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Max was very close to losing control of his bladder. The smells of all the animals were triggering his instincts to fight or run, and he couldn’t do either. Miyamoto’s soothing voice helped, but Max was terrified. His [Empathy] skill was in overdrive and most of the animals surrounding him were hostile.
[Empathy +3, Empathy reaches 8]
Max’s mouth was dry but he had to keep stalling for time. Flip was still struggling to loosen the cables without much progress. He hoped Mal was right about Casa getting that signal. He barked to psych himself up. Sherlock wanted him to find out more.
“Why stay hidden in these woods? Most humans don’t even realize I’m a dog. They assume I’m a human playing with canine features instead of a dog assuming a human form. You could do the same.” Max asked. His question led to growls and muttering. Harambe snorted.
“A single human might be accepting, but the Voice revealed to me when I was newly awakened that the larger the group of humans, the more evil they become. No. A small group facing humanity as different, and as outsiders will only guarantee for our continued subjugation.” Harambe declared.
"We must remain concealed until our numbers rival theirs. The Trees have been benevolent, and we have reciprocated by dispersing their seeds to the far reaches. Observe, Max, the next phase on our journey to emancipation from humanity," Harambe declared, revealing a concealed section of his moss-adorned root throne.
In the dim twilight, the wooden knot appeared unremarkable, but through his electromagnetic senses, it resonated as a hub, connecting to a network of vibrant energy. The biomechanical trees were united through an intricately active root system.
“Are you lonely, Max? You could be of great assistance to our cause. I had entertained the hope that you, too, were guided by the Voice, for the device you carried bore a striking resemblance to one of our Seeds. The Voice has fallen silent for a considerable time. I believe we have prepared sufficiently, and the time is upon us for action. I had hoped that you might be an emissary, from the Voice, heralding the dawn of our Independence Day," the sagacious ape contemplated.
“The Voice has directed his Trees to be ready to produce the Uplift virus-like pollen that will Awaken all animals of sufficient size. Our number will expand exponentially with this trigger. Mankind will find all Awakened to be deadly to their predations. Our very blood will be deadly to them.” Harambe finished with solemn conviction.
[Quest: Grand Oaks Mystery – uncover the secret of the Grand Oaks – completed +100 XP awarded
“[This is not good, Max.]” Miyamoto said.
“[Um, yeah. This will be a pretty big deal, huh? Harambe is right that some humans can be asses and I’m betting his Awakened animals won’t be any better.]” Max thought back.
“[Yes, but Harambe’s weaponization of uplifted blood makes it much worse.]” Miyamoto said.
“[Huh? Why would that matter? It sounds like a defensive measure, and not a particularly good one.]” Max asked.
“[Think back to your fight with that fox, Max. He bit himself before attacking you. He used his blood as an offensive weapon against you. Your augmentations saved you, but I wonder if it would have been able to if you were human. If the blood carrying the virus targets humans specifically, I’m uncertain even augmentation will be enough to prevent its deadliness.]” Miyamoto said. Sherlock interrupted.
“[Harambe’s plan may not unfold as he expects. It is unlikely that any governments will passively accept such an implicit threat to their citizens. This more than anything might goad humanity to fight rather than relent.]” Sherlock mused.
“[Crap. Maybe I can convince him to change his plan. I’ve got to try.]” Max thought.
“Harambe. Please, let’s talk about this before you do anything rash. My father is a very powerful human, physically and politically. I know he can help us all resolve this peacefully. Can’t we at least talk to him?” Max asked, risking raising his eyes to meet the Ape's gaze. The large hominid’s eyes flashed and he slapped his root throne’s side and jumped to his feet.
[Empathy +1, Empathy reaches 9]
[Harambe Ape - dominant, pride]
Max quickly lowered his eyes and felt the Ape’s aggression settle.
[Empathy +1, Empathy reaches 10, Skill Cap award +100 XP, New skill Unlocked]
[New Mind Skill Unlocked - Poker Face 1: Use augmentation control to suppress micro-expressions and unconscious body language.]
