“Thanks for the lift!” called Chesnokov as we stepped out Jack’s car.
“Likewise,” I said nonchalantly as I stepped out behind him.
“Aww, don’t be so cold Tiama-chi!” cried Jack playfully.
I shot him an irritated glance which he instantly stiffened up to. After moment had passed he relaxed his shoulders and muttered, “To think you’ve had that glare since so early on…”
Were it not for the eerie silence around me I’d probably have missed it, but I heard it – albeit barely. The disconcerting thing is the way in which Jack spoke, it was similar to how Captain Lorrig often speaks; as if they have experienced the future – and met my future self in the process.
Knowing I wouldn’t get any answers I dismissed the matter and walked away from the car. Jack didn’t say anything more and left unceremoniously, I watched him drive away while making a mental note to investigate these odd habits of the people around me.
That said, I have a feeling I should probably ignore the ongoing wheelchair races I’m sensing traverse the mansion corridors significantly faster than they probably should. Let’s see, the culprits seem to be two men and one woman – the woman being in the lead.
I sighed as approached the front doors of the mansion. I was about to grab the door handle when Dawn interrupted.
<( WAAAAAIT!!! )>
<< What do you want? >>
<( If you wait exactly 7.4 seconds before storming in you can force all of them to crash as they try to avoid you! )>
<< … Works for me. >>
<( Remember to walk through as if you don’t notice what’s going on for extra badassery! )>
<< Sure, sure, whatever you want. >>
I stopped with a hand on the door. Chesnokov raised an eyebrow and asked, “Why are we stopping?”
Rather than answering I simply raised a hand and made a stopping gesture. Chesnokov had no choice but to accept it.
<( … Now! )>
Having received the signal, I threw the doors open and paced through. Three wheelchairs veered around me and crashed into either stationary objects or each other, creating a pile of groaning bodies and scrapped chairs with wheels that continued to spin.
Ignoring the mess, I continued forwards with a purpose. There was a crowd looking at me in terror. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Grace accepting money from numerous disgruntled people with a broad smile on her face.
“Grace!” I shouted a little more forcefully than intended, “My office, now!”
Grace stiffened and went pale to my words, she followed without questions. A few tense moments later we entered my office, I sat behind the desk and solemnly started saying, “So, Grace, about the mess at the entrance…”
I drifted off intentionally and Grace broke into a cold sweat. After a moment of tense silence, Chesnokov burst into laughter and spluttered, “I can’t… it’s too funny… she actually timed her entrance!”
I let a light grin grow on my face, it was true, I went out of my way to make even more of a mess. Grace’s eyes darted between us and she had a slack-jawed expression, after a couple of seconds she let out a light chuckle.
“I’m guessing you used your psionic senses to help your timing?” asked Grace, still smiling.
I nodded in response and said, “I noticed it from the courtyard, but I didn’t think to interrupt it so grandly until I actually reached the door… Who started it anyway? Why?”
“Well,” started Grace, “I was trying to maintain order but it wasn’t going particularly well. Suddenly, when Tanya came to she started ranting about having a wheelchair race. I figured letting the men have some fun would be a much easier way to keep them calm.”
“I see…” I muttered.
“Do you have a problem with your men having fun?” asked Grace sardonically.
“If they do their jobs properly and don’t disrupt my plans I couldn’t care less what they do in their downtime,” I said with a dismissive wave.
Grace’s smile lightened as she leant back and said, “That’s good. The more you restrict people the more they fight the system, especially in the shadier parts of society like this.”
“I take it Tanya was one of the racers?” I said, interrupting her philosophising.
“Yes,” said Grace plainly, “She was usually the winner, I made a fair bit of cash off people who underestimated her.”
I raised an eyebrow and asked, “You set up a gambling booth?”
“Take advantage of any situation,” she said sagely while stroking her chin.
“Even if it means angering your employer?” I asked sarcastically.
“Well, we didn’t expect you to return so soon,” she said dismissively, “And certainly not without sending a message first.”
“Ah, right…” I muttered, realising I had forgotten to send a message in the first place.
“Anyway,” started Grace, “There are three people you need to beat into submission.”
I raised an eyebrow and said, “How direct of you.”
“No point in beating around the bush,” she shrugged, “These three are the core of the resistance against your rule, if you take them out then you’ll quell the dissonance regarding your stature among the insignificant lower rungs of the hierarchy!”
“Calm down with the fancy words,” I said with a tired voice, “I got the point, just give me some names and I’ll deal with it.”
“Lyle, Geraldine, Maximillian, Samantha!” yelled Grace.
“Alright, I-” I started, “Wait, that’s four names… and half of them are feminine.”
