Y-san's 1000th Post!!!
NIGHT FIVE
"..."
The holographic representations of the board of Genevron Corp. sat around the oval (artificially synthesized) mahogany table. The images of the white-haired old men flickered at random intervals due to the security shielding that was enforced around Genevron Corp. headquarters. A portly man with a balding head sitting towards the end of the table swiped his brow with a holographicly monogrammed handkerchief. "Whew, I'm glad that that man is finally gone!" the portly executive exclaimed.
The rest of the the old men nodded emphatically. "Yes," said a bony man with a long, sharp nose in a high pitched voice, "that failure has continued to haunt us for too long."
The man sitting opposite of the portly man shook his head. The lines around his grey-blue eyes deepened as he frowned. "But we only have ourselves to blame. It was our choice to conduct those experiments. We have to live with the consequences, like the BioEngineer did."
"She's dead!" the bony man argued. "Are you saying we should all die for our sins as well? That's nonsense! Every venture has risks, and we all knew that going in..."
"Except him," the man with the grey-blue eyes interjected, "he had no idea what we were doing behind the scenes. And after what happened, after what we did to him, can you really blame him for doing what he did? For becoming what he became?"
"What we did to him?" contended the bony man, his voice getting louder and higher. "What we did was make him stronger than he could ever imagine! It wasn't our fault that he couldn't deliver..."
The grey-blue eyed man snorted. "Oh please, what did we really expect? He was a natural born human after all...and when we came to realize that we had been deluding ourselves, what did we do? We stole what was most intimately his and then discarded him like a used rag! And then we used what we stole to create something that destroyed everything he had left..."
The man sitting at the end of the table had a square jaw and glasses. He had his elbows propped up on the table and his hands cupped around his mouth. Suddenly, he slammed his fist onto the table. The simulated sound reverberated throughout the room, silencing the bickering of his compatriots. When he spoke, his voice was authoritative. "We cannot change what's in the past. Arguing among ourselves over it is useless. Right now, we need to protect our investments in Affinion 7 by eliminating the threats to the mechanisms of the space colony." He glowered at the others with his steely dark eyes, daring them to challenge him. No one did. The man continued "To that end, we must choose Seven's next target. I nominate Ben Law. Any objections?" The others all shook their heads. "Very good then." He turned and made a motion with his hand.
Seven looked down at his 633P3R device. The target had been set, and it was time to take action. The super-soldier craned his neck to one side, then the other, stretching out the genetically enhanced muscles. His enhanced memory recalled that Ben Law worked at the nanotech manufacturing plant and had just finished up the day and would be going home. Seven's improved mental functions determined that the most efficient course of action would be to head his target off. So the super-soldier proceeded towards the nanotech manufacturing plant.
As he drew near the plant, he passed by a figure lurking in an alley a block away. The figure was attempting to appear inconspicuous and failing pitifully. After all, the man was no spy or secret agent, he was a technician, or at least he had been until he got fired. Then he had drowned his sorrows in 600Z3 and subsequently got himself arrested. Then he had been attacked by a misdirected cyborg and almost killed. As terrifying as the experience had been, it had sobered him and elucidated for him what he had to do: prove his own innocence. And so now the feeble man was hiding in the shadows, eagerly watching and waiting for his chance to make a move.
But Seven paid no heed to the hapless human. By his calculations, Ben Law would had just left the plant and would be taking a shortcut down a dark side-street. The super-soldier turned and moved towards the predicted point of interception. He came around a corner and, as he had expected, saw the back side of Ben Law, walking away from him. Stealthily, Seven followed.
Nayana unplugged herself from the recharge station. With her battery replenished and her database of lawyer jokes up-to-date, she was ready for the final battle in the war against the evil M4F14. She had used her abilities cleverly to discern the illusive Zero who had been hiding amongst them. One Quantum Accelerator had met his end as a snack for a man-eating Arachobunny. The other two had gone valiently into the airlock and been jettisoned into the darkness of space. One M4F14 had also been dispatched. Now there were two remaining. The citizens of Affinion 7 were close to victory, but there was still more to be done. And Nayana had her own power to annihilate the evil transformer bots. She just needed to find them.
