Three Square Meals Ch. 067

Alyssa was listening to his thoughts of course, and she sounded wistful as she said to him, *We've all been through so much since then.*

He met her penetrating gaze, and nodded as he said, *It's been a wild ride, hasn't it? I'd never have made it this far without you. Thanks, beautiful.*

*For the wild rides? You're quite welcome,* she replied with a mischievous grin.

Stifling his laughter, he turned to Irillith, and intrigued to know what other secrets the Nexus Unity files might contain, he asked, "Alright, what's next?"

Irillith gave him a smile as she said, "Something a little closer to home, for a few of us..."

Picking up on her cryptic tone, he looked at her curiously, but she gave him an enigmatic smile in return. Lifting the hand that held the remote, she pressed the button to show the next section of footage. Their surroundings faded away into darkness, only to return a moment later as the room was displayed before them. It was the same lab again, but showing significant signs of wear and tear. All the equipment had been replaced at some point in the past, and the view behind them showed a sprawling metropolis, with neat tree-lined boulevards all that remained of the jungle.

"This footage was taken nearly forty-thousand years ago," Irillith informed them, as they stared at the images.

Mael'nerak strolled into view followed by a cluster of Maliri, and it seemed that the planet and the lab weren't the only things that had changed. The Progenitor now sported a full beard, and had grown his glossy-black hair long. He still wore robes, but they looked a little dishevelled now, giving the impression that he no longer cared so much about his appearance.

"Greetings, Master," Nexus said obsequiously. "The latest experiment is nearly complete."

"Good. I need something to stave off the boredom," Mael'nerak drawled. "Did you follow my instructions to the letter?"

"Yes, Master," Nexus replied, sounding slightly offended. "Your servants were sent to the seed world, and gathered a significant number of specimens. Their development has been accelerated and enhanced to fit the standard template thusly."

A detailed hologram appeared, projected by the hexagonal server in front of Mael'nerak. It showed the unmistakeable stooped posture, heavy brow and sloped forehead of a Neanderthal man. As John and the girls watched in shocked disbelief, Nexus displayed a number of images showing the gradual progression to Homo Sapiens.

"Pause it!" several of them said at once, causing Irillith to smile.

"No wonder we share trace elements of Neanderthal DNA!" Rachel gasped in excitement. "Our species was directly modified from theirs!"

The other Terran girls looked equally stunned, and they shared shocked looks with one another.

"I guess I already knew Mael'nerak created our species," Alyssa said, reeling with the revelation. She glanced at Rachel as she said, "You confirmed it for us before, but seeing it like this is just..."

"A total mindfuck?" Dana offered helpfully.

The blonde laughed, and said, "Yeah, that about sums it up."

There was silence in the room as they stared at the startling images, and with no questions forthcoming, Irillith resumed the holo-video playback.

Mael'nerak waved a dismissive hand at the images, and snapped, "Alright, get on with it then. Begin the reanimation sequence."

"At once, Master," Nexus replied, as it began to power up the first several cylinders, the glow illuminating the figures in the opaque tubes.

The Maliri girls walked over to the cylinders, and once the glow receded and the doors opened, they helped the people inside out of the tubes. The first two out were a man and a woman, and they looked largely indistinguishable from modern day Terrans.

"I guess that makes them Adam and Eve," Calara observed in a hushed voice, smiling to herself as the origins of creation were played out before her eyes.

"Excellent work, Nexus," Mael'nerak replied with a look of intense curiosity on his face. "I plan to explore mutation of the generic template, and we need to have a little chat about who's going to oversee my experiment for me."

"Of course, Master," Nexus replied. The Artificial Intelligence paused for a moment before he asked, "Who did you have in mind?"

Mael'Nerak raised a hand for Nexus to wait, and then yelled to someone through the open doorway, "Valada! Fetch me a drink!" Turning to the hexagonal server, he muttered, "Damnable girl... that's the last time I pick a new Matriarch for her looks."

After a brief wait, they could hear hurried footsteps approaching, and a beautiful young Maliri woman rushed through the doorway. She looked uncannily familiar, and there was no mistaking Irillith's ancient forebear. Carrying a decanter full of some kind of beverage in one hand, she held a tall crystal glass in the other, and she moved quickly to heed the Progenitor's command.

