FSE

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Sam was quiet on the tram as they made their way towards the science districts. At this time of night, it was all but deserted, resulting in an eerie feeling of isolation. Sam glanced over at Feo who was silently staring out the window, lost in thought. The lights of the tunnel outside strobed as they passed, casting flashing shadows as they rushed on by. The effect was hypnotising, so that in seemingly no time at all, they were pulling into the station.

As they both disembarked, Feo cast a slightly concerned look at Sam, “You okay?” she asked quietly, noticing his withdrawn demeanour.

Sam shrugged a little, “Just not sure to what to expect…” he admitted, to which Feo reached out and gripped his hand in her fluffy paws gently.

“I promise to stay with you until they put you under, if that would help?” she offered, which prompted a slight smile from Sam.

“I’d appreciate that,” he replied, squeezing her paw a little tighter.

They walked away from the tram station, hand in hand, through a tunnel that opened up to another cavern. This one was far smaller than the residential section, but the complex of buildings ahead of them still looked impressive. They looked different, far more futuristic and high-tech than anything Sam had seen the whole time they had been here.

Feo caught him staring and smiled a little, “These buildings were built before the Great War, back when we didn’t have a scarcity of resources. So really, this is the closest you’ll come to true Aeteri architecture while you’re here. Other than our ships, of course.”

Sam nodded as they walked towards one of the closest buildings. The doors slid open with a soft, pneumatic hiss, revealing a white-tiled interior. Soft white lights glowed from above, illuminating what appeared to be a reception area. There was a low desk near the back of the room, in between two doors, at which an orange-and-black Ilfemyoo was sitting, her long ears draped back over her chair as she tapped away at her terminal.

As soon as she spotted them, she jumped to her feet, “Ah, Captain Asilion, we’ve been expecting you. The Gladius has transferred all of Sam’s medical information to our labs, and we’ll be ready to begin within the hour.”

Feo nodded once and watched as the Ilfemyoo walked over to the door to their right, tapping a keycard clipped to her coat onto a card reader, before the doors opened silently, “If you go straight down this corridor, take your second right, then the first left, Dr Gteri will be waiting for you.”

She flashed them a warm smile as she walked back to her desk, “So how long have you two been together?” she asked, sitting back down. They both blinked in surprise, glancing at each other, then at her. She chuckled softly, “The hand holding?”

With a soft squeak of embarrassment, Feo let go of Sam’s hand and looked aside, before grabbing him by the sleeve of his jacket and tugging him through the doors. In here, the corridors were still lit the same, but the air had a disinfected smell to it that Sam could only associate with a hospital of some kind. They walked past several windows, overlooking a number of tall, transparent vats filled with a blue liquid.

Feo caught Sam staring and patted his shoulder, “It’s a solution designed to augment the rewrite process,” she explained, still not quite meeting his eyes, “It helps to make sure you stay healthy during it, you know?”

At his nod, they continued walking, turning as instructed, before finally arriving at the office of Dr Gteri, who’s door was ajar. Feo knocked lightly, before the feathered face and beak of a red and gold Pariea poked its head around the corner. He broke into a smile (at least, Sam assumed it to be one), before clapping its taloned hands and standing up to greet them, “Ah, Captain! And Sam, was it? So glad to see you!” he exclaimed in a jovial voice, almost sing-song in its tone, “I’m Dr Gteri, the lead geneticist in this facility, and I’ll be looking after you during your stay. Oh! Come in, come in!”

He shuffled them into his office, sitting them down in a pair of squishy armchairs, while he turned the chair facing his desk towards them and sat down, chirring softly in a very bird-like fashion. Sam looked at the avian, a little confused, before glancing at Feo next to him, “Err, please don’t take this the wrong way, Doctor, but I always thought that your species didn’t exactly approve of genetic and technological manipulation?”

Dr Gteri chittered in amusement, “Well, you’d be right; generally, my people don’t like it. But I’m not really like the rest,” he replied, “And while it’s not something I think I’d have done on me, personally, that doesn’t mean I can’t been good at performing the necessary procedures.”

He tapped a talon against his beak thoughtfully as he glanced up and down at Sam, before a soft beeping broke the silence. Feo blinked in surprise, “Sorry, I won’t be a minute. Please don’t wait up for me,” she said as she stood up and hurriedly left the room.

She took a few steps down the hall and leaned against the wall, her eyes closed, before flicking her wrist to bring up her displays, answering the incoming call. She snapped to attention as the visage of High Admiral Hiebova appeared in front of her, a gesture he reciprocated, “Captain, I thought you’d like to know, we detected a galaxy-wide broadcast from Sabre on backdoor channels that are more often than not used by bounty hunters,” he said gravely, frowning a little, “It appears that your actions on Terra have not gone unnoticed. The leader of Sabre, Commondant Eloash, has offered a bounty amounting to eighty thousand galactic credits for the apprehension of ‘an AI using an android body in the shape of an Aeteri’.”