I glared at her but she just returned a cheeky smirk. I maintained the glare until she gave in and said, “I’ll call them to the training room, meet us there.”
“Make it the courtyard,” I said confidently, “And bring an audience. Let this be an open challenge, any who feels that my own power is inadequate may step up and challenge me… but warn them that pulling out a weapon will result in me doing the same.”
“You won’t disallow armed conflict? Bold move…” said Grace with interest.
“It’ll prove my point more effectively,” I said with a vicious grin, “Those who try anything will pay the price.”
Grace grinned savagely and said, “I like your approach. I’ll get right to it.” She stood up and left, I followed her out the door but turned in a different direction the moment I stepped out the door.
I headed straight for the courtyard. I felt numerous nervous gazes but ignored them as I strode through the mansion’s halls. At the front door, I pulled both doors open and left them so and walked down the stairs without pausing. I slowed my march as I neared the middle of the courtyard. I sat down and crossed my legs in a meditative position, I began to meditate to pass the time.
Within minutes I sensed an immense crowd grow and fifteen people step forwards from behind me into the ring formed by the crowd. I opened my eyes and slowly looked back at my challengers. They seemed like one mob at a glance, but they were obviously following the three in the front who walked with excessive confidence – each with a different expression; one showed Pride, one showed Greed, and one showed Lust.
After eyeing them for a moment, I slowly rose to my feet and turned to face them. The man with a greedy expression yelled for a charge before formalities could happen. Both of the man’s accomplices gave him a shocked and disapproving look, but were interrupted by the stampeding crowd and nearly bowled over before they could complain.
Fortunately for me, the stampede was almost impressively disorganised. The first to reach me did so long before the others and I took the chance to remove him from the fight.
The first man swung a wild left at my face without slowing his run. I stepped to the right while redirecting him with my left hand and bringing my knee up into his gut. He curled over in pain and I finished him off with a powerful right punch to the temple. He tumbled to the ground unconscious as the second and third members of the mob arrived.
Confused and scared by my quick dispatch of the first arrival they slowed down unconsciously, giving me enough time to regain my stance. The first of the two to reach me swung his right arm in a desperate punch. I countered by deflecting with my armoured right forearm and spinning into a left elbow, connecting the blow to his temple and sending him tumbling away.
I continued the spin but dropped my upper body and threw my right foot up in a spinning heel. My kick landed in the face of the next attacker, disrupting his run unexpectedly and making his feet continue where his body had stopped. The result was almost comedic as his feet flew up and he landed on his back.
A fist almost struck my shoulder but I sensed it and twisted my shoulder away. Noting my surroundings, I took the opportunity to grab the unstable man’s arm and turn him into a pendulum of my own. I swung him back around at the incoming mob, he moved his legs furiously as he desperately tried to regain his footing. After tripping several men, I let him go and sent him tumbling back into the crowd.
Opportunistically, I brought up my knee and smashed the nose of a man who was falling towards me. Soon followed by another opportunistic downwards punch to the back of another man’s skull as he rose next to me.
The rest of the fallen men lost their chance to rise as the next wave arrived and trampled them back down.
Someone in the next wave decided to break the rules and pull out a dagger. I responded by drawing my sword and removing the offending hand in the motion, the others quickly darted away with their tails between their legs as I slashed his back open with a twirl. He fell to the ground dead.
“Oh, so the mighty leader can’t beat a small mob like this without drawing her weapons, huh?” called out the sarcastic and provocative man with a greedy expression.
I smiled cruelly and began walking to the dismembered hand as I said, “The moment one of your goons foolishly pulled out a weapon this became an armed duel!”
His expression quickly changed from greedy to panicked and he shouted, “If someone really did draw a knife, prove it!”
I grinned silently and stabbed the dismembered hand with my sword, raising it above my head for the audience to see and allowing the blood to drip onto me. The dagger remained in the dismembered hand above me as I started to shout, “Given that you ordered this, you’re next!”
I swung the sword to dislodge the arm stuck to it as I began walking towards him. He started backing up and shouted, “Someone, stop her!”
I saw someone rushing up to me from the left with a crazed look and sensed another person rushing up from behind me. Deciding to make a deliberate show of it, I released the natural limiters of the human body and cleaved both of them in half with one move. I spun to the left and swung the sword upwards, splitting the first man in two from the hip to the shoulder, and then brought it down mercilessly on the other man – cutting him in half from the shoulder to the hip. The spin hardly slowed my walk and I continued towards the greedy man.
Now thoroughly panicked, he turned around and began to run. Unfortunately for him, the prideful man seemed to have had a change of heart and apprehended him before he could get anywhere.
“Sam! I thought we were allies!” screamed the greedy man as he was pinned to the floor.
“And I thought you were smarter than that,” said the prideful man.
