Chapter Six - 100% Human

"Bones stronger than concrete? Muscles powerful enough to lift five times its weight? Night vision able to pick out a flicker of light a ransec away? Redundant organs, regeneration, a toxic bite and stomach bile that can digest solid steel!

Barlec, I love xenobiology. The sheer madness the universe can churn out at times can truly be a humbling experience. But after a while, you start to notice that even the universe has limits. Points where anything more becomes simply absurd and ventures into the realms of fiction and fantasy. It stops surprising you. You start getting a really good idea of what the biology of a new planet is like just from the gravity, temperature and atmosphere, long before any actual samples hit your desk. Because, sure, the universe is creative, but it also really loves what works.

This also means that you end up with a really keen nose for when someone is pulling a fast one on you, but most of them at least have the decency to try to make it believable. This ... species you'd have me believe exists has a list of survival traits a page long, most of them patently ridiculous or straight up contradictory! It's not a lifeform, it's a horror holo monster! Look at this leg structure! These things would be capable of hitting forty, maybe even fifty ransecs a decisol! Sure, we've seen faster lifeforms at a burst, but with these hybrid cooling systems and three different cellular fuel systems, they'd be able to maintain that for whole decisols at a time! All day if they paced themselves!

They wouldn't need powerful muscles, catapult limbs and a rending, infectious bite! Their prey would die of exhaustion without them having to lift a hand!

--Dr. Horkat Silus, Union Xenobiologist, recorded while ranting at an intern

***

It was ... strange, being back on Earth.

Ash had long since come to terms with the fact that the planet of her birth could no longer be her home, and distance was only one of the reasons why. Certainly, some of her disorientation was because she'd become accustomed to living on a planet light centuries away, with slightly different gravity, smells, and even sunsets. She didn't have another Defender at her side, but a human, which had its own advantages and disadvantages, but also one which seemed to be a member of some sort of alien-backed vigilante group.

Oddly, these aliens, despite having crossed so much of the galaxy, had apparently never encountered the Galactic Union, the species therein, or the technology they used. She figured that was probably due to the biggest reason being here felt so strange.

It wasn't her Earth.

... Yeah, she hadn't gotten around to mentioning that to Cat and her teleporting shopkeeper AI. Seemed kind of a rough topic to broach. Oh, hey, thanks for the giant flaming hammer. By the way, have you ever seen Sliders?

She gave the weapon a short spin in her grip. The shaft alone was nearly six feet long from the pommel to the base of the head, then the head, itself, added another some eight inches. It was double-headed and weighed in at probably a hundred pounds by her guess. She might have been able to use it without her rig, but only just. It was meant for an enhanced individual, most likely in powered armor. The fire came from the impact force causing something in the interior to freaking explode, which was cool enough for her to overlook the fact it came with a feline motif.

Myalis' offer had been an exchange. The Protectors would get her Defender gear that was largely ineffective against the lifeforms they called Antithesis for as long as she and Cat were working together. While they researched it to add to their technological databases, she would be provided Vanguard grade weaponry as needed. She had to order it through Myalis, which meant she was restricted to Cat's catalogues, but she found the gear sufficient.

Ash and Cat had both been disappointed to learn this had not included a replacement pulse shotgun, unfortunately. Instead, mounted on the small of her back where that had been was a sixteen-round 8-gauge semi-automatic shotgun fed by a double-stacked magazine wider than the span of her hand. Both Cat and Myalis made a great racket over the benefits of the weapon's varied available shells (Cat's favorite were the ones she called almost high-explosive, where all of the pellets were replaced with micro-bombs), but the general consensus seemed more focused on using her rig's superhuman strength to support more powerful weapons than any real concern with situational precision. Sure enough, the first and only time Cat had tried to fire what was practically an artillery piece, she'd had to brace against a wall and a table, and still nearly broke her own nose with it.

In a touch of rebellion against this plot, she had actually requested a smaller sidearm, but since she'd compared hers to a ten millimeter, they were insistent she try theirs and she'd ended up with a drum-fed automatic pistol on her hip that had more in common with a miniature submachine gun.

Of the three, her favorite was definitely the hammer, and absolutely not just because the first alien dog they encountered after leaving the safe room had gotten blasted out of the side of the building. She tended to be a quiet aficionado of such dramatic weaponry, happy to let them speak for themselves, but Cat had hooted and hollered enough for the both of them, gushing over the cindery hole in the wall with an undeniable child-like glee.

Ash glanced back at the girl in question ... and was pretty certain she'd caught the cybernetic vigilante staring at her ass again. Maybe Cat thought her techno DJ helmet gave her plausible deniability. She knew her bodysuit was form-fitting, but not so much as to be indecent. Even Job, the security guard, wasn't that distracted by it. She was starting to suspect that maybe the girl just had a hyperactive libido.

