Chapter 435 (1/2)
The cold artificial intelligence deep inside the Alpha Layer of the Dyson sphere around the failed Big Bang examined the numbers, examined the error codes that were flooding through it. It had not been online last time, but it had been activated, perhaps accidentally, by those repairing the system.
Genetic incompatibilities.
Biological incompatibilities.
Genetic prosthesis failures.
Immune system hyper-response.
It weighed the data.
It sent an alert.
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The burning spot that contained all that should have been hiccuped, as it had been threatening to for long moments that could not be measured by it as the fourth dimension had not been created within it.
It hiccuped again.
It sneezed and exploded.
INCOMING BIG BANG EVENT flashed on a million monitors.
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TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS
Cyb, you here?
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CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE
Barely.
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TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS
Is it happening to you too?
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CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE
Yes.
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MANTID FREE WORLDS
Who's being affected the worst?
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...
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DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS
In order:
Clone Worlds Consortium
Cybernetic Organism Collective Worlds
Biological Artificial Sentience Systems
Terran Descent Human Worlds - Aligned and Unaligned Systems
United Federation of Planets
It's across the board.
I mean, you warned us that another rollback was going to happen, but what is going on?
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RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT
As near as we can tell, this one jumped harder. It had gone back further, and it affected the 'downstream' genetic lines all the way down. Like something supercharged it.
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TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS
It looks like the more heavily modified they are, the worse it is.
With one exception.
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MANTID FREE WORLDS
What?
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TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS
There's a junker, called Max-a-Millions. He's something called a 'Pure Strain Human', he just needed a couple of implant corrections.
He was in-system when it happened.
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CONFEDMILINT
It's across the board.
The more enhanced, the heavier the hit.
We've got a mass-cal situation on our hands.
Most of the warborgs are in medical stasis.
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LEEBAW CONTEMPLATION POOL
We're seeing it too.
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MANTID FREE WORLDS
Is it a Lanaktallan bioweapon?
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BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS
No. It's a temporal attack that is somehow bypassing the temporal warfare precautions.
It's reverting human brain matter to pre-diasporia configurations.
If there's too many modifications to the base human system, the brain can't keep proper function for bioware organs, can't interface with cybernetics, and worse, it looks like the genetic safeguards are missing from the neural tissue. Worse yet, that means that we're having other issues with tissue rejection.
Oddly enough, it isn't the brain that's being rejected.
It's the rest of the body.
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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS
It's hit us too.
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TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS
So, how often is it fatal?
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....
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RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT
Thirteen percent die within six hours without immediate medical intervention.
Sixty-percent die within twenty-four hours without medical intervention.
Of the remainder, nearly 34% die within another seventy-two hours.
Those with medical intervention have to be put in stasis in over eighty percent of cases.
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MANTID FREE WORLDS
Oh my Digital Omnimessiah.
You're talking...
talking...
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RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT
Billions. Hundreds of billions are going to die.
The largest die off of Terran Descent Humanity in its entire history.
It'll make the Great Glassing look like an air-car crash.
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BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS
Base genome of human had it happen to them.
The Uplifted aren't affected.
But humans everywhere are dropping. Sometimes in mid-sentence. Sometimes in the middle of the street.
It's picking up speed.
Our parents are dying!
It's hopeless.
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CLONE WORLDS CONSORTIUM
Not... necessarily.
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WARNING! MASS CASUALTY EVENT IN PROGRESS! bellowed out over the system. Lights were flashing, holograms were sparkling, and sirens were howling out.
Herod was staring at the display in front of him.
Millions, tens of millions were showing critical failure. As he watched the numbers jumped by easily another fifteen million. It was showing all over Terran Confederate Space.
The complex system that he and Sam had been working on for months had detected an incoming mass casualty event that dwarfed even the Great Glassing.
Worse, the entire system was locked down, almost every layer but the Alpha Layer locked down in stasis as everything shuddered and convulsed from the energy of the Big Bang that had just occurred.
The Object (as the system called it) had been threatening with an explosion for weeks, was weeks overdue, but it had finally gone off. It was larger than the previous explosions, but didn't even reach the Upsilon Layer, which was closest to the Object.
Once again, the system was larger closer to the Object than further from it, larger inside than outside.
Herod couldn't do anything but stare at the screen.
”Herod! Herod! Snap out of it!” Sam cried out through the speakers. His voice was crackly from the energies of the Big Bang, but still audible.
Herod looked up, where Sam was on the screen. The younger DS looked like he had for the past eternity, tired, his rough black hair mussed, dark circles under his eyes. Herod looked back down.
The number had crested two hundred and fifty billion 'imminent failures' and was still rising.
”The whole system is going to crash,” Herod said, his voice thick with horror. He looked up at Sam. ”There's no way the system can handle this.”
Sam gave a sound that was halfway between a giggle and a sob. ”I can't believe it. We manage to start fixing it, and it's going to crash again.”
The younger DS threw back his head and began screaming.
Herod went back to looking at the screen.
Two hundred and sixty billion.
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Legion was bored. Since the Big Bang Energy Event had started, the system was largely locked down. No processing going on as the system was devoted to managing the expanding wave of matter, energy, and proto-matter and turning it into another layer.
He rubbed the end of his chainsword against the rocks, pushing the toothed chain around the bar, feeling the high-torque motor move.
”Wanna fuck?” Dee asked from where she was sitting on the throne. ”I'm bored.”
”That's an interesting reason for performing that action,” Legion said, shaking his head.
”It's free and beats being bored,” Dee sighed and looked back at the massive plain. She lit a cigarette, offered the pack to Legion, who waved it away, then put the pack and lighter away. ”This sucks.”
IMMINENT MASS CASUALTY EVENT appeared in burning lava on the hard stone of the burning plain before the throne sitting on a mound of skulls.
The woman on the throne frowned, staring at it. The woman turned to the bronze winged angel sitting on a pile of skulls, still frowning. ”Do you know what's happening?”
Legion shook his head. ”No. Do you?”
”Give me a moment,” the Detainee said. She closed her eyes.
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”What are you two idiots doing up here?” Dee's face appeared on the monitor at the same time her hand pushed the casualty figures away.
Sam was on his knees, sobbing, hands touching him from all around him, nearly covering him, thousands of voices pleading with him to help them. Herod just stared at the screen, paralyzed, seemingly unable to do anything but stare at the rising numbers.
”HEY!” Dee yelled.
Herod looked up at Dee.
”What in the name of Truman's hairy ballsack are you idiots doing up here?” she snapped.
”There's some kind of disaster happening. An X-Ray Pulse from the galactic core, maybe? Something huge, something hitting all of everything everywhere,” Herod said. He looked back down at the number. ”They're all going critical.”
”Then fucking copy them into the system. Start doing it now! Prioritize who's closest to failing!” Dee yelled out. ”DO GODDAMN TRIAGE!”
”I can't. I can't. There's too many of them,” Sam moaned. More hands started touching him, more pleading sounding out around him.
”The system is jammed up. Some kind of signal interference? There's data mismatches across the board,” Herod said. He pointed at another monitor. ”It's not letting them move from local copies to the master suds system.”