As I continued my approach I reached down and drew my pistol, disabling the safety in the process. I walked with the gun hanging by my side as the greedy man continued to struggle and scream. I altered my path slightly so I would walk past him rather than up to him.
As I passed him, I shifted the gun slightly and pulled the trigger – killing him like an afterthought. He instantly became silent and I continued walking towards the edge of the pseudo-arena, essentially telling everyone that I was done here. I sheathed my weapons to prevent any misunderstandings as I neared the edge. People parted as I approached, silently watching in fear or admiration. Before I left the ring, however, a voice called out behind me.
“May I speak with you for a moment, Miss Cusith?”
I stopped and turned around to find the owner of the voice. It was the proud man that apprehended the coward. I gestured for him to speak.
“I was mistaken about you,” he said regretfully, “You have shown yourself to be someone I would be proud to follow. Please, call me Sam. I was one of Wolf Pack’s elite soldiers before Vos took over.” He finished with a willful yet respectful bow.
“… Come with me,” I said, “We’ll continue this discussion in my office.”
----------------------------------------
Off to the side of the pseudo-arena, all of Tiama’s teachers had gathered.
“She’s surprisingly brutal…” muttered Nordon in shock.
“Wait a while, you have no idea how truly brutal she’ll become,” said Grace dismissively.
“What?! Even more brutal? How?!” cried Nordon.
“How what?” chimed Chesnokov, “How will it happen? How bad will it get? How does Grace know? You need to clarify your question if you want to know.”
“It was rhetorical,” snorted Nordon, “Besides, how would you expect Grace to know such a thing? Is it some sort of Psionic clairvoyance?”
“I have a theory…” said Chesnokov non-committedly, “Though it’s an incredibly far-fetched theory.”
“Oh? What theory is that?” asked Nordon curiously.
“I’d rather not say,” said Chesnokov evasively, “After all, if it’s anywhere close to the truth we’ll both be killed for simply saying it.”
“Wise choice,” said Grace coldly.
“Reading my mind, are you? Psions are so unfair!” moaned Chesnokov childishly.
“They are indeed,” said Nordon in agreement, “you don’t get much more unfair than that… except, maybe, for being an Olgym warrior.”
“Trust me, there are things far more unfair out there than that,” said Chesnokov from behind Nordon while locking eyes with Grace.
Grace returned the stare with a glare that warned of death should one overstep their bounds. Grace’s vicious demeanour was a far cry from her usual noble and elegant poise, the aura she emitted resembled the primal and beastly aura of Tiama but held far more depth.
Chesnokov gulped fearfully as he exchanged a long and silent stare with Grace. After a few tense moments she broke eye contact and said, “If you tell anyone about what you saw, I’ll you into a roast for dinner.”
Chesnokov gulped and said, “I know, I’d rather avoid such an outcome, my lips are sealed.”
Her wording was odd, yet Chesnokov took it quite literally – her phrasing considered. Nordon, however, didn’t notice the discrepancy and watched Tiama leave the grounds.
“Is she truly human?” muttered Nordon under his breath.
“Yes and no,” came a new voice from the side.
“Ah, good to see you’re fine, I was concerned about how you crashed earlier, Tanya,” said Nordon to the newcomer with a light smile.
“Thanks for worrying, I appreciate the sentiment,” said Tanya happily.
Nordon slowly dropped his smile and said, “By the way, what did you mean by ‘yes and no’?”
“While she could technically be considered a human as she is now, she was certainly not born that way,” she said seriously, “She is a first-generation Kronos cell.”
Nordon adopted a face of utter shock and slowly turned his view back to where he last saw Tiama.
“I had my suspicions,” said Chesnokov absent-mindedly, earning him another glare from Grace who seemed completely unsurprised.
Chesnokov whimpered under Grace’s glare but Tanya was completely oblivious to the exchange and continued to speak, “I’d like to take her to the lab…”
Grace and Chesnokov quickly shifted into defensive stances but Tanya remained oblivious and said, “I figure that she’d be able to contribute to our understanding of Kronos cells as a whole.”
Grace and Chesnokov were starting to release their bloodlust yet Tanya still managed to stay oblivious as she continued to speak, “We suspect that Kronos cells possess some sort of primitive telepathy, if that’s true then simply having her in the control room with us could be a massive boon. Imagine how much understanding what the subjects are feeling could improve our analysis of them! Even if we were wrong about the communication thing, imagine just how much an interview with a sapient Kronos cell could yield!”
As she hit the word ‘interview’ Grace and Chesnokov gained an understanding and relaxed.
“You two are quite defensive of her,” commented Nordon dryly.
“So we are,” replied Grace flatly.
