Extracted - Part 6

[Sthurmovik]

Yay Part 6

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Serena looked around at the force surrounding them as her team was lead out of the ravine and onto a wide alpine meadow that sloped down towards rather involved settlement that looked like something of a cross between a vacation resort and a tech sector corporate campus. The gender ratio of the soldiers was north of two thirds female and most appeared to be of below average training and experienced based on the way they carried themselves and their weapons. Serena also noticed that those with the best skills had formed a cluster around Fiona and were eying her suspiciously.

"So, um," Serena began as she attempted to engage with the black haired woman.

"Lieutenant Blair Atherton, but you can call me Blair if you like. We don't often have new arrivals effect an escape from the processing facility. In fact I think that's the first time it's ever happened. That's why we're leading you down to talk to Lomez, he wanted to meet with you...and your synthetic...personally."

"Yeah, we're not from around here. I'm Colonel Serena Hanford from the United Federation of Alternate Worlds. My team was exploring a portal transfer facility when we came under attack and in making a tactical retreat we ended up in your little maze there. With some basic technical components that I am sure would be within your capabilities we can call in a ride and get out of your hair by sundown."

"Um, I'm afraid things are going to be a little more complicated than you had assumed, but I should probably let Lomez explain things. I can see him coming up right now."

Serena looked down the verdant slope at a man dressed in what looked like a white monk's robe walking up toward them. Looking back she saw the Captain walking next to the stretcher that was being provided for Bea, parts of her shiny black wings spilling over the sides. Her own Sister shell and all their gear had been transferred to an all-terrain cargo walker and now lumbered along with the rear guard. As they got close to the approaching man he stopped and gave a welcoming wave. Standing at about medium height and build the man identified as Lomez had short dark grey hair that came down the back a bit in a poly tail. He had a beard, but Serena couldn't tell if it was intentional or if it was simply the result of the man deciding not to shave for a couple weeks. As the two groups met, Lomez greeted Lt Atherton with a warm and unassuming smile that bespoke a genuine goodness and neatly avoided the usual pitfalls of creepy or insincere. After exchanging a few pleasantries with the Lieutenant the man approached Serena.

"Greetings Serena, let me be the first, well second, to welcome you to Sanctuary."

"Thank you very much Mr…?"

"Just call me Lomez, everybody does. We're not too big on formality here."

"Well Lomez, I am, an authorized diplomatic representative of the United Federation of Alternate Worlds," Serena stated producing an impressive looking diplomatic credential card with full holographic printing, gold inlay and both the physical and digital signature of the Minister of State. "I would like you thank you for your hospitality and I'm sure that we can get this whole situation sorted out in no time. How you would like things to proceed once we're on our way is entirely up to you and I'm sure we can talk about that later."

Lomez took and card and barely glanced at it before turning it back over to Serena.

"I believe you have misunderstood the purpose of Sanctuary. We wish no diplomatic relations with any civilization. We here are a place apart. An arc, if you will, in which free individuals can ride out the storms that befall the rest of the multiverse."

"I perfectly understand. If you wish to have no further contact by us once we leave that is your choice and you have my word that the Federation will honor it," Serena continued, running through her diplomatic flowchart.

"Ah, you see here is the awkward part, at least for me. You see Sanctuary could not be a sanctuary if people could just sort of breeze in and out whenever they felt like it. Sanctuary exists and will continue to exist as long as all those who come to Sanctuary stay in Sanctuary."

"I see," said Serena, her eyes narrowing.

"Now I will admit that these are some very exceptional circumstances and not for just the escaping bit. I believe you are the first we have encountered from your, what did you call it?"

"Federation..."

"Ah yes, your Federation. Our citizens arrive here via the Network portals and the vast majority of are all too happy to stay. You said you were attacked? Well that is the sort of horror that we aim to defend our citizens from and if anyone were to leave and captured…well then their knowledge would almost certainly circulate among those who would like nothing more than to get their hands on another soft planet for their trophy wall."

"It's a matter of you not trusting us, or at least not trusting us to keep your secret?" asked Serena, trying to get to the root of the problem.

"Goodness no," laughed Lomez. "You all look and act quite trustworthy and I am sure that if pressed you could find any number of ways to convince me that you and your Federation are kind and virtuous."

"So I am not quite seeing the problem here," said Serena. "if you trust us, why not let us go? Or better yet ally yourself with us for protection instead of trying to hide behind the curtain."