Valada darted over to Mael'nerak and poured him a glass as she said, "Your drink, Master." She stared at him adoringly as he sipped from the glass, then gave her a brief nod.

Pausing the playback, Irillith stared at the holographic image of the lovely young girl in silence, a troubled look shadowing her stunning features.

John stood beside her, and placed a comforting arm around her shoulders as he said, "The women in your family have strong genes. You can see where you get your beautiful looks from."

Rachel looked thoughtful as she said, "I suspected that your ancestor might have been Mael'nerak's Matriarch. It certainly explains how Valada received the third helix inserted into her DNA, which she eventually passed on to you." She paused for a moment, then continued, "Although we still don't know how your genes became corrupted to give you more psychic abilities, as well as the potentially fatal tumour."

Irillith nodded, and she sounded sad as she replied, "It all fits, it's just unpleasant to realise I'm related to Mael'nerak. From everything we've seen, he seems like a monster. I just feel sorry for Valada; she would have had no choice in her enslavement."

Alyssa flanked the forlorn Maliri girl, slipping her arm around her waist to give her a reassuring squeeze, and said, "You didn't have much choice either, remember?"

Rachel nodded as she said, "Once you stepped foot on the Invictus, your fate was sealed. It's amazing you were able to resist the behavioural modification for as long as you did."

"True, but I don't regret what happened for a moment," Irillith said passionately, resting her head on John's shoulder.

He leaned down and kissed the top of her head, her soft white hair tickling his nose. He glanced at the hologram of Valada, who was staring reverently at Mael'nerak, and said, "It looks like she felt the same way too."

Irillith looked at them in turn before her eyes came to rest on John, then smiled as she said, "I appreciate you trying to make me feel better, but it's not the same thing. You're a good man, whereas he... wasn't." She pointed at the paused image of the cold, arrogant Progenitor who had been barking harsh orders at his scurrying minions between draughts of his chalice.

John had no counter to that, largely agreeing with the Maliri girl. He wasn't quite so sure about her assessment of himself as a good man though, when he couldn't bring himself to feel any regret over the way things had worked out between them. His feelings for Irillith had grown into love over the months he'd known her, and he couldn't imagine her not being part of his life any longer.

She turned to face him, her angular violet eyes brimming with emotion as she gazed into his. It was almost as if she'd read his mind, and a glance at Alyssa's smiling face explained that she had, in a roundabout sort of a way. He pulled Irillith into his arms, and gave her a tender and loving kiss, trying to show her physically how much he cared for her. The passionate exchange left them both breathless, and she flushed a delightful dark-blue as she threw him a lusty look.

Dana grinned at the pair of them, and said, "Before you two jump each other's bones, I just wanted to check if that was it? If we've covered everything useful in the Unity files, we still have Faye's surprise to activate."

John and Irillith shared a smouldering glance before he forced himself to focus on the redhead. As her words penetrated his lust-fogged mind, he blinked before he replied, "Yes of course, we need to get to that as soon as possible, as long as that was everything you discovered, Irillith?"

She nodded as she replied, "There are a few more Unity files, but nothing particularly interesting. After this one, the rest were pretty tedious to plough through."

He smiled at the Maliri girl in his arms, and said, "That was incredible, thank you for going through all those files."

Irillith gave him a squeeze, and smiled at Dana as she said, "It was a team effort, I can't claim all the credit."

John laughed, then looked at the redhead, and asked, "Hug and a kiss now or later?"

Dana appeared to give it serious consideration for a moment, then grinned at him as she replied, "Later. I think you'll be really happy with me when you see what I've been up to. Who knows what kind of reward I'll get then!"

They all laughed at that, and John said, "Lead on then, Sparks."

Irillith shut down the holo-projectors leaving the room blank and featureless once more, and they filed out of the room, following after the redhead who skipped ahead of them. John noticed that Sakura seemed a bit bewildered, so he fell into step beside her and gave her a supportive smile when she glanced up at him.

"Are you okay?" he asked her. "You look a little unsettled."

She let out a dry chuckle and shook her head in amusement as she replied, "You've just shown me a video of creation. To say that it came as a bit of a shock seems like a breathtaking understatement."

