System of the Damned

  Chapter 18-Albert

  Surgeries, suits, and a surprise attack

  Unlike what most people might think with high levels of technology and superb medical practices, giving someone implants takes time. Especially when that person is a human berserker, and there are seven of them now. As it turns out, Agent Washington had gotten second generation mods quite a bit like Uncle Fluffy’s. After she had a nice discussion with his wife, Miss Li promptly tackled him into a containment cell, bit a power cable, and turned him. Within five minutes we found out that an eight foot tall coyote’s safe word is “Daddy!” said by his ten year old daughter. He went from snarling and bashing at the walls to stopping and staring at his daughter, then whining, and then once we were sure he was calm, we let him out. The best part about it was watching the little human girl giving her father scritches and pets.

  Berserkers had to be given implants in stages due to their high rates of healing and having to stop and make sure they were stabilized before continuing. My wife, and yes I just said wife, Eir was helping with the surgeries since she was the first non-human born berserker. I didn’t mention to Uncle Fluffy that when my person Snake was turned and twisted by the accident, that the other one had been Eir. As it turns out, some of the Order were at very mild risk of becoming were-humans, or more properly termed, anthropoids. Sadly this meant that Adam had to do quite a bit of processing to analyze for the genetic triggers that neither of us had known were there. Honestly she didn’t mind except when it came to the cold, because humans sadly have a dramatic lack of fur. So I sat by the medical tank holding Uncle Fluffy and watched as a foot tall naked human form worked her tools to guide implants into place as she swam around him.

  I think it had been the mod I’d done for her that let her more easily breathe in the oxygenated water of the tanks. Her long ears had morphed back into what the humans might call elvish, longer and pointed. Neon green hair flowed behind her and contrasted against her coal black flesh, and even the half of her face that was a pale white. She had strong lines and the lack of fur showed off her muscle, especially in her legs and flanks…ok stop staring at your wife Albert! I shook myself and left my wife to do her work. Some of the furless were helping by slipping in components and specialized neural wiring into compartments she could access. My wife of course had gotten implants before me, lucky little doe. She was a Rex, so it was easier for her to take them.

  With the help of my wings, I got to another section of the lab complex easily enough. I stopped in the room that held my parents, the first dwarfs to not only get implants, but the treatments to give them a more active and safe limiter. It was ingenious and not my invention, the neural implants when linked properly, could limit us. Some of the humans worried about it, but for us, it was a boon. I’d also done a little genetic adjustments on them, mom could still toss a truck and dad could still blur, but they were more balanced when not activating the limit breakers. I already had blurs and tanks throughout the Order asking for the adjustments when they got their implants installed. I just didn’t mention to anyone other than my parents that I’d slipped in a little addition into it.

  Adam and I had gone over the data a dozen times and worked out a tiny addition that would allow dwarves to grow over our exceedingly long lives. If one of us lived to say a Ca’zeze or Lo’Kar’s old age, we’d be around the size of a shorter Giant, and there was an even slower rate for Rexs. This would let our brains grow and we would not end up losing memories or going completely insane, and I was quite proud of myself for it. I have to say that as much as my parents try to deny it, they both snore horribly. That was fine with me, it let me check the instruments and see that they were meshing well with their implants without risking waking them up.

  Since they were doing well, I moved on, flying down a hall, through a ventilation duct, and into the lower levels. There I nearly got kicked out of the air as I flew into Miss Li’s practice session, and didn’t even flinch this time when she hooked me with her fluffy foot and brought me around to her hand, then back into the air on the other side of her. I dove for the floor to dodge a flying Spot, not the human, one of the twins, who’d been hurled by his brother. I liked the martial arts, but I was a blur. Aside from calming and meditation, it wasn't useful for me. The scary thing was that the rats were studying ninjutsu of some sort, especially since some of them were tanks. I’d edited their genes to cure that constant tooth growth issue, same as we bunnies had, but they still chewed on things. Some instincts are harder to break than others.