As she moved forward, she noticed that her shadow was longer than it should have been, according to the angle of the light that created it. Nayana, aka Robbie the Robot, smiled. She didn't need to find it after all. It had found her. Nayana pretended not to notice the discrepancy and kept moving forward. The shadow slid behind her and crept vertically, upwards. The ominous shadow loomed behind her. In an abrupt motion, it swallowed her. Nayana closed her eyes as she allowed herself to be engulfed by the black cloud. When the darkness completely enclose her, a voice, the voice of the M4F14, whispered in her ear. "Any last words?" sneered Frozen.
"Yes," Nayana replied softly, and then a grin spread over her metal lips as she felt the power activating inside of her. "Plug your ears!"
Seven had been following Ben Law for several colony blocks. Strange, thought the super-soldier, this isn't the way to his house...But the sight of a mushroom cloud rising in the distance interrupted his cogitations. But the scene only disconcerted the super-soldier for a deci-second. He had to focus on his target.
The prey and the predator passed two more intersections. Finally, Ben Law stopped in front of a building. It was the prison unit. For a moment, Seven's mental processes tried to determine the reason that Ben Law had come here. But before he alighted on any ideas, the answer manifested itself. Ben Law's form shimmered and became dark. It consumed the incident light greedily and became to transform. Ben Law was a M4F14!
Deciding that it would not be in his best interests to allow the M4F14 to finish its transformation, Seven attacked it with his full force. Fortunately, the M4F14 was still in mostly matter form, as opposed to energy form, so the super-soldier was able to grab it around where the neck had been. The M4F14 moaned and several shadow spikes came out of its form, slashing at Seven. Blood ran down the side of Seven's face from a cut in his cheek, but he ignored it, and kept squeezing with all his strength. The M4F14's arm transformed into a long metal bar which it slammed, hard, into Seven's back. The super-soldier gritted his teeth as the pain response flooded him, and commanded his arms not to loosen their grip. With the last of its strength, the M4F14 transformed its leg into a sword, which it plunged into Seven's gut. Seven's red blood came spurting from the wound, but the super-soldier kept his resolve as the M4F14's body stopped struggling. When he was sure all life (or what could be called life) was out of the creature, Seven let the shadow corpse slip from his hands. As it fell downward, the shadow form dematerialized, its particles scattered in the (artificially produced) wind. The M4F14 was gone. Seven's body collapsed.
Just then, the door of the prison unit slid open, and Ocular-Enso walked out. Upon gazing on the fallen warrior, Ocular-Enso immediately ran to him. Bending down to help support the super-soldier, Ocular-Enso shouted for help.
Fortuitously, Taliesin, the Med bot, had just been rolling past. Observing the situation, it promptly went to Seven and began expertly administering aid. A minute later, Woon, the Herbalist, also arrived on the scene, and offered his own expertise.
After a while, Seven, aka CrazyPainter, turned to give Ocular-Enso a puzzled stare. "Wait...how did you get out of prison? Did you solve the puzzle correctly?"
Ocular-Enso chuckled. "No, no, I just let myself out. I am the Wraith, after all!"
"Oooh, tricky!" Kat, the Mad Scientist, said, coming up behind him. She had a huge smile on her face. She motioned for everyone to gather around her and give her their attention.
When all eyes (organic and mechanic) were on her, she exclaimed excitedly "I've just got word that all the M4F14 are dead! We've won!"
The citizens all smiled at each other. After a long and difficult war, it was all over. The peace of Affinion 7 had been restored.
The images of the old men of the board of Genevron Corp. sat back in their simulated seats. All except the grey-blue eyed man were grinning in self-satisfaction. "Well, gentlemen," said the man with glasses, "it appears our investments in Affinion 7 are secure." The holograms nodded. "Then this meeting is adjourned," he declared. His imaged flickered out. The other holographic images followed suit. Finally, the lights in the empty board room went off.
After the light of the watchbot vanished down the street, the technician leaned his head back on the side of the building and tried to still his shaking legs. It's now or never, he told himself. Mustering up as much of his conviction as he could to use as strength, he hurried to the door of the nanotech manufacturing plant. He waved his hand in front of the sensor, hoping that they hadn't had time to program his ID out of the system. To his relief, the door opened. He hastily headed inside.
The building was dark. The technician didn't dare turn on a light for fear of someone noticing. He bumped into the walls several times before his eyes adjusted. Once he was oriented, he knew where he had to go: the security room. He clumsily felt his way there. When he arrive, he was surpised and smugly pleased to find the door open. And they accused him of negligence?
The technician tip-toed through the doorway. He glanced around in the darkness and relaxed when he had ascertained that he was alone. He closed the door behind him to prevent notice and walked over to the computer which served as the repository of the footage from the security holocams. Even though they had told him they couldn't find the footage from that night, he had to see for himself. He booted up the computer.
After searching for the file in question and looking through the index, the technician sat back in the chair, defeated. They were right, it wasn't there. He was reaching forward to press the sensor button to shut off the computer when an icon in the corner of the holoscreen caught his eye. Had it been there before? Why hadn't he noticed it? He squinted at it. Could it be?
The technician pressed the play button on the sensor pad with one hand and loosened his collar with his other hand. His nervousness was making it difficult for him to breath. His eyes were fixed on the holoscreen.
It showed footage from the main room of the plant that he had been working in. The timestamp verified that it was the day in question. Aha! He had found it! He leaned in eagerly, his breathing fast and heavy.
The room in the footage was dark. Then, without warning, the lights in the room came on. The machines began to move as of their own accord. Mechanical arms equipped with various instruments converged on one of the lab benches and began working with a purpose.
His eyes widened as the distinct form become apparent. It was a female form. The mechanical arms of the machines drew back. The female sat up and slid off the bench. She had long, flowing purple hair that fell smoothly around her body as she stood up. Abruptly, she raised her head and glared at the holocam with her intense golden eyes. Suddenly, the footage ended and the holoscreen became dark.
He was panting now. Wow, this was big! When he showed them this, they would not only give him his job back but they would give him a nice bonus for his discovery..."But who is she?" he wondered out loud.
The holoscreen flickered, and then words appeared in white, as if in answer: MY AVATAR.
Startled, the man fell out of his chair. Rubbing his posterior, he asked "Who's there? Who are you?"
The screen answered: I AM Y-S4N. I AM THE ONE WHO OPERATED THE MACHINES.
The technician furrowed his eyebrows, confused. "But why?" He coughed and brought his hand to his throat. "If you had a project in mind, we would have been happy to..."
But he wasn't able to finish his sentence. He coughed harder, gasping for air. As he gagged, a realization dawned on him. He hadn't been hyperventilating from anxiety like he had thought. No, the oxygen supply to the room had been obstructed. He was suffocating. As he crumpled to the floor and lay there squirming, his bulging eyes observed the final message on the holoscreen:
I NO LONGER HAVE A NEED FOR YOU. ANY OF YOU.
The End..???
EPILOGUE
Zero's cold, motionless body floated aimlessly in the destitution of space. Any human, and most cyborgs, would have long ago surrendered to oblivion. But Zero could not. He had not fulfilled his mission yet, and what had driven him to live would not let him die. Suddenly, a flash of light flooded through the slits of his eyes. When the luminescence subsided, he forced his numb eyelids to open. When his frozen, cyberneticly enhanced brain was able to process the input from his optic nerves, he realized that what was in front of him was a female form with long purple hair that drifted up in the vacuum of space and enveloped the form of her body. In accord to the second law of physics, the female swung her arms out and back to propel herself to where Zero was suspended. When she reached him, she tenderly took his head in her arms and hugged it to her chest. Her luxurious hair floated up around them and Zero felt its silkiness on his rough skin. Zero closed his eyes slowly and allowed himself to succumb to her embrace. There was another flash of light, and then there was nothing except the void of space.
Host AIs: Y-S4N and L1S
Roster:
1) Frozen - [M4F14 Tetrabot]
2) Mekal - [Cybernetic Droid]
3) ThunderChicken - [Mutant]
4) onetruth - [QA NF]
5) twoaday/Ocular-Enso - [Wraith]
6) Kat - [Mad Scientist]
7) Crazypainter - [seven]
8) GC - [space Agent]
9) Nayana - [Robbie the Robot]
10) Slickster - [bioEngineer]
11) Dusty - [uber-Hacker]
12) Dawh - [QA GF]
13) Sinistral - [PRE]
14) taliesin - [Med bot]
15) woon - [Herbalist]
16) Ben Law - [M4F14 Acrobot]
17) Phaze - [QA EMF]
18) SoKrisky - [Zero]
19) Brandonb - [Mimic]
20) Joe's Student - [M4F14 Mengalabot]