"Because trust is irreverent when it comes to the nature of Sanctuary. Sure I can trust you and your people, but what about in a century from now? What about two? A millennia? Ten millennia? Sanctuary was created to last millions of years and when your civilization collapses, like it inevitably will, we will still be here with arms open for those that stumble through our doors."

Serena really didn't like getting the "why you can't leave" dog and pony show, but the way Lomez had delivered it opened up a door behind the scenes. The argument sounded rehearsed, but not well rehearsed. Like Lomez wasn't sure of what to do about newcomers who weren't refugees from the Network, or, if he did know what to do, he hadn't practiced it much. Serena knew she had a weak hand at that point what with the soldiers guarding them and the pageantry of walking down the hill into what would be no doubt some utopian community. The time to press her case, if that even proved necessary, would be later. For now Serena decided it was time to seize back control of the conversation.

"Well then Lomez, by all means why don't you show us what you have to offer."

Serena watched as the man's expectations about the conversation were completely blown away and he was left at a loss for words.

"We could use some time off here in your Sanctuary while my people figure out what's happened to us."

"Splendid," said Lomez, nearly parrying Serena's counterattack, "I'm not here to argue with your beliefs, just tell you the way things are. Why don't you follow me to the welcome and transition center that is...that is visible now at the base of the hill…there." Lomez suddenly stopped. "Oh, I almost forgot about the other little issue. Your synthetic tiger didn't quite finish processing so we're going to need to do that before we continue."

"Wait what? You mean Fiona? No, you don't touch her, that's not negotiable," said Serena, her voice taking on a razor sharp edge.

"I'm sorry Serena, but you aren't in a position to negotiate much of anything right now. Sanctuary has two main principles. Nobody leaves and no synthetics. If we were to start granting exceptions it would all come tumbling down just like it has in all civilizations that have divorced themselves from natural mortality."

The company of soldiers began to clear a circle around Fiona with two each stationing themselves on her teammates to head off any sort of interference.

"No! You don't understand! Fiona isn't some megalomaniac who synthed herself up to go and take over the nearest primitive planet. She was born and raised in VR. She's a biologic lifeform like you or I and if you use an extractor on her it could KILL her!" yelled Serena as she broke free and threw herself between Fiona and the soldier with the portable quantum extraction beam. "Look at her she's terrified!"

"The extractor doesn't kill," Lomez shot back with just as much conviction. "Your friend is simply being confronted the realization that she will have to spend the rest of her life as flesh and blood. We've seen the same fear countless times before with all manner of synthetics, but they get over it and soon learn to thrive here in the Sanctuary. Your friend doesn't get a pass simply for being the first of her kind to show up. In fact shame on you for having so little faith in your friend."

Another soldier had quietly taken up a position behind Fiona and out of Serena's line of sight and when Lomez nodded she immediately fired her device at the cowering feline. Fiona let out a cry as the pink beam hit her. She was instantly frozen in place as the familiar mass of white energy began to be extracted from her body, but unlike Bea and Serena before her the mass of energy didn't stop growing once it had filled the area required for a human sized body. Holding the beam on Fiona the soldier began to look a bit worried as the glowing blow continued to expand and few breathed a sigh of relief when it ultimately started to coalesce into a creature that stood at least 12 feet tall. As the white glow began to fade some distinctly feline features became apparent, but unlike her marginally conventional construct body her new biologic body had bright blue fur with black stripes and white countershading. Her body was hulking with the massiveness of a polar bear but with longer digitigrade legs that allowed a somewhat hunched bipedal stance. Her body was balanced by a thick tail that extended out some distance and tapered to a prehensile point. It was slightly reminiscent of that which a dragon might have except being completely covered in the same thick fur found on the rest of her body. On her head a dense mane of ivory hair flowed down her neck and upper back while a set of brown spiral horns corkscrewed up from the sides of her skull. Her facial features remained those of a tiger with a slightly longer muzzle and textured pupil-less eyes. Her arms and legs remained feline in appearance with furry paws, but her hands and forearms were devoid of fur, instead covered by a soft black hide that ended in a set of short stubby claws.