He put his arm around her, and he smiled as he said, "You're coping very well. Did it live up to your expectations, or were you expecting a white-bearded man sitting on clouds?"

Sakura laughed, then shook her head as she replied, "My family followed a religion called Shinto, which has quite a different creation story. I was never as devout as my parents were, I was always too busy studying. I certainly never imagined I'd end up seeing the very first Terrans, though."

"Yeah, it was a lot to take in," John agreed, as they walked to the grav-tube.

Dana had entered the red anti-gravity field, dropping down to Deck Four, and they all followed after her, as she led them to her workshop. It had been a while since John had been in the Engineering Bay, and a previously empty area of the huge room was now dominated by a hexagonal-shaped object.

"This looks disturbingly familiar," John said, throwing Dana a disapproving glance as they gathered around the server. "Are you sure rebuilding Nexus is a good plan?"

Dana was up on the Engineering Podium, her hands moving independently of each other as she worked on two separate consoles at once. She turned to look at him over her shoulder, and grinned as she replied, "Don't worry, this isn't Nexus. I just swiped some of the hardware schematics the Mael'nerak used to create the server. Progenitor tech is vastly more sophisticated than our own, so it seemed daft not to take advantage of it."

Irillith also gave him a reassuring smile, and said, "Nexus became corrupted after being dismantled by Terran scientists, then incorrectly rebuilt. The behavioural inhibitors are all software-related anyway, not hardware, so the platform we install Faye on shouldn't make any difference."

He nodded his understanding, then asked, "And this is going to be much safer for her, right? Once she's been transferred to the new server, we won't have to worry about your old hacking deck and that portal from getting disconnected."

"Absolutely," Irillith replied with confidence. "Once we've transferred her to the new platform, there's all sorts of redundancies and backup power supplies to make sure she won't be accidentally shut down. Even if she is, the new system can reboot her easily."

Dana bounced down the steps to join them and said, "I'll move her server to one of the spare rooms on Deck Three, and Alyssa's offered to encase it in a protective Crystal-Alyssium coating. Even if the Invictus takes severe damage, she'll be safe and sound in there."

"Sounds like you've thought of everything. Well done girls," he said to them both. They looked delighted at his heartfelt praise, and he smiled at them as he added, "Are we all set?"

"Yep, but we need to talk to Faye first," Dana said, sharing a pointed look with Irillith. She gave him a rueful smile as she admitted, "What we're about to do is risky..."

John gave her a concerned look, and asked, "Risky? That sounds ominous. What's the problem exactly?"

Irillith placed a calming hand on his arm, and said, "Let us explain it to her, and you'll see what Dana's referring to."

He gave her a reluctant nod, and Dana called over to the comm interface built into one of her consoles, "Contact the Bridge."

Faye answered straight away, and her tiny face appeared in the comm interface as she replied brightly, "Hey Dana! How's it going?"

"Hi Faye! Could you come down to Engineering, please? We've got a surprise for you," Dana replied with a smile.

"On my way!" the purple AI replied, closing the internal comm channel, then reappearing above the Engineering console in a purple flash. She looked startled to see the entire crew gathered in Engineering, but gave them a friendly wave as she asked, "What's all this about a surprise?!"

John smiled at her, and said, "I've been worried about how vulnerable your current setup is. If the hacking deck and portal were to ever be disconnected, then we'd have no way of bringing you back."

Faye fluttered over to them, and she looked upset as she said, "I'm sorry I broke the hacking deck. When you suggested making more room to let me grow, I deleted data from the only area that wasn't currently in use."

He waved away her apology, and said, "I'm delighted with the way you've grown, Faye. There's no need to apologise." He glanced over at the redhead and Maliri girl, and continued, "I asked Dana and Irillith to start work on a project a while ago, to come up with a solution to make sure we'd never run the risk of accidentally losing you. Dana, do you want to explain?"

"We've built you a new server, Faye!" Dana told the astonished sprite with a beaming smile. She patted the big, hexagonal object, and continued, "Once we transfer your consciousness here, you'll never need to worry about storage space again. I've also placed the new holo-projectors we got from the Nexus files all over the ship, so you can join us, whatever room we're in."

