First Contact - Chapter 557: 4th & 10 (2/2)
”There's about a dozen LARP profiles we had loaded up when attempting to bypass the SUDS lockout and the cloning lockout, but that's not what's causing the lockout,” Resist said. She opened the panel and looked at the small monitor. ”There's a profile loaded up in the queue for both the SUDS array and the cloning bank.”
Exquisite looked over Resists shoulder, tapping in the profile serial number sequence.
”That's even odder,” Exquisite said softly.
”Is it safe to flush the LARP profiles?” Never Give You Up asked.
”According to Colonel Tangeeran, LARP profiles are only copies not in the master system till they leave the LARP worlds,” Exquisite said. ”He was one of the best out there when he was in Space Force, and now he's been on a LARP world, one of the hard core ones, and is still one of the best.”
”Wish there would have been a way to convince the system that the Elven Queen's court was a World Engine,” Never sighed.
Exquisite looked at her datapad. ”Weird. This guy was KIA over three years galactic, ten years local. Killed on Hesstla back during the Second Battle for Hesstlla.”
”So, what do we do? Delete it?” Never asked.
”I'm not sure,” Exquisite admitted. ”OK, here's an idea. We'll go ahead and wipe the LARP profiles, let the system do error checking. It should reject the whole thing then we'll pull the memory module and put it in storage data.”
The system chuckled to itself for a little while as the profiles were copies to static write-once read-many storage systems that had been jury-rigged to hold SUDS and cloning data.
”There he goes,” Never said. She shook her head. ”Give it about fifteen minutes to double-check the data and after the cloning bank and the SUDS array kicks it back, we'll move it to WORM and put them in stasis.”
The russet mantid team went back to work, making sure the medical systems were cleared.
A beeping caught Exquisite's attention and she looked up to see one of the green mantid technicians triggering the alert button.
”What?” Exquisite asked.
--85% and climbing-- 84.D signaled. --something weird--
The machine beeped, throwing an error code and started to cycle the SUDS template out of the buffer and into the storage memory. The number suddenly dropped back to 79.76% and the error code kicked out.
59 4f 55 20 43 41 4e 27 54 20 4b 49 4c 4c 20 4d 45
--see weird weird-- 84.D sent, along with an emoji of a confused face with spiraling crazy eyes.
The other russet mantid doctors, all experts in cloning, cybernetics, and SUDS transfers, all grouped up to watch.
The machine beeped an error at 87.65% and tried to reset.
59 4f 55 20 43 41 4e 27 54 20 4b 49 4c 4c 20 4d 45 kicked on the error status.
It dropped back to 85%, the last error percentage, and began to slowly climb back up.
It took three tries before it passed the 87.65% mark. When it did it flashed the same error code a dozen times.
The ongoing situation in the lab had attracted attention as it went through the grapevine. Other doctors were there, nearly a hundred green mantids, and two dozen doctors. Six MP's showed up with shipboard weapons, all making sure everyone stayed back from the SUDS array stack and the one cloning bank.
--almost there-- 84.D said.
The cloning bay beeped an error, a warning, but something overrode it.
”Where's the signal coming from?” Exquisite asked one of the green mantids.
--ring ring in house-- 773 stated, holding up his detector. --have you checked children--
”It's coming from inside the rebirth system?” Exquisite asked.
--righty righty-- 773 flashed, along with nearly a score of the other greenies, all of whom were examining every one of the systems except for the connected cloning bank/SUDS array.
The SUDS check flashed 100%.
The system tried to kick it back.
DANGER! UNMODIFIED HOMO SAPIENS TERRA SAPIENS DETECTED! WARNING! DANGER!
the system beeped several times.
59 4f 55 20 43 41 4e 27 54 20 4b 49 4c 4c 20 4d 45
appeared, streaming down the screen.
The system suddenly beeped and the lights went green.
Everyone watched as the cloning system began a fast regen, flooding the tube with biogel. The biomatter printers went to work and Exquisite and the other mantids watched the SUDS template transfer to the cloning bank. The SUDS array beeped, began clearing the queue, and started to shut down.
It took nearly fifteen minutes for the clone to reach the point where the SUDS template was supposed to be loaded. The system beeped, trying to throw error codes.
59 4f 55 20 43 41 4e 27 54 20 4b 49 4c 4c 20 4d 45 appeared again and again.
”How... how is this happening?” Exquisite asked.
”Human,” Resists said softly. She shook her head. ”Somehow, some way, it's a human.”
59 4f 55 20 43 41 4e 27 54 20 4b 49 4c 4c 20 4d 45 appeared.
Finally the tank beeped. Resists watched as the matter printer cut in.
”It's applying clothing,” Resists said.
--battledress-- 185 said, checking the codes. --acu-- it transmitted, referring to the adaptive camouflage uniform.
”Everyone get back,” the lead MP ordered as the timer wound down to under 10 seconds and the tube began to gurgle as the biomatter liquid was withdrawn. Resists could faintly hear the print heads moving back to the sides.
The doctors and technicians shuffled back, none of them really willing to give up watching whatever was going to happen.
The timer hit zero. There was a hiss and the cloning bank broke seal.
Resists noted that she could smell the slight tang of... sulphur? Rust? Something strange.
The human figure fell out of the tube, landing face down.
Resists noted it got its arms in the way.
The MP's leveled their weapons at the form.
It coughed several times and pushed itself on all fours, hacking up pinkish clear thick fluid.
”Can't...” the figure coughed.
”Don't move,” one of the MP's said.
”Kill...” the figure hacked again.
”Get on your knees, hands behind your head,” another said.
”Me...” the figure slowly struggled up.
Resists noticed the wild grin, the wide eyes, the deep burning amber glow in the eyes.
”Who are you?” the MP's asked.
The grin got wider.
”I'm the Ordnance Man.”