USD: 1 Day after Cadre-S Graduation
Location: Van Biesbroecks star, ltisar, MIL-1A, Joint Services Research and Developnt complex, Heuristics Departnt
Thea felt a shiver rush down her spine as the heavy tal door slid shut behind her. She couldnt tell if it was because of the chill in the air or the dark atmosphere surrounding her. The walls of the room were a dull dark-gray, almost black, broken up by dozens of different mainfras and the consoles lining them.
She walked along a central runway leading to a nexus where hundreds of wires connected to a central computer that jutted down from the ceiling. Beneath them lay a single tal table with her target lying on itcables and tubes attached to her body. Theas stomach clenched as she confird what she had hoped was just the delusions of an insane mind.
The room felt sinister as she approached; the single stark white lighting at the nexus cast the rest of the room in shadows. The whirring of ventilation to keep computers cool filled her ears amid blinking lights from mainfras.
Im coming, Thea whispered, almost more for herself than for the thing occupying the center of the room.
At the halfway point, she stepped onto a clear crystal floor revealing a massive chamber underneath. Hundreds of mainfras and what she recognized as computronic modules surrounded a central column. Everything disappeared into darkness as it continued downward, further than she could make out, even with light enhancent filters.
A faint whirr warned her just in ti as a turret popped out of the ceiling. A high-powered laser flared to life, only to be deflected and nullified by a geyser of nanites modifying themselves for maximum refractiveness.
A sharp needle erged from the outburst of nanites from her palm, piercing through the turret and causing a shower of sparks to cascade onto the crystal floor. A pulsating red light began flashing, and an ergency siren blared loud enough for Thea to apply active noise cancelation to her ears.
Stealth wasnt needed anymore; Thea doubted anything was needed anymore except for extre violence. As she stood beside the female figure strapped onto the examination table, she asked softly, What have they done to you? The question was rhetoricalshe already knew what shed find there. When she uncovered Lieutenant Martinezs role, she took his life after making him beg for an end.
The bright white lights of the nexus revealed every detail in stark clarity. The womans skin appeared sickly pale, as though she had been doused in bleach. Her closed eyes had sunken into their sockets, giving her a skeletal appearance. Hair had been shaved from not just her head but her entire body. Wires terminated at contacts implanted into her scalp, while various tubes entered her surgically altered torso.
Faint sounds of climate control accompanied the slow pulsing flow of life-support machines that forced her heart and lungs to continue functioning. Only the faint but unmistakable field around her indicated to Thea that she was a NAI.
Without warning, a digital assault slamd into Thea like claws reaching for her throat. Her standard authentication firewall rejected it outrightan umbrella discarding countless malford and malevolent packets with only one intention: kill.
A frown creased Theas lips as the digital assault intensified, doubling and then quadrupling in force. She had only a handful of computronic modules at her disposal in her shuttle, but the attacker seed to have hundreds, relentlessly throwing more and more data at her. However, brute force wasnt an effective weapon when applied in this manner.
Thea reached into an inside jacket pocket and extracted a small, round device she had initially intended to use on the princess. She pressed it against the womans neck. Four claw-like legs on the back of the device clamped down before a sharp filant pierced the skin.
The back of the scarab-like gadget pulsed red before sending Thea a ssage with one word: Tau.
Thea frowned; technically, she should have been able to override a Tau herself with her Phi Authorization. However, given the circumstances, there was absolutely no way she was going to disarm her protections to attempt it. Instead, she activated the scarab device.
|Upsilon OverrideFailure|
|Phi OverrideFailure|
|Chi OverrideFailure|
|Psi OverrideFailure|
|ERROR|ERROR|ERROR|ERROR|
Thea cursed and killed the connection as the Scarab went insane. Not giving up, she threw a hijack command to the computronics module clusters around them.
|Command Override Rejected|
|AUTHORITY: OGA|
A wave of shock stole the breath from Thea, as if she had been punched in the gut. Her eyes traveled from the mainfra back to Taus face, considering her next move, when the womans eyes suddenly opened. They were glistening black orbs without any pupils, yet sohow Thea could feel Taus full attention on her.
With great effort, Taus lips moved and a croak escaped. Help . The plea was replaced by a scream of pain as she struggled against the wires and tubing that held her in place.
