Extracted - part 9

[Sthurmovik]

If anyone is interested this part has some allusions to the more "traditional" fembot stories I am working on.

Part 9 of 14

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Captain Dunn sat in the middle of a white blanket surrounded by lush green alpine meadow. Beside him his wife lay back on her black raven wings, fingers typing madly away on a tablet while her eyes focused on a butterfly as it gingerly landed on a yellow flower then flittered away to the next one. The Captain was gently brushing his wife's jet black hair as she got on with whatever she was up to in her strange little multitask world. Despite her condition and the risk of impending neurologic breakdown, deep down the Captain was glad for this opportunity to see his wife in the flesh, the way she actually was (at least according to some glitchy technology), instead of just some lingerie model she had happened to fancy. This way he could actually touch her, smell her, feel her warmth and gently stroke her feathers. These were all properties that belonged to her and only her, not something added by an engineer at the shipyard or the result of a lubricant spill 5 years ago. Bea was capable as ever as her mind raced from task to task, yet she had now been rendered completely dependent upon him for her well being. It was an ironic twist that completely reversed the traditional role of Bea looking out for her husband, providing him air and warmth and keeping away the harmful radiation.

"Hey there, would you like some water? Here, water," said the Captain, holding up a clear water bottle and moving it towards Bea. There was a brief flash as recognition as Bea turned at least part of her attention toward the liquid and took a long drink as Captain Dunn offered it to her lips.

"There you go. You like it out here? It certainly is a nice day."

Bea gave a little nod and went back to focusing on the other tasks in her constantly evolving mental queue.

"I…I don't want to sound selfish here, but I've actually enjoyed being with you like this, as a biologic. I hope that on some level you've enjoyed it too," the Captain stated as he moved down to straighten the feathers covering other parts of Bea's body. "I mean think of the story you can tell to the other AI's you run into. Heh, they probably won't believe you." The Captain paused, taking a deep breath. "You know I was…I was hoping we could try to load this appearance into the holo systems. I sort of like the idea of you having your own appearance, but if you think it's too freaky or something I….I understand."

The Captain often talked to Bea without expecting much of a response. He knew she could hear him and could appreciate what he had to say, but this time Bea suddenly grew still. She let the tablet drop to her lap and moves her eyes to the front. Her eyes closed and her body went completely still. For a moment Dunn began to grow alarmed before suddenly Bea's eyes reopened and she looked at him, a look of intense strain and concentration written all over her face. Her lips moved like she was trying to speak, and then she did.

"T-thank you. I-I've enjoyed this….this time as well," said Bea, struggling with her words.

The Captain was stunned and found that now it was he who was at a loss for words.

"But…I need to go home. I can't stay like this. It's k-killing me."

The Captain nodded, tears coming to his eyes. "What can I do? I don't know what I can do to help get us home."

Bea smiled and pulled the Captain in into a loving embrace. "You care…so much. You're doing…all you can. All you should. Try not to worry. Just like before, sit back and enjoy the ride."

The Captain pulled back so he could look into his wife's eyes.

"I love you…"

Bea gave a slight nod and then spoke again, as sweat beaded on her brow. "And no, I'm not too freaky. Just wish the wings worked."

With that she lost her grip on the reins and her multi-threaded mind went back to focusing on their own tasks. Thomas Dunn sighed as he took a small cloth and began to wipe away the sweat from his wife's head and neck, wondering just what sort of ride she had in mind.

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The path from the welcome center up to the exposed rock of the massif where Sanctuary's processing tunnels was starting to show its age with cracks and weeds growing in what originally had been solid stone paving laid down by those that originally had built the complex. Serena walked next to Lt Atherton as they followed a small electric cart that would be used to transport whatever gear and synthetic bodies were to be collected from the newest batch of newcomers. Unlike the preceding few days this one was chilly and damp and, as the newest worker in the Newcomer Services department, Serena had made sure to bring additional outerwear for anyone that might suddenly find themselves needing it.

"I don't know why you took that job in the supply office," Blair mused, looking over at Serena. "I figured a lifelong soldier such as you would want to get started on a security career. I mean we don't get too many soldiers in through here. Thugs, heavies, rogues, gang members sure, but rarely soldiers or trained security professionals. You're skills are in pretty high demand."

