Chapter 811: Ultimis Diebus Hominum

Chapter 811: Ultimis Diebus Hominum

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"Wake up, Ess-Three," the voice said.

The Young One wanted to pretend to be asleep, pretend to be unconscious or dead so that the torment didn't continue.

But it knew that all that would happen is the smouldering end of the cigarette would be pressed against his flesh till he screamed.

S3 opened his eyes.

The lemur stood there. Unclothed except for the headband of phasonium and warsteel, with the precisely cut and machined artificial gemstone in the middle. She lit her cigarette with the clink, rasp, clink of the mechanical lighter, then rolled her hands to make it disappear.

S3 still didn't know how she did that.

"If it isn't my favorite test subject," the female lemur said, her voice soft and gentle. "Why, today, you even have all your flesh!"

S3 winced at the memories. Waking up to find himself nothing more than a nervous system in nutrigel. Discovering he was nothing more than a brain in a jar in a combat or exploration robot. Discovering he was completely digital.

For a long time, dozens of lives, he had been forced to figure out patterns between objects, numbers, shapes, equations, and then, events. When he failed, the negative stimulation was extreme. When he succeeded, he had been rewarded with pleasant nerve stimulation or food.

He had learned fear under her lemur hand.

Her laughter was like razors on his mind.

She snapped her fingers and the monitors behind him came up. All of them held what he had learned was a DNA triple-helix.

"Well, today's a special day, S3," she said. She giggled. "It took me a long time, but I figured out the last of the genetic sequences," she leaned forward, her eyes glittering with madness. "But then, I learned from the best."

She straightened up. "Your dimensional polymorphic DNA sequences protect your species when you translate between dimensions. While your DNA is locked, I figured out how to fool the sequence to add in what I wanted."

She faced the 2.5D monitors and tapped them. "Your emotional and pattern recognition centers, specifically, parts of your limbic system and neocortex, were either atrophied or actually absent. While I could teach you fear, there is a myriad of emotions I needed you to possess."

S3 remembered being shown pictures of sad looking animals and weeping.

"Once I modified those, I took the next step," she tapped a screen and a picture of an Antrekna appeared, focused on the face. "For the longest time I assumed these depressions below your eyes were the equivalent of sunken cheekbones, merely a physical expression of your bone structure," she stated, tapping the depressions. "However, I realized, one day, exactly what they were."

The picture changed and showed an Atrekna with smooth surfaces on the face.

"At one point, your species had the equivalent of parthenogenesis ovaries right here. Once the partially matured larvae in your feeding tentacles were ejected or implanted, a new egg moved down and into the larval growth chamber," she stated. "This allowed you to produce dozens of offspring."

She turned around and faced him. "At some time in your past, it was removed from your genetic code," she bounced up and down on the ball of her feet several time. "I assume it was when your species had not degraded into idiots who slavishly followed the procedures set down by much more intelligent leader caste subspecies."

S3 wanted to signify negative, but knew it was useless.

"But that still didn't solve my problem," she stated, turning back to the screen. A larvae appeared, then was pulled into parts. "I dissected many of these little parasites, wresting their secrets from them."

She turned back. "They scream when you grab them with forceps," she giggled. She turned back to the 2.5D monitor. "Then it dawned on me."

She tapped the screen and an ocean appeared, lit by a red sun, the water dark and slowly moving. "You evolved on a low tidal low gravity world with a dim sun. Based on your eye design prioritizing red light over white, I realized that it had to be a red sun, which meant it exerted quite a bit of tidal pull on your planet. For most of the stellar system's life cycle is was probably an outer ice planet, where life was in the depths where geothermal action could keep the water warm but gravity low enough that the water didn't crush anything attempting to evolve. Once the star entered its late life cycle and began to expand, your world warmed up."

She giggled again. "This means, that by the time you reached sentience, you were beneath the gaze of a dying star," she turned back to face S3. "I deduced, with a sixty-two percent chance of being correct, that the pressure to escape your solar system or at least prolong the life of your star, pushed the intellectual evolution far faster than the physiological."

"That is where you undoubtedly began to experiment with temporal mechanics and sciences," she stated. "A parasite desperately seeking to escape a dying host."

The cool disdain in the last part made S3 wince.

She suddenly smiled and S3 felt fear in his stomach.

"But rejoice, S3, because I've come to save you!" she crowed, then laughed for a long minute. She flicked her cigarette through the air and S3 watched it dissolve. "Well, not you, but your species," she stopped laughing, going calm, her face going blank. "Well, not your species as you know it."

