First Contact

EARTH-525

NU-U MALL

The Clone-My-Shit-Up genetic recalibration and body resheathing shop came to life as Victor-998146 come in and activated the holodisplays out front of the store as well as the ones inside. He checked to see if Corporate had any new updates, then checked the medical data-streams for anything interesting. None so far.

Victor sighed in pleasure as he sat down on his stool, folded his hands, and waited for customers. Today he was offering a 30% off sale on eyebrow glitter mods as well as fingernail polish implants. The sale had been advertised for a week so the customers came in quickly. The mod could be done in less than fifteen minutes by a trained jacker.

Victor could do it in five.

When noon came the sale was suspended till the next day and Victor relaxed, knowing that there would only be a few customers. His favorite time-management and boredom staller had updated so he overlayed the GUI of the game at 20% opacity and paid attention to the store while he played the game. He even uploaded his 'boss-program' GUI projection that made it look like he was modifying genetic code instead of tapping his way through the game.

He noted the woman entering the store but she was so unremarkable he just nodded to her and kept playing his game. She was completely uninteresting except for a scar, a slight gold ring to her left eye's iris, and the fact her left arm was 0.02 cm shorter than her left. She had long red hair, green eyes, a lithe body-type, and wore a dark suit. Terran Descent Human female, thirty years old - indeterminate-, according to her implant she was a traveler from Alpha Centuari-B.

"Excuse me, do you work here?" the woman asked from in front of him.

Victor almost jumped, cursing himself for almost missing a sale.

"Why yes," Victor said, smiling as he wiped away the game in a save-quit hand-wave. "How can Clone-My-Shit-Up help you today, ma'am?"

The woman sat down, smoothing the legs of her slacks. She held out a data-waver crystal case, giving a smile that was just slightly shy.

"Is any of this applicable?" she asked. She slid forward another datawafer. "Here's my latest genomic records and my last eight mods as well as my base genomic data."

Victor smiled. "You came prepared. I appreciate that, it makes things much easier."

Victor tapped a few icons, bringing up the consent forms. "Before I can even scan your genome, I'll need you to sign these."

The woman nodded. "I'll be using a legal VI assistant," she said. She tapped the side of her datalink and her eyes unfocused. Victor was surprised, she was using a Cheatum-338 legal assistant VI, which didn't come cheap.

No dog food for Victor tonight, he thought to himself, amusing himself with the ancient joke that didn't make any sense to over 99.99998% of humanity.

Victor waited paitently until she was done signing the paperwork then loaded the data-wafers and examined them.

Standard TDH genome, former Terran Army mods, reformed for birthing allowance, then 'normal' mods with, finally, a body 'reset' after raising children. Original genome string 418 Terran Standard Years prior. Some light work, what looked like vanity work to Victor's practiced eye. A slight genetic defect involving over-tight tendons that would have no effect beyond arthritic limbs in a later age category, easily fixable. She had a Kerensky template overlay that was starting to fade as her original gene sequences started to override the template. It was decayed far enough that Victor wasn't sure if it was a MechLord or an MCU-LARP template.

Victor looked up. "Well, your genomic background certainly is well documented, which is good. I get a lot of customers come in with just their birth genome or their last doctor's scan."

The woman nodded. A tight, controlled movement.

"Can you do any of the mod packs I bought?" the woman asked.

"May I asked where you acquired these modpacks?" Victor had alarm bells ringing in his head looking at the datafile crystal. It was a home data recording type.

Victor privately hoped she hadn't bought a sex-kitten or combat monster genome package off of some shady Net-Site. He hated those.

"Off of SolNet. A friend found them and tried them. He said they were highly recommended," The woman smiled. "They're male phenotypes. You can do a sex-swap, right?"

Victor nodded. "That'll require a resheathe. Extremely complicated, detailed work. But installing your preferred, um, friend templates to a male clone blank will make it easier."

Victor smiled his best and nearly patented winning smile at her and loaded up the datapack.

He began scanning it. Halfway through he started frowning. This datapack, his gene-template, was missing thousands of years of updates to the genomic databank. It still had sickle-cell anemia and Downs Syndrome in it. There were even a few fatal or miscarriage inducing genetic flaws.l

"Are you sure about this?" He asked, pausing it.

The woman nodded. "Unless the mental engrams are transferrable to a female, yes. I heard you were the best and might even be able to splice the mental engrams and special packaging to a female sheathe," she said.