The transformation complete Fiona let out a whimper of shock and disbelief as she stared at her new hands. The soldiers were similarly perplexed, many raising their weapons toward a creature the likes of which they had never seen before. The Lieutenant ran about trying to keep her troops calm, but in the confusion a weapon discharged sending a bolt of high energy particles sizzling harmlessly up through the air. Fiona, her body already charged with a strange mix of fight or flight compounds, ducked down into a ball, her arms flying up to shield her head as she let out a strange terrified howl. Had there been anyone present with sufficient levels of perception they would have seen a doughnut shaped blur emerge from Fiona's center of mass and then expand outwards like a shockwave. Serena, standing closest to the strange hybrid felinoid, was impacted first, her body being picked up and launched backwards with most of the other soldiers and Serena’s teammates following suit to a degree inversely proportional to the square of the radius from the epicenter. The flesh and blood android girl hit the ground hard, her ears ringing and and her body feeling like it had just been punched hard in the gut. She watched in horror as a number of less affected soldiers grabbed their weapons in a blind panic. Try as she might she could not compel her stunned body to move and assist Fiona.

"STOP!" boomed Lomez, already standing. Newcomers are never to be harmed! Now lower your weapons. NOW!"

The soldiers grudgingly lowered their weapons as Lomez began to approach Fiona in a calm and deliberate manner. Fiona had fallen to all fours and raised her head slightly to look at the man as he approached her, her eyes swirling a mix of red and black. She was breathing heavily as her brief exercise of power had evidently taken quite a bit out of her.

"Relax, I' not here to hurt you," said Lomez in his most soothing voice. "Nobody will hurt you, I'll see to that."

The last thing Serena saw before she passed out was Lomez gently putting his hand to Fiona's furry forehead.

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Serena woke with a start, both her skin and the bed sheets soaked in sweat. Befuddled by both the effects of waking in a strange place combined with her usual slate of bad dreams it took her a bit longer than normal to calm down and regain control of her faculties. Moving the sheet aside she slipped her feet off the bed and onto the hard floor. She found herself in some sort of upscale dorm room of the type one might find in an elite university. The materials were top notch even if the décor was a bit utilitarian. There was a table with a computing workstation, large display wall, sliding doorway that opened onto a balcony and ample storage space for her "things", which had been piled at the end of her bed. She still felt a bit sore, but looking herself over she could find or outward sign of injury from Fiona's little explosion earlier. Getting out of bed Serena found that she was still wearing her nanoweave armour, although her other clothing had been piled on a chair and the dressing cabinet was opened to expose a variety of robes and other garments that were more in line with the spirit of the Sanctuary than her black tactical kit.

The Colonel found herself suffering from a distinct lack of haste as she went about putting on her original outerwear and form fitting multi-traction boots. Going to her pile of stuff she was shocked to find that almost all of it was still there although her weapons and anything else that the screeners had considered dangerous had been removed. Grabbing hold of her Federation issue tablet and emergency transmitter she carefully opened the door and looked out into the hallway which was lit by rays from the late afternoon sun via a full length skylight.

The dorm theme of the building didn't stop at the rooms with a sign outside the door directing her towards the bathroom, kitchen and any number of other common areas. While most of the signs relied on pictograms, any text was repeated in 5 different languages, one of which was English with the other four being unknown to Serena with her current mental capabilities. Stepping outside the former android found the building to be about as busy as one might expect during spring break, but the sound of familiar voices talking quietly over the occasional clinking of ceramic lead Serena down the open stairway in the great hall and onto the ground floor where she spotted Lupa and Lars sitting alone together in the dining space. A quick search of the area soon located Captain Dunn sleeping on one of the hall couches and, satisfied for the moment that she had found everyone that needed to be found, Serena walked in and filled a mug of coffee-like beverage from the dispenser before joining the acedemic duo

"So, how'd you sleep?" asked Lupa, looking up over her depleted mug.

Serena shrugged and tried the beverage for herself, finding the flavor slightly off putting, but still craving a pick-me-up. "How long was I out?"

"About 8 hours," replied Lupa. "Days are longer here, I think the guide said 28 hours and 42 minutes, plus its still late summer."

"Did you see the materials they left us?" said Lars, holding up an alien electronic tablet. "We've been going through them. It's not bad…I mean both this…um…"

"Welcome Center," Lupa chimed in.

"Yeah, both the Welcome Center and the world at large seem pretty nice. They keep newcomers at the Welcome Center to help them get acclimated to the world then they set them up with permanent housing and an occupation if they are looking for one. Whole place runs on advanced precursor tech which can cover all of one's basic needs like food, clothing, shelter and medical care. If you want a bit more you can get a job or start your own business. Even here at the Welcome Center they have a pool and there are some ball courts and…" Lars trailed off and stopped reading from the tablet as he caught Serena glaring at him. "Sorry, we were just looking over the materials while you slept."

