended to carry out to their fullest.