Victor smiled. "Indeed I am. I can honestly, humbly, say you won't find a better gene-tech for light years," he said, and went back to scanning the genome.

Then he saw it. A simple set of genes. Not even that important. Most techs just saw the filler encoding, all but a specific handful of genetechs wouldn't see that little bit of code.

Victor did.

He looked up slowly at the woman, swallowing thickly. "Where did you say you got this?"

The woman smiled slowly. "Oh, from a friend."

Victor twiddled the holokeys for a second and jumped to another section of the template.

There it was.

He recognized those particular gene sequences.

He should.

They were his.

Not now. Now he had 'veneer' sequences over it with the original coding hidden inside.

Victor looked up at the woman, licking his lips. "Where did you get those?"

"Perhaps we should talk in your office?" the woman asked.

Victor nodded, standing up. He summed up an eVI to watch the store.

Walking in front of the woman made between his shoulder blades itch and he concentrated on his calming mantras to keep the genetic triggers from firing.

If she wanted me dead, I'd be dead already, Victor thought to himself.

He ushered the woman into his office, closing the door, and turning the privacy screens on. The woman sat down, crossing her legs, smoothing her slacks, lacing her fingers together to hold onto her knee, and staring at him.

Victor poured two shots of alcohol, real stuff, not the typical synthohol most people kept around.

"Clear," the woman said, looking around. "Nobody would think twice about the equipment you have and the work you do in this place."

Victor nodded slowly. "Shall we dispense with the dancing about?"

The woman sighed. "The dancing is one of my few pleasures. I understand your desire to get straight to the issue at hand. Old people can be somewhat cranky about time wasting," her gaze suddenly became intense and focused. "And you're older than most."

Victor sighed. "How long have you known? Well, not you, but the people you represent."

The woman nodded slowly. "Decades. Since you established this gene-therapy and alteration chain."

Victor sighed. "It was a calculated risk, but as some people have pointed out, I am apparently less than stellar at certain mathematics."

The woman smiled, a slightly shy smile, "You stayed off the radar for thousands of years. We only caught you because of a minor mistake you made."

Victor frowned. "What mistake?"

The woman lifted a finger. "You repaired a damaged FIDO neural tissue component. Easy for your skills."

Victor laughed. "That's what caught me? Repairing a FIDO?"

"Nobody else could have generated that tissue without the entire thing dissolving," she said. She tapped her finger on her knee. "Don't worry, the only people who realized what they were seeing was a small group in a research and development lab that is extremely isolated."

Victor resisted the urge to burn away the veneer. "I won't work for some megacorp or stellarcorp. Do your own damn research."

The woman moved slowly, removing one of her cufflinks. She set it on the desk between Victor and herself, and gave it a twist. Victor felt his datalink click off as it activated.

TerraSol Military Intellgence ID holo appeared. It glimmered for a moment then vanished, a small wisp of smoke rising from the cufflink.

His datalink clicked back on as the woman replaced her cufflink.

"We are not some corporation," she said, her face blank, her eyes and voice cold.

Victor had to resist the urge to run screaming.

"What do you want?" Victor asked. "The things most people want I can't give them. I don't even know myself."

The woman twitched her fingers in a dismissive motion before returning to being perfectly still. "This has less to do with the past and more to do with the present and future."

Victor nodded.

The woman undid the lapel pin she wore and handed it to him after twisting it slightly. Victor could see the complex and ultra-dense molycirc glimmering in the 'enamel' of the pin.

"Slot it. Review it. Tell me what you think. I will wait," the woman said.

It contained two genetic profiles, a genome scan pack for 4 different genomes, and a bit more data.

"Are you able to reconstruct the beings in that template?" the woman asked.

"It will take some time," Victor said.

"I will wait," the woman answered.

Victor was tempted to go slowly, just to waste her time, see how long her patience would last.

But the more he examined the genetic sequences the more intrigued he became. He had been wrong, there were three profiles. Not of six different individuals, but three, done by three different scans. Two of the methods were elegant, smooth, but to Victor's eyes, amateur. What happens when a bored or mediocre technician worked with highly sophisticated tools.

He built holos of the three different versions of each of the three sexes, annotating them.

Several customers came in, one required his personal touch. The woman acted like she knew he'd come back and not run away.