"Well you know that Lomez would never let me near anything that would allow me to be effective in such a position. Probably for good reason,” Serena sighed. “I'd just be a glorified gopher and besides I find sorting stuff in the supply room rather cathartic.”

"Everybody's gotta start somewhere and besides, you know more about the new life form types we've been running into lately than anybody else here," the Lieutenant continued.

"I told you everything I know and I don't see what more your forces could be doing. You've got the nice shiny mech walkers and sufficiently advanced weapons. As long as you don't go all idealistic and try to make friends with it Lomez style you should be fine." There was a brief moment of silence before Serena started speaking again. "I'm serious about that by the way. Don't try to make friends with the monster. Whatever it did in those tunnels was enough to traumatize a veteran Unity officer to the point of insanity. I know you're all touchy feely here, but that thing will kill you soon as look at you."

Atherton nodded. "We are anticipating further…contact…with the creature. This world lacks large indigenous terrestrial animals so the only supply of non-vegetable nutrition would be livestock…or citizens."

The feeling that the locals were unprepared to deal with this or similar threats had been nagging at Serena for some time. She was reminded of a great General had once compared a nation with strong walls to crab, pointing out that once the shell is cracked the soft interior is exposed for swift consumption. However, while the Colonel had no problem with organizing an escape, it was not her job to entangle herself or her team or even the Federation in somebody else's battles, especially if said help would not be greeted with much enthusiasm.

"So, seeing as we are going to pick up some newcomers I guess your Council didn't shut down whatever system you have that brings people here?" asked Serena.

"They made some adjustments, but did not shut it down. To completely wall ourselves off would be to give up on our core mission to save people in the Network."

"I hope we didn't damage your processing facility too badly when we blew a hole in the wall," Serena chuckled.

Atherton also laughed as she remembered back to that day. "Oh wow, let me tell you that caused quite the shit storm back in the operations center. The commander wanted to send us in as soon as you started prepping your explosives, but Lomez insisted that we follow protocol and allow you to do as you would. I mean he's right. We can fix the door, but getting into a firefight could lead to all sorts of unpleasant outcomes."

Serena cocked an eyebrow. "So you do monitor everything that goes on in there?"

"Of course, but the system is designed to wear down and disorient potentially hostile newcomers…as well as convert any synthetics to a biologic form. In fact most of the mountain runs automatically, we just have a few people monitoring it."

"So that means you have footage from when the Unity arrived. You know what the creature looks like," remarked Serena.

Atherton shook her head slightly. "We have some brief glimpses, but almost as soon as it was created the local sensor net went down."

"Ah," was all Serena had for a reply. "So, where are we going anyway? This all just looks like a giant granite mountain to me."

"Processing tunnel 8, it opens out over there where the forest comes up to the rocky slope," said the Lieutenant pointing.

"Report said three individuals, one female and two males. What do you think we have? Keeper? Femme dom? Rogues?," Serena asked, trying to get a handle on Atherton's level of experience.

"Oh it’s a Dom for sure. Keepers don't generally leave their worlds, Rogues usually work alone and traveling bands wouldn't have such mismatched capability levels between their bodies," Atherton responded with confidence. "I've always found Doms to be the most colorful after they get processed. Explorers will just curse at us a lot then act all mopey. Rogues are psychos and are still dangerous even in human form, but the Doms, especially with their entourage in tow, that's where you get the most interesting drama."

The Lieutenant stopped her platoon out of sight of the tunnel exit then quietly led Serena up to peer out from behind a large boulder. Standing in the sunlight was a middle aged human female with brown hair and a bit of sag settling in around her body. Behind her were two fit young males each wearing simple tunics looking around in confusion, their eyes getting used to the sunlight. The woman had a look of dull surprise on her face as she gingerly tried to walk forward on the barefoot unfriendly surface of grass and gravel.

"That's probably the first time she's been in a biologic body for a millennia or two," Blair whispered over to Serena. "First time she's been that old for a while too. The guys look better, probably got converted into her servants no more than a couple decades ago. Historically Doms would almost always put captured males in female servant bodies, but I think they've started to forget the point they were trying to make with that so we've been getting a lot more unaltered males in recent decades."

