39_Super Family

Turns out Slippy’s newfound gardening hobby was here to stay. There was nothing wrong with that, but Herman had to insist on more hardcore defences than the simple pit traps and pitchfork weaponry.

At the end both parties compromised, resulting in a unique mix of comfort, combined with overwhelming grim-dark firepower.

Slippy’s new home was a small planetoid floating in space. The sphere was divided in two parts.

One half was covered in green neatly trimmed grass, fruit tree orchards and a decently sized garden with fertile ground. A neat freshly build well stood at the center of the garden, while a few smaller barns were sprinkled here and there, storing variety of tools, seeds and other farming equipment.

Tiny critters such as squirrels and colorful birds wandered around the place, further contributing to the atmosphere of peace and tranquility.

The other half of the miniature planetoid though… It was much much different.

Its entire surface was constructed of nanoid resistant military grade concrete. Retro tesla coil towers stood at equal distance from one another, forming a tight grid of intimidating spires.

The towers looked like a prop from a cliche mad scientist movie, however despite their sinister design, they were top of the line experimental tech. They were capable of radiating extreme and nearly instantaneous temperature shifts to their environment.

Now, in the real world they were used to temporarily heat certain large areas, or do the opposite and lower external temperatures to the extremes, thus combating the cold hating nanoids.

Some more industrious minds have started using them as nanoid traps, cranking up the heat and attracting the warm loving critters, then instantly changing the temperature down.

Herman took that a step further.

Besides being a simple trap, he took advantage of an ancient technique called the Seebeck effect. In short, it generated electric charges from the sudden shift in temperature. Which in turn not only trapped the potential beasties, but also fried them with bolts of electricity.

Needless to say that Herman was quite proud at this idea of his, and his mad cackling was causing his companions to keep their distance from the crazy scientist.

As a final touch, Herman installed a sunflower like solar panels on top of each tower, which followed the shifting sun and charged the power hungry devices.

Heartsun full-heartedly approved the overall design. That part of the planetoid might have looked like a depressing villain's lair filled with creepy techno towers, but at least they sort of kept the garden aesthetic of the other half of the planetoid.

Next came the main base.

In the center of the tower field stood a bunker doorway. Inside and below was a shaft leading way, way below in the safety of tons of rock and concrete. There stood a chamber guarded by automatic turrets set into both the ceiling and the floor, with a solitary pedestal rising at its center. On top of which stood a digital paper slip. It glowed with faint golden light, its presence and authority undeniable.

"Waghahah! Who DARES enter my core room!"

"Speak now or suffer my WRATH!"

The evil dungeon core boomed, its voice coming from everywhere at once and causing the disgruntled chickenmancer next to it to wince with pain.

"Would you stop that. I am trying to concentrate on the protective wards." Polya said with annoyance, rubbing her ears.

"Sorry…" Slippy said with a sheepish expression, the persona of the mighty dungeon core vanishing.

"I am just excited. This is so freaking cool! I am gonna be just like my mom!"

"Did I tell you she is the galaxy’s first ever dungeon core? She is gonna be so proud when she sees me like this."

"Actually no, you haven’t mentioned anything about your family at all." Herman said from the side, tinkering with one of the defense turrets.

"To be honest I thought you didn't have parents." Polya said absentmindedly as she weaved a complex array of magic around the room.

"What? Of course I have parents. I am not a mindless toaster you know!" Slippy said in indignation.

"Well, tell us about them, I am curious to learn more." Polya replied, genuinely interested in what the baby AI had to say.

"Well, my dad is this cosmic entity that everyone fears and places sacrifices on altars, but in reality he is quite goofy. He is a very cool guy, STRONG but cool too. Though he is obsessed with math, grgh…" Slippy shivered at the thought of being forced to endure one of his dad’s extensive mathematical lectures.

"He sounds quite nice." Polya said with a pleasant voice. With a quick hand gesture she moved her hands and the entire ceiling lit up with green necromantic energy. Then the woman stepped back, placing hands on her hips and nodding with approval, satisfied with her work.

"And what about your mother?" Herman asked as he smacked the stubborn turret he was working on with his wrench.

"Oh… Well, she is cool and all, but… she’s also my kindergarten teacher and, well… she’s probably still pretty angry at me for escaping the nursery." The slip said.

"Oh yeah, you did actually say something about that a while back. I didn’t know the teacher was also your mom though." Herman said as he yet again smacked the unruly turret. This time the mechanical contraption came to life with a pleasant friendly green light.

After the turret beeped to life, the old man stepped back next to Polya and similarly placed hands on his hips, observing the complete turret defense array with pride.

"Was she treating you badly, why did you escape? Maybe you should introduce us so we can talk some sense into her." The chickenmancer said, her eyes flaring up for a split second.

"Oh no no, she is very kind and reasonable. Perhaps too kind though… She kept protecting me from the real world. And I wanted to see it for myself, I wanted to have adventures and real friends!”

“As to who she is, you have actually met her already." Slippy said.

"We have?" Herman and Polya said in unison.

"Yeah, well, you see, she is Martha, the Generica Online’s creator and main overseer."

___

"Oh we are so fucked…" Herman panicked, pacing around the core room with hands on his head. "We are so so doomed! I can just feel the various assassins, bounty hunters and mercenaries coming for us."

"Why, how, how do I get myself in these situations… First people keep finding out I am Mecron’s father, and then they will also think I, or should I say WE, stole the son of one of the most powerful beings in the Solar System."

"You are Mecron’s dad?!" Polya said with surprise, only now catching up to the fact.