Ash grinned as she turned her attention back to the walkway ahead of them, imagining how hard Kerry, her own AI assistant, back home and far less godlike, would have mercilessly rolled the poor, defenseless little lesbian.

"What's so funny?"

Huh, so she could notice more than whatever was right in front of her.

"Oh, nothing important," Ash replied. "I was just thinking of what someone I know back home would have thought of you."

Stray Cat picked up her pace enough so that she was walking next to Apex. "Good things, I hope?"

"Oh, yes," she confirmed, letting herself grin fully now. "She'd have thought you were an absolute riot. You might've been pressed to keep your sanity, though."

Cat gave a barking scoff at that. "Afraid I'm taken."

Ash's grin settled into a smirk. Maybe she'd underestimated how aware the kid really was. Or maybe Cat was just so perpetually horny that her joke just coincidentally happened to be on the mark. "Wouldn't make any difference to her, she'd have done it just to get a rise out of you."

"Your girlfriend?" Cat ventured.

But Apex shook her head. "Much to her disappointment, I'm straight." Self-awareness took that opportunity to smack her, though, and she frowned in reconsideration. "Maybe."

She could practically hear Cat's eyebrow cranking up like a winch. "Maybe?"

"I'm dating another Defender, a field medic," she explained. "But he's a Chisay."

"I'm just going to assume that means something relevant to you," the orphan quipped after a moment of silence, probably having checked with Myalis.

"Space harpies," Ash summarized oversimply with a wave of her hand. "You'd understand in a moment if you saw them. Like birds, the males are the ones that are smaller and prettier, lots of colors and socially competitive."

"Ohhhh," Cat intoned with an understanding nod. "Yeah, I'm starting to understand the Maybe. Sounds like you're the man in the relationship."

But Ash's grin came back at that. "Not to him, I'm not. Believe me, it hits differently when someone tells you you're feminine for being an action hero."

Cat nodded readily at that. The vigilante seemed the type to be able to appreciate that kind of validation. Any confirmation on their kindred spirits was delayed, however. "Garage is up ahead."

The plan they'd settled on was what Cat called the "tried and true" approach, and basically boiled down to jacking a sufficiently large vehicle, tossing some automated turret drones on top and driving it to safety. Simple and direct, very Cat, Ash had decided. The girl had probably never encountered a locked door she ever considered finding a key for. If she didn't have an AI to unlock it for her, she'd probably just strap enough explosives to it to level the whole fucking wall and stand there in the crater grinning like she'd accomplished something.

But then, Ash mused as she idly eyed her own massive mallet while Cat all too eagerly got the guns in place, she supposed when everything looked like a nail ...

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Ash wasn't ashamed to admit she had been doubtful of the usefulness of a vigilante when Cat first showed up. She had gone along with it because one extra gun with combat experience was that much better than nothing, but she would have rather had a trained and organized security force roll in.

Of course, at the time, she hadn't known these "Samurai" were backed by an intergalactic cabal of clarketech-toting guardians like some sort of cyberpunk Lantern Corps, but that honestly wouldn't have mattered much to her. Vanguards could have been another name for Kryptonians, and they could have taken a long walk off a short Kryptonite cliff if they couldn't deliver results. That was one aspect of Cat she couldn't complain about.

The civilian exfil went very smoothly, in fact. The only trouble they really encountered was from a flock of bird-like creatures Cat called Model Ones, but a hailstorm of bullets and micro-bombs put a big enough dent in their ranks that the birds reconsidered. It wasn't long before she was waving goodbye to the first humans she'd run into since showing up.

The soldiers at the incursion border they dropped the civilians off with apparently knew Stray Cat and tried to recruit her for something, but she refused. She insisted she and Ash, who she referred to as Apex and openly let the soldiers assume she was another Samurai, had urgent unfinished business in the incursion zone that had to be addressed first.

When Ash heard there were more civilians at risk, she almost told Cat she'd do it, Forgah be damned, but the vigilante waved her off before she even finished her approach. Apparently, she'd call in some favors with some other members of her group to come lend a hand, and she told Ash to watch the other side of the barricades until she finished and caught up with her.

That was fine by her, and she'd bummed a couple more shotgun magazines and another pistol drum just in case since they'd be separated. It was really the shotgun she was intending to take the opportunity to familiarize herself with, but if she had to fall back on the high-rpm automatic pistol, she didn't want to run dry too quickly.

Now, she was leaning against a building a block past the barricade, the heavy long gun slack against her thigh. It had been over twenty minutes since she came out here, and she'd only gone through a single magazine when a stray, almost lost pack of Model Threes came meandering down the street. That had been fifteen minutes ago. Instead of having anything to shoot at, her gaze was tilted upward, toward the cloudy sky.