Feo looked away for a moment, her mind whirring through different scenarios and plans, before glancing back at her commanding officer, “Sir, with all due respect, you need me on the front lines, bounty be damned! If we’re to find out what really happened, I’m one of the only people who can do that!”

Hiebova held up his paw to quiet the irate vixen, “I know, Captain. I was calling to advise you to switch into an infiltrator chassis before you leave again, that was all. You have the full support of the Aeteri military behind you for this one, this was a clear declaration of war from a hostile species and we need to find out its source. Stay safe, okay?”

Feo nodded and saluted once more, “Yes sir,”

He returned the salute and ended the call, a moment before Feo slumped against the wall, resting her head in her paws; things were starting to get far more complicated, and she knew that pieces were starting to be moved on the chessboard… Something was happening in the galaxy at large, she could feel it, but she didn’t know what the final goal was…

Feo poked her head back into the office, catching sight of a slowly rotating hologram of an Ilfemyoo between Sam and Dr Gteri. They both turned to face Feo, but before they could say anything, Feo beat them to the punch.

“Sam, I know I said I’d stay with you until you went under, but do you think you’ll be okay from here?” she asked softly.

His brow furrowed in concern, “Sure, yeah. But what’s going on? Developments?”

Feo sighed quietly, “Yeah, you could say that. But don’t worry too much about it, it shouldn’t affect you for now. I’ll be back once I’ve finished the dive. If you’re already under, well, heh, then I guess I’ll see you sometime after you wake again, okay?”

At his nod, she flashed him a smile, then turned tail and left. As the door closed silently, she caught a snippet of conversation as it started back up again.

“You know,” Dr Gteri said, “I’ve never seen her care about anyone like she does you…”

Hiding a slight smile, Feo quickly made her out of the building and walked down the streets of the Science District. The artificial lights of the cavern started to slowly brighten as people started joining the street, making their way to their respective jobs.

Feo kept her course for a few minutes, before entering a building flanked by two soldiers. They nodded to her as she passed into the cool interior; it was far colder in here than it was in other buildings, and for a good reason: Cybersecurity HQ needed to keep the place cool to balance the heat their work invariably generated.

She walked past the reception desk and several other Aeteri soldiers as she strode through the slowly populating corridors. She pushed open a pair of swing doors and walked into a quiet lab, a pair of reclined seats in the centre of the room, back to back, and a myriad of holographic displays slowly circling them.

Feo walked in, peering around the room and at the terminals surrounding the chairs. When she couldn’t see anyone, she went to call out, but before she could, the back of someone came through a door on the opposite side of the room, pulling a cart that had what at first appeared to be an Aeteri made entirely out of metal. She cleared her throat a little, causing the startled Aeteri technician to spin around, “Sorry there, Captain,” he said hurriedly, “I didn’t see you. The Admiral said you’d be swinging by sometime today, I just didn’t expect you to be so prompt about it.”

Feo chuckled softly in reply, “It’s fine,” she said as she walked over to help the technician lift the Sarek’pa body onto one of the chair.

As they begun to connect the myriad of cables to the motionless body, the technician looked at Feo inquisitively, “Captain, forgive me if this is out of line, but what exactly is this about?” he asked, “This body has been powered down for years, and besides, what possible information could it give you?”

She raised an eyebrow at him, “What’s your name again, sorry?”

“Technician Redasen, ma’am,” he replied.

“And your clearance level?”

“Ropai, ma’am,”

Feo shrugged a little, “It’s classified then, sorry. All I need you to do is feed it enough juice to get its brain running again, then monitor the dive. Okay?”

Redasen grumbled a little, “Understood, Captain…” he said, obviously annoyed at being kept in the dark.

When the final cable snapped into place on the Sarek’pa, Feo walked over to one of the terminals and stripped off her jacket. She draped it over its solid base, before removing her shirt too, exposing her bare, fur-covered upper body, with only her amulet remaining now. She tossed her shirt next to her jacket and walked back to the free chair, before starting to talk to her AIs as she got near to it, “Mar, open heat sink vents and prepare for integration to external heat support,” she instructed.

The mechanisms under her back started to move, as twelve angular vent plates tilted away from her back on either side of her spine, exposing the metallic grey heat sinks that were right behind where the lungs would be in a flesh and blood Aeteri. She carefully sat forward on the free chair as Redasen moved in, gently worming thick plugs into sockets underneath each plate.

She activated her holographic display systems, allowing her AIs to appear on the chair in front of her, all of them with their own little panel in front of them. As the last cable slid into place, Mar called out, “Clean contact with all twelve heat exchange cables, Feo!”