Victor silently cursed her for being right as he handed her a glass of liquid refreshment and sat back down to get back to work.

The creatures were fascinating. Latent psionics that could come out under pressure. Active psionics in one sex, but extremely subtle stuff. Easy to miss even for a professional but it stuck out to Victor like it had been highlighted in neon colors.

Extra neural tissue nodules around the womb, one the spinal cord, and in the tail nerve cords. Receivers and transmitters but not the standard configuration.

And all naturally evolved.

He could see there was a poorly skilled amateur, obviously working out of a handbook, using extremely powerful tools, that had edited the genome, but it had mainly concentrated on the male. The male was smaller but tougher, more physically resilient than the female or the gestater sex.

The woman went and purchased some hot spiced noodles, VietNIHM Secret Noodles with Rigellian sauce and Treana'ad spices, his recent favorite fusion dish.

Finally he leaned back, feeling a slight thrill of victory he hadn't felt in a long time. All nine images were floating in mid-air.

"That's a superficial look," Victor told the woman, who had gone from staring at him with unfocused eyes to intent when he'd leaned back. "Obviously not a genejack or vatjob. Someone's done modification on them to reduce aggression, move them from omnivore to herbivore, increase submissiveness, and other modifications."

"It's called 'gentling'," the woman said.

Victor shook his head. "Foolishness. Eventually the effected creature will be too placid and submissive to exist or evolve on a world unless all the predators, major and minor, were removed as well as the weather system eased until its predictable to the point of lunacy," he said. "It's counter-productive for a useful species. Another five or six adjustments and this species would likely become little more than a fox-like creature that would leave behind intelligence to lead a small life of a foraging herbivore."

The woman nodded. "That's what we deduced."

Victor smiled. "Does the rest of the Confederacy know you and your compatriots are slithering around Confederate Space?"

The woman nodded again. "It hasn't reached here yet, but it should in a few days."

"What?" Victor asked.

"The Confederacy is at war," the woman said. Victor felt a chill run down his spine and just stared at the woman.

"Fully?" he asked.

She nodded, her expressionless face somehow grave. "Unrestricted. There's talk of a 1% vote by council members."

Victor shook his head. "And so you came looking for me?" He put his hands on the desk. "I'm done with warfare. I'm done with the blood and the suffering. I had enough, that's why I ran."

"No, it's not," the woman said. "You ran because you were afraid Daxin Freeborn would blame you for what happened."

Victor swallowed.

"While your skills would undoubtedly be useful in a conflict, we're in a jam," the woman said.

Victor snorted. "The might of the Confederacy is in a jam?"

The woman shook her head. "No. We learned our lesson. The Hamburger Kingdom Conundrum is what we have to look at now," she motioned at the nine holograms. "These people want our help, they've fought to rebel against their overlords and joined us."

"Pfft, more fool them," Victor said. He picked up an eating spear and snagged a piece of spiced beef, nibbling at it.

"What we need your help with is something that you, and only you, can provide," the woman said.

Victor twiddled his fingers for less than 60 seconds and tossed her a datalink. "There, genesis seed, for the ovum and sperm and gestater womb lining. It'll reverse the damage in three to four generations. No charge."

Victor stared at her.

"Get out."

The woman sighed and tossed him another data-chip. "Listen to the sound-file."

Victor plugged it in, bringing it up and listening to it on his datalink.

warm soft safe one and one is two one and two is three three and one is four square has four sides triangle has three sides safe warm brave podling clever podling sing with broodmommy podling

Victor jerked back, slapping his datalink.

"That's the Sleeping Ones!" he said, his eyes wide. "Tell me you didn't wake them up."

The woman shook her head. "No. Somehow, some way, they are hearing the song from the gestater sex and repeating it."

Victor frowned, turning back to the holoscreen. After a moment he looked at the woman. "Would you mind? I'm going to need a few more eyes on this."

The woman waved her hand. "Go ahead."

"I'm not stupid enough to think you couldn't fight your way out of this place, so relax," Victor said.

There were twelve clone blanks waiting. Victor ordered them up, closed his eyes, and reached out.

The woman watched as the dozen clones, all of them pale and unfinished looking, moved into the room. They began looking over the genetic coding, holding fast discussions with each other, and networking their datalinks.

Finally one looked up. "How was the gestater sex exposed to Terran Descent Humans?"