... Actually, it looked a lot like it did the day she came out of that bunker. With nobody around her and nothing but worn out neon signs and street trash to keep her company, the atmosphere was definitely similar. Of course, the difference was this city wasn't dead, just evacuated. Civilization was just a block behind her. Once the incursion was cleared, people would come flooding back to rebuild and get back to work.

... That was never going to happen on her Earth. Or if it did, anything remotely resembling a full recovery would take centuries. Somehow, she found that made Civilization here feel just that much more precious. It may not have been hers, but maybe she could do something for it all the same.

With a deep sigh, she started considering using the surrounding terrain for some target practice just to clear the funk from her head. She'd just go looking for more Antithesis hunting parties, but the whole reason she was out here was to wait for Cat. Wandering off would be counterproductive.

Ash's eyes snapped wide open as her ears all but literally twitched. She'd heard ... no, she hadn't heard anything. Not quite. She hadn't quite not heard anything from behind her and around the corner. Now that she was aware of it, the hairs on her neck practically riled. She was sure of it, she could practically feel the presence there.

In a flash of movement, she whipped around the corner, aiming to take the ambusher by surprise. There was nothing there, but she didn't hesitate all the same. One hand closed around an invisible shoulder to jerk something closer as the other drew back into a fist.

The movement knocked Cat's invisible hood off of her suddenly visible head, her eyes wide like she'd been caught in headlights.

"Oh," Ash noted with surprisingly sudden calmness. "Hi, Cat. Don't do that again."

"Holy shit!" the vigilante gasped a moment after the Defender released her shoulder. "How the fuck did you know I was there?!"

"I have really good ears," Ash replied as she went to pick up her shotgun and stowed it behind her. The hammer was above it, attached to her upper back. It telescoped down for easier storage there.

"I was literally not making so much as a sound!"

"Yeah, I noticed," she agreed as she came back to face Cat. "I know it sounds weird, but you'd be surprised how loud sudden quiet can be."

The girl gave her head a vehemently defiant shake. "That's bullshit, Blue."

"I am beginning to understand how you came to be called Apex."

Ash blinked. That second bit hadn't been Cat. She glanced around until she saw a cat-sized drone standing behind the vigilante and distinctly looking at her despite its lack of a clear face.

"Oh, right," Cat spoke up. "Ash, meet Myalis. Myalis, Ash."

Ash directed her attention back to the smug-looking vigilante. "Your AI?"

"She wanted to ask you some questions," she explained, "so she's puppeting a scout drone."

"... Handy."

"Quite," Myalis agreed as she pranced forward. Ash could swear the drone was only cat-sized, but the way it moved was distinctly feline in a way that didn't seem to match its visible features. "A pleasure, Miss Apex."

"Same," she nodded. "What did you need?"

"Quite a number of things," the AI admitted, "but we should be able to get through most of it fairly quickly and be on our way. First, I'd like to perform a full medical scan on you. Having been living on another planet, there are a large number of issues that could arise from you suddenly being transported here, for both you and those around you. It would also be prudent simply to have a baseline knowledge of your general wellness."

Apex nodded in consent. "Makes sense. Go for it."

As the drone began to pace around her, Cat scratched at her own cheek. "So, uh, why did they call you Apex?"

"Nothing fancy, I'm afraid," the Defender answered. "It was really just because humans are apex predators. Top rung on the food chain and all that."

But the vigilante wrinkled her nose in confusion at that. "But you said the Union is full of aliens. There's gotta be plenty that can out-compete a human. Lizards, birds, poisonous stuff, anything with tentacles."

That got a short laugh out of Ash. "Or all together, right? Space is full of scary, powerful, hyper-intelligent, over-evolved murder machines! Or that's what we've always been told."

"I mean, the Antithesis, they're a thing," Cat pointed out. "And I know you haven't seen many variants, but they get fucking horrifying, fucking fast."

"And yet human children go around making sport of them," Ash countered with a shrug. "So you tell me which one's scarier." She rolled her head around on her neck a bit to indicate a change in focus. "Look, sure, all those things, the lizards and the birds and the poisons and all, yeah, that's all out there. And it can absolutely kill you. But, and stick with me here, there's nothing particularly special about being something that can kill you. Not for us, anyway."

"Well, yeah," the younger woman replied. "Human go squish. That's kind of the point."

But Ash shook her head. "Cat, it would take more to kill you than it would to kill a Model Three. It's literally, objectively squishier than a human. A few nines, and it goes down. A few nines, and even without any body armor, you might just be pissed off."

The cop could see her mulling that over, double checking the knee jerk urge to deny it. After all, everyone knew that to get shot was to die. In much the same way everyone knew humans were fragile little china dolls. But she knew Cat couldn't deny it in the same way others had, she'd taken too much way worse. The girl was a china doll that had half her body blown off and kept going.