"Do we have to attend a sales presentation?" asked Serena, her voice dripping with caustic sarcasm.

"No, it…it didn't say anything about a presentation," said Lars, looking at the tablet again while Lupa tried to stifle her laughter.

"Maybe if we offer to buy two weeks they'll just give us our free gift and let us go home," said Serena, making a face as she drained the last of the ersatz coffee from the mug. "So what's with sleeping beauty in there?"

"You mean the Captain? He um, mixed it up with some of the staff when they refused to let him see his wife over in the medical unit. They used a stunner on him and laid him on the couch to sleep it off," said Lupa staring into her mug.

"Oh," replied Serena simply before sitting back in her chair and staring out the window. The next thing she was aware of Lupa was shaking her shoulder.

"Serena? Are you ok? I asked you what the plan was and you just sort of…spaced out."

"I don't know," Serena sighed, "I've been losing time ever since I got up. I don't tend to defrag…I mean sleep well as a human."

"Well, we've got to think of something."

Serena liked the way Lupa said "we" even though both of them knew it was mostly going to be her. Feeling a bit better thanks to the beverage Serena stretched out and willed herself back awake rubbing her face and neck with her hands.

"What the hell is this bump," said Serena suddenly looking alarmed, her finger zeroed in on a reddish lump on her neck.

"Oh, they gave us all a wide spectrum vaccine against all of the virulent pathogens on this world," said Lupa.

"You believed them? It's probably a tracking chip or nannos designed to fuck with our brains," Serena said as she began to pick at the lump. "Is there a microwave oven around here? I can rig it into a makeshift nano eradication device."

"Serena! It's fine. They left our basic scanning units and we checked it out. There was nothing suspicious about the injection," offered Lupa.

"Why do you think they'd just leave us with all our equipment?" continued Serena.

"They didn't set off any of the anti-tamper Colonel," said Lars. "Given the level of tech here I know that's not 100%, but all indications we saw while you were asleep is that these people genuinely wish to help us."

Serena gave both her crewmates a look that belied a brief suspicion that they had both been replaced by pod people, before letting her face ball back into her hands propped up on the table. "I don't know what to think anymore. This guy, Lomez, he's pissing me off, but I can't find out what his game is."

Lupa grabbed Serena's shoulder and forced her to make eye contact. "Ok that's enough. We might be held here against our will, but the people here have given us absolutely no indication that they desire anything more than to be kind and helpful. I don't know if you were conscious at the time, but that "Lomez guy" put himself in significant danger to make sure that Fiona wasn't harmed after she had her little episode. I'm all for taking precautions, but I don't want you going around trying to "turn" the citizens here or worse, polluting their world view with your sullen cynicism. You've only been here for 10 minutes and I'm already sick of it."

Serena mumbled a weak apology.

"Alright then, I'm going to go wake the Captain then we can have a proper planning meeting and by the way, break out the cone of silence. Just because I saying we should be personable doesn't imply we should be stupid."

As Lupa gently roused Captain Dunn, Lars returned to his room to fetch a sheet. Serena pulled out her tabled and doubled checked the anti-tamper featured before plugging in a combination microphone headset unit. When Lupa returned with the Captain Serena noticed a number of scratches on his face in addition to a black eye.

"I'd hate to see the other guy."

"Don't get me started," muttered the Captain. "When some little pipsqueak tells me I can't see my own wife I’m going to have something to say about it."

“Is the sheet really necessary?" asked Lars as Lupa pushed four chairs together for the group to sit on. “We could just hold our hands up to our mouths.”

"I know this looks silly, but unless someone remembered to pack an inflatable SCIF this is the next best solution," said Serena as she ducked under the sheet, the other three following suit.

"Um, so I've never used this app before," Lars volunteered, "but I saw a demonstration in a video once."

"It's simple," said Serema, "you hook your tablet to your neighbors' with the direct link and fire up the Cone of Silence app. Then just start talking to build up the buffer and when the screen goes green you can say the important stuff. The tablet will cover everything you say with chopped up pieces of your own voice so Lomez or one of his flunkies can't filter out your actual words from the chop. You hear what's actually being said through the earphones. These aren't the greatest earpieces so some of the chop might leak through, but just try to ignore it."