“I can set up a secure video conference for you,” said Chesnokov, still somewhat cautious.
“You would!?” she shouted happily, “Thank you so much! I’ll owe you big- ah…”
“What?” asked Chesnokov with a raised eyebrow.
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
“Nothing really…” she said meekly, “I just realised that all communications in the lab are monitored, they’ll know the moment we contact them.”
“And they don’t monitor who comes and goes? Taking Tiama inside would probably stand out a lot more,” inquired Chesnokov doubtfully, “Besides, isn’t it a tad late for that? I already checked your phone log.”
“What?! WHEN?!” she yelled in surprise.
“During this conversation,” he said with a smirk.
“Hah? You’ve maintained eye contact this entire time!” cried Tanya indignantly.
“Cerebral implants are amazing things,” responded Chesnokov proudly.
Tanya slouched in exaggerated defeat and said, “I’ve met my match, well done Chesi!”
Chesnokov made an irritated face to his new nickname but opted to ignore it rather than highlight its appearance. He sighed and said, “I can set up an encrypted communication channel that will be all but impossible to interpret afterwards. The underlying idea is rather simple, I’ll set up a coordination algorithm on both sides and then form the link by encrypting the data at each waypoint with an algorithmic cypher. All anyone monitoring will see is a scrambled mess of radio noise, we will only appear on one screen and it will be scrambled by the time it reaches the next processor. As a result, however, there will be some lag between the two displays and occasionally some static… the static is a side effect of ensuring decryption attempts don’t recognise it as a video feed.”
“Yes, with a process like that it would be difficult to interpret the exchange,” said Tanya thoughtfully.
“I’m impressed you managed to follow that,” said Chesnokov with a smile.
“As a scientist, you need at least a basic understanding of how your equipment works,” said Tanya casually, “Otherwise the maintenance crew might fuck up your equipment.”
Chesnokov laughed and said, “Fair enough. I never let anyone touch my systems either, can’t trust them to get it right.”
“Right?” said Tanya joyfully, “Anyway, will you help me convince Subje- Tiama to give an interview?”
“You shouldn’t have much difficulty,” said Chesnokov with a shrug, “She expressed an interest in Kronos Cells before, she’ll probably be more than happy to form a cooperative partnership if it furthers her understanding about them… assuming she’s capable of being ‘happy’ in the first place.”
“Happy, huh? That will be an interesting topic to look into,” she said thoughtfully, “Animals often show primitive emotions like fear or love, but none can claim anything near the level of emotions that sapient species innately hold. What level of emotions does she have? How does it compare to her instinct? Actually, that would be even more interesting a topic. Wisdom, intelligence, and instinct are all very similar in origin, and very closely related too. The only thing that separates them is the level of consciousness they come from. Does that hold true of her too? Or would it be slightly different?”
“What are you rambling on about?” asked Nordon, suddenly joining the conversation.
“Ah, sorry, my mind wonders sometimes,” said Tanya with a regretful smile.
“Well, I expected as much from a scientist,” said Nordon wryly.
Tanya stuck her tongue out at Nordon childishly. Suddenly, a hand shot out and grabbed her tongue, the action was accompanied by rather elegant ‘Mew~’.
Everyone stared at Grace, dumbstruck as she withdrew her hand shyly. Her cheeks were bright red but she otherwise held her composure and flatly said, “Sorry, force of habit.”
In perfect unison, ‘Habit?’ crossed everybody’s minds. Grace maintained her confident posture but knew she was only making it worse for herself and made a quick escape by saying, “I have things to discuss with Tiama.” She left her three stunned acquaintances behind as she hurriedly paced away from them.
----------------------------------------
“Alright then…” I said as I lowered myself into the chair, “Please explain from the beginning.”
“Very well,” said Sam as followed suit, “My name is Samantha Fischer and-” He cringed as he thought about his words.
I raised an eyebrow and said, “Samantha? That’s… quite feminine.” I eyed the macho pretty boy, the name was rather out of place. Especially considering how masculine he was. “Don’t try and tell me you meant something else, people don’t mess up their own names, it’s ingrained into them their entire life.”
He cringed and said, “My mother wasn’t very sane…”
“Your father didn’t object to it?” asked dubiously.
“No father present,” he said sadly, “My mother was a rape victim.”
“Still,” I said doubtfully, “How did she mistake you for a girl?”
“She had a daughter before me,” he said melancholically, “But she died during the incident. My mother went crazy after, when I was born I had the same hair as my dead sister, my mother saw me as a replacement… no, she thought I was Samantha. I was raised as a girl, it wasn’t until I was twelve that I learned I was a guy. She killed herself and the neighbours took me in.” He leant back and looked up nostalgically, “I didn’t hate her for it. As broken as she may have been, she cared for me dearly. In fact, I loved her even after I found out about everything. Even now I go out of my way to commemorate her.”