Instead, Ash circled it back to the point she had been making. "It's not that we're fragile that being surrounded by things that can kill us is so normal to us. It's the planet we grew up on. We don't think anything of it because we don't know anything else, but it turns out, Mother Earth's kind of a colossal bitch. She carved out a whole hellscape where all of her children would fight in a massive royale until the end of time, just to see what comes out on top, and we won."

"Sure," Cat agreed, still confused. "That's just nature. Evolution or whatever."

Ash's grin went crooked. "Yup."

It didn't take the Samurai long to note the bemusement in the answer. "... It's not?"

The Defender made a wobbly gesture with her hand. "Eh, yes and no. Yes, evolution happens everywhere else, too. Yes, it's in response to hardships. It's just that most advanced life didn't come from worlds like Earth. We're the over-evolved murder machines, Cat. Hell, the whole reason we're always looking for monsters in the dark unknown is because it's dark and it's unknown, Mother Earth's two favorite places to ambush us from. Even the fact we evolved Civilization is considered weird by galactic standards."

"... Now I know you're full of shit," Cat said as if she thought she'd caught onto something. "We know good and well humanity isn't the only civilization out here. The Protectors are one, themselves, and have found who knows how many others."

"Oh no," Ash corrected, "there's tons of other Civilizations. But I'm the only predator in the entire Corps."

The vigilante visibly turned that statement over in her head. "You mean humans are the only predator in the Corps."

But Ash shook her head with a sad smile. "There are no other humans among the Defenders. In fact, there are no human colonies in all of Union space. I'm the only one for light centuries."

"I'm sorry to interrupt," Myalis put in, "but I believe the exchange has run its helpful course and I would like to go over the results of the scan."

Ash stepped back and motioned for the drone to take center stage. "What's the verdict, doc?"

"You are ... healthy," Myalis responded after a noticeable hesitation. "Very healthy. Unfathomably so. I might even venture to say you are perfectly healthy."

It was Cat that spoke. "Then why are you making it sound like that's a problem?"

The drone shook its little non-head. "It's not a problem, it's just not possible. Or, rather, it's so statistically unlikely that it might as well be. Health is a measure of many things, but you can't really be perfectly healthy. There's always wear and tear from use, imperfections and shortcomings that vary near-randomly from person to person, genetic and cellular damage from natural radiation and environmental toxins. What you consider healthy might be more accurately described as seventy percent healthy. Peak health, eighty, perhaps. The point is, there's always something wrong. Many somethings. It is why we so often encourage our Vanguards to address these shortcomings with cybernetic solutions."

"And Ash, here's, what, an actual hundred?"

"Mmm, she hasn't eaten for a few hours, so her nutrition is starting to drop," Myalis replied. She's probably at about ninety-nine-point-eight-two percent at the moment. Anything wrong with her is strictly transitory. But she is more than just healthy. Her every feature is primed for optimum performance. Every sense, every organ, every blood vessel, even her genetic code. I do not believe her state is natural."

Cat met Ash's eyes at that. "Wait, you're a superhuman?"

"More of a Human Plus," Myalis interjected. "There is nothing about her, strictly speaking, that is not in every other human ever to receive a medical scan accessible by the Protectors, nor can anything she does have perform above what a human is theoretically capable of. She is, objectively, 100% human. She is simply the absolute peak of what that means. The Apex, if you will."

"That's news to me," Ash finally replied. "Pretty sure I was born like anyone else, and I certainly wasn't anything particularly special."

Myalis turned toward her, and she had the impression the drone was eyeing her, or perhaps it was doing another scan. "Ash, if I may ask, how old are you?"

She frowned at that and her brow creased. "Chronologically? I don't know. I was in cryo, I don't know how long. That was a little under a year ago, and before that, I remember being twenty-one. So at least by memory, I'm about twenty-two."

"And these memories, where you were nothing special, these were before the cryo?"

"That's right," she confirmed. "Haven't had many frames of reference since."

"What are you getting at, Myalis?" the droid's partner asked.

"Nothing yet. I don't have any data that would allow me to draw any sort of conclusions yet. It simply remains a bewildering, as yet nonsensical fact that Miss Apex appears to be an actual ubermensch."

"Gesundheit."

The drone gave Cat the absolutely most offended glare Ash had ever seen on something without a face. It held it for a long moment, perhaps with Myalis hoping that it would trigger something in her partner, but she finally looked away again. "Troglodyte."

"This is all fascinating," the Defender put in, "but I'm afraid it doesn't really affect me in any immediate way. Was there anything else you needed, Myalis?"

"Yes, I'll be scanning your rig and body armor as we travel," the drone confirmed. "Obviously, it would be inefficient to take those for remote study, so I've been asked to gather as much data on them as possible while they remain in use. That will require no action on your part. Instead, I was hoping you could tell me more of your Galactic Union while we hunt your escaped criminal."

"Sure," Ash readily agreed, "I can do that."