For about the next 30 seconds everyone started saying whatever random thing popped into their heads until the hard-linked tablets indicated that the system was ready at which point the conversation was able to go secure.

"Alright Colonel," the Captain began, "how do I get my wife back and how do we get out of here."

"Well if Lupa is any judge of things to answer your first question you'll probably get Bea back when they're done providing her with medical care at the hospital. Regarding the second question I believe that we'll get out of here as soon as I can get through to someone with one of the emergency Inter-D transmitters."

"It's no good," Lars injected. "As far as I can tell with the scanner there's enough ambient interference to make these little handhelds pretty much useless. Given what the Sanctuary is trying to be I'd bet that whoever built it chose a planet that’s FTL isolated. That means a planet sitting in a patch of space that is damaged in such a way that warp and hyperspace drives can't function within a significant radius. That effect goes hand in hand with the sort of interference that can affect Interdimensional Coms."

"Well if we did get a signal up could Fleet open up a portal or is the interference to great for that too?" Serena asked, knowing the answer to this question could significantly alter their length of stay.

"From what I have been able to determine with the equipment they left us a portal should be able to open without running into stability or feedback issues, but you're going to need a transmitter several orders of magnitude stronger than the ones we have to punch through the background noise," Lars replied.

"Alright," said Serena, "that's at least some good news although we might want to just sit back for a bit and observe how things work here. Even if they aren't bugging our rooms and brains I'm sure if we start trading around for exotic technology on the back market they are going to get wise to the fact we're up to something. That reminds me, Lupa, when you get a chance wrap up one of our units and go for a nice extended run in your fur one night. If our rooms get tossed I'd like to have a plan B to fall back on."

Lupa nodded.

"While we're on the subject," Serena continued, "what did they do with all of our stuff?"

"I’m not 100% sure, but I was told that if I felt one of their screening decisions was in error I could lodge a complaint with the technology office over in the main administration building," said Lupa, pulling out a laminated map of the Welcome Center campus. "That means all our gear is still on site. Now before you go off half cocked Serena, we went through that and some of the other buildings and this isn't a bunch of low tech bumpkins you can just push around. I'd rate the technology as Class IV or V. The security system is professional and while the guards might not be the most experienced and the weapons are largely non-lethal they will be on us like white on rice if we even try to start something."

"So what do you see our options being Lupa?" prompted Serena as her addled mind attempted to come up with its own solutions.

"Well let's see. Convince Lomez to let us go. Convince someone with access to betray Lomez. Figure out if there is an alternate set of physical laws and if so become competent enough in its use to overcome the local technology."

"Did you just seriously suggest one of our escape options is to "use magic"?" the Captain shot back at Lupa.

"Captain please. There's no wrong answer here, we need to have all options on the table," said Serena digging into her bag of group problem solving tricks. "What about long term Lupa, like from what you read in the materials?"

"Once they let us out of here," said Lars answering, "I am pretty sure we could assemble the technology needed for a sufficiently powerful Inter-D transmitter in one to five years. So that would be an upper bound provided "the man" doesn’t intervene."

"At least it's good to have an upper bound although I'm sure I speak for everybody in saying that a five year penalty out flag on our lives would not be the optimal scenario."

Captain Dunn suddenly spoke up, that light bulb expression on his face. "Wait, what about Fiona. Colonel, you said when Linked go through the extractor thing they sometimes get powers. Well you saw what Fiona did out on that field. I think that counts as powers. The dumb ass weekend warriors were damn near shitting themselves after she pulled off that little stunt."

"Lupa, I'll need you to get on that when we get Fiona back from the hospital," said Serena looking over at her friend. "You'll probably need to take her out somewhere where you can have some privacy."

"Woah woah, hold on there a second Serena," Lupa protested. "I'm an uplifted Wolf, not some magical canine. I got a treatment so I can do the thought speech, but that doesn't make me fucking Gandalf. The only things I know about magic I've learned from movies or from watching some of your friends. I'm not qualified to take a n00b out into the woods and try to teach her how to use her spiffy new superpowers! As much as I trust Fiona right now she's a danger to herself and others."

"Lupa, you're the most perceptive person here…" Serena began before Lupa cut her off again.

"Oh, well that's completely different," said Lupa interrupting. "I thought you needed to be a mage, but it turns out you need me to be a sage. I'll get right on that for you. Let me go dust off my Mr. Miyagi koans."