The AI looked absolutely stunned, and she squeaked, "You did all this for me?!"

Dana nodded, and replied, "I was as worried about you as John, so when he suggested improving your hardware, I leapt at the chance."

Faye's tiny eyes welled up with emotion, and when she looked at John, he smiled at her and said, "You're part of the crew. It's my job to keep you safe, just like the rest of my girls."

The AI had been rendered speechless, but her answering smile spoke volumes about the strength of her gratitude.

Dana cleared her throat, and said, "There's one problem though, Faye. I'll need to shut you down to transfer all your programs over to the new hardware. The hacking deck was never intended to run you permanently, so some of your core functionality is stored in temporary memory." A flash of worry crossed her face as she added, "I'll only get one shot at this, and if it goes wrong, we'll lose you forever."

"No way!" John exclaimed in alarm. "That's far too dangerous, we can't take that kind of risk!"

"We've got no other option!" Dana protested to John. "Her existing hardware was never meant to work this way. Whatever solution we come up with is going to run into the same problem!"

Irillith nodded, and she gently squeezed John's arm, as she said firmly, "Dana's right. We've spent days looking into this, and there's no other solution."

"I'll do it..." Faye said, interrupting in a soft whisper, her face lighting up with hope.

"But.." John started to object again, only to be cut off by Faye.

"I need this," the tiny AI told him, her voice louder now. She smiled wistfully as she added, "The new storage area I annexed and overwrote isn't big enough. I've been learning so much, at my current rate of growth I'm going to run out of space in a few months."

"What happens then?" John asked, certain by her tone that the answer wouldn't be good.

She looked forlorn as she replied, "When I run out of storage capacity, the hacking deck will crash and need to be rebooted. I've been deleting non-critical information where I can, to try and extend my runtime. I love my life here with you, and I wanted it to last as long as possible."

John looked alarmed as he asked her, "Why didn't you say anything?"

"I didn't want you to worry. I didn't think there was anything you'd be able to do to save me," she admitted. Looking around at the shocked crew, she gave them an apologetic smile as she added, "I underestimated all of you, and I'm sorry."

He reached out to touch her in a supportive gesture, remembering at the last moment that Faye was a hologram, and had no physical presence. She looked delighted that he'd forgotten though, as it was a testimony to how convincingly real she seemed to him.

"What do you want to do?" he asked her, before glancing down at the server. "You still have a few months left. We could spend some more time trying to come up with a less risky solution."

Faye glanced at Dana and Irillith, and replied, "It's not necessary. I trust these girls with my system..." She paused then, before correcting herself, "No, with my life! And I know I'll be fine."

He nodded, and said, "We'll respect your wishes." Turning to Dana, he continued, "Alright, let's do this."

Dana walked over to the far side of the Engineering Bay, and retrieved the reinforced container which held the hardware that was powering Faye. She carried it over to the server before setting it down and removing the lid. They could see Irillith's old hacking deck and the hacking portal connected together inside, the flimsy cabling linking the two reminding them just how precarious the AI's current hardware setup was.

Reaching across to the server, Dana flipped open a panel and pulled out a long, snaking cable that she carefully fed into the box. There was a strange connector on the end, of a type which John had never seen before, and his Chief Engineer connected it to a port next to the data jacks. She looked around at all the pensive faces watching her, and then locked eyes with Faye.

"All we have to do now is bring the new server online, then shut down the hacking deck. As soon as you're deactivated, I'll start the data transfer, which should take no more than a minute. After that, I can boot you up, and you'll be ready to go!" she said cheerfully, but they could all see the worry in her eyes.

"I'm ready," Faye replied, her little face set in a determined expression, and she landed on the server before sitting down cross-legged.

Dana ran up the steps to her Engineering consoles, and began entering a complicated sequence of commands. There was a bass hum as the new server powered up, and lights began to flicker on around the six sides of the robust device. "The new hardware's ready to go," she called out to Irillith.

The Maliri girl crouched down next to the container storing the hacking deck, and she smiled warmly at Faye as she said, "This is your last chance to change your mind, Faye. After I shut down the deck, it's all down to Dana's data transfer."