"Can your extractors wipe out the programming?" Serena asked.

"Sometimes, depends on the process. The underlying mind will get freed from anything that is just an overlay, but if the core consciousness has been changed there's nothing the extractor can do about it and we'll have to send them to the neuro facility for reconstruction," Blair offered.

The casual way that the Lieutenant discussed neural reconstruction gave Serena a severe sense of unease although she understood the benevolent motivations behind it and of course the practical needs as well. Meanwhile as the woman struggled to make sense of the sights and smells now bombarding her radically altered sensorium, the two men behind exchanged a whispered communication and began to advance on their former mistress from behind.

"Shit!" Atherton exclaimed as one of the men grabbed the woman, holding her arms tight behind her back while the other picked up a fist-sized rock and lifted it up into the air. "Rodriguez! Stop him!"

A purple beam shot out from behind Serena's position hitting the man with the rock who then fell to the ground shaking as small bolts of purple energy squiggled around his body. The other man immediately let go of the woman and threw up his hands, quaking in fear.

"Listen I have to go do my thing now, we can talk later," Blair said as she walked out from behind the large rock, turning to address the Newcomers. "Welcome to Sanctuary, you will not be harmed…"

Serena watched as the trio was given the standard greeting, clothed and led over to the electric carts, the soldiers making sure to separate the mistress from her former drones. From the tunnel a detail brought forth the three synthetic bodies that had been left behind by the extraction process along with a few items of gear the suddenly human arrivals had discarded. The process worked like clockwork, as it had for the thousands of years since this world had been established. It was at this point that Serena felt her hostility towards what she had considered to be a bunch of cosmic dropouts turn into pity. Pity that something special, something genuinely good, was about to be lost due to the omnipresent forces of change, forces that even the divine could not hold off forever. As the caravan of vehicles and soldiers began to move back down the hill Lieutenant Atherton once again caught up with Serena.

"Well that's how we do it. Doesn't happen more than a couple times a week, but every so often we'll get a surge. It's a nice job. I always go home feeling I've helped people," Blair began, still trying to tempt Serena into the job.

"How are they taking it? Looked a little dicey there in the beginning," Serena asked.

"Well, "Mistress Sasha" isn't saying much, but her two servants were placated once I explained that she'll be getting help. They know firsthand that she's been off her nut for a while now and I don't think they will be looking for vengeance. Still, we'll keep an eye on them just to be sure. In the most extreme cases we've had to implement sort of a witness protection thing to prevent retaliation between those with antagonistic relationships," Blair responded.

"Do you ever feel that what you do ignores the demands of justice? I'm sure that you see your fair share of legitimately bad people, evil people," said Serena as she reflected on her own job and her own sense of duty.

"Sanctuary couldn't function if everyone who came through the portals were put up before a tribunal. Sanctuary is what it says on the box, a Sanctuary. Still, rest assured that we never allow evil persons a free pass to continue their anti social behavior. Those defects which cause such behavior are filtered out in the same way we deal with traumatic stress or mental instability."

"But Blair, aren't you just doing what that Mistress did? Reprogramming people?" Serena asked, trying to assuage her unease.

"Principle of least harm Serena," the Lieutenant responded without hesitation "When the alternative is to throw someone in prison forever or execute them, simply removing those bits and pieces that cause the problem is the clearly better alternative."

"So what's going to happen to those three now?"

"I'll take Sasha to get sorted out in the neuro clinic and the other two will probably go right into transitional housing. In a few months when it's clear they have adjusted we'll provide a payment for any seized technology then send them on their way. Sanctuary is a big planet, there's enough opportunity and adventure for anyone."

Serena nodded and then looked back over her shoulder towards the large granite formation rising up from the meadow. A flash of color caught her attention and she quickly turned back to the Lieutenant.

"Blair, do you mind if I wander away from the tour for a bit?"

"Hey, I'm not your supervisor and this isn't a prison so do what you like. Just watch out for falling rock and don't try to go climbing cause it’s a bit slippery out."

"Of course, just thought I'd take the long way back," said Serena as she split off down another of the stone tracks, giving Blair a brief wave goodbye.