"Are you done?" asked Serena. "We have a ship's captain, an ex-robot girl, a graduate student and a talking wolf with a PhD from Vassar. You're square peg pounds in the easiest so just do the best you can and try to keep Fiona from hurting herself…or anyone else for that matter."

Lupa glared. "This face cannot properly express the emotions I'm feeling right now."

Captain Dunn attempted to hide his amusement at finally seeing someone who could so thoroughly wind up the Professor. "Is there anything you'd want me to do?"

"You just stick with you wife and make sure she's ok," said Serena.

"Listen I appreciate what you're trying to do here, but we're still part of this mission. We're going to walk to help out as soon as we're even the last bit able," the Captain responded.

Serena thought for a moment. "All I can suggest is seeing if Bea might have some latent savant hacking abilities. Her being so, um, differently abled, might provide us with some cover for proving the network and their other information systems. Lars, you're on general recon. Be resourceful, but be careful about raising suspicion. If you hear a little voice in your head about doing something come see me first."

Lars nodded. "Is that everything?"

"Yeah, I think we're done here so I guess we can stop looking silly."

The team disconnected their equipment and got out from under the sheet. The sun was just about to drop below the high mountain ridgeline that ran to the east of the welcome center compound. Serena barely had enough time to go over the materials as well as grab another cup of the nasty substitute coffee before a woman wearing the uniform of the welcome center staff showed up.

"If you would please come with me your friends are ready to receive visitors over in the medical center.

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The medical center with its bright spacious hallways and metropolitan architecture was equipped with the best that medical technology could hope to have from the ability to regenerate minor cuts and burns all the way to cloning whole replacement bodies. While comparable to what was considered the standard of care of core Federation worlds, the lack of cybernetic enhancement facilities plainly stood out. The building came across as underutilized with just a trickle of patients and staff wandering about the "traditional" care areas that focused on healing the purely physical issues associated with the body. The mental health facility, located across the plaza, was a lot busier with patients congregating in the garden outside for the evening meal.

"Your friends are right in here," said the woman wearing an attractive yet functional white and blue jumpsuit. "Took us a little effort to locate a space large enough for Fiona, but luckily we weren't having a surge right now so we just set her up in a lounge."

Walking around the corner the large blue and back felinoid was laying back on a makeshift couch constructed from a large number of individual mattress pads. A number of sensors were attached to her body and arms and a few patches of fur had been shaved down for IV lines.

"Where's my wife?" the Captain asked, looking a bit impatient.

"Oh, she's in that room right there if you'd just…"

Captain Dunn pushed past the assistant nearly knocking her to the ground before running into the room where Bea was being kept.

"I'm sorry about that," apologized Lupa. "He's been quite worried about her."

"That's alright, I fully understand. Now, Fiona here spent the day in surgery where some of our best doctors went about correcting the 18 congenital defects she presented with. Of course it was nothing our equipment couldn't handle, but given the record number of defects it did take a little while to plan things out." The woman walked over to Fiona's "bedside". "How are you feeling there? You have some visitors."

Fiona gave a weak little wave with one of her unfurred hands as she looked towards her friends with dark green eyes. "I hope you don't mind professor, but I'm feeling a bit under the weather today and asked to stay another night here in the hospital."

"Oh don't you dare give me that evil taskmistress advisor shtick," cried Lupa as she ran to give Fiona a big hug, burrowing her face in the soft fur of her neck. "You can stay here for as long as you need."

"I'm a little disappointed I didn't end up with wings like Bea got," said Fiona with a smile. "Although all in all I think I'll take my prize and go home. I could have ended off a lot worse off."

"The horns are quite fetching, but I thought your eyes were a different color. At least that's what I think I remember right before you blasted me with that shock wave," said Serena.

"Sorry about that and yeah, I think my eye color changes according to my mood. I haven't gotten a chance to decode it yet but I'll make up flash cards…or perhaps just keep you guessing."

Lupa was still wrapped up in Fiona's massive fur covered body. "Ooooo, I think I am just going to call you Fluffy."

"Well I've asked the staff to get me some large brushes and other hair care products. I am probably going to require anyone who wants a hug to help me manage this mess" Fiona grumbled. "Hey, give me an A for intuition. My construct turned out to match my bioform pretty well. It feels nice that I can prove to people that I wasn't just making things up because cats are cute."

"How have you been doing with the other biologic "necessities"? Remembering to breathe and all that jazz?" Serena asked.