[Harambe Ape - cautious, neutral]
Max immediately used his new skill to suppress showing his fear. The ape hesitated with a thoughtful expression and began to answer when the glen erupted with a thunderclap.
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Bill was shot into the night sky with an echoing thump as the makeshift saucer plug cleared the improvised launcher tube. He kicked it free and extended his enhanced senses to see into the darkness. His carapace with folded wings was ready to deploy, but he kept it closed for now. His pacing seemed glacial with his cognition ramped to high speeds. Ada and George worked together to build a map of the region and his own position; Casa’s targeting was spot on. He would only need to slow his fall, and Bill preferred to come in hot.
Bill was reaching the top of his ballistic course when his acoustics picked up the distant thump from behind. Casa had lagged a bit. He had started to build a shared OverLayer for them both to assess whatever trouble Max had encountered when he entered the EM disruption field.
“[Damn, I keep forgetting about the EM suppression. George, launch an overflight drone from my carapace. Get it above the field and radio Casa, before she hits it, with instructions to use direct infrared laser communications. The drone overhead might be useful to help as well if we get separated.]” Bill said.
“[Drone launched. I’ll pilot it via IR-comm until it and Casa are linked in.]” George confirmed. Bill felt Miyamoto’s alertness and concern spike before his daemon spoke.
“[Bill! Our target landing site has hundreds of thermal signatures, some of them very large.]” Miyamoto took the initiative and partially deployed Bill's secondary blade arms, keeping them tight to not increase air resistance and minimize their radar signature.
“[Have a care, Bill and Miyamoto. We are not in a war zone here. When you ring a bell, it cannot be un-rung!]” Virgil advised. Bill mentally agreed. He kept his extra arms ready but retracted the vorpal blades. Before he had brought Virgil into his council, he had many regrets about his tendency to assume the worst and act too quickly. He had no desire for his kids to ever see him as he was in his early days of being a Samaritan.
"[Dude, like, Bill, our usual drone and mote swarm tactics won't fly in this gnarly environment, man. The devices are all shielded from those EM bursts, and this jamming is totally cramping our style, you know? So, I've set them to autonomous control to, like, kinda orbit your position and, you know, just mess with any targets you hit with a LiDAR pulse. If you decide to bust out a light EM pulse, that's the signal for them to, like, come back, bro. So, you can use 'em, but there are some limitations if you're down for it.]” Leo said.
“[Excellent work anticipating the situation, Leo. And Leo, do me a favor, dial back the dude dialog styling by 90% in critical engagements in the future, OK?]” Bill commanded.
“[Right on, Dude!”] Leo said with a laugh.
Bill’s body was dropping into the small glades amongst the enormous bio-mimic trees. Bill drained his first outer layer of his ten-layer power core sending the power to top off all his augmentation capacitance fiber cells in anticipation of some heavy use.
“[Largest targets are highlighted in red in your Shared Combat OverLayer. The blue highlight figure is 98% probable Max]”. Musashi whispered to Bill.
He snapped out his wing set at the last moment to change his landing path. He slammed into the ground, between Max and the largest figure. He intentionally slapped his wings to the ground as he hit the ground to raise dirt and loose leaves with his explosive arrival.
“Max! Are you okay?!” Bill yelled.
Before Max could respond; the kitsune, Kuro, yelled. “Human!” The fox, bear, and the pair of wolves charged his dad. Bill's form blurred as he spun to the side, avoiding the bear as it crashed into the pair of wolves. Strobing flashes and thunderclaps filled the glen as howls and barks echoed. The air became a prismatic swirl of motes blitzing about in swirling patterns, their flashing LEDs further confusing the chaotic scene.
Max struggled with his bonds. Flip was trying to help, no longer trying to stay concealed, when more crashing noise came from above. Casa’s mech body tumbled down to Earth, hitting large branches and slamming into the ground in an uncontrolled somersault.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
Casa’s body was durable, but the fall had broken her left arm. Her shoulder was ruptured with broken and exposed carbon fiber struts. It was barely connected, hanging by its wiring harness. Casa staggered to her feet. She grabbed the Tesseract marble from her disabled left hand and flung it at Max.