I stared at him in complete shock. With hardly any prompting he opened himself up and revealed his past to me.
<( Well… That got really dark really fast. )> said Dawn dazedly.
Unable to disagree I said, << That it did… But his attitude towards her is worthy of respect. >>
<[ Always value and respect the guiding hand that protected you when you were weak… No matter how the roles change. ]> said Nova with a deeply respectful tone.
“Will you condemn me for my past?” he asked with his original composed stance.
“I care not about your past,” I snorted, “All I care about is your abilities and willingness to follow my command.”
He smiled and said, “That’s nice to know. So long as you don’t give me stupid orders I will be compliant.”
“If you doubt my orders, feel free to ask for my reasons,” I said with a small smile.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said with a similar smile, “Please call me ‘Sam’, I might respect my mother, but too much is too much.”
“I have no problems with that,” I said acceptingly, “You may go, I appear to have other guests waiting.”
He nodded and excused himself, Chesnokov rolled Tanya into the room behind him.
“Good timing,” I said to Tanya, “I wanted to speak with you.”
She cringed and asked, “Is this about the racing?”
“No,” I replied bluntly.
She sighed in relief and asked, “Then what did you want to talk about?”
“I gathered you are involved in the research of Kronos Cells,” I started, “I want to know more about Kronos Cells.”
Tanya glanced at Chesnokov who gave her a ‘told you so’ look. She returned her sight to me and said, “That relates to my request as well.”
“I’m not surprised,” I said flatly, “What do you want from me?”
“Cooperation,” she said, “Our current knowledge on Kronos Cells is more theory than fact. The only facts we have are that they are highly adaptive and have the ability to assimilate living, biological material. The same experiment can have such varied results, however, that nothing can be truly specified and confirmed. We suspect that each Kronos Cell is different, that the way they would react to certain experiments is decided before we even find them.”
“Why do you suspect that?” I asked curiously.
“Kronos Cells are massively varied in appearance even before they start adapting,” she said with a factual tone, “Colour and size are the most obvious visual difference. They range from vibrant reds to muddy yellows, from the size of a fist to mere droplets. Oddly enough, those with clear colouring tend to group together and even work together.”
“So, red versus blue kind of thing?” I asked.
“The grouping tends to happen that way more often than not, but there are cases where different colours team up. What I actually meant, however, was ‘clarity of colour’. Cells with high ‘clarity’ tend to act cooperatively. Conversely, cells with poor ‘clarity’ tend to work alone. The next thing of note is that cells with red colouring tended to use brute force to hunt their peers, charging with abandon. Alternatively, cells with yellow colouring tend to act more prudently, often dodging assaults and counterattacks. These observations hint at different cells having different natures.”
“Interesting…” I muttered, “So what colour was I?”
“You… you were unique,” she said and then muttered, “Very, unique.”
“What do you mean by… ‘Unique’?” I asked excitedly.
She took a deep breath and said, “You were like a rainbow, red, yellow, and blue. The colours swirled around inside you like a rainbow ocean, swaying like waves, but never mixing. We had seen occasions where a bit of red might separate within a purple cell and such, but your colours never mixed.”
“Hmm… Was there anything else that differed from the norm?” I asked.
“Hmm… yes, there was,” Tanya said seriously, “Your nucleus was surrounded by white ribbons. Upon closer inspection, we did find much thinner ribbons of other colours in some other cells, but none were ever as visible as yours. Also, the core of your nucleus was purple, the same purple as your eyes. Whether these colours are related or simply coincidence we don’t know, though we think it’s far more likely to be related than coincidental – humans don’t naturally have purple irises after all.”
I nodded in consent and said, “That’s true. The only cases where humans have purple irises is when they catch Sultagh, and that usually leaves them blind.”
“Coloured contacts also work,” she said with a dry smile, “But I must say, you are oddly well informed about a very abstract matter. Mind if I ask how?”
“Hmmm… We’ll be cooperating in the future, so I suppose it should be fine to tell you,” I said after a moment of consideration, “Even before I unlocked my psionic power, I was able to read the minds of others. I could also plant things in the minds of others. The effect was weak, it took a while to exchange anything significant regardless of the direction. I have lots of miscellaneous knowledge because of that.”
“I see… so we were probably right about Kronos Cells relying on some primal form of telepathy for communication,” she said contemplatively, “So you can read the thoughts of others?”
“No, not the thoughts, the mind,” I said, “Thoughts are only the surface, this ability goes much deeper and doesn’t bring back anything specific enough to call a ‘thought’. Calling it ‘primal’ might be more accurate than you thought. It’s more emotions and raw data than anything. Sure, I’m capable of retrieving a structured piece of information, but that requires my full concentration.”
