Chapter 536: Resurgence - Legends (2/2)
She took a long slug off of it as Herod looked at the datawafer. It was an older design, more in tune with the hardware that he had been working on for so long.
”So what's wrong with the system?” Herod asked.
”It's complicated. There's a lot of hardware problems that were fixed by cludging together software, but I can explain it to you pretty easy so you can explain it to Howdy-Doody,” Dee said.
”Please do,” Herod said.
”Imagine this whole thing is an old style ink-jet printer, like you see here and there in offices and work stations in this place,” Dee said.
”OK,” Herod said. He opened his mouth and put the datawafer between his teeth to hold it. He pressed his tongue against it and felt the synth-skin at the end of his tongue split so he could push the hidden port against the datawafer.
He knew that the woman across from him had put the dataport in his tongue as some kind of joke.
”Now, you've been basically fixing things. Replacing the network cable, getting power to the plug, replacing the power unit, putting paper in it, putting a new print shelf on it, replacing the print head, replacing the ink,” she said.
”Mm-hmm,” the file was a big one and his internal error-checking and virus-checkers didn't like it. He had to override it twice when he saw the message ”just hit accept you dumbass marionette” pop up.
”So, you're trying to get it to work, but it's missing a print cartridge, so you go to black and white,” Dee said.
”Mm-hmm,” Herod paid attention even as the program loaded into virtual firewalled short-term read only memory.
”So, you can't print black and white because the cyan cartridge is missing, and you can't find the settings to force it to print black and white using only the black cartridge because the software is for some reason set on Cantonese,” Dee said. She shrugged. ”That right there will give you access to the settings, basically, and let you print using the black ink cartridge instead of the CMYK system.”
Herod pulled the wafer from his mouth and tucked it into a belt pouch. ”OK. Got it. You're sure it will work?”
”Yup,” Dee said. She finished the can and tossed it away. ”Welp, gotta go. Lots of torturing to do.”
She stood up as mist filled the floor. She thrust one arm up and gave a screech as she suddenly began to melt. Herod drew back from the horrific sight as her skin melted away, her eyeballs turned white and popped and ran down her cheeks, her lips melted away even as her breasts lost their skin and melted down her chest. She screeched the entire time she melted, like a wax candle exposed to a blowtorch. The screech sounded suspiciously to Herod like ”whaddaworld” repeated a couple times as it dwindled away.
The mist cleared to leave nothing behind but a black silk dress and a pointed black silk hat.
”I hate that woman so much.”
Wally beeped in agreement.
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Herod carefully approached Sam, who was on his knees, staring at a digital representation of how many souls were awaiting backlog.
”Dee visited me,” Herod said.
Sam glanced at a section. ”She never left Hades.”
”She escaped. She's flesh now. On the loose. Using her mat-trans system to move around,” Herod said. He knelt down next to Sam. ”I told you she was dangerous.”
Sam looked up, his eyes blazing red. ”And who are we to judge her, Herod?” Sam asked.
Herod shook his head, putting his hand on Sam's shoulder. ”I'm not here to fight. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have gone straight to 'I told you so' when I've got something much more important.”
”What?” Sam asked, looking back down. ”There's so many of them. So many of them.”
”She says she found Chromium Saint Peter, that he used to work on the SUDS, and had him write a patch for the system,” Herod said.
Sam looked up. ”Do you trust her?”
Herod shook his head. ”No. But I think she's mostly telling the truth this time.”
Herod held out the patch, which looked like a chrome droplet.
Sam looked back at the representation and Herod saw him reach out and touch a red icon.
”Stop doing that,” Sam said softly.
”What's going on?” Herod asked.
Sam looked back up. ”Someone tried crossloading the SUDS data for V Corps (Old Blood), a Confederate Military Forces unit, part of something called 7th Army, some kind of combined unit,” he said.
”So?” Herod asked. The icon popped up and Sam tapped it again.
”They're trying to append an identifier code to the SUDS as well as the cloning profile. I keep stopping them,” Sam said.
”Why?” Herod asked, asking about why they would append the data.
