Chapter 174: (Historical Archive) (2/2)
The camera zoomed in on a newborn, only hours outside of her mother. She was little and brown, with unfocused brown eyes, and a thatch of black hair on her head. She was waving around her little fists and kicking, wearing a light pink diaper to signify she was a female.
The camera, normally controlled by the security eVI, was being operated by something else.
The Head of Hospital Security, Vonash-33842, sat in his virtual office and watched his visitor, who kept panning the camera over the tiny infant humans, zooming in on them. Using the parabolic microphones to listen to their tiny noises.
His visitor was made up of a trillion lines of code, all constantly mutating and shifting.
Vonash knew it was rare, almost unheard of, for his visitor to be seen outside of where it normally existed.
There was a light knock on his 'door' and he checked it.
Another one. This one small, furry, like a bipedal fox.
Vonash opened the 'door' and the newcomer came in.
”Can you give us some privacy?” the newcomer asked.
Vonash nodded and left, going to check on the rest of the security for the hospital. There were hashes to hash and monitors to monitors and firewalls to wall.
”Telkan,” the human made of code said, nodding, moving the camera to look at where the nurses where wheeling in a small pink human boy. He was sucking on a bottle, his eyes drowsy, his feet wrinkly as his hands, still looking vaguely wet.
”Welcome, little one. I see you,” the human said.
”Everyone's looking for you,” the Telkan said.
”I'm right here,” the human said. ”Look at him. He's beautiful. They're all beautiful.”
”Mantid is practically beside herself. She's alternating between raving at what happened and telling all of us to be calm to wringing her hands about where you are,” the Telkan said.
”She worries,” the human answered. He panned the camera over to where a little one had pulled her foot up to chew on it.
”They were able to recover all of them via their SUDS. Turns out they left before war was declared and had just arrived. They had no idea we were at war,” Telkan said, watching as the infant suddenly started to cry because someone was chewing on her foot. She realized they stopped and looked around, then started chewing on her own foot again, starting the cycle over.
”I know,” the human answered.
”How often do you come here?” Telkan asked.
The human shrugged. ”When I need to think. When I need to weigh something I usually come somewhere like here. I spend a lot of time in places like this.”
”Why?” Telkan asked. ”Of all places, why here, TerraSol?”
”Do you know what has killed more of my people than any other thing in all of our history?” TerraSol asked, staring at a small sleeping baby that was covered with light downy ocher hair.
”Old age?” Telkan guessed.
TerraSol laughed. ”No. War. Before the Mantid glassed us we still lost hundreds of millions a century,” TerraSol turned and looked at Telkan. ”It wasn't supposed to be like this when we left Earth. We were supposed to leave behind war, not accelerate it. More of my people have been killed in wars since the after the end of the Mantid War and after the Fall of the Imperium of Rage than ever existed before the Diaspora. We've lost trillions to war.”
”That's a lot,” Telkan said softly.
”The leading cause is, of course, Death by Misadventure, which is a fancy way of saying 'stupid shit', because we're... well... we're human,” TerraSol said.
”They're cute. Like bald podlings,” Telkan said. ”You care about them all, don't you?”
TerraSol nodded.
”You're different than we are, aren't you?” Telkan asked.
”Yeah. More emotional filters than you guys have. You need to know how your race feels at any given time,” TerraSol said. ”You need to know how the different groups, different regions, feel emotionally about a given topic or at any given time.”
Telkan frowned. ”Don't you?”
TerraSol shook his head. ”No. Not to the extent all of you do. Not any more. I know what they feel. What I feel. It's in everything. We can't help it, we can't purge it from our souls. Even at our happiest its back there, simmering, growling.”
”Rage,” Telkan said. TerraSol nodded. ”We saw it. On the battlefield. First to save us from the PreCursors, then to help us save ourselves from the Dweller.”
TerraSol nodded.
”Is it from the Glassing?” Telkan asked.
There was silence for a moment, the swirling code that made up TerraSol slowed and almost stopped. Right before Telkan asked again TerraSol answered.
”No. It's always been there.”
Telkan moved up close.
”Me too.”
-------------
>TELKAN HAS ENTERED THE CHAT
MANTID FREE WORLDS
Did you find him?
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
TELKAN FORGE WORLDS
Yeah. He just needed a few moments after the statements from those Galaxy Scouts were broadcast on the net.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
CYBERNETIC ORGANISM CONSENSUS
Where was he?
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
TELKAN FORGE WORLDS
Watching warsteel rivets being forged on Mercury.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS
Is he all right?
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
TELKAN FORGE WORLDS
He's doing all right.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
MANTID FREE WORLDS
Are you all right?
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
TELKAN FORGE WORLDS
I think so.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---