Walking a few minutes back up toward the mountain the first sign that something was amiss were the chunks of stone that been blasted out onto the field leaving skid marks in the grass. The color that had caught Serena's attention had come from a couple lengths of caution tape stretched out in front of a large plastic covering about 50 feet on a side that was draped over and anchored down to the rocky slope. Looking over her shoulder out of habit, Serena crept up to the plastic and carefully peeled back an edge. Inside was a circular passage with walls so smooth they could have been cut by the latest generation of tunnel boring beams. The tunnel extended far back into the mountain, fading into blackness as the length outstripped the available light. Serena let out a little sigh as she gently pressed her hand to the side of the tunnel.

"Shame you lost your mind. This sort of ability could have been useful here."

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“This is so fun!” Fiona called down to a casually unimpressed Lupa as the oversized blue and black tiger woman hovered casually in mid air. “Reminds me of the first time I loaded into a Class D exo-atmospheric construct. “

Having carefully canceled out the force of gravity Fiona kicked back against a tree, sending herself slowly flipping end over end until she grabbed a hold of another tree at the far side of the clearing. The lithe treetop bent far to one side, nearly touching the ground before snapping back and flinging Fiona back across toward where she had started.

“Weee!”

Instead of continuing the cycle Fiona brought herself to a standing hover before leaning forward and took off again across the clearing, making an exaggerated running motion in the process.

“Hey Lupa! Look at me! I’m a Hong Kong action star!”

//“Alright Fluffy, time to come back to Earth,” Lupa yawned as she watched the mega-feline come to a halt again and then fly backwards this time making swimming motions. //“I don’t want you getting light headed again and you still need to practice your energy shielding.”

“I can’t believe I’ve only been working on this for five days,” said Fiona as she lowered herself back to the ground. “Everything feels so natural once I figure out the technique. I just need to work on building up my endurance.”

//“You can fly some more once you do some shield work,” said Lupa as she padded over to the small rock overhang. //“We’re going to need to get our hands on an energy weapon to make sure your force fields can stop more than kinetic impacts.”

“If Serena can get herself into some sort of repair or maintenance job she might be able to get us a tool that can double as an energy weapon,” Fiona offered as she selected a number of sufficiently massive rocks to test her new skill.

//“Lomez is keeping her on a pretty tight leash which is hardly surprising considering how suspicious we’re all acting,” observed Lupa.

“Secure conversations, sneaking off into the woods every day, at this rate I’m stunned we haven’t been assigned a full time babysitter,” said Fiona as she launched one of the rocks straight up into the air.

Holding one of her furry hands out in front of her, Fiona concentrated and a shimmering circle appeared in mid-air about 5 feet from her outstretched hand and angled away from her at 45 degrees. Far above the speck of a rock began to grow larger and larger and larger as its upward momentum halted and then reversed.

//“You got this Fiona?” asked Lupa

“Yeah Professor, I have it,” said Fiona, bracing herself as the falling rock impacted her shield and rebounded horizontally into the forest like a cannonball, crashing through trunks and branches for hundreds of feet. A glowing wave spread out from the point of impact as the air within the shield boundary briefly absorbed some of the falling rock’s energy, dissipating it gradually in the form of light and heat.

//”So how did that feel,” asked Lupa, peering out from her shelter and sitting up to observe the trail of shaking trees that marked the path of the boulder.

“Fine, the deflection took barely any effort at all. I could feel the force press back on me physically, but it didn’t cause any sort of spike in the energy I was using to maintain the shield, said Fiona as she circle of shimmering air vanished.

//”Alright, try a few more with increased angles to give the rock a more ballistic trajectory, but I also want you to try to hit a target. That will be tough, but will help you master your control. Also don’t skimp on the energy you initially put into the boulder to reduce the flight time. Instead see if you can dispel the energy it when it hits the shield,” Lupa suggested.

“You know you’re taking all the fun out of having super powers," Fiona complained. "When I used to load into World of Heroes I’d just download a data pack and incorporate it into my avatar. Never took weeks of training before I could go out frying bad guys.”

//”Oh I’m sorry,” mocked Lupa, //”do you want me to help you by getting the superpower drivers that don’t exist or loading them into the digital mind that you no longer have?