She tapped her leg and the screen flicked to show primates in different clothing fighting each other with rifles, knives, and explosives.

"The same way the malevolent universe saved mine," she said softly. She suddenly giggled again. "Here, let me get S7. I want you to experience all this fun," she started walking away then paused. "I have peeled away your armor, your history, your lost ages, and sliced those secrets from what was left, S3. Remember that."

S3 kind of wished he could plunge his feeding tentacles into his eyes and suck out his own brain, but as long as the headband was on, those tentacles were numb and tingling.

Besides, he'd just wake up and the mad lemur would take that knife to him for a while to remind him that even in death he could not escape.

He could hear wheels squeaking.

The lemur pushed an Atrekna brain attached to only a few inches of spinal cord, three eyes, and a lemur jawbone, all suspended in a tank of nutrigel. There was a glowing gem that she reached up and tapped, the glow vanishing.

"Notice you can't hear him?" she asked.

**are you there** S3 asked.

S7 jerked back, then thumped against the tank, as if he was trying to get through the macroplas and attack S3. S3 could feel a tingle across the front of his brain. A sick, almost dirty tingle.

"He's telling you to stop doing that, telling you that your thoughts are disgusting and vile even if he can't understand them," the lemur said.

She giggled.

"You can do what you so desperately want to do to him," she said. She stepped forward and used her fingers to remove the band of phasonium/Substance-W alloy from his head.

He could feel S7's thoughts trying to touch his. The unclean, prickly, greasy feeling of S7's thoughts reaching out to try to wend their way into his, to corrupt him, to warp him.

FWOOP!

The conical blast hit the container and S7 exploded into slurry, the biogel swirling. The jawbone tumbled and knocked against the macroplas.

"Good boy," the lemur said. It put the headband back over his third eye.

He knew better than to resist.

"Well, let me move this out of the way and bring in something I'm dying to let you see," she said. She moved over and leaned against the container. "You see, it was when I was examining the six larvae in your larvae growth chambers, that I was struck by inspiration."

She paused and her eyes gained a dull red glow.

"When I was a prisoner of those short sighted morons, I encountered one of your breeding stars. As I researched the life forms inside the neutron star, they infected me, corrupted me, instilled their hunger for stars, for resources, for everything in my brain. I was forced to excise those corrupted thoughts and brain patterns," she said. She took a deep breath and the red cooled to amber. "I was considering that when I realized a basic simple fact: our brains are somewhat compatible. That's why you suffer such ill effects upon contact with human thought. We run on the same wavelength. Which is something I realized I could weaponize."

She turned and moved away.

"It took time. The world moved around the sun three hundred times before I managed my breakthrough. Setback after failure after dead end," she paused, out of his sight. "But I did it."

There was silence for a moment.

S7 rolled onto his back, staring at the night sky. The clouds were low, the rain was cool on his skin.

The lemur had been killed in a lab explosion. He had managed to struggle his way through the wreckage and escape through the great iron doors that led into the research facility he had been trapped within for centuries, for lifetimes uncounted.

He had, of course, checked to ensure those vile, alien, mutated Atrekna were dead.

There had been a cold satisfaction in seeing the tanks of larvae boiling, surrounded by flame.

S7 breathed a sigh of relief.

He could feel the touch of an Overmind close by, feel Quorums coming near, and the phasic power enhancement of combat orbs.

He stood up, waving one arm.

He gave a light expression of amusement.

His escape from the clutches of the mad lemur just proved the Atrekna's superiority.

-----

"Special Subject X1," the female lemur's voice was clinical, soft, cold, without emotion.

The Old One kept his eyes shut.

"Atrekna are divided into three major castes, with multiple subcastes within this stratafied culture," the lemur continued. "The Ancient Ones, which have been temporally replicated from the First Precursor War. These ones were instrumental in the creation of the autonomous war machines.

There was the clicking of a control.

"Examination of multiple subjects have shown very little genetic diversity with high levels of genetic alteration, to the point that subjects with an IQ lower than one hundred ten on the Atrekna Adjusted xeno-sapient scale appear to have been genetically designed for tasks requiring phasic ability but no pattern recognition.

"The Ancient Ones have the most genetic diversity and depth. However, there are latent genetic triggers that point at a higher up caste. To this extent I have decided to move forward with Project Graybeard.

More clicking.