  The Lo’Kar had been very nice and installed vents into many rooms that activated when I got close. So as I flew down the hall, I slipped around a corner, through a vent, and went into Miss Jira’s room. Amazingly it didn’t burn the fur from my flesh when I flew into the room, and found her in her human form. She was in her heating vest and shorts doing some sort of handstand pushups in the center of the room. I landed on her left foot softly as a feather and checked her pulse by touching her hallux, and found it strong and calm as always. “How are you feeling?” I asked curiously in chitter, knowing her new implants would translate.

  She did another pushup before speaking in the raspy voice she had, the humans called it a three pack a day voice. “Like I have a friendly ball of fur tickling my foot and playing with my toes…” Her English was better pronounced than Uncle Fluffy’s and some of the other native English speakers. She was also a former agent for a large organized crime group of some sort.

  “I can’t exactly check your neck, it’s a good enough place to check your pulse, and I’m not going to be getting my implants till all of you are done and we know that none of you will need an emergency tweak.” I chittered as I moved to her heel to glide down to her bed.

  She huffed and flipped herself forward from one last pushup, landing almost silently on her bare feet. “Dorothy told me that you four are last because Adam is running extra simulations for you. Even your parents went in line before you, but they aren’t the heads of development for their fields in the Order…aside from your mother.” She gave a soft smile as she leaned her tall form down to grab a bottle.

  I rolled my eyes and twitched an ear before I chittered again. “Don’t remind me, and mom is the First Mother…and the one handling all of the cooking classes.”

  “Linguistics is what I meant, Albert. She can actually speak Lo’Kar and Ca’zeze, I’m not sure she’s mastered the Rodu language yet, not that many of them speak to me.” She started to do those odd stretches and body bends that humans liked to torture themselves with. The best term for her body type is densely muscled much like Uncle Fluffy, who’d called her an amazon I think. Roughly seven feet tall, smaller fat reserves on her chest, thick dense muscle, and absolutely stank of predator. She also had short cropped thick stiff hair on her head that looked more like bristles on a brush than human hair.

  “You smell of nothing but a predator, just like Uncle Fluffy, and Miss Li, though they don’t have your tendency to bite people that annoy them. They’re also not venomous like someone I know, and don’t look at me like that. I can say the hard truths…” I quickened my pulse and stopped the world around me, taking a stroll to a different spot on the bed. When I slowed my pulse, a shoe shot through where I’d just been standing. “Because like my sister Dorothy…you can’t hurt me. I must admit that you’re doing much better with your anger, you looked for something to throw instead of just lunging at me.”

  She growled at me, which wasn’t like Uncle Fluffy’s growl or even a Lo’Kar, it was more like a deep rumbling clicking before a hiss. Then she closed her eyes and took a few slow deep breaths before starting back into her stretching, which was amazing considering she was so large. “I’m hungry, quite often actually, and everyone smells like food…”

  “Cannibalism is usually a frowned upon act with most races that we talk to, especially humans. Would you like me to take another crack at seeing if I can adjust your dietary options? I did manage to tweak a few things and you won’t be getting that itch again until you want to.” I watched as she relaxed her posture at those words. “And, I checked, you have no risk of having to lay eggs. Normal mammalian live births for you.”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Jira was oddly bent in a normally impossible way for a human, standing on one foot, other leg raised behind her, and leaned up hugging that leg against her back. “Thank you, the twitch of a heat cycle was worrisome and I had to bite Yinyang to chase him from my quarters when I realized what it was.”

  “Part of the implants is a control system that will let your hormones flow, but pause your cycle for the most part. We’re going to be making it standard for all human implants, you or any female can come into medical and get it disabled to start your cycle back up. Whether you or a more normal human, the hormone rush will end quickly in pregnancy.” I chittered and watched as she bent into different odd shapes.

  “Good, since there isn’t much sense in actively continuing the old business here, I think when things calm, I might like a child or two. I do hope that you’ll be giving Lady Thunder a set like this after her pregnancy, else I’ll never get to properly spar with her.” She slowly moved to a more normal standing position and slipped down into a lotus. “When are we getting our suits? Dorothy said that we had to get implants for us to control them properly, I have my implants now, so does Li.” Her slightly forked tongue flicked the air and then she promptly snapped her jaws shut and bit it, apparently still fighting that unwanted instinct.