“That sounds quite useful,” said Tanya thoughtfully, “You could copy an entire language straight out of a native’s mind and forgo the learning process… Would that be possible? Would it actually work?”
“It would probably work,” I said casually, “If my suspicions are correct, then my current grasp of English was formed in a similar way – albeit unintentionally. That process encompassed more than just the language though, not sure if I could single out the linguistics but it should be possible. It would be interesting to test, though you should consider the test subjects carefully since I can pretty much guarantee severe violations of privacy.”
“Huh? Why?” asked Tanya inquisitively.
“The rate at which I extract information is consistent,” I said, “But targeting the something, and only that thing, is quite difficult. The best I can do is target specific regions of the mind and send in an idea of my own to prompt related concepts to surface. Combined with the fact that language is something learned, and anything learned is closely related to memory…”
“… and you’ll be collecting unrelated fragments in between,” she said with a nod, “Not to mention that most sapient races use words to structure their thoughts, so the majority of words will bring up other thoughts – mention ‘family’ and you’ll suddenly know the taste of his wife’s cooking.”
I nodded in confirmation to her musings.
“Do you think it would be possible to refine the process? Make it more specific and thus effective?” asked Tanya curiously.
“Probably,” I said, “Though I have no idea how to go about it. It might be a while before I even figure out how to get started. It might even happen naturally – like infants learning to walk.”
Tanya smiled wryly and said, “You’re a Kronos Cell, I’d believe it if someone told me you ran before you learned to walk!”
I laughed lightly and said, “Now wouldn’t that be interesting?”
“Anyway,” said Tanya, “Chesnokov has offered to setup secure video calls for us. He guarantees that nobody will be able to eavesdrop on the exchange, would you mind having a full interview with the whole research team? We’ll go into more in depth there.”
Before consenting, I said, “This interview will go both ways; I’m expecting plenty of information in return for what I give.”
She laughed heartily and said, “Maybe, ‘interview’ gave the wrong impression… I don’t simply want a few interviews from you – I want you to be a part of the team! You’ll have free access to all our data and documents. In return, we expect your input; You may hold some instinctive comprehension about Kronos Cells that could greatly benefit our research. Additionally, you could perform some beneficial experiments of your own, such as absorbing a new language. All we ask is that you document such tests for us.”
I smiled elatedly and said, “A real win-win situation, isn’t it? That’s quite the deal you’ve proposed; The more I co-operate, the more both of us get out of it. That said, any data pertaining specifically to me would be even more sensitive than anything else… right? I want censorship control over all your documents to ensure the nature my existence remains a secret.”
She cringed and said, “That might be difficult… us scientists dislike people twisting our words to their own means… No, this opportunity is too big to throw away for mere pride, I might be able to convince them to comply.”
“Calm down,” I said, “I’m not a control freak, I’m not exactly keen on messing with your work. As long as you guys are cooperative I won’t even touch your work. Ideally, I’ll only have to flag documents as ‘safe’ or ‘unsafe’, the former can be kept on the facility servers but the latter will have to either be reworded by your guys or removed… I can keep anything ‘unsafe’ on my own servers, but I don’t want someone with any particular authority over the group to find the files.”
“Alright,” relented Tanya, “I get where you’re coming from, and that should be acceptable to them. If you are worried about authority acting on that knowledge, then we should probably pull Mr Golding into it.”
“Who’s that?” I ask.
“He’s our overseer,” she said bluntly.
“Wouldn’t that defeat the whole point?” I asked pointedly.
“Nah,” said Tanya casually, “He’s the one who facilitated your escape in the first place, he couldn’t agree with the inhumane things we were being forced to do. Hell, he actually covered for you and everything; the transfer to a new cell block, the guard chosen to take you across, route manipulation, synching the whole thing with routine maintenance downtime, and even leaving his key card out for you to find… Though that last one was unused, he really went out of his way to make sure you had the opportunity to escape. We helped make the surrounding events seem like natural coincidences. Considering everything he did for you, I doubt he’ll turn his back on you now.”
“… Fair enough,” I said listlessly as I thought about how oddly smooth my escape was. Granted, they almost caught me when I chose to stack crates, but that entire plan was probably outside of their predictions. That key card would probably have made things much easier.
“I must say though, your escape didn’t end the way we expected it to,” said Tanya ruefully, “In our original plan, you were supposed to escape out the front door and be caught on camera. Some of our sponsors were making a big speech about the project out front, a PR stunt to quell the media’s concerns and questions. By having a naked child burst out of the labs in a panic we would not only ruin their reputation but also raise even more concerns about the nature of our experiments. Preferably the media would have ‘rescued’ you, but even if they didn’t, our sponsors would have been ruined. They’d then have been forced either to hand you over to childcare services to salvage their public image or bullshit up some excuses like their lives depended on it.”