"Fire in the hole," Fiona announced as another rock took off into the air sending Lupa scurrying for cover. As before the rock soon reached its apex, plummeting back down towards the ground where it was neatly deflected by Fiona's shield into a graceful arc, impacting a small pile of stones and scattering them in all directions.

//"Very good," said Lupa, surveying the destruction. //"Were you aiming for that?"

"Um…no," Fiona replied in a small voice.

//"Well keep working at it until you can hit what you aim for. As someone who might be standing around you in a fight it would be advantageous if you developed enough skill memory not to zap me with a deflected energy beam.

"Hold on, I need a little pick me up," said Fiona reaching into her bag and bringing out several cans of energy drink.

//"Where do you keep getting those from? Aren't those some of the things they make you pay for?" Lupa asked suspiciously.

"Well, I ask the vending machine nicely and it gives me a bunch of energy drinks," Fiona replied.

//"I guess that's a euphemism for "Hulk Smash!"," said Lupa as she made a partly human expression of amusement with her tail wagging back and forth.

"No! I didn't break the machines I just asked nicely," Fiona protested.

Lupa gave her a disbelieving glare.

"I touched the vending machine and I could feel it resisting what I wanted it to do so I just gave it a little scratch behind the ears and then it was all too happy to spit out all its energy drinks."

//"Come on, how dumb do I look? It's a vending machine, not a puppy."

"Fine, I believe I have an ability to sense the internal logic of processing devices, specifically the conditional branches that are blocking a desired outcome. When I lock onto whatever logic element is set against my desired outcome I then sort of “reach in” and flip the voltage or quantum state to the way I'd prefer. At that point the machine spits out an energy drink or…twenty. Are you happy? Is that a sufficient explanation for you?"

//"Ok, I get it. Not all of us were raised inside a computer," said Lupa, rolling her eyes.

"Well you wanted a more detailed explanation so I gave it to you. I've been playing around with this ever since I accidently unlocked your tablet. I didn't want to say anything until I could reproduce the results. The vending machines are dead simple to manipulate, security cameras and doors are a little harder, but I think I'm almost there."

Lupa stood there with her jaw hanging open.

"I didn't want to say anything in case we were monitored and I felt I could be more…covert just working on those skills by myself," Fiona explained. "We can talk to Serena sometime tonight, or you can via your mind speak when you sleep with her tonight."

//"Ok...wait! How the hell did you know about that? Tap into the surveillance feeds?"

Fiona pointed to her cat nose. "This isn't for decoration like the human kind you know, but with the amount of time you've spent in there its getting pretty obvious."

//"Alright, alright, just keep practicing your aim."

Fiona went back to launching and deflecting rocks until she could reliably smack a medium sized conifer at about 100 yards. As the sun got low in the sky Lupa got out from under cover and stretched herself, shaking the leaves and twigs out of her fur in the process.

//"Alright, that's enough for today. How about you do your little floating trick down towards the lake then I'll change there and we'll walk back up to the welcome center via the nature trail. Think you can make it that far? You've been working pretty hard.

"I'll come down at the first hint of dizziness or tunnel vision, I promise," Fiona said, crossing her fingers behind her back in a rather obvious fashion.

//"Just don't get too far ahead of me ok? "

Fiona nodded and lifted herself back up into the air, floating along the tops of the trees as she sighted the clear blue lake and made her way towards it. Behind her she could hear the larger than life wolf crashing through the fallen leaves and underbrush as she work hard to keep up. Fiona was halfway to the lake and generally lost in her own thoughts when something below her caused her to slam on the brakes and then circle back.

"Lupa, I need you! You have to see this!" Fiona yelled as loud as she dared to not attract the attention of any other nearby newcomers or staff.

Easily picking up Fiona's shocked cry with her sensitive ears, Lupa changed course and dashed toward the point that Fiona was floating over. Her attention fixed mostly on Fiona up above, Lupa was not prepared when she crashed into a newly cut clearing about 20 feet wide and ended up flipping nose over tail as she slammed on the brakes. In the effort to get back to her feet Lupa failed to notice the horror that occupied the clearing until it was right in front of her.