She nodded in response and leaned her head forward, pulling her cascading hair out of the way to let Redasen plug in a three-pronged data cable into her neck. She leaned back onto the chair with a soft sigh and adjusted herself a little, before glancing at her AIs who were now hovering above her.

“Alright, bring cyberwarfare systems online, full power,” she instructed, wriggling slightly as hidden plugs connected to her power ports to keep her at full charge.

She glanced over at Redasen who had moved to outside the ring of holograms and was monitoring everything going on, “All systems green, you’re clear to start the dive at your discretion.”

“Mar, run a scan of the Sarek’pa chassis, confirm that power is getting only to its brain,” she whispered, to which the diminutive projection nodded.

“Confirmed, Feo, we’re good to go.”

Feo sighed and closed her eyes, before separating her mind and body. She reached out with her mind, through the data cable connecting them, into the quantum brain of the robot behind her. Beside her, her AIs followed, all of them looking around cautiously as they approached.

“Sen, I want you to deploy virus arrays Ree through Lat, and keep an eye out for anything strange,” Feo ordered as they approached the border between the cable and the robot beyond.

“Contact! We’re through the connection and are now inside the Sarek’pa’s systems,” Mar noted, casting her gaze around. Ahead of them, there seemed to be a glowing orb of light, providing a slight illumination to whatever place they were in. But everywhere else was just inky, velvety darkness, so complete and total that it seemed like a void in their perception.

“Ela, begin data scanning and cataloguing, I don’t want to miss anything if we need to get out of here in a hurry!”

“Copy that, Feo,”

They drifted closer and closer to the orb, filling their vision and blinding them to everything else, before they passed some invisible barrier. As Feo cast her gaze around, she could see writhing, pulsing streams of data everywhere. They seemed sluggish at first, as if they were only just starting to reassert themselves, but the longer they looked, the faster they seemed to pulse.

“Alright girls, keep an eye out for defence viruses, I don’t wanna take any chances here,” Feo instructed as they floated through the cyberspace of the Sarek’pa’s brain, “Mar, see if you can find where the command protocols are. That’s one of the more likely places we’ll find this virus, I think.”

As they explored around, Feo couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being watched. And there was something on the very edge of her perception, something she couldn’t quite identify, but that seemed to follow them around.

The nearer they got to the central processing area of the quantum brain, the more this feeling bothered Feo. She growled loudly in frustration and called out, “Show yourself!” she ordered, spinning around in space to try to spot them out.

Everything was quiet for a moment, before Feo heard something. It started with a low rumble on the utter edge of her hearing, before breaking into a deep, bass voice, one that sent a shiver of fear through her body, “You are not Sarek’pa,” it stated, its voice permeating every fibre of her digital being.

She trembled a little, before snarling at the voice, “Who are you!?” she called out, a fire now ignited in her belly in defiance of the fear this thing wrought.

There was silence for a moment, before the voice returned, “Sarek’pa,”

Feo looked between her AIs, before asking, “Do you know who I am?”

“Analysing,” came the deep, rumbling reply, “You are Aeteri, but you are artificial, like us. Protocols in conflict, analysing…”. It was quiet for a moment, “Specimen analysed. Aeteri artificial intelligence confirmed. You will be spar-”

The voice of the Sarek’pa cut of in mid-sentence, before the flowing lines of code around them began glowing red dangerously, “Alert! Alert! Protocols are being overwritten! Alert!”

Feo glanced at Sen, “Trace the source of that overwrite now!” she yelled, at which her diminutive AI zipped off into cyberspace.

“Core protocols reengaged. Destroy everything not Sarek’pa!” the rumbling voice boomed.

“Feo!” Ela called out, hovering next to Feo’s head, “We’ve got hostile defence viruses inbound!”

She cursed under her breath, before swiping across the space in front of her to bring up her core systems, “Bringing countermeasures online!” she yelled, before glancing over at Ela, “Get to Sen and help her find this bloody virus, it’s our only hope!”

As her red-hued AI vanished, she turned her attention back to the incoming threat. Dozens, if not hundreds of squirming, writhing shapes were hurting towards her. Feo closed her eyes and concentrated, bringing to bear the full strength of her hacking systems. A pulse of spherical energy burst from her body and expanded into the space around her. The instant the viruses made contact, they seemed to slow by a fair margin, but were still moving towards her.

Feo cursed again as the viruses continued towards her; that pulse should have done more than slow them down! But then again, these viruses were almost a thousand years behind her own systems, so it would make sense they wouldn’t have the same effect. She turned to Mar beside her, “Run an analysis on those viruses! I need to know what type they are!”

As the viruses started to approach her, her digital fur started to stand on end. With a reluctant growl, she grabbed her tiny AI and made her way deeper into the Sarek’pa’s systems, still being dogged by the persistent viruses. The message it sent was clear: you can run, but sooner or later, you’ll be caught.