I smiled weakly and asked, “So, what did you conclude afterwards?”
“You were much smarter than we thought,” she said ruefully, “It was kinda funny, we all watched your escape on camera… As far as our higher ups were concerned, the cameras were offline because of a fault that we had been looking for since the day before. The stack of boxes was an ingenious way to mislead them, was that intentional?”
I smiled wryly and said, “No, I really planned on entering the vents that way. After the commotion about the vents, I figured it might have been best to avoid the vents.”
“How disappointing,” she muttered. Quickly perking back up she said, “Still, instead of becoming an unfortunate orphan pitied by the world like we intended, you went ahead and became one of the most badass crime lords I've ever heard of. What an interesting turn of events.”
“Interesting indeed…” I muttered, “Shall I take that as a compliment?”
“Yep, ‘badass’ is definitely a compliment to people in your position,” said Tanya playfully before adopting a more confident mien, “Before we call the guys for the interview, I have one more thing to officially hand over to you… I believe you retrieved a reinforced briefcase alongside me, where is it?”
“Here,” said Chesnokov as he placed the briefcase on the table between us.
Tanya nearly fell out of her chair but I hardly flinched, seems I’m finally getting used Chesnokov’s antics. After a few seconds, Tanya managed to recover and drew closer to the briefcase on the desk.
She pulled it towards herself and revealed a large touchscreen on the face of the case. She hit a few buttons and a digital voice said, “Security protocol Alpha-Zero-Zero-Four, verbal confirmation required.”
In a steady voice, Tanya said, “Tanya Smith, initiating handover procedure.”
“Acknowledged,” responded the case, “Commencing handover procedure. Please reposition container for procedure.”
Tanya shifted the case onto its spine with the interface facing her. On the side facing me, a similar interface became visible as armoured plating folded away and activated a dull green backlight.
“Carrier’s biological signature required,” said the digital voice. In response, Tanya placed her palm against her interface and the case said, “Biological signature confirmed: Tanya Smith. Please maintain contact throughout procedure… Alert! Heart beat below acceptable parameters, please state your condition.”
Tanya rolled her eyes and plainly said, “Recovering from injury, mild blood loss suffered.”
“Acknowledged, variance within tolerable conditions. Primary verbal password required.”
Ok, these security protocols were a little cool earlier, but now it’s just getting tedious.
Tanya hardened her expression as if preparing for an attack. After a deep breath, she smoothly proclaimed, “Blue waffle.”
<( Not sure if she ruined the mood, or made it… )> commented Dawn dazedly.
Tanya blushed as she noticed my absent-minded stare but quickly snapped back to attention when the case said, “Handover phrase required.”
“Oscar, Hotel, Foxtrot, Uniform, Charlie, Kilo!” exclaimed Tanya with an overly serious face.
<[ The hominid International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet? She’s got more style than I thought… Wait a sec, then that would spell... ]> muttered Nova to herself.
“Phrase confirmed. Receiver’s biological signature required,” droned the digital voice as a vivid green outline of a hand appeared on my interface. Tanya gestured for me to follow along.
I raised both my armoured hands and started comparing the two, unsure which hand I was supposed to use – the image on the display seemed like something an infant might have drawn; there was no definitive shape, it seemed more like the silhouette of four sausages hanging off a disc. Why four? Humans have five fingers, or four and a thumb, depending on how you look at it. Also, the interface takes up almost the entire side of the case.
With an exasperated sigh, she said, “Either will work, just take the glove off first.”
Heeding her words, I slid off my left gauntlet and placed my hand against the interface. Almost immediately, the case began speaking, “Hand detected: Medium size. Endoskeleton: Soft hide. 0/4/1 Finger layout: Left. Body heat: Warm Blooded. Finger anatomy: Consistent 3-Digit. Base species analysis: Human/Stryfun/Ahr. Initialising advanced analysis…”
Tanya rolled her eyes and said, “Sorry it’s taking so long. This thing is supposed to be one of the most secure briefcases in the galaxy.”
I sighed disdainfully and said, “It’s a real mood killer.”
“Alert!” voiced the case, “Anomalies detected: High body temperature, high density. To continue please provide a reason for the detected anomalies.”
We both looked at the case blankly for a moment.
“… Genetic modification?” I said, more as a question than a statement.
“Please verify base race and modifications,” it continued.
“Uh… Race: Human… Modifications… Varied martial arts oriented-enhancements?” I said while trying to hide the doubt in my voice.
