First Contact

Chapter 458: Apostles

"Say I believe you," Dee said, flicking ashes onto the anti-static rubber map and rubbing them in with the toe of her boot. "We're all making big claims here."

Dhruv nodded. "Dax and I are claiming to be capable of miracles, or damn close to it, and I'm promising you that you'd be valued and cherished for your mind. It's hard to believe."

Daxin looked at FIDO, who was sitting there with the synthetic tissue hanging out, a dopey expression on his robotic face, obviously enjoying Daxin scratching between his ears. He looked back at Dee. "I've known a lot of dangerous beings over the last eight thousand years, Dee," he said slowly. "I didn't survive by underestimating any of them."

Dee nodded, letting smoke leak out from between her teeth. "None of can really threaten each other," she said. "After Darkside Station, I'm no longer afraid of injury or death, the two of you grew beyond it on a thousand battlefields."

Daxin nodded. "Now consider that, the betrayals, the fact the Legion here did his best to disconnect us from the Immortals system but as soon as the Case Omaha kicked in we got pulled right back here," he held up one flesh and blood hand. "And remade in our old images. There's no real threat to us you can really provide. Nothing will top the pleas we hear again because of the Case Omaha restoring us to our old forms."

"So you hear them again, calling out to you," Dee said. It wasn't a question.

Daxin nodded. "Tens of thousands a day. Most of them are just expletives or shocked utterances, but I get a few dozen every day from people who could use my help."

"Same," Dhruv said.

Dee got red. "And it's in your power to help?"

"Yup," Dhruv said.

"I guess," Daxin said, leaning back slightly in the chair so he could scratch down FIDO's neck, his feet still up on the workstation.

"And you aren't going to?" Dee asked.

"Naw, don't wanna," Daxin drawled.

"Fuck 'em," Dhruv added. He looked around. "Are you going to drop the Case Omaha and surprise us all with how clever you are, or are we just going to sit in here jerking each other off?"

Dee's face was turning purple and her fists were clenched.

"And you judge me," she hissed.

"Judge you?" Daxin laughed. "Lady, I don't even know you. I didn't care about you till you showed up demanding the code artifacts of the Digital Omnimessiah. You could head out that L-Gate for wherever floats your boat and I couldn't give a shit less."

"You're a relic of the Age of Paranoia," Dhruv shrugged. "There's nothing to judge. You are simply what a terrible barbaric time of strife, violence, hatred, resource shortages, and war made you," he yawned. "I don't judge you, pity you, or really worry that much about you."

Legion watched the Demon for any sign. It was busy processing nearly two dozen lost souls.

"You two are buffing my twat," Dee snapped. She stood up and started pacing. "First you offer me unlimited scientific resources, then you tell me you don't care. One of these is a lie."

Dhruv laughed, shaking his head. "Why? Personally, I don't care about you. I'm Legion, Admiral of the Fleet of One, Vat Born Luke who walked the bloody sands of Mars beside the Digital Omnimessiah. Everyone knows me, children invoke my name in their prayers," he leaned forward. "Get it through your thick barbaric head, Dee, nobody knows who you are."

"And that's part of your problem," Daxin said as Dee snarled and started to crouch down. She looked at the burly man, who was still scratching his cybernetic hound and looking at it rather than her. "You created the mat-trans system, more than that, your vision for it would have revolutionized human society," he looked at her. "Nobody else would have ever come close to starving to death again, like you probably did when you were a child. A simple cyclic conversion and people could have created food from electricity. The end of resource shortage, post scarcity within your lifetime."

"But instead, you were put in cryo-stasis," Dhruv said. When Dee looked at him with hot gunmetal grey eyes he shrugged. "You told me when you were bored and trying to decide if you wanted to break up the boredom with sex."

That made Dee flush slightly.

"Then the Combine put an explosive collar on your neck and forced you to create the Gen-1 Mat-Trans, which we used on Anthill. Then Gen-2 Mat-Trans," Dhruv said. "Then what, some asshole Imperium Lord Knight or Knight of Glory showed up and brutalized you as if beating and torturing you would make scientific advancements pop out of your ass?"

Dee nodded slowly.

"Yeah, they did it to me too. Hell, they planet cracked me and took me prisoner, thinking they'd wrest my secrets from me except Daxin over there showed up and ripped them apart," Dhruv said. he shrugged. "It's been eight thousand years of atrocities and cruelty, Dee. Your story is horrible, but there's other stories out there just as horrible, if not more so."

Her eyes were cooling, the tension in her body starting to relax.

"So yeah, I'm telling you, you could be the Project Leader of a Black Box Project. Sure, nobody might not know your name, but you'd have unlimited access to everything you need," Dhruv said.

"Hell, if you're so great," Daxin said, catching a tennis ball sized metal orb that ejected from his left thigh. He pitched it to her. "Here. Go to any random world, pitch the ants, start building. Make your own company, build shit people want. Hell, you'd have people join you just for the experience."

