A hush fell over the maintenance area as Presley entered a dozen or so fresh faces with clean coveralls following her like a mother duck. There were nearly a dozen.
“Right this way everybody this is The Shop. Think of it as the Hub in your favorite game.” Presley was pointing to each area as she continued.
“The task board is where you will get missions. The Tool cabinet is where you will get your special equipment load out. And here are the main screens that alert us to any issues on the systems that make HyFab EME2 the best in the node.” She actually had the nerve to smile as she put on an impressive impression of the game tutorial.
It was sickening, but nothing turn Luke’s gut like when she made direct eye contact with him and her grin ticked up even higher.
“And here is your Shift Chief, Luke Titus. Sr. Technician, I leave these new recruits in your capable hands. Give them the run down of the major areas before the break.” Luke moved to protest being saddled with a entire crop of clean sweeps. But Presley end his protest with a sharp statement.
“Also make sure they are aware of the policies on being late. Have to make sure everyone is well informed .” With that she left for her office that was separated from the maintenance shop.
Luke sighed as the load of clean recruits and sighed. Well at least he had the rest of his team to help with the load. there were 12 so if they took 2 each it wouldn’t be so bad.
Luke turned to his team to have them split up and take a pair of recruits under their wing. But they were gone. The bastards had abandoned him in his hour of need. Those wretched assholes. He vowed then to make them pay.
“Excuse me. Senior tech Sir, but what is the Wave node password? I don’t have a signal down here and can’t use my Omni.” Luke’s frown deepened as a massive headache started to creep across the back of his head to his eye sockets.
Slowly he creaked as he rotated around unnaturally as if he had to suppress every instinct in body. Half of the recruits took a step back at the menacing disposition he displayed while the other half were too scarred to even move. Say for the one that had spoken to him.
Luke looked down at the recruit as if they were a bug crawling on his coffee cup.
“Kid and I mean this with all the respect I can muster. If you don’t shut the fuck up and do exactly as I say. I can’t be certain of your safety. Hell, I’m not even certain you and your little group of baby farts are going to live to see the immediate future. This isn’t a nursery. This is hell. And our job is to keep Hell running. Your Omni isn’t going to work in the building period. There are 7 high capacity, wide-band, Mega Cores in this building pumping out more data traffic than the live feeds of your mother’s HubFan account on a Saturday night.
No, signal is the least of your problems. There is enough radiation on some of these floors to turn your ovaries into a scramble bowl. Not to mention what it will do to the rest of your organs. Now stand over there, keep your hands in your pockets, and wait for me to call on you. Damned cleanies.” Luke was looking at all the other new recruits as he began his tirade so he didn’t see the effect he was having on the recruit who was the actual target of his menacing vitriol.
Were his words fair? No, they weren’t. They were true, but the recruit didn’t deserve them said in that manner. She probably had a very good reason for needing her Omnivise. Truth be told Luke was just having too much of a bad day, in too short of an amount of time to process his own actions. Not an excuse.
When his eyes met her’s he realized that he had fucked up for an entirely different reason than he expected.
***UWU Synnergy System activated.
Requirements met. Transgression has advanced to Level 4. Ara Ara.***
No, no, no, no. What the fuck did he do? How did he manage to trigger his stupid system again. He hadn’t even gotten the results from the last Transgression upgrade. This was going to be bad.
Luke stared at the new recruit deeply hoping to see some evidence of change some flickering of chaotic energy anything. Anything at all.
He didn’t see anything. Nothing just a girl, a woman actually. She was short and a bit on the mousy side with a rather cute face and brown skin. Her eyes were large, doe like as the AIGs all describe them with tawny speckles of hazel in her light brown irises. Full cheeks and pouty lips completed her natural look. It was possible she was as old as Luke. Possibly even older which was weird. Usually only the youngest and more often than not the most unruly cast offs and reprobates get sent to work for the Hyfabs. But this woman looked like she could have walked out of a AIG drama.
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“Who the fuck do you think you are? You shouldn’t talk to her that way.” One of the other recruits said while Luke was busy trying to come to grips with why a vid model ended up in the PreFabs let alone in a HyFab. ?Coupled with the triggering of his janky system, made for a multilayer of confusion so deep that his mind was sSo much so that he didn’t even see the fist that sent him to the dirty floor.
