43_The plot thickens

"And remember that old Norwegian seed vault where we first met Bertha?" Herman asked with a chuckle.

"Ah yes, that stuff did taste quite, exotic…" Genady said in his characteristical mousy demeanor, shivering with distaste at the unpleasant memory.

"Ah it wasn't that bad, we would have starved if not for those seeds. And besides I did manage to convince Bertha that I saved up all the genetic profiles of her precious plants on my dongle."

"Heh, as far as I can remember she wasn't particularly pleased about that dongle of yours. To her those seeds were priceless, she guarded them as jealously as a dragon did its horde. Each pack was preserved and stored with utmost care, in the hopes of humanity using them to revive the earth."

“"They survived the bombs, the radiation and the nanoids, but they couldn't survive you hungry apes…” That is a direct quote." Genady said, doing his best impersonation of their crazy botanist friend.

"She was this close of shooting all of us back then. Probably could have used our bodies for fertilizer…" Genady added again but in his normal voice, twitching at the imagery of him ending up as fertilizer for one of her beloved plants.

"Well I am glad she didn't. If it wasn't for that crazy troglodyte hiding away in the frozen tundra with her treasure of seeds, Genady, me and Radek would never have survived that winter." Herman said to the rest of his party.

"I am just glad that dongle of yours worked, and none of the genetic material was lost. If not I am sure Bertha would have ended us all as recompense."

"Oh, actually, how is my nephew doing? All I hear about him these days is whatever the propaganda in the news says." Genady asked, genuinely curious to find out how has the young rascal doing.

"Oh you know, he is doing fine. The Escaldian gov is giving him problems, but it isn't anything he couldn't deal with." Herman explained.

…

The brothers talked for a while longer, both glad to have met each other again, even if their meeting was in the digital afterlife.

Herman sipped from the offered lemonade and wondered how to approach the sensitive topic on his mind. At the end he just went straight for it. He himself wasn’t the best person to navigate the social seas, and his brother appreciated directness and honesty above all else anyway.

"Genady, how did you die ?" Herman finally asked.

At the memory of his death the man began shaking his head with frustration. Finally the Frogomancer closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then released it with a long tired sigh.

“You know how before you died in that unicorn retirement home of yours, you sent us the solution to your part of the project. I think someone intercepted the transmission and, well… everything after that went to hell…"

Herman immediately perked up, with all that had happened recently, he had completely forgotten about his research.

"Project?" Polya interjected, curious to learn more of what was Herman doing in his original life.

"Oh yes, it was THE research". Genady replied, eager to postpone the story of his death a little bit longer.

"Me Herman and Bertha had a dream. A crazy foolish dream. To restore Earth back to its former glory. To revive it from the dead husk it currently is and bring back the plants, the animals and all of nature." The shy man said with unusual passion.

"Yes, Genady is an expert in zoology specializing in cloning, and Bertha is the best botanist in the solar system. Both are highly skilled geneticists. And I was the resident tech expert and nanotinkerer." Herman said, realizing that his friend was shifting the topic a bit, but letting him talk regardless.

"Hmm, I get the botany and zoology, but what does nanotinkering have to do with those two?" Polya again asked.

"Ah but that is the beauty of our plan." Genady eagerly replied. "You see, many people have tried to revive Earths corpse. None have succeeded, because of one simple fact." The man said, stopping to give his audience a time to guess what he meant.

Polya looked interested, though hadnt yet figured out what the mousy scientist wanted them to say. Heartsun still felt uncomfortable in the presence of this person who looked at him as if the plant monster were a prized cow at the local fair. And Slippy had fallen asleep again.

Staple though knew exactly what the scientist meant.

"Nanoids." She clucked.

"Exactly!" The druid exclaimed, not even batting an eye that the chicken he wanted to turn into soup few minutes ago, had just spoken and solved his riddle.

"Every time someone tried to terraform a patch of land, the nanoids immediately took offense to it, they ate up the equipment and tried to consume the foolish humans that dared to encroach on their territory. But that is where Herman comes in.”

“His job was to wangle down the nanoids into submission, so that they would implement my and Bertha’s orders and do the terraforming for us. After all, nanoids are good at replicating foreign technology and integrating it into themselves. So why not do the same for biological matter." The zoologist spoke with passion.

"Heh, he is making it sound much easier than it actually is, but in general terms is correct." Herman pointed out.

"We all had a shared dream, and the tools to achieve it, given time and funds from the Escaldian Government. Though as time went on, our time grew short as well. After I couldn't walk anymore, I was forced to retire to the nursing home… My body was failing, but I had to finish my part of the project.”

“Genady and Bertha were already done with theirs, and were waiting on me for the final piece of the puzzle. But I just couldn't figure it out… It had taken me decades to get to this point, and the final piece eluded me… How could I force all the nanoids to do what we wanted?"

"For a wile I thought I would die without defeating this final boss, this final challenge of life."

"And then what happened?" Polya said, curiosity plastered on her face. The girl had died all too young and never experienced much of the real world. So every scrap of trivia or curious information about it was precious to her.

"Well, long story short, I got my inspiration and completed the script. Then I send the data to the rest of my team and died the next morning. After that I ended up here." Herman said, gesturing wide with his hands around him.

"I am curious to find out what happened after though. Did you manage to put all the pieces together, did the Escaldian government produce the equipment for full scale radio dispersal?" The nano-tinkerer asked.

"I..I am sorry Herman…" Genady said, lowering his head in a mix of shame and frustration.

"Me and Bertha tried to stop him, we really did, but… he was so strong! He even managed to defeat the escaldian sci-fi troopers assigned to protect the lab. Their power armor and huge plasma rifles did nothing against his carapace. It was like the soldiers were shooting popcorn at him."

"I have never seen something like that in real life… All the stories of super powered beings were true after all, I always thought it was propaganda until I saw it with my own eyes." The Frogomancer said, shaking his head with emotion.

"Genady what are you talking about!? What happened there?" Herman said.

"The research Herman, he stole the research!" Genady exclaimed.

"What?! How, who, who did this!?" Herman asked with disbelief.

"It was him, Herman, it was… THE MAYOR!" Genady declared, his usually quiet voice now full with righteous anger, spitting the word as if it was a mortal insult and slamming his fist at the wooden table, shattering it to pieces.

The lemonade glasses fell and broke against the wooden floor, everyone from the party flinching back at the sudden display of force.

…

In an instant the raw emotions vanished from the face of the Frogomancer, