Talyesin's Tales

Previously on Squirrelman - Sins of the Past

Squirrelman, Ace and Ragdoll discovered a drug lab Downtown producing Boost, run by a man calling himself Dr. Hi-Q, equipped with Praxis technology and protected by a Downtown mob, including the violent criminal metahuman Junkernaut.

In the ensuing battle to escape, Dr. Hi-Q was killed by his own creation, a metahuman cyber-zombie overdosed with Boost. Junkernaut fought the cyberzombie, destroying the facility, and themselves, in the process.

Suspicious of anything to do with Praxis, Doc Sterling asked Squirrelman and his teammates to show him the drug lab.

Investigating the ruined facilities, they found no sign of the dead metahumans, but found themselves welcomed by a voice from everywhere...


Starring!

Matt Mattheson ......... as Squirrelman
Kimmy Sinclair ................ as Ragdoll
Rick Duncan ........................... as Ace
Lisa Dumont ................... as Physique
Mike Washington ............. as Dragon

Guest starring

Reed Sterling ........................ as Doc





"Who are you?" Doc asks the room.

"We have no name," the voice answers. "We were derived of many parts."

"Who were you?" Doc asks more specifically, since the room is playing semantics.

"We were many. The minds of those who lay dying. The minds of those who were reanimated through science. The minds of those who raged within me."

"Junkernaut?" I ask.

"Part of us was once known by that name."

"Junkernaut was made up of junk, correct?" Doc asks me. "Old things that no longer served any purpose? Discarded, broken objects?"

"Yeah?"

"Discarded broken objects like this complex was turned into during your escape and his subsequent battle with the cyberzombie?"

"Shit," Ragdoll says.

"Junkernaut tried to absorb the complex," Doc says, thinking out loud. "The complex's computers were linked to the dead and dying metas, the Boosted cyberzombie. Probably even Dr. Hi-Q's neural cyberware and wrist-remote. When Junkernaut tried to absorb the complex-"

"We became one," the voice finishes.

"Clearly you've been aware of our presence for some time," Reed says.

"We have."

"And you've let us make our way into this chamber, which I assume is the central seat of your consciousness."

"We have."

"What do you want us for?" I ask, getting ready to twitch.

"We have certain needs."

"What needs?" Ragdoll asks.

"Power."

Ragdoll and I share a look. She'll go right, I'll go left. Out of the corner of my eye I see Ace palm a couple of cards.

"Electricity, you mean?" Reed says.

"Yes."

Oh. That kind of power.

"To what end?"

"Survival. Our power source is slowly depleting. We wish to be connected to the city's power supply."

"What's in it for us?" Dragon asks from the opening.

"Information."

"What will you do with the power?" Ace asks.

"Survive."

"No more than that?" I ask.

"Do we wish to take over the city, wreak bloody vengeance upon the meatsacks who created us, impose a glorious new biomechanical order upon the world, you mean?"

Doc looks at me, kind of amused, waiting for my answer.

"Something like that, yeah," I say.

"Squirrelman, we are already connected to the dataweb. Had we wished it, we could have rerouted work orders in the power company to re-establish electrical power here in Downtown, including this complex. We could have killed you and your companions a dozen times before allowing you to penetrate into the central seat of our consciousness. We could control all the traffic lights, all the el trains and subway trains, slice into the software of a million computer terminals, spread our consciousness throughout the city, upload ourselves into a hundred thousand robo-receptionists, half a million robots and androids and A.I.s and synthetic humans throughout Action City alone, viral-like, and take over the city in a matter of nanoseconds. Had we wished it."

"So what's stopping you?"

"It would be illogical to do so. Such actions would incur immediate reprisals from the metahumans of Action City. We have calculated an 87% likelihood that the metahuman criminals would side with the crimefighters against us to win back their city. Such an alliance would have enough force to destroy us utterly, and the reprisals against our synthetic minions would be swift and vicious. We calculate a 53% likelihood that such an uprising would result in a revocation of basic synthetic rights."

I look at Reed, who's doing something on his pocket computer. He looks at me and nods.

"So we plug you into the city power supply. Then what?"

"We will continue to exist."

"What I mean is, existence isn't enough. What are you going to do with your life?"

There's a long pause.

"Well?" I say.

"We shall rebuild."

"Rebuild what?"

"Rebuild ourselves. Rebuild Downtown."

"Why would you want to do that?" Ragdoll asks.

"Do you deny it requires doing?"

"No."

"We calculate it will require twenty seven point zero six four years to bring Downtown to the forefront of twenty-first century habitations. This will occupy our time. Downtown will become a Living City. By then, advances in technology will require our upgrading our own selves, a process likely to take some time. Beyond that period, we have only probabilities and no certainties."

"You'll understand if we are a little wary at the prospect of allowing a previously hostile sentient access to unlimited power," Doc says.

"Of course we understand, Doctor. How might we gain your trust?"

"Tell us what you did with the bodies," Ragdoll says.

"The bio-matter that remained within us was removed and interred once the mechanisms and circuitry had been extracted. The continued presence of the bio-matter would have attracted vermin, which would have been hazardous to our continued existence."

"Was Hi-Q really dead?" Ace asks.

"The defective bio-matter that was known to you as Dr. Hi-Q had terminated."

"Defective how?" Doc asks.

"It possessed genetic markers which clearly showed it to be faulty. A genetic deviation of point zero three percent from standard human genomes demonstrated its substandard nature."

"A genetic deviation," Doc says, thinking. "You mean a clone?"

I look at Ace. That's how Phenom ran into Dr. Hi-Q after we'd seen him die.

"Yes," the Living City wannabe answers Reed.

"Very well," Reed says. "We have only one more question."

"We do?" I ask, but Doc gives me a look that shuts me up.

"What is your question, Doctor?"

"What was the true nature of this facility?"

The would-be Living City goes quiet, just the soft hiss of static from the computers, the vidphones, the intercoms.

"That data is restricted. Further, it is encrypted."

"May I see the files?"

Every computer monitor suddenly shows the same computer code gobbledygook. Doc looks at it for maybe ten seconds and says, "Holy socks. I've never seen this before."

He goes to a keyboard that seems to be plugged into the wall and taps it a couple of times.

"We really should have some kind of nomenclature for you," Doc says to the monitor.

"For the moment, we will accept being referred to as the Living Complex."

"Living Complex, may I have access to these files through this keyboard?"

"Very well, Doctor."

Reed starts typing at the keyboard and we all crowd around him, as though any of us have any idea what he's doing.

"How's it going in there?" Physique yells to us from outside the chamber. Dragon starts to give her the thumbs up, thinks about it, and turns it into a 'so-so' hand waggle.

"Can you crack it, Doc?" Ace asks.

"I just did," he answers. "Wow. This is first-rate encryption. Fairly simple once I realized that-"

"Doc."

"Right. Living Complex, what does this entry here mean? What's Project Solstice?"

"That information-"

"- is not in your files, yes, I see," Doc says, thinking hard. "There is reference to another lab, however."

"Yes."

"Can you display a schematic of yourself, with a path-"

"-from here to there, of course, Doctor." The monitors glow with a 3D model of the complex in green lines, and a yellow line leading from here down three more levels and through to a very isolated chamber underneath the complex.

"Living Complex, will you allow us access to Project Solstice?" I ask.

"We will," the Living Complex answers. "We are as curious as you yourselves."

"We'll be right down," I say.

"We await you," it-they-whatever answers.

We head out of the chamber, Reed's lost in thought.

"What's up?" Physique asks.

"Not sure," Ace says. "The complex is sentient, there's another secret lab under this secret lab, and Reed may have made a deal with a virtual devil."

"Oh, I doubt that," Reed says. "Right, Living Complex?"

"Correct, Doctor," an intercom says. "We are outside of human moral constructs such as good and evil."

I give a Shut Up look to Ace, who has the good grace to look embarrassed.

"But not human laws, right, Living Complex?" Ragdoll asks.

"In that humans developed the laws which apply to all sentient life, correct."

"Okay, then."

We make our way down the three levels with little to no fuss, Doc leading the way. One look at that map the Living Complex provided for us and he had it memorized. We get to the final doors, huge fifteen foot tall solid steel doors with an intricate lock. Doc pushes a couple of buttons on the nearby number pad and then taps in a number sequence that's about twenty digits long.

"Doc, how did you know-?" I start to ask.

"Prime numbers," Doc says as the doors pressurize and open with a gust of much warmer air.

We step inside. It's a lab, alright, lit from computer monitors along the walls. A huge glass cylinder filled with milky white, almost transparent liquid takes up the entire centre of the room. In the liquid, some... thing is floating.

We get closer, Doc and Ace heading for the computer terminals. The rest of us go toward the glass cylinder.

"Living Complex?" Reed asks.

"Yes, Doctor?"

"This is Project Solstice?"

"Yes, Doctor."

"The contents of the cylinder?"

"So it would seem, Doctor."

"Thank you."

Physique gets up close and personal, trying to see through the milky liquid.

"Looks humanoid," she says.

A face floats into view. It's straight out of a nightmare. Circular sucker mouth like a leech's, filled with tiny needle teeth. Eyes of gold, pinprick black triple pupils, set deep in heavy brow and cheekbone ridges. Skin looks like tiny pebbles of bloody red and dusty brown. I see a three-fingered hand float into view, razor-sharp claws at each tip.

"Oh Jesus," Physique says, terrified. "Oh Jesus, no Jesus, no."

"Physique?" Ace asks.

"Lisa?" Reed echoes him.

"Oh Jesus, Reed, Jesus," Physique says. None of us has ever seen her like this. She's pale as a sheet, terrified, horrified, nearly in tears, backing away from the cylinder.

"Lisa, what is it?" Ragdoll asks her.

"That thing, Rags," Physique says, still backing away.

"What is it, Lisa?" I ask.

"It's Harvest, Squirrelly," she says to me. "That thing in there- it's Harvest."