“Processing… Scenario deemed valid, please maintain contact throughout the procedure,” I sighed in relief as the stupid box fell for my lies. It didn’t stop giving orders though, and quickly said, “Receiver, please repeat handover phrase.”
“Eh? Uhhh… Oh fuck!” I snorted in frustration as I tried to recall the phrase, Dawn was quick into action and extracted it from my memory. Having regained my confidence I began, “Osc-” but was quickly interrupted by a digital voice.
“Phrase confirmed,” said the case emotionlessly. I turned my gaze to Tanya and found her trying to whistle while looking away. Apparently, she needs more whistling lessons, the sound was pathetic.
A digital, “Please set a new primary verbal password,” returned my gaze to the box. Wait, set a new one? I can’t think of anything, I’ll just use the same one as Tanya.
“Blue waffle,” I said smoothly, happy that this finally seemed to be at the end of this overdone procedure. I wasn’t careless enough to remove my hand from the case yet, however, as I strongly feared doing so would negate the procedure and make us start from the beginning.
“Error!” yapped the worthless hunk of junk, shattering my hopes, “New password too similar to a previous password. Please use a different password.”
Grah! Whatever! “Please!” I exclaimed desperately.
“Error!” said the box of soon-to-be molten slag, “New password too similar to a previous password. Please use a different password.”
“Oh yeah,” grumbled Tanya, “The guy who gave it to me used ‘Say pleeease~’ for his password.”
<( Try ‘panties’! )> suggested Dawn excitedly.
Too tired to care, I simply went with it and said, “Panties.”
“Error!” it said, grating my nerves even further. This box is damn lucky that Tanya seemed to place incredibly high value in it. “New password too short. Please use a longer password.” Oh? Finally, we seem to be making progress.
<( Striped panties! )> exclaimed Dawn, eager to push one of her suggestions through.
“Striped panties,” I said with a tired but firm voice.
“Password set… Constructing vocal patterns… Storing biological data… Handover procedure complete: Security rights transferred.” it said, the words were like music to my ears, “Please set carrier details…” Must I use force to end this infernal screeching? “… when possible: Save a digital dog tag to ensure security,” Ok, that wasn’t as bad as I thought, “You have been granted administrative rights for this device: Please consult the manual for detailed controls.” That last part sounds rather useful.
“Alright…” I said, “How do I open it?”
Tanya let out a long sigh of relief and then said, “First, put a single finger in the middle of the interface while laying the case on its side. A large circle should form with your fingertip at its centre.”
I followed her instructions and until I saw the large circle appear around my finger and then asked, “What next?”
“Drag your finger straight to the edge of the circle, then slowly trace the circle counter clockwise until the circle pulses yellow,” she said plainly, “The circle will pulse a random colour every 5 degrees. Stop the moment it pulses yellow; hitting anything else will cause an emergency 24-hour lockdown which cannot be overridden. Once you’ve hit that pulse, start tracing in the opposite direction until both a red and an orange pulse occur, stop on whichever appears second. At this point, you can lift your finger. After that, it will give you a verbal prompt, respond with ‘Invoke procedure Omega-Zero-One-Zero: Unlock container’ and then a few seconds later say, ‘Initiate Verbal Operation. Invoke procedure Horizon-Two-Zero-One: Open container’.”
I sighed in exasperation and asked, “Why the hell do you need such overly exaggerated security procedures and disjointed operation codes on a briefcase?”
Tanya grinned devilishly and said, “Believe me, when you see what’s inside you’ll forget about all the frustration this thing has given you.”
“I doubt that,” I snorted as I followed the procedures she explained. Eventually, I reached the verbal controls.
“Please provide a verbal command for lock system,” it asked.
“Invoke procedure Omega-Zero-One-Zero: Unlock container,” I said.
I heard a sound similar to gas escaping a carbonated drink before the box said, “Suspending verbal guidance.” It ended the show with a nondescript beep as the digital interfaces powered down.
“Verbal Operation,” the box beeped response, “Invoke procedure Horizon-Two-Zero-One: Open container.”
The box slowly opened itself in front of me and damn was she right. The moment I saw what was inside my frustration vanished like a puff of smoke.
The inside of the case was lined with micro-stasis cells, each slightly larger than a test tube and neatly lined up next to each other and powered. There were two layers of six, adding up to a total of a dozen stasis cells. The rest of the free space was filled with power cells, in one corner there seemed to be a meter resting at about 15% - I assumed this meter to indicate how much charge was left in the batteries.
The most beautiful part of this entire scene, however, was what was inside the stasis cells. Suspended motionlessly in each and every stasis cell, was a Kronos Cell. Before me lay twelve beautiful Kronos Cells – all in untouched, pristine condition.