"Oh yeah, this body feels completely natural and I've had a whole team of healers on hand to help me out." Fiona shifted slightly to look at the woman. "Thank you again Joan for all your...assistance."

"It's been our pleasure Fiona. You're one of the most exciting things we've had happen here in years. The Network sends us a pretty uniform stream of humans and humanoids. Your case is rather unique."

"Excuse me, Dr. Voss wants to see all of you in Bea's room," said the healer, looking at a device on her wrist. "Present company excluded of course," she continued looking at Fiona.

"No that's fine, I think I need to do one of those biologic things anyway," Fiona responded, shifting around on her couch to get up.

The three graciously thanked Joan before piling into the less spacious exam room where Bea was sitting upright in bed pounding away on a tablet while Captain Dunn stood by her side. Once everyone was in the room the Captain looked up at the female doctor.

"Tell them what you told me Doc."

"Let me just begin by introducing myself. I am doctor Emily Voss, head of the surgical department here at the Welcome Center clinic. First off I want you to know that I am making Bea's care my top priority until we can get the situation fixed."

"Fixed? What's a "situation"?" asked Serena, already not liking where the conversation was headed.

"Well, physically Bea here is in perfect health. There were some minor medical issues that we easily corrected, but when evaluating her obviously abnormal mental state scans showed a truly remarkable level of neurological activity." The doctor paused to take a breath. "Unfortunately the level of activity is too high for the neurons to sustain at this rate. The closest case I can think of involves severe epilepsy, but as I have been informed this represents Bea's baseline neurological state due to her multi-threaded consciousness. Long story short Bea will begin to suffer permanent brain damage in as little as 3 to 4 months if left untreated. We have the capability to correct complex neurological issues, but given Bea's unique neurophysiology we would need to invent completely new corrective methods and then ensure that they would not have any unacceptable side effects."

"Alright," said Serena, looking surprisingly unconcerned, "what do you recommend then."

"Well I suggest putting her in stasis until we can develop a solution to the problem. It might take a few years, but I'm sure we'd come up with something. I've already talked with Administrator Lomez about this and…"

"Now Doctor," Serena broke in, "if we wanted to spend a little time with Bea up front, help her get used to things and such, that wouldn't cause any permanent harm would it?"

"No, I don't think it would," said Dr Voss.

"Well than Captain, what do you think we should do?" Serena asked across the room.

"I think I would like to get her out of this hospital," said Dunn flatly.

Serena looked back at the doctor. "I don't suppose this is a problem now?"

"N-no, not at all."

"Great, we'll just step out and let you get on with the discharge," finished Serena taking Lupa's hand and walking back out into the hallway.

//"Alright, you can let go now. You're hurting my hand." Lupa complained directly into Serena's mind.

//"Sorry, I just didn't want to accidently punch someone in there. Smug little fucks. "Oh, we'll totally fix the damage our irresponsible body conversion system has caused." Yeah well, I have a better solution," Serena thought back.

//"Uh oh, you might want to hold onto my hand again. Here comes Lomez."

Serena's hand clamped down on Lupa's wrist as Lomez walked up with a friendly smile. "Ah, Serena, Lupa, nice to see you two over here visiting your friends. I would have been here earlier myself, but there were some complications over in the operations facility I had to attend to. Now before you get all upset I wanted you to know that I am aware of Bea's condition and I will personally see to it that she gets the very best care we have available.

"You don't say," said Serena between clenched teeth.

"In fact I had some proposed treatment options I can go over with you and the Captain."

"Listen, Lomez, I would love to stay and chat, but we were hoping to get out and take a quick walk with Bea before it got dark. Perhaps we can go over that another time," said Serena as she tried to end the conversation.

Lomez lowered his tablet a confused look on his face. "I assumed that you would have been more engaged with the welfare of your friend in there. You seemed quite passionate about defending her the other day out on the field."

"Well you seem quite interested in the welfare of those you intentionally endangered in the first place," snapped Serena. "Now if you don't mind I need to take a walk with Bea, she's not feeling her best right now."

Serena turned, giving Lomez the cold shoulder as Captain Dunn helped his wife into a wheelchair.

"Yeah, we'll talk later," said Lupa, trying to not leave too bad a taste in the air.

The group had started down the hall before Lomez called after them. "I set you guys up for a little welcome party at our bar, New Beginnings. Go have some fun, it's on me. The foods a lot better than what we serve in the cafeteria."