"Next up is the Old Ones. These are the ones that took part in the initial attempt to gain a foothold in this universe. They are largely outcasts in their communal thought matrix due to losing the foothold. They are the only ones with experience at fighting Terran Descent Humanity in any numbers," the lemur said. There was the sound of a pressurized can opening then swallowing. After that came the click, scrape, click, exhale of a cigarette being lit. "Surprisingly, the Old Ones show more genetic diversity than the Ancient Ones. It is my personal belief, not yet backed up by enough empirical evidence to justify a theorem, that temporal replication may cause signifigant loss of extra genetic material due to the dimensional adaptation mechanism.

Again, with the clicking.

"Finally, we have the Young Ones. These ones were born here, using standard Atrekna parasitic growth conditions and methods. By and large, this group has the lowest median intelligence quotient, even adjusted for the xenospecies scale. Poor pattern recognition in over ninety-nine point nine-nine-seven-two of all subjects. Young Ones appear to be valuable due to the fact they still possess larval parasites within their feeding tendrils.

More clicking.

"Special Subject-X, however, has been determined, through rigorous and soft interrogation methods, counter-interviews with other Subjects, and observation, to be of the Old One case. Specifically, a biological engineering specialist that took part in the crash milli-second project to gentle Terran Descent Humanity," the voice grew hard. "A gratifying find on my part."

More clicking.

"Work was slowed by the lack of full research teams, but with Atrekna temporal manipulation in the system slowing local time relative to galactic time, I had the time I needed. While I would prefer additional researchers and research teams to ensure nothing is overlooked, it is my hope, and hope only, that time gave me an offset to the lack of additional viewpoints and thought processes."

"At this time, the project is ready to move into the execution phase."

"End of Line," she stated. "End File."

There was a beep.

The Old One heard chair wheels scrape. Light suddenly made his eyes water beneath closed eyelids.

"Special Subject-X," the female lemur said softly. He felt lemur fingertips touch his skin.

The table whirred softly as it rotated until he was nearly standing.

"You might as well open your eyes," the female lemur said.

He did so.

She was sitting on a wheeled chair, dressed in gray cloth with a white undershirt and a single blue, white, red pin on her breast. She had a cigarette in her mouth and a can of liquid refreshment in her hand. The circlet on her forehead glimmered in the light.

"Would you like to see the results of my research?" the lemur asked.

The Old One wanted to signify no, but knew she would show him anyway, so he remained silent.

She pointed and twelve banks of six 2.5D screens lit up.

"Twelve cities, each with its own Overmind network," she said. "Connected, right now, through a single central Overmind," she stood up, smoothing her skirt, before setting down the can of liquid.

"I sent twelve subjects back after seeding this world with nanite and picites for nearly a hundred years," she said.

"Twelve cities. Twelve test subjects all subjected to wildly different tests," she smiled, a close lipped thing. "Do you know why?"

**no**

"Each of those cities is inhabited by genetically identical versions of one another, with only a few differences. For over a thousand years they have ruled this planet from those twelve cities, using the central overmind," she said. Her face grew hard. "While the Overmind is used for superluminal communication between these worlds, other than that it ensures comformity across thought."

**yes**

"Do you know why your species is stagnant, and merely collects resources so that, when entropy arrives, you can clutch onto your resources like a mythological dragon and giggle your way into the darkness?" the lemur asked.

**no**

"Because your species moves in lockstep. Toward a finish line that is less a goal and more a singular expression of survival," the lemur said. "Ultimately, it is nothing. Less than nothing," she leaned forward. "I, however, know how to change that."

**no** the Old One tried.

"Yes, I do," the lemur giggled, then stifled it and straightened up. She pointed at the cities. Each time she pointed an Atrekna appeared on the display. "It was digitizing you and putting you in the Born Whole system that gave me the breakthrough I needed. How to rewrite and embed genetic memories that your species used. I created twelve distinct species, all with a genetic revulsion toward temporal manipulation."

The Old One noted that they had different physical characteristics.

"They operate on slightly different wavelengths and phasic frequencies," the lemur said. "They can communicate, but they, and this is the important part, cannot join into an overmind or communal mind between groups," she looked at him with cold gray eyes. "Do you know why I do this thing?"

**no**

"Because the species that remain will forget about you, will figure they drove you away far enough to not bother them. But there you will be, a hidden parasite upon the universe, slowly devouring it at an ever increasing pace until nobody can resist you," the lemur said.

**yes we are inevitable** the Old One stated.

"There is one group that will pursue you to the end of time. That will eradicate you wherever they find you. That will be uniquely suited to detecting you and ferreting you out," the lemur said.

**it will not matter we are inevitable** the Old One repeated.

"So will be the ones that hunt you," the lemur smiled.

**who** the Old One asked.

The lemur pointed at the screens.

"Why, all of you. All twelve species of you will hunt one another."