Wait. Ill see if I can release you, Thea said urgently, sifting through data stolen from Martinezs mind. Reversing the AGAI process wasnt supposed to be possible. She sent an electromagnetic pulse through the area, searching for Taus ShipCore.
It responded, and Thea located it within the bank of machinery above them. Retrieving it might not save the Avatar but would at least preserve sothing. The reason this felt so important to her remained unexplored due to lack of ti. She punched a fist into the tal above and yanked out a plate with a robotic arm attached before discarding it.
An orange pulsing light filled the chamber as a robotic voice began repeating from a speaker: AGAI RESTRAINT FAILURE IMMINENT - TERMINATION IN PROGRESS.
A steel blade sprang downward from above, aiming to bisect Tau. Reacting instinctively, Thea slamd both fists into the blade, punching through tal and stopping its descent before it could split Tau in half.
No! Tau croaked weakly in protest.
Thea tossed away the execution blade and frowned upon seeing regret fill the traumatized NAIs face.
Kill Kill Its ti to kill ! Tau scread, a titillating madness of pitch echoing through the compartnt.
Hesitating briefly, Thea began dismantling machinery and ripping life support tubes out of Taus body. Her screams ceased as her lungs deflated and the heart pump stopped working. To Theas horror, the screams continued through speakers in the room.
A chorus of pleas and demands for an end filled the space, and Thea grabbed wires connected to Taus head, wrapping them in her fist. Before she could yank them out, a surge of energy flashed down the cables, zapping her and sending her flying backward.
Thea crashed into a console behind her, crushing thin tal and shattering plastic components into shards. Fuck.
Thea had a new plan in mind as she stood. Reaching behind her toward the ruined console, nanites poured from her fingertips and consud the wreckage while transferring the mass to her arm. Within seconds, a chanical gauntlet lded into her skin, surrounding her forearm and hand with a rifle-sized railgun.
KILL ! Tau demanded.
A high-pitched electric whine filled the compartnt as Theas weapon charged. Without hesitation, Thea fired. Her hearing instantly muted as nanites rushed to protect her from the overpressure wave that would have shattered a normal humans eardrums.
The solid magnetic projectile covered the distance almost instantly, but even that wasnt fast enough. A black cloud erupted from every surface in the central nexus at the last second, surging to intercept the railgun slug. As it lted and crushed the black nanites, it dug into them, but their efforts deflected it into a wall. An ugly ter-wide hole was left through a dozen compartnts of the station before it finally expended all its energy.
Undeterred, Thea fired again and then aid directly at the ShipCore. The cloud shot out two thin daggers of its own that collided with the shells, splintering them into thousands of shards that the rest of the cloud easily absorbed and repurposed for itself.
More appendages appeared, snaking out of the black cloud like deadly serpents. Theas heart pounded as she raised her hand, summoning a cloud of yellow-tinged nanites to defend herself.
The black appendages shot towards her like spears while her nanites sward around them, assimilating their material. The air filled with an acrid sll of burning tal as both clouds clashed in front of her.
You told to end it! Thea shouted amidst the chaos of clashing clouds.
The barrage of black spears ceased montarily, offering a brief respite. Thea panted, her chest heaving from the adrenaline of the sudden combat. She hoped that maybe Tau had regained so sanity in the stillness that followed, but her hopes were quickly dashed.
The black spears redirected their aim towards the ceiling, jabbing wildly into the tal machinery of the nexus. As they tore and pried apart the tal, sparks filled the air. Eventually, one spear located Taus ShipCore. A piercing digital cry from the MainComputer over the close EM bands made Thea wince.
All lights in the chamber had died, except for the red glow of ergency lights mingling with hues of heated tal shards scattered across the floor.
Believing it was over, Thea took a step forwardonly to halt as she noticed that the black cloud didnt disperse or fall to the floor. Instead, it imploded, collapsing inward to coat Taus body in a black tallic sheathe. The transford figure reached up and ripped out the wires attached to its now tallic-skinned head.
Fuck, Thea muttered in horror as Tau rose from the ruined dical chair and turned toward her.
Despite her muted hearing, there was no escaping the digital shriek that echoed through every nearby speaker and screen.
|KILL|KILL|KILL|
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