NIGHT ONE
Which Came First: the Chicken or the Egghead?
The watch bot moved at a constant speed down a deserted street in the populated area. It's beam of light illuminated the ground (which was maintained in a pristine condition by the maintenance bots) in front of it. A Quantum Accelerator watched and listened breathlessly as the shadows cast by the light moved away from him and the hum of the machinery of the watch bot faded into the distance. He took his Quantum Accelerating Device out of his pocket and glared at it. The act of time traveling must have damaged the tracker, because he could not pick up the signals of any of the other Quantum Accelerators. He cursed to himself under his breath, "Great, trapped in a box like Schrodinger's cat." Well, nothing he could do about it now. He needed to go in search of ThunderChicken. He put the QAD back into his pocket with all his other gadgets and poked his head out of the alley and glanced around to make sure the coast was clear. Then he took a deep breath, and hurried out into the night.
He was so focused on finding his target that he did not notice the shadowy form at the recharge station. It was the Mengalabot, and it was hacking into the mainframe using the interface at the recharge station. It was sending its message to all the system computers and all the personal computer stations. It also had configured the weather holobroadcast to give its message: "Good night, Innocents. You're not going to wake up from this nightmare...", which flashed across the news holograms that the QA passed as he crossed the main square of Affinion 7 in his fruitless search.
On the other side of Affinion 7's main square, another QA, who had been on the track of his own target, paused to look up at the message playing across the holoscreen. Well, I can't wake up if I don't have time to actually go to sleep, he begrudged. He shook his head vigorously in an attempt to shake off his fatigue. It was really too bad that they haven't discovered the compound C4FF31N3 yet. The QA sighed wistfully. Well, I'd better get going, he thought and began walking again. Now where the h3ll is Phaze?
That Warm and Fuzzy Feeling
The (holographic) moon was high in the sky. Phaze walked slowly around the field, squinting in the darkness and glancing down and around in the artificial grass. Now where did I drop that d4mn i-holophone? He wondered. He was so entranced in his search that he did not hear the rustling of the (artificial) grass under large feet as the creature came up behind him. Just then, simulated clouds covered the holographic moon, blocking out the (artificial) moonlight and casting him into darkness. Suddenly, Phaze felt something warm and wet at the back of his neck. All the muscles in his neck tensed and he turned around, very slowly, and reached up to feel something furry and soft. As the (simulated) clouds passed, the (artificial) moonlight shone down to reveal...a gigantic rabbit???
"Uh huh..." he muttered to himself, breathing a sigh of relief. "I guess there must be a glitch in the animal breeding protocol." Phaze stroked the rabbit's cheek. He smiled softly as the creature tilted its head and stared at him with its large black eyes. "You know," he said to it, "You're kind of cute. I wonder if they'll let me keep you..."
The rabbit nuzzled it's large soft nose into Phaze's neck. The creature's whiskers tickled him, causing him to giggle and twist his neck away, so that he did not notice the black things that were starting to protrude out of the creature's neck. As his head rotated, the glare of the (artificial) moonlight off something on the ground caught his eye. My i-holophone! he thought, and bent down to pick it up. The black things extended themselves, forming long hairy black legs.
He grabbed his i-holophone off the ground and rubbed it on the side of his pants. Good, it's not broken, he reflected, this thing cost me an arm and a leg... The thought was choked from him by the sensation of his life being squeezed out of him as the creature's legs encircled him tightly. Phaze was immobilized with fear as the creature brought him up to it's mouth. The i-holophone slipped from his hand and fell onto the ground right in front of the creature. The creature leaned forward, crushing it with a loud CRUNCH...
Moments later...there was another, louder, CRUNCH...
Minutes later, maintenance bots came and swept the pieces of the i-holophone off the (artificial) grass, being careful not to disturb the giant cocoon in the center of the field.
The Lamentation of Brandon
In the southeast quadrant, the figure of a human crept up behind a red hovermobile that was parked outside a home unit. The (artificial) moonlight glinted off its metallic top, creating a golden red glow. The Quantum Accelerator paused, listening for any sounds of activity. There were none. The QA reached to grasp the phaser in her belt with her left hand, then gathered up her courage and rushed up to the door of the home unit. She waved her hand over the doorbell sensor and tensed as she heard the sound reverberating inside.
"Who is it?" a voice called out from inside the home unit. Footsteps approached the door.
The QA opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out. She was too nervous. Stop it, she told herself, remember, you're doing this to save Jed!. She cleared her throat and replied "I'm here with your pizza pi!".
The door of the home unit slid open. The man had a holovision remote in his hand and a confused look on his face. "But I didn't order any pi?" The he sighed. "Aiz, the system is always messing up when it comes to my data. The 1R5 bots just called me saying they needed to audit my finance credits. Why does everyone suspect me..."
As the man was grumbling to himself, disgruntled, the QA drew out her phaser and pointed it at him. She tried to control her shaking hand. "I have come to kill you, Brandonb." she said in a trembling voice. She steadied the phaser with her other hand and prepared to shoot.
"Wait, wait!" the man protested angrily, "I'm not Brandonb! I'm BrandonA! The system must have my address and his switched! Like I said, it's always messing up my data!"