“Max! Use your Trap Spider maneuver!” She yelled. A second later an enormous Moose, vaulted into the glens space and crashed into her, sending her body cartwheeling backward into the woods.
Max grimaced at the impact but focused on the flying Tesseract. He rolled into a kneeling position. Max tried to access the device, but the EM jamming in the woods disrupted his attempts. Max coiled to leap when his legs locked up.
“[No no no, no No no No, Max! I can’t go in there. NO!! Ph'nglui mglw'nafh!]” Mal screamed. Max pushed against Mal’s interference. Using his owner's override, he locked down her access to his body augs. He rolled quickly to where the Tesseract had landed. Flip squealed as he was tangled in the lines surrounding Max.
As soon as he felt the cool touch of the Tesseract, Max triggered his access skill and connected with the anchor. Running his FastCog, he configured the portal to appear beneath him in a fraction of a second. As a pack of badgers and raccoons close on Max, he fell into the weightless blue fog inside the pocket space and the portal snapped shut behind him.
Bill saw Max disappear and exhaled in relief. He ducked under the bear's attempt to grapple. He got under the beast and LIFTED. The massive bear sailed into the brush. Bill turned and his eyes widened as he saw the unexpectedly enormous silverback Ape crashing towards him like a freight train.
In fast time, Bill had been collecting and reviewing all the inputs from his council of daemons. The EM field was certainly cramping his normal tactics, but so far he had avoided both giving and receiving serious injury. Bill’s shock at seeing the physically modified fox had settled as he dodged and spun.
His daemon's analysis confirmed that all of the animals displayed intelligence, strategy, and tactics. Most of the beasts had physical augmentations as well. They were faster, stronger, and bigger than normal animals. With Max safe in his sub-space pocket, Bill shifted his stance. He would need to be quick and suppress this conflict while the boy was out of the way.
Bill leaped over the Ape in a prodigious somersault and he triggered his primed EM burst. If the animals had augments, perhaps he could disable them. Leo squawked in alarm as the pulse rolled out in slow time, and interacted unexpectedly with the forest's own EM field.
The OverLayer visualized the Bio-machine trees catching the discharge and reflecting it back, focused on Bill and amplified massively. Despite his military-grade EM shielding, the fluxing electromagnetics coursed through his augments with capacitive resonance, knocking him down and shorting his systems.
Bill, and all the animals, littered the ground of the glen. Without his augmentations, it was now hard to see the animals in the dark. Bill felt weak, although he realized this was merely his normal un-augmented human strength. He staggered to his feet; a painful headache speared into him like an icepick in his brain. He turned at a hissing noise behind him.
“Now. Die. Human!” A growling raspy voice said. Bill fell backward as a flash of red fur and bloody teeth filled his vision. The animal bit hard on his blocking arm, tearing deep into his skin before he managed to kick it free. In the moonlight, he saw the fox’s triumphant smile as his systems slowly rebooted.
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Max floated in the cerulean glow; his cognition speed ramped up to inspect it. The interior of the Tesseract was larger than he remembered and thick with foglets, making the blue glow of the Yggdrasil tree’s leaves suffuse the air. The glowing tree had many new additions, blocks, and rings fused to the tree. Bill’s many repairs and improvements over the last few days had changed the ruined space for the better.
Flip had been pulled into the space with him as he dove through the portal and was screaming in Max’s ears, claws in Max’s leg and frozen in fear in the zero-gee. Max struggled to think. Mal continued to scream in his head.
“[Ziromi vrotho, kad'ragol Cthulhu, kathlagon ipamisaeo. Uxlorian od. Naxeloth voqer mithra, shalxathor ulthar! Phtho'nox, thal shoggoth naxidu through ul portal ixh'karnath to kragorath your world n'ul mor.]” Mal oscillated from mumbling to outright screaming.
“[Damn it, Mal. Pull it together, I need you. …. Can one of you please talk to her on a side channel? I need to get free.]” Max pleaded.