”Because those people are already queued for therapy and processing,” Sam said. ”If they get shifted, it'll take the casualty tables another month to process the correct order of everyone else.”
”Huh,” Herod leaned forward. ”What data are they trying to append?”
Sam turned and looked at Herod, who managed to avoid flinching through long practice. ”They're trying to put a 'live action roleplayer' code on the system.”
”Why?” Herod asked, putting his hand back on Sam's shoulder.
”DON'T TOUCH ME!” Sam shrieked, jumping to his feet. ”I'LL KILL YOU! I'LL KILL YOU FOR...” he slumped. ”I'm sorry, Harry. I'm so sorry.”
”It's OK, Sam. It's OK,” Herod said.
Sam looked at the chrome droplet. ”Do you think this will help?”
Herod quickly explained what was going on to Sam the same way Dee had explained it to him.
Sam reached out and touched the chrome bubble, which shivered and giggled.
”I'll look it over. I'm a hacker, I'll be able to tell if it's malware,” he said softly.
”I'm almost at the station,” Herod said. He touched Sam gently on the arm. ”Ping me if you need me.”
Sam sat back down, staring at the hologram. ”I will.”
Herod paused. ”Sam?”
”Yes?”
”Let it go through. It can't make things worse and maybe they've seen something we haven't,” Herod said.
Sam sighed, touching the red icon and rejecting the request again. ”I'll think about it.”
Herod opened his eyes as the startram began to decellerate and pull into the station. He looked down at Wally, who blinked his lens shields at Herod.
”Well, I tried.”
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The man's scream rang through the forest night.
The thick set matron dropped the stick that she was using to roast marshmallows, running over to the tent. She crawled inside as the man with three chrome teardrops beneath the corner of one eye picked up her stick and pulled the marshmallows out of the fire.
”Shhh, shhh, Mommy's here now,” the woman said.
Both men could see her laying on top of the third man's sleeping bag, pressed against his back, holding him close with one hand. He was shuddering, weeping, holding onto the woman's hand with both of his as she used her other hand to smooth his hair.
Neither man said anything, just passed the bottle of whiskey back and forth.
After a long moment the third man calmed down. A little while later the matronly woman climbed out of the tent, closing it behind her. She dropped one hand to her belt and wrapped her fingers around the knife hilt.
”Comments?” She snarled.
”Nope,” Daxin said. He held out the stick. ”Saved your marshmallows.”
Dee stayed tense for a moment, then her eyes relaxed as she straightened up, letting go of the knife hilt. She moved over and sat between the two men. Luke handed her the bottle and she took a long drink off of it.
”He's getting better,” Daxin said to nobody in particular.
Dee just growled, a low, bestial sound.
Luke put his hand on her forearm. ”Thank you for helping our brother.”
Dee went rigid for a moment.
”We can't help him like that,” Daxin said.
She relaxed slightly as the bottle was passed back to her.
”Do you know what the majority of men cry out for when they lay wounded or dying on the battlefield?” Dee asked.
”Momma,” Daxin said.
Legion patted Dee's leg and handed her another set of four marshmallows to put on her stick.
”Yeah,” Dee said, staring at the fire. ”Ain't war a bitch.”
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Doctor Never Give You Up stared as the system suddenly began chuckling and whirring.
SUDS TEMPLATE RECONSTITUTION IN PROGRESS floated up on the screen.
DNA/RNA TEMPLATE ACCEPTED - BEGINNING TEMPLATE APPLICATION LAYER PROCESSING floated up in the other window.
The russet mantid looked up as the cloning bank suddenly powered up.
She was still staring even as her hands moved automatically, hitting the alarm button.
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MANTID FREE WORLDS
Come on, you guys felt that one, right?
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS
Nope. Didn't feel a thing.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
MANTID FREE WORLDS
Weird. Two earthquakes in a row, that close together.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
>V CORPS (OLD BLOOD) HAS JOINED CHAT
V CORPS (OLD BLOOD)
Unit reconstitution underway
Awaiting Orders
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS
GAH! Can't you like ring a bell or something?
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
MANTID FREE WORLDS
Wait, isn't that a TDH unit?
I TOLD YOU I FELT SOMETHING!
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---