  I chittered and moved to the tablet laying on her bed, punching some things into it, then nodding. “I’ve just ordered you a heavy lunch and one of those big batons that Uncle Fluffy likes to poke himself with. I think the others call them cattle prods?” I waved a paw. “Part of your hunger is your body trying to keep up with the demand for energy.” I wiggled my ears when she wanted to speak over me. “No no, we’ve tested this. The lot of you burn stored energy from the caltunium in your systems first, then fats and muscle. You’ve lost weight, you’re not keeping enough of a charge for when you change.”

  “Very well, I will start using those things. I haven’t due to personal issues…”

  I chittered and cut her off. “You haven’t used them because you’ve had them used on you in the past as a means of torture and punishment within the Tong.” My translated words were firm as I chittered. “Now, you could bite one of the main power junctions used to charge the vehicles and you’d at most twitch, maybe get shoved back. The worst that will happen in that case is that your implants might need to reboot and you’ll glow for a good while. Miss Jira, you are not my person, you are my sister’s claimed person, and as such I wish for you to be healthy and long lived. That requires you taking care of yourself.”

  She simply watched me for a long moment and nodded. “I used to eat rabbits as a food source, and now I’m basically a giant iguana pet for a rabbit…” Her hands moved and rubbed at her face. “Do you know how strange that is? Not to mention the other things, aliens, the mimics, turning into a monster…”

  I didn’t even twitch at the mention of her having eaten rabbits, instead I shrugged. “Think about how I and my family feel…aside from mom. We’re tiny, sure we’re fast…but we can go maybe a click without stopping for food, less for water. There are predators all over, many of our humans smell like predators, some of you are predators. I have thousands of years of instinct I have to fight on a daily basis to not end up hiding in a hole. I also don’t like the taste and texture mix of humans, the texture of one meat, but the taste of another…and it’s so tainted by what you eat…don’t look at me like that.” I chittered as she got mildly slack jawed. “Some of us wanted to know and we cooked up a few of the ones that mom and dad put down.”

  “You really view us as pets, don’t you?” She asked flatly.

  “Yes, but not like how humans view most pets. More like your race first bonded with large dogs or wolves in its past. We can’t survive here without you, and we help you, you help us. Many of us have found damaged or broken humans that we’ve claimed, some have found humans that are perfectly fine and made friends, and a few have befriended and claimed our alien friends here.” I waved a paw around at the oddly smooth walls. “We’re not like cats, which you humans have served for millennia.”

  She was taking a moment to think on that when the door opened and a Ca’zeze female with white fur flecked with black walked into the room with a tray. A small plate was taken from it and the tray handed to Jira, who dug into the freshly cooked meats and fish hungrily. The female set down the small plate beside me, then turned back for the door without a word. Jira didn’t even notice her produce a large cattle prod from her vest until it crackled loudly against her. A soft stiffening and then a relieved hissing sigh rumbled from her, followed by a belch as the Ca’zeze walked out of the room.

  “Better?” I asked as I sat at my plate and went to eating my salad, which of course had a helping of meat with it.

  Jira’s teeth were basically a mass of fangs jutting up from her gums in much the way that komodo dragon teeth did, which was why she was eating with her hands, and ripping off sections of meat. It was chicken, we’d grown several of them and they really didn’t like being ridden, so back to a meat source for them. I managed not to flinch at the loud crack of her breaking bone in her mouth before she swallowed and spoke. “Yes…you win Albert in Stein…” She gave me a soft smile, then remembered her food.

  I just huffed at her around a mouthful of greens and chicken, the latter was given to the Lo’Kar to ease hunting needs. For some reason they did better processing chicken than red meat like our cattle. Jira earned herself a glare for citing my nickname, which I had to admit was the reason I’d taken Stein as my last name. “Steins are very comfortable for me to sleep in, but I’m glad that you admitted that the voltage ingestion helped…” I almost had to dodge a chicken thigh, but hungry females tend not to like to waste food, so instead of throwing the raised food item, she ate it….bones included.

  Humans as pets will be great, he said. We can grow with them and become our own race, he said. Humans are so warm and cuddly that we at most might have to look cute, he said. Yeah dad, right up until we have to deal with our home world’s most evolved predators turning into monsters. Then it’s calming them down, keeping them from chewing on the furniture and each other. Why did my little sister have to adopt the most angry one of them!?