Dee stared at the small globe in her hand.

"Wars have been won with just one of those in the hands of someone who had the imagination and will to use it," Dhruv said, shrugging. "A Class I Nanoforge. It needs energy and mass and instruction."

"There's plenty of shit planets nobody is using that you could start work on," Daxin said, scratching his thigh when the port on his thigh closed up. "People do it all the time. Most fail. A few succeed."

"But if you want to work on the real cutting edge stuff, make a difference, the a Black Box is the way to go," Dhruv said. He gave a savage grin. "Just be warned, everyone, and I mean everyone will be working in my shadow for the next five thousand years."

Dee licked her lips. "Why?" she asked.

"I cured the Friend Plague," he said simply. "Right before Case Omaha went off. I solved it. It was blindingly simple for someone of my talents that I'd overlooked it a thousand times. A million times. Hell, I'd done the correction on two LARPers only a few years before."

"What was it?" Daxin asked, scratching down FIDO's back.

"The Friend Plague was Hellspace energy active. I recognized it, altered the DNA, and poof, to simplify things, cured the cats and dogs both."

Daxin shook his head. "Of fucking course it was."

Dee sat down, picking up her cigarette and lighting it.

"There is no smoking in US government facilities," Joshua said.

"Shut it, Gary Glitter," Dee snapped. She looked at Daxin and Dhruv again. "All right, I'm angry, not stupid. I'm starting to get it through my thick skull."

"Good," Dhruv said. He narrowed his eyes. "You tried to bribe me with a chance at a fast getaway, tried to bribe Dax here with his wife and kids," he said. Dee just smiled and shrugged. "I can bribe you in a way nobody else can, not even Sam-UL or Herod."

Dee frowned. "How? What could you possibly have that I would want?"

"You let me take a DNA sample. You've left behind DNA samples this entire trip," he said. "You're not the only master of genetic engineering."

"I'll admit that you're better than me," Dee said. "So what?"

Dhruv leaned back. "In my studies I encountered a lot of different genetic maladies, and I studied extinct or corrected maladies as part of my studies," he said. He pointed at Dee. "You mentioned the 'Dirty Thirties', which is slang for the 1930's dustbowl United States of America Midwest. You mentioned the draft for your father and little brother, yet you worked on the Manhattan Project."

"So?" Dee asked. She put her feet up on the desk and blew smoke out of the corner of her mouth, making the hologram of the boy sparkle and flicker.

"Your family were farmers. Your farm was overrun by starving people at one point, they ate your dog," Dhruv said. Dee nodded slowly. "Which means you ate beef, and probably not well cooked."

"So?" Dee repeated. "So what? It's eight..."

"Ten," Daxin corrected.

"Ten THOUSAND years ago, who cares?" Dee asked.

"Let him finish," Daxin smiled.

"Which means your mother ingested misfolded proteins that were later discovered and named prions. One of these prions entered her bloodstream and this exposure activated a latent genetic disorder that you had developed in-vitro," Dhruv said. He held up his hand, showing a DNA helix. He focused in quickly. "The short p arm of chromosome twenty near position thirteen and base pair 4,615,068 through base pair 4,630,233 were effected. This is called the PNRP gene."

Dee nodded and Daxin noticed that she seemed more relaxed even as Dhruv began to show the excitement he rarely showed outside a lab.

"Now, you have an almost, and I say almost, unique genetic mutation at base pair 4,628,221, this is critical. Normally the prion buildup from malady destroys the neurons of the brain as the disease progresses once it manifests," he said. "From your DNA, I would say it manifested at the same time as mid-puberty, with an estrogen cascade."

"My first period," Dee said softly. "The last time I slept."

Dhruv nodded. "Normally, this disease is fatal, however the misfolded protein for you, and maybe one out of every hundred million people with this exceedingly rare genetic disorder, was able to be cleaned from your system without harm."

Dhruv turned the DNA helix and then tossed it up. Another diagram appeared, the human brain. "Now, what you suffer from is universally called Fatal Familial Insomnia and is almost universally fatal within weeks or months. However, your body was able to compensate by an enlargement of the hypothalamus and medulla oblongata as well as your amygdala, as well as increased density of your cerebellum," he said.

He closed his hand and the hologram disappeared.

Dhruv smiled. "I solved it."

Dee sneered. "Sure, and make me dumber than a bag of hammers."

Dhruv shook his head. "No. It won't effect brain structures that have already matured. What it will do is I can stop the mis-intrepretation of signals," he leaned forward. "I can make it so you move from sleep paralysis into actual full REM sleep."

"Bullshit," Dee snapped.

Daxin chuckled. "If Legion says he fixed your DNA, you can take that to the bank."

Dee looked at Daxin and the Dhruv.

"You said you can disconnect us from what the Imperium did," Dhruv said. His smile got wider and he tapped the side of his temple. "I have, right in here, how to make it so you can sleep again."