A chill raced up Serena's spine as her hand clamped down on Lupa's wrist again.

//"Wow, he knows your kryptonite…basic human decency."

//"More like open bar."

*************************************************************************************************

[BD]

ok, i have to ask: why there was a different treatment between Bea and Fiona? Weren't they both completely artificial to begin with?

[Sthurmovik]

ok, i have to ask: why there was a different treatment between Bea and Fiona? Weren't they both completely artificial to begin with?

Assuming I am getting your question right their minds were developed in different ways. The Extraction process works by altering reality in one way, make this synthetic mind a fully biologic one, then letting the rest of the details slide into place. Bea was developed from human and avian neurological models so that's what her bio from would be. In the Link Fiona's mind can be traced back to who knows what original biologics not to mention any self-modification that was carried out by her or her ancestors. Again the process forms a body to match the mind. BTW I would not call Fiona 100% "artificial" since her mind was formed by biologic processes that just happened to take place between "living data" lifeforms in a virtual environment.

This came up in an RP with Technophile when we realized that just because a Linker looks human doesn't mean they have a human mind. In fact while outwardly conventional a Linker mind that is thousands of years old has all sorts of hidden potential. However the high degree of stagnation in the Link had lead a lot of that potential to be stashed away, sort of like the old 10% of your brain fallacy made real.

The extraction process is enabled by the energy associated with a sentient mind. That's how it can sort of materialize a body out of thin air (or pull its mass from somewhere else at least) and why trying to chain or abuse the process can have unpleasant side effects.

[BD]

The extraction process is enabled by the energy associated with a sentient mind. That's how it can sort of materialize a body out of thin air (or pull its mass from somewhere else at least) and why trying to chain or abuse the process can have unpleasant side effects.

What i meant is: If the process is able to create any kind of body, if it could be argued that some bodies might be unable so exist in biological form, why does the process not create something that supports life? I can understand that anomalies in the data create anomalies in the body (thus cancers and stuff that can get taken out by a surgeon like in fiona's case) but if the very nature of the subject is made in one way, and this process creates a biological equivalent, why would it create something that cannot live? Data corruption->phisical problem, that i can understand, but why a cat-dragon thing with sonic blasts is ok, but a multiparallel brain that is the very nature of Bea and could very well be reproduced in something like that of a dolphin gets reduced to a human brain with epilepsy?

[Sthurmovik]

The extraction process is enabled by the energy associated with a sentient mind. That's how it can sort of materialize a body out of thin air (or pull its mass from somewhere else at least) and why trying to chain or abuse the process can have unpleasant side effects.

What i meant is: If the process is able to create any kind of body, if it could be argued that some bodies might be unable so exist in biological form, why does the process not create something that supports life? I can understand that anomalies in the data create anomalies in the body (thus cancers and stuff that can get taken out by a surgeon like in fiona's case) but if the very nature of the subject is made in one way, and this process creates a biological equivalent, why would it create something that cannot live? Data corruption->phisical problem, that i can understand, but why a cat-dragon thing with sonic blasts is ok, but a multiparallel brain that is the very nature of Bea and could very well be reproduced in something like that of a dolphin gets reduced to a human brain with epilepsy?

There are two answers that sort of connect slightly. The first is that the Extractor tech seen here and also known to the Sisters was calibrated on human-type synths. It locks on to their minds best and does and handles their extraction best because its pretty straightforward. Sp when confronted with a Linker or something like Bea it simply doesn't work so well and makes mistakes or is forced to punt. The second reason, which is related to the first, is that there exist synthetic lifeforms whose capabilities exceed the capacity for this sort of reality alteration tech to create a carbon based body for. You suggested that it create a compatible body on its own, but reality shift tech as shown here is not sophisticated enough to just create complex objects from scratch. It's a hack that makes a few small alterations and then relies on the Universe to fill in the rest. Sometimes the Universe simply returns FAIL. So yes, better tech could try to make alterations, but because this relies on quantum tricks results become unreliable outside its normal operating parameters.

I'll go back and add in a few words to let people know that the tech has limitations. For story balance reasons I don't want to create a general purpose "anything to anything" transformation tech so quantum reality shift stuff can either use pre-made patterns or make small alterations to reality and allow other changes to tumble down. A solution to this problem would be a way to have the extractor turn someone into their human equivalent (a more complex change than just bio), but you'd probably still get anomalies.