  *************************

  A week later saw me and my siblings playing with our new implants and flicking lights on and off, machines, automated systems. Dorothy accidently let free a slightly unfinished AI that caused the Lo’Kar to panic and shut down all of their systems for a few hours. Once she and the Lo’Kar had Jackelope contained again inside of a non-networked system, things went back to moving along. I was still having to get used to being able to access and see data just by thinking about it, and we all learned a valuable lesson. Never scare Marie when she’s focused on running a system’s check on a new suit, said suit tends to spasm and break things, and I get yelled at. She was wide open though, it was worth it.

  Mom and dad were at the FOB with Thunder, who was checking in on the troops and of course the mining project that Arnold was in charge of. Of course that meant that one of the squads was with her as well. Which meant that I had to work with Uncle Fluffy solo, who was doing well enough with his implants. He’d stopped using the built in com of it and randomly calling people at least, now if I could get him to stop trying to walk his suit around when he wasn’t in it! And yelling at him didn’t help! I was going to have to yell at someone about adding that function to the suits…Marie in particular.

  Jira was much more peaceful with regular voltage ingestion like Uncle Fluffy had, and her suit didn’t have a thruster pack like mom’s suit did. Instead of being able to fly, the suit had a pair of back firing thrusters. They could be used to jump the suit, but the main purpose went along with the tracks in the feet to let the suits charge. Uncle Fluffy of course had this same suit option since he was afraid of heights. Honestly, how can someone so tall be afraid of being higher up, double his height and he panicked. Jira though, used the thrusters to do things that made Marie panic, apparently the Mark Ten wasn’t made to do jet assisted martial arts. She used a fifty caliber machine pistol and a trident with the suit

  Uncle Fluffy’s suit had armored gatlings mounted to either forearm that fed from shoulder and back mounted packs. That was the primary reason his suit couldn’t fly, it weighed more than mom’s suit. There were also the twelve gauge revolvers and speed loader pouches on the suit’s hips. There were also vents in the dome style helmet that he could breathe fire through, which was why his suit was a matte black. He referred to it as two tons of walking war crime, hence the addition of “War Crime” and a red templar cross to the shoulder pauldrons.

  Miss Li, Spot, and Yinyang used heavily refitted mark tens. Yinyang and Spot had roughly the same suit, which was a shortened mark ten, and didn’t have any set hardmounts. Instead Yinyang tended to use something called a meteor hammer and a fifty caliber pistol. Spot had done well with his therapies and used a laser cannon…and chains. Spot had already hog tied Uncle Fluffy with said chains, which were an alloy the Ca’zeze were producing. Miss Li used that giant rifle she’d stolen from Uncle Fluffy and a pair of tonfa. All three of their suits could fly, but Miss Li’s was customized and had odd tail thrusters.

  That is why I was currently watching Jira and Li moving about the testing room seeming to be trying murder each other. Jira’s suit had more servo power along with her innate strength, but Li’s had speed and more thrusters. We had plans to upgrade them later to be able to be used while in their human forms, but currently they were stuck using them as their “monster” forms. That is one reason why Li kept using her thrusters to blast herself in odd directions while the guys stood off to the side placing bets.

  Uncle Fluffy made a good spot to watch the two females fight from, his attention being on adjusting how his pistols sat. “I can’t believe he made me shotgun revolvers, and that I can use them in and out of this suit.” He said as he stood in front of it.

  “Well he said that there are many different options for the shells that you can use, and that he was banned from making you a melee weapon by Thunder.” I chittered and winced as Jira punched Li out of the air. “I owe you a hundred…” I trailed off as Li slammed into the floor.

  He snorted. “Speed is wonderful aside from you blurs, if you can keep from getting hit, you’re fine. As soon as the bruiser gets a solid hit though, it’s over.” He wiggled his ears to warn me before he turned and clapped. “Good match you two, check over your suits and get them loaded with ammunition.”

  “Still going to do that patrol march?” I chittered curiously and hopped from his head to his shoulder.

  “Yes