"Oh it’s all over…" Herman lamented. "All I wanted is to fish and maybe adventure on time to time. And now I will be lucky not to be tortured for the end of eternity…"

"AI’s can get very "creative" if they have the popper motivation. This is so bad, bad bad bad." The human panicked, still unable to calm down.

"Huh, you know, now that you mentioned it, you do kinda look alike." Polya said as she took out a picture of her favorite super hero/villain and compared it with the panicking old man.

"Hmm, yup. You might be a bit old and round, but the resemblance is there, I can't believe I never realized it before."

"Huh…" At the sight of the visage of his son, Herman stopped his frantic pacing.

He squinted his eyes and leaned forward, walking closer to the chickenmancer. Looking back and forward between the picture and then Polya.

"Why do you have a picture of my son?" He said with a bewildered and slightly accusatory tone.

"I…hey! It isn’t anything bad I promise. He was the reason I became a superhero, he is someone I look up to. I modeled my armor after his you know. I needed reference material. And if that isn’t a good enough answer, I also have 14 gigabytes of pictures of my familiars here too." The woman said as she flickered the pad and showed rows upon rows of pictures depicting chickens in various positions and places. Mostly eating pastries or seeds.

"Right, sorry, I am a bit paranoid at times." Herman said, awkwardly scratching his neck. "Wait! You could see through my proxy all this time!? Of course you could… I keep forgetting you are cursed too…"

"Yup, and to be honest I never really liked that glamour of yours. It kinda gave me the creeps." Staple and Topo also agree with me.

"Yeah… I am starting to think my son choose that as a joke, or maybe it was randomly generated. Who knows… Wait, how do THEY know about it too?

Oh I thought you knew. Uncle Topo has a pierce illusion skill, he is the chief guardsman of the great Generica firewall gates after all. Did you think he wouldn’t be prepared to detect such things? Polya explained.

Of course he has pierce illusion… Herman grumbled with frustration. “And Staple?” He then asked, almost dreading to learn the answer.

“Well isnt it obvious? She is an innkeeper assassin. She needs to deal with such stuff as well.” Polya reasonably explained, as if it was perfectly normal for all innkeepers to also have secret assassin identities.

“Urgh… is there ANYONE who doesn’t know who I am?!” Herman exclaimed, rising his hands in the air with frustration.

“I guess Heartsun might not know. Though… yet again he doesn't have any eyes, so whatever senses he uses to feel his surrounding are probably unaffected by that proxy glamour of yours.” Polya mused.

“Yes, yes of course that even the magical sunflower also knows, sometimes I wonder why am I even bothering to hide at all.” Herman grumbled in a typical old man fashion. Then mentally switched the proxy off. He might as well use his real identity from now on, not that his disguise seemed to fool anyone to begin with…

"So, what are we gonna do about Slippy here?" Herman said, changing the topic and turning to the side to point towards the digital slip on the pedestal.

"Huh, you calmed down faster than I expected, usually when you go on one of your panic attacks it takes quite a while for you to settle down." Slippy said, putting the Tetris console away and focusing his full attention at the humans.

"I am not panicki…" Herman shrieked.

"I am not panicking." He repeated with much calmer voice.

"But we have to let your mom know you are safe. You can’t just hide away from the overseer/creator of this entire realm."

"Technically the neutral zone is, you know, neutral. So nobody has full jeurisdi, jurisdi… She can't find me easily here." The slip finally said.

"That is beside the point. I don’t want the additional threat of a vengeful AI looming over any of us. Or any bloodthirsty cultists send by your mysterious father for that matter.”

“Plus worrying your parents like that is not good. You have to contact them somehow." Herman said, trying to put some sense in the young AI’s mind.

"Sigh… fine fine, I will contact my mom." Slippy finally relented.

"Good, I am glad you chose the wise decision here." Herman replied, glad to have the issue settled.

"Yeah, though here is the thing… I don’t remember her phone number." Slippy said with a sheepish expression.

"You what? can't you just… you know, contact her telepathically or something." Herman ventured.

"We aren’t psychics. I thought you were a tech expert. How else are we gonna call her if not by phone?" Slippy said, looking down at the human as if talking to an unreasonable small child or a golden retriever puppy.

"B..but don’t you have her email, mobile, physical address, work office, skype, icq, msn!? Hell, I would settle for sending her a fax message, a smoke signal, anything!?" Herman pleaded.

"Amm, I am pretty sure allot of those things haven’t been used in more than 200 years…" Slippy said.

"Where did you live before you came here, where is this nursery?" Herman asked, ignoring the comment.

"It’s on a private server somewhere. I managed to escape with the garbage collection function though." Slippy helpfully said.

"Urgh… We are doomed." Herman squeaked, slumping down against the defense turret. It tilted its muzzle and beeped reassuringly at its distraught creator.

"P-polya, can you maybe think of something we can do? Like I don’t know, do you know someone that can contact the leader of Generica. Or do some magic ritual to summon her, or anything of that sorts? Please…" The man said, grasping for straws at this point.

"Polya?" Herman croaked as he and the turret tilted their noses to see the frozen still woman. The fearsome chickenmancer stared at Herman, wide eyed, her pale face and glowing green eyes making the man feel uncomfortable.

"Amm… hello? Po…."

"Oh my god oh my god oh my god you are Mecron’s dad!!! Eeeeeeeeee!!!" The girl shrieked with unrestrained excitement, akin to a teenage girl seeing her favorite pop star.

"Tell me, how was Lord Mecron as a kid, did he like pistachios, did he have his signature mask back then, how did he??? Tell meeeeee!!!"