“Feo!” she heard Sen call out, “Over here!”. She turned to face her, spotting her far in the distance, gesturing animatedly between her, and a nodule of information she was hovering next to.

She glanced at Mar, “Keep that analysis running, we need it done as soon as possible!” she exclaimed, before rushing off towards her other AIs.

As she approached, she immediately saw what caught their attention: the data node they were next to had a dark red, almost diseased, appearance. She glanced back at the viruses, maybe thirty seconds out, before back to the data node. She looked at Sen, “Are you getting any readings from it?” she asked quickly.

Sen held up a digital paw to it as she scanned it, “It’s definitely what we’re after; it seems to be the corruption we’ve been looking for. This is where it started in this particular body,” she said, pausing for a moment, “It seems to be originating from the Sarek’pa’s exonet access point, but beyond that, I can’t really tell…”

Feo nodded, “Okay, do a full detailed scan on the cluster, then get ready to evac. I don’t know how long we’ll be able to hold off these viruses…”

She spun around in cyberspace and looked at the viruses approaching rapidly. They were quite unlike anything she had seen before, looking almost organic rather than technological. She glanced at Mar beside her, “Any luck on that analysis, Mar?” she asked softly.

Mar was busy studying the panel hovering in front of her, “I think so, Feo. While they’re approximately 764 years behind our current tech, the viruses appear to have some basic similarities to common viruses in use today. I’ve fed you the appropriate antibodies that would stand the greatest chance of success.”

Feo activated her systems panel with the swipe of her digital paw, bringing her countermeasure systems back online. She glanced at her AIs, busily working away at the node next to them, “Stay here! I’ll try to draw them away!” she called out, before shooting off away from them.

She looked around and breathed a soft sigh of relief as all the viruses chased off after her, leaving her AIs alone. She spun around and concentrated as she glared at the oncoming swarm. In stark similarity to when she hacked into the mech what seemed like an eternity ago, a dozen glowing bolts of light lanced away from her body, into the approaching wave of hostiles.

At each contact, they exploded into a starburst of light, before slowly fading away. But even as Feo dodged and weaved around, destroying more and more of the viruses, there were always another two or three to take their place. It was all she could do to keep them away from her AIs while they worked, but as the moments passed, the viruses edged ever closer to her. But they were starting to adapt to the programs she was using, and it wasn’t long before they needed more than one blast to go down.

Feo cursed under her breath, before calling out, "Hey girls, you close to done yet?” she asked, a twinge of worry able to be heard in her voice. The viruses were starting to get dangerously close now, barely a dozen body-lengths away from her.

“Almost got it, Feo! Just hold them off for a few more moments!” Sen called out.

Feo growled in desperation and used all her strength to keep her distance from the viruses, at this point abandoning attacking the horde just to keep ahead.

Without warning, all three AIs appeared next to Feo as she dodged around cyberspace, “We’ve got it!” Sen exclaimed happily.

Feo groaned a little, “That’s great, Sen, but can you help me out here?” she begged, trying desperately to keep ahead of the horde.

Sen squeaked a little in surprise and rushed over to Feo, hurriedly tapping away at her panel, “I’m rewriting your pulse to have the same effect as the antibodies you were using. With any luck, that should give us enough time to get out of here!”

With a despaired sigh, Feo veered away from her evasive manoeuvres and started bolting for the exit, the viruses still in hot pursuit. But whether it was through instinct, or the Sarek’pa’s AI controlling them, they realised what she was heading for and tried to cut her off.

“Rewrite complete! Ready to fire on your command, Feo!” Sen announced, a glowing green pip visible on her panels.

Feo closed her eyes and concentrated, harder than she had ever concentrated, before, with a loud shout, another pulse emanated from her body, expanding further and further around her. It impacted the viruses both behind and in front of her, stunning, but not quite destroying them. Feo cursed loudly and rushed passed the immobilised viruses towards the exit. As she touched the barrier, she glanced back and saw the viruses twitch and start to move again.

An instant later, she was back in her own body. She leapt to her feet, yanking the cable from her neck and yelling out to the crowd now gathered in the room, “Kill it!”

With a loud hiss, the power cables connected to the Sarek’pa body disconnected in a shower of sparks, and the lights overhead flickered and went out. But in the half-light of the darkened lab, she saw movement in the chair opposite hers.

She growled loudly and leapt at it as it started to sit up, pinning it back to the chair. She glared down at its glowing orange eyes as she gripped its head, before pulling as hard as she could. With a loud shout, the head of the unit came away from its body with the flickering of sparking electronics.

The body under Feo twitched and convulsed as its primary control systems were forcefully removed from its power source, but the head now in Feo’s paws stared up at her, blinking slowly. She yelped in surprise and dropped the head as it started talking in a low, deep, and quite frankly terrifying voice.

“You are all going to die…”

With a sound that could only be compared to a death rattle, it fell silent and lifeless once more.