Getting his clock punched was unfortunate for a number of reasons one being it made him look bad. He had already done a great job at that by yelling at a new recruit who just wanted to be able to use her Omni. It was a dickish thing to do. And he made a promise to apologize for his behavior as soon as he woke up. But there was an even bigger source of his regret.
Even worse than yelling at someone who didn’t deserve it after vowing to punish anyone that did anything untoward to the new recruits. That was unfortunate but hopefully salvageable. What he truly regretted was the pop up window that flashed before his eyes as he lost consciousness.
*** UWU Synnergy System Activated.
Requirements met. Absolver has Advanced to Level 1. Doki Doki.***
Have you ever woken up in a strange place not remembering how you got there? If so then you can understand where Luke’s predicament as he opens his eyes and takes in his setting. At least he recognized where he was. Though he never saw the place from this angle in particular.
“Ah, welcome back sleeping beauty did you have a nice dream.”
“Yeah, one of the new recruits to offense to my initial approach.”
“That sounds about right to me. How’s your head?”
Luke rolled his shoulders and popped his neck.
“I’ve been better. But how about you Doc how have you been?” As he assessed his situation.
“Oh I can’t complain.” Then the body of Servo bot on an articulated arm grabbed Luke by the arm. The furry arm.
“Care to explain this new development?” The voice of Doc was masculine and a bit threatening. Luke pulled his chimera arm from the bot’s grippers. The tail loosened from around his waist as well.
“Had another episode,” Luke said.
“Ah yes, another development in, your System as you call it.” Another robot arm came down from an ominous looking hole in the ceiling. This arm had a scanner on the end and bright green laser light shown over Luke scanning him from head to toe. After the scan it retracted back into the ceiling.
“Nothing is showing up on scans. But that doesn’t mean anything, nothing showed up on the previous scans and your obvious manifestation are clear as day.”
Luke moved to get off the table but two robot arms reached down and grabbed his shoulders.
“Hey, nobody told you to get up Luke.” The Doc said two sets of robot arms pushing Luke back onto the bed.
“Ok ok geez. I got to get back to my team.”
“No you have to sit and you have to let me finish what I was doing. You might have sworn me to secrecy on the goings on of your system. Using a unauthorized process I might add, but you will not impede my working to fulfill my obligations.” The arms folded while a third descended to point at him with a four fingered hand.
“Alright I know when I am beat. Can’t win them all I guess.” Luke leaned back and allowed the usual the poking and prodding of his arm and tail sample were taken into the mass from which Doc’s arms emerged.
“Hmmmm.. Ahhhhh. Fascinating.” The automated voice droned on happily.
“Care to let this lowly test subject in on the findings or do I have to be quiet pin cushion?” Luke was blatantly agitated his frowning expression told that plainly.
“Well the cells collected are completely 100% human. But they are also not. The DNA is the same but the protein structures are twisted altered in a way folded so that they are not human. It is truly a fascinating development. Your system changes you but also uses you as the building blocks to make the changes. At least with this skin you exuded. The others were completely different.”
“The first was Red. The second was Blue. This one is Yellow. What does it mean? And how can use it to get out of the Prefabs?” Determination resounded in every word.
“That remains unknown. Perhaps the answers lay in the other skill you possess.”
Luke sat up remembering something extremely important. He gave the mental command to bring up his character sheet
*UWU Character sheet Open
USER
Name: Luke Titus Age: 19 Ethnicity: African American Pronouns: He/Him/Fuck My Life System: Synnergy Class: Syn Eater LVL: 1 Exp: N/A
STATS
HP: 25/100 REGEN: -0.03 HP/HR MP: 26/50 ACCUN: -0.02 MP/HR Corruption: 23.9% FILTER: -0.09 SP/HR Strength: 5(3) Agility: 6(3) Stamina: 4(4) Intelligence: 6(9) Spitirt: 4(8) Durablity: 7(4) Will: 5(13)
SKILLS
Trangression: LVL 3 Description:???? Absolver: LVL1 Description:????
UWU Character sheet Closed*
There it was the difference the Absolver Skill it had gone from LVL 0 to LVL 1.
“The Absolver skill, it went up a level. But why did it go up a level? It went up when he recruit punched me. Don’t tell me I have to get beat up to advance skills. That would suck.” Luke put his fac ein his hands. His tail patting him supportively on the the shoulder.
“Well it could very well be that. What do we know about your Transgress skill? Tell me everything that you remember about the occurrence.”
Luke leaned back and sighed.
“Last week it all started last week.”