Dee's eyes got calculating. "A trade?"

They both nodded. "A trade," Daxin rumbled.

"I'll not only cure you, right there, right now, but I'll even give you the data so you can your mat-trans pattern," Dhruv said.

"What, right here?" Dee said. She shook her head and laughed, a sour mocking thing. "I should have known you were yanking my clit."

"Disconnect me from what the Imperium did," Dhruv said. "Then I'll take care of you, then you disconnect my brothers and sisters."

Dee looked around, staring at Joshua for a long moment. "What about them?"

"Let them figure it out," Daxin said. "Or help them. You want fame, you want everyone to know your name? Being the Devil of the SUDS system isn't enough? Solve the problem. Open the Bag."

Dee stared at Daxin for a long moment. "How will you know if it works? I could be lying."

Daxin sighed and stood up. He closed his eyes and cocked his head slightly.

"The Telkan Marine is still fighting. He's desperate. He's close to despair. He calls upon me to guide his hand, to give him courage, to save those he is about to die to protect," Daxin said. "Disconnect me from the Imperial Immortals System, and if what you did works," he rolled his shoulders. "I'll save him."

"I don't care," Dee laughed.

"But I will," Daxin said. His hand opened and closed.

Dee sighed. She spun around and activated the console she was at.

"What are you doing is forbidden by Imperial Decree," Joshua said.

"Say one more thing and I'll violate your Second Law," Dee snapped. "Interfering with me will violate your First Law and Zero Law."

Joshua rezzed slightly, then reformed.

She typed a few more times.

"There. Done," she said, spinning around.

Daxin closed his eyes and vanished.

Dhruv stood up, moving toward Dee, smiling gently.

"What?" Dee said. She flinched back slightly from Dhruv then her eyes hardened and she glared at him, her gunmetal eyes hot with anger. She stared into Dhruv's eyes and went still.

She didn't move as his hand came down on her forehead.

"Sana haec mulier," Dhruv said gently.

Dee's eyes blinked. She stared up at Legion, who looked different than he had. Less razor edge, less syncophantic, like none of the versions she had seen before.

She yawned.

"Sleep now, child," Vat Grown Luke said.

Her eyes closed.

-----------

Dervax's armor was shrieking at him. His nanoforge was whistling like a kettle, the auxiliary ports were open and steam mixed with silvery flecks flowed out of it. His weapon's barrel was glowing a deep red, the rain from the sprinklers a poppet had activated when it had pulled the fire alarm hissing into steam on contact with the overheated metal.

His faceplate was gone, cracked and shattered and his Mantid had popped the seals. He had trouble breathing, even past the burning pain of the nanobots working to keep him alive. His Mantid buddy, 339, was unconscious in his protective shell, which was flooded with breathable kinetic gel.

The Type-III Precursor AWM's screamed as they rushed him again.

Weapon Heat Critical

Nanoforge Heat Critical

Slush Level Critical

Operator Has Suffered Critical Damage

Suit Ablative Critical

WARNING! MULTIPLE SUIT BREACHES!

Ammunition Level Critical

He ignored it all.

You'll protect us, won't you Mister Telkan? the poppet had asked, staring with wide innocent eyes.

"Enraged Phillip witness me," he whispered past dry, cracked, and bloody lips, feathering the trigger of his cannon. It sputtered, misfiring, but it was enough to destroy the lead wave of the Precursors so desperate to get into the civilian shelter beneath a school.

The barrel warped and twisted like taffy.

Dervax slapped the welded back together harness buckle and let the whole smartgun rig fall of him with a crash.

He drew his chainsword and lifted it up, activating the blade.

"Enraged Phillip, be with me now," Dervax whispered. "Ave, Caesar, nos morituri te salutamus."

The barbed blade chattered as it clattered around the Mark-2 Cutting Bar's blade.

"I am with you," the voice was a low rumble.

Dervax turned his head and stared.

The figure was massive. Heavy armor, like Dervax had seen on the Imperium of Wrath soldiers, only this armor was pristine, white, edged with gold. The figure had no helmet, a heavy featured face with brown skin, tattoos on each cheek. He held a a rune scribed glowing chainsword in his hands.

The PAWM's screamed, pulling his attention back.

And there was no time to think.

----------

Almagetta Kwarkatak grunted as she lifted the nearly three hundred kilos up to the bar. She could hear her ducks and ducklings peeping as they slept while she worked out.

The excited peeping that suddenly started made her slot the bar and sit up, reaching for a towel to wipe off with, wondering if her life mate had come back.

A thin brown male human was waist deep in the play pond, singing as the ducklings all swam toward him peeping. The fat males were hopping foot to foot excitedly.

Alma just stared as the brown man kept singing.

"For I love all the ducklings, little and clever and small..." he sang.

---------

Dee dreamed of sitting at the diner at Los Alamos, eating a piece of pie.