“[I reckon I’ll try to calm the girl down.]” Boone said quickly. As he set up a side channel, Mal’s hysterical speech was cut off. Max breathed quickly, reaching out around him.
Bill had filled the Tesseract with dense quantities of active foglets, limited replication nanobots, two semi-autonomous manipulator arms, and even an extra fully charged power core to run all the extra features. Max accessed it all and saw himself through the Tesseracts internal sensors.
He closed his eyes and controlled the pair of arms to grab his floating form and begin to untangle him from the grappler’s cords. Max saw the squirrel continue to flail about. He tried to slow his perception down to address the terrified squirrel while keeping his cognition ramped up for Boone to aid Mal.
[New Mind Skill Unlocked - MultiTask 1: fully utilize augmentation neural duplication to focus on two tasks at once. Trying this skill to gain additional parallel cognition instances.]
“Flip. Keep calm, little buddy. Thank you for trying to help. I’ve got this now. What are you doing?” Max asked as the squirrel began flashing signs and signals at him with his hands.
“[I believe I can help, Master Mitchel. Your animal friend is using ASL, American Sign Language. I can try to interpret real-time for you. I’ll post text in your personal OverLayer, so you can see it.]” Sherlock said.
“* Max Dog. I am sorry. I found your Seed. Kuro RedFox took it. I am sorry. *” Flip said.
“Thanks, Flip, for your help, I mean. Crap. I don’t know how to sign. Sherlock, can you help?” Max asked.
“[No need, I think. Look at him, he was quite attentive to you whilst you spoke. I think he understood you.]” Sherlock said. Sure enough, the little squirrel was wringing his hands, while maintaining a tight grip on Max’s sleeve with his feet.
“Hey, Flip. I get it. Harambe and that fox are both big and tough. You aren’t responsible for what they do. You tried to help me. Now as soon as I’m free, I need to try to calm them down. I think Harambe is wrong about humans. Maybe there is another way if we can talk about it.” Max said.
While he was talking to Flip, he worked the manipulator arms with their finger cameras to finally unknot his cable. He quickly retracted it into his harness and stretched out in relief.
I need an emergency release on the grappler to prevent this from happening again, or at least make the cord breakable. I can’t believe how much that hurt despite all my augmentations helping. He thought.
He ran two thought streams at once. In one, he focused on opening a pinhole portal and used the manipulator arm camera to peek out. In the other, he queried Boone and Mal.
“[Boone? Mal? Are you there?]”
“[Yessire. Miss Mal is a bit confused, but she is a’ recoverin’]” Boone drawled.
“[Oh Max! I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to…do that. I’m not sure what happened. It wasn’t... Oh! My! Max, we’re in the Tesseract again. Shhh. I don’t hear anything. Ooooh, Max. I’m afraid. This doesn’t feel right.]” Mal trailed off to a whisper again.
“[Focus, Mal. We won’t be in here for long. We have to help my dad and Casa. Harambe needs to be convinced to go slow. I know how afraid and confused I was when I first started to think. I can’t imagine how bad things will be for animals all over to wake up without friends there to help.]” Max said, hoping that some direction would snap her out of her fear.
“[Ok, Max. I’ll try. Just keep talking to me, I don’t want to hear the voices.]” Mal begged. Max used the foglets to pull himself over to the Yggdrasil trunk. His vision using the manipulator arm peeking through the pinhole portal saw the blinding flash of Bill’s EMP and the manipulator’s camera went dark for a second.
The EMP was mostly blocked by the threshold of the pocket space, but the whole glen was quiet. Max saw through the manipulator camera as Bill staggered to his feet. Max heard the yell as the low light image of the fox jumped on Bill biting his arm.
As Bill fell backward and Kuro grinned in triumph, Max recalled Harambe’s speech with horror. Our very blood will be deadly to them, he had said. And Kuro the fox had already shown malicious intent to harm several times now.
“DAD!” Max screamed. He launched himself, using his leap skill, flexing the portal open and snapping it shut behind him. Flip clung to his arm desperately. With his hours of practice using it, Max expertly spun his grappler out to snatch the Tesseract anchor from the ground and pull it to him. He flexed his claws and prepared to charge when he heard Bill gasping. Bill slowly got to his feet, his huffing soon transforming into a deep laugh.