The QA stopped and squinted, studying the man's face carefully. He was right. He was not Brandonb. She lowered the phaser. "Uh, oops, sorry.." she mumbled and turned and scuttled away. "Hey!" the man called after her. "Do you think you could something about the 1R5 bots...?"
Stealing a (Base 2)
At the other corner of Affinion 7, the Acrobot was rifling through the desk drawer in a sparsely furnished apartment unit. It had been searching the apartment unit for the last hour but could find nothing. Suddenly, its audio sensors detected the sound of the electronic lock on the door unlatching. The Acrobot froze and morphed into a chair. Seconds later, a man entered the apartment unit. The man tossed his polyfiber jacket onto the L4zy60y and walked over to the refrigerator. He reached his hand through the hydrostatic door (a curtain of moving fluid that kept the cold air inside) and came out with a bottle of P3P51 soft drink. He had just removed the cap and put the bottle up to his lips when a beeping sound from his jacket pocket caused him to halt. The man walked over to where he had thrown it and took an object out of the pocket. "Damn," he grumbled to himself. "Duty calls..." He capped the bottle and stuck it back through the hydrostatic door of the refrigerator, snatched up his jacket and traipsed out the door to the apartment unit.
After the door slid closed, the Acrobot returned to its default form. Having seen the insignia on the object the man had taken out of his pocket, the Acrobot realized why it had not found anything to steal: the man was the Space Agent.
The Past and Future Zero
Zero stalked up to the entrance of a tall building unit. The Neon-7 sign read "Genevron Corp Labs". It had been pertinent of him to ask the huddled Mutant where the Corporation was located. The timorously replied directions had led him here. Zero ripped off the door of the Genevron Corp Labs building unit in one smooth motion. Electric sparks were emitted from the torn wires as Zero advanced through the newly created orifice.
The cyborg did not notice the unusual silence as he went into the building. Unbeknownst to him, Y-S4N had opened the switch to the alarm circuit of the building to keep them from sounding. This should be interesting, the AI mused.
Inside, Zero walked by a maintenance bot that was simultaneously sweeping, vacuuming, and waxing the floor. He passed the doors to several lab units but he did not pause. Zero knew what he was looking for: the secret lab where the Numbers were created. At the end of the corridor, he came face to face with a wall. Zero held up his hand to the wall and applied pressure at an exact location. The wall parted at a seam that was invisible to the human eye (and most cyborg eyes) and slid back to reveal a hidden passage. Zero did not know how he knew about the passage or even the existence of the secret lab, but he did, just like he knew what he had to do: kill the Numbers.
As Zero entered the first room of the secret lab, the sight of the beakers and holoscreens displaying the human anatomy triggered a strange sensation in the base of his head, where his titanium alloy enforced spine interfaced with his brain. It was as if part of his mind was trying to recall some memory which another part of him mind was trying to suppress...
A scream from an inner room caught his attention, and the sensation subsided. Zero moved towards where the sound had came from and came to a stop inside the doorway. What he saw was a shadowy form hovering over the figure of a woman in a white lab coat. Startled by Zero's appearance, the shadowy form pulled back. It lost all of its form and became a shadow which disappeared as it melded with the other shadows in the dim room.
Zero walked to where the woman was lying. He bent down and picked her up in his arms. The name embossed on the lab coat said "Akaslickster, Senior BioEngineer". The woman's eyes opened halfway and were filled with a dreamy faraway expression. "You..." she said. She weakly lifted her hand and placed it on Zero's cheek. "I should have known my guilt-ridden conscience would create this hallucination to haunt me in my last moments." The BioEngineer coughed, then continued, "Even so, I want to tell you how sorry I am for everything we did to you. I could never forgive myself for what we did, and I continued my work with Genevron in order to prevent anything like that from happening again..." her voice faded and her eyes began to close, "poor Miria..."
An intense wave of pain pulsed through Zero's body at the sound of that name. He dropped the lifeless body to the ground and thrashed his arms around, knocking beakers off the lab benches. The falling glass containers crashed and shattered, covering the newly swept, vacuumed, and wax floor with polychromatic liquids. Zero's stolid cyborg body jerked and rammed into the wall, causing it to crack and the room to shake.
That should be enough, decided Y-S4N, who closed the switch to the alarm circuits.
Outside, as the alarms whined, a shadow glided away from the Genevron Corp Labs building and into a deserted hovermobile lot. The outline of the shadow wavered and its shaped distorted. It grew taller and began to reflect more of the light that shone on it. Finally, the form stabilized and solidified. It was a M4F14. It had just killed Akaslickster, the BioEngineer. If it could have had feelings, it would have been proud of itself. After all, it had just successfully dispatched an important and valuable citizen. And even if it could have been tired, there was no time to rest; there was much more destruction to be done.
Host AIs: Y-S4N and L1S
Roster:
1) Frozen
2) Mekal
3) ThunderChicken
4) onetruth
5) twoaday
6) Kat
7) Crazypainter
8) GC
9) Nayana
10) Slickster - DEAD [bioEnginner] (killed by M4F14)
11) Dusty
12) Dawh
13) Clueless
14) taliesin
15) woon
16) Ben Law
17) Phaze - DEAD [?] (killed by Mimic)
18) SoKrisky
19) Brandonb
20) Joe's Student