//"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Lupa let out a sharp yowl of terror while at the same time screaming in broadcast mode thought speech. In front of her was a large pile of fresh skeletal remains, bit of flesh and tendon still attached in places and everything coated with dull red blood. The smell was not quite that of rotting meat, but was equally nasty and caused Lupa to recoil in horror back to the edge of the clearing. Fiona landed with a thud and waved her arms to get Lupa's attention.

"Lupa! Lupa! Look at me…relax, you need to stop screaming, someone is going to hear you," said Fiona in an assertive tone of voice, making eye contact with the wolf and drawing her attention away from the pile of death. "It's the livestock from the farm."

Lupa nodded for a second and then shook her head. //"N-No! It's not! Look…that's a shoe!"

Sure enough as Fiona looked closely at the pile she saw not only a shoe with remains of an ankle sticking out of it, but also a silver bracelet on what used to be a human forearm.

"By the Lady…" Fiona trailed off as she went into her pack for a plastic bag.

Lupa turned her back while Fiona gingerly plucked both items from the pile for transport back to the welcome center. While Lupa was well versed in hunting live prey and consuming raw meat from a fresh kill, the pile behind her presented itself as a mix of carrion and excrement, both of which caused an instinctive revulsion in the wolf. Trying to push the scene out of her mind Lupa's yellow eyes began to pick up on various clues around the impromptu clearing.

//"Fiona…everything here was done recently. The trees are still weeping sap where they had limbs knocked off. I can also make out the path whatever this was cut through the woods," said Lupa as she hesitantly explored one of the tracks into the woods a few feet. It didn't take her long before she came face to face with one of the giant footprints that she had spied from the top floor of the library.

"How recently?" Fiona asked.

//"Probably this morning," replied Lupa, sniffing the ground. "I found a footprint. Can you bring the tablet over and get a picture? After that I think we need to leave."

Sealing up the bag with the remains Fiona lumbered over, getting her tablet out to take a picture. "Wow, that's a real beauty. Hold on a second, let me get another angle."

//"I do not feel comfortable here. I think something's aware of us."

"What?" asked Fiona as she turned to get pictures of the bone pile.

//"My wolf-sense is tingling like crazy. There's something here and it's not friendly."

"Is wolf-sense even a real…"

At that moment a sharp crack of splintering wood echoed through the forest.

//"Fiona!" shrieked Lupa.

In an instant Lupa felt herself wrapped up by a pair of strong furry arms as Fiona grabbed her advisor and blasted off the forest floor in a long ballistic trajectory. As the earth fell away from them and the sounds of the forest was replaced by the whistling wind the wolf looked up into her student's face.

//"I do not believe this has improved our situation any!"

"Um, I'm working on it," said Fiona sounding a bit anxious and her eyes flashing different shades of blue as the pair began to curve back toward the ground..

//"Work harder!" yelled Lupa as the ground started to rise up to meet them.

Slowly the trajectory began to change as Fiona, depleted from her earlier training session combined with the panicked bug out, dug deep to find the energy capable of steering them towards the lake. Fiona knew that slowing herself to a full stop was probably not in the cards and the water seemed like a better bet than the trees.

//"Fiona?"

"Did you say you needed a bath earlier?"

Lupa let out a soft whimper as Fiona did her best to slow their forward progress while twisting around to shield the smaller wolf from the full force of the impact. By the time they hit the water Fiona was only moving about as fast as one would in a 10 meter platform dive, but the cool mountain water turned out to be just as great a shock, quickly soaking through every inch of the duo's insulating fur and forcing their heart rates even higher. With the water closing around them Lupa immediately squirmed free as Fiona's momentum carried her down to bounce up off the relatively shallow bottom of the lake. She bobbed to the surface not far behind the wolf who was already paddling to shore. Both reached dry land dripping wet, cold and exhausted.

"I'm sorry, I freaked out and just…did something," panted Fiona as she tried to press the water out of her fur."

//"It's fine Fiona, there was something there. I'm sure of it. We need to get back to the Welcome Center and I don't think I'm going to want to come out here again until I see whatever-that-is's head on a stick. Can you run?"

Fiona nodded weakly.

//"Alright then, let's go."

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[BD]

you swapped a "fiona" with a "lupa" here search for "secure conversations"