The woman tossed the records from the hospital ship. Two of the clones caught the data and began going over it.

"There, that's what did it," one clone said, turning and facing the woman. The clone threw up a hologram of a fluffy tailed fox-like creature cradling a human who had suffered a direct SUDS hit. "Damaged neural systems with personality and memory engram fractures. He was doing a slow personality download, which is core SUDSNet pipeline."

Another clone turned around. "The empathatic receptors picked up the pain and suffering and several of the empathic and limited telepathic neural clusters resequenced to the backbone SUDS wavelength in order to try to soothe his pain," the clone said.

A third looked up from the hologram it was examining. "Gestator sex low level memory sharing passed the frequency to others. Interestingly enough, it looks like the female of the species holds the frequency. It's fairly complex."

A fourth looked up from the datapad it was tapping at. "This species has a unique genetic quirk regarding emotions. They are very much analogous to human emotions on virtually a one to one basis."

The woman nodded.

"The Sleepers aren't waking up to repeat this. This wounded soldier," the fifth one said, pointing at a Terran male being held close by a fluffy tailed fox creature, "Has a direct maternal ancestor who is one of the Sleeping Ones. Because her brain, held in stasis, shared certain genetic traits with her descendant, the song sung by this gestater sex was repeated to her."

"What about stellar distance?" the woman asked.

"Normally, it would have been a factor. But he had a SUDS, and that's where the pain was coming from, so the gestater sex shifted several cluster's wavelengths to the SUDS wavelength, which means as long as one gestater is near a SUDS'd up human, they'll pick up the song and transmit it through the entirety of SUDSNet," another clone said, looking up. "Because the pain was on a lower level part of the SUDSNet, what used to be called SoulNet, that's where they're broadcasting."

Another clone turned around. "You can't block it. Not unless you put in filters to the old SoulNet backbone."

"And there's nobody left who knows how that system works," the woman sighed. "They were killed."

Victor opened his eyes and nodded. "Yes, yes they were. In an instance that altered the galaxy forever."

He made a motion and the clones filed back out, heading for the reclaimation tables. They'd be slurried back down to biomass and rebuilt.

"Now what happens?" Victor asked.

The woman smiled. "You have two choice," she said. "You can come work for us. There will be over a dozen species that needs the exact work you just tossed offhandedly to me. There's a genetic adaptation and mutation species out there trying to wipe everyone out and we could use your help."

"Dwellers?" Victor asked, feeling a chill.

The woman nodded. "That's what the Imperium of Rage troops are calling them."

Victor felt goosebumps raise on his skin at the mention of that ancient time.

"You get access to whatever you need. Full pardon. Blanket pardon. Unlimited resources. You own Black Box system. Work for us, you'll get whatever you need," the woman said. "Save these species from extinction."

Victor stared at her.

"Or?"

He knew what is going to be. Now would come the threats.

The woman just shrugged. "I walk away. I leave you a SolNet droplink to get in touch with me or one of my sisters in case you change your mind. I have my memory of this meeting erased and the files are purged everywhere except Black Box Prime. You keep going on as Victor, humble worker of the Clone-My-Shit-Up."

Victor frowned. "That's it?"

She nodded. "That's it. We're already fighting multiple opponents," she gave a sudden sharp toothed smile. "Including a Mantid Omniqueen out there somewhere. A living Omniqueen."

"And she's coming."

Victor stood up, his eyes wide. The veneer genesequences melted away as purple lightning crawled up and down his arms and black mist started drifting down from his fists. Hate rolled off of him and a fury he'd almost forgotten existed surged up inside of him.

The computer consoles around his imploded, the chair was flung back to crash against the wall. The lights flickered and buzzed and the room VI squealed and ran for the water cooler.

The woman just looked up from where she was sitting.

"So you can sit here, in the Clone-My-Shit-Up, pretending to be Victor, an exceptionally gifted genetic technician," the woman said.

Victor just stared at her.

"Or..."

Her smile got even wider.

"You can come home. Save entire species."

Victor let the rage go and the lightning faded away, the black mist wafting away.

"I'll need some time to close the shop," he said.

"An investor is poised to buy it from Victor," she answered. "When it's all over, Victor can come back to work. Interested?"

Victor nodded slowly, still feeling the ancient rage pound at his temples.

The woman's smile got cruel.

"Welcome home," she said.

"Legion."