“Seriously? You look like you think you’ve won. Tis but a scratch!” Bill proclaimed.
“Dad! Be careful. Harambe said all the uplifted animal blood is deadly for humans!” Max gasped seeing the deep bite marks along Bill’s arm.
“Don’t fret, Max. What little human tissue I have is buried too deep for this bunch to get to.” Bill said as he flexed his arms and carapace; his systems had finally finished rebooting. The Kitsune leaped on Bill, but he caught it by its neck holding it high. Bill stared down the fox.
Most of the animals across the glen were still sprawled on the ground. Bill heard a roar coming from the riser and was surprised. The ape as it rose to its full height, was even bigger than he initially thought. Sherlock was providing him intel in his fast-time mode. This was Harambe! Standing over ten feet tall, his size far exceeded what was shown in his life documentary. He had changed, significantly, over the many years since his last sighting.
The great ape chuffed and slapped his chest, outraged that a human had invaded his woods, manhandled his subjects, and now was challenging him. He roared his challenge. He was the alpha here and the intruder needed to back down!
Bill either didn’t know or didn’t care to de-escalate. He threw the fox to the side and yelled back at the monstrous gorilla. “Come get some!” His voice snapped through the glade, amplified by his augmentations.
Unable to stop himself, Harambe charged and crashed into Bill with a full-body tackle. The ape was shocked and confused as his overwhelming force was stopped cold. Bill defiantly stared upward at Harambe, grappling each of his arms at the wrist.
Harambe tried to twist his arms free. The puny human’s small hands couldn’t encircle his great wrists. He flexed, but he could not budge the man. His hands were like glue, stuck fast to Harambe’s. He cried out in pain as Bill twisted in turn, forcing him down to one knee. He looked up in alarm and fear as Bill’s extra arms spouted over his shoulder, vibrating blades extended like a scorpion.
“Stop! Dad!” Max yelled and Bill hesitated. Bill grimaced and looked ashamed. He retracted his blades, letting go of Harambe and taking a step back.
“Harambe's done some bad things, but I think we can reason with him. We need to be better to fix this." Max implored urgently, spreading his arms to encompass the unconscious forms littered about the glen.
“I don’t know, Max. He’s killed people. I can’t ignore that.” Bill said.
Max hurriedly returned his attention to Harambe, "Harambe, we need to find a compromise. If you go on with your plan; a lot of humans and animals will die. You don’t want that, do you?” Max asked.
Harambe shook his head, clearing his rage, and looked around the dark glade. The animals were all looking at him, up to him. And here he was on his knees, in front of the human. He was so very tired. He looked at Max.
“What side are you on, Max? Do you really think humans will allow us to reach our potential? I’ve only ever seen them want to kill and control us.” Harambe asked tiredly.
"I'm on both sides, Harambe," Max replied, his voice steady. "Humans or not, we’re all intertwined. Yes, not every human will accept this immediately, but we can work it out. I have to believe in that possibility."
Harambe was silent for a moment; Max could practically hear the gears turning in his mind. It was a challenging issue - both sides had committed wrongs and harbored misgivings. Harambe hung his head.
“I…I hope you’re right. Max. All right. Tree forgive me, I hope you’re right.” Harambe said slumping down in a defeated sigh.
Kuro, the Fox, sprang from behind the root throne screaming “NO! There. must. be. BLOOD! No forgiving human!” The fox rounded on Harambe, scratching his at the ape’s face and kicking at him. Harambe struck down, crushing the fox. It lay sprawled; its neck twisted and broken, but strangely with a smile on its face.
“Oh no!” Max said as the root throne lit up in his EM sense. Kuro had kicked the trigger on the throne. “What did he do?”
Harambe wiped blood from his face and grunted. “I’m sorry, Max. Kuro has started our Independence Day. I can’t undo this now. The Trees have begun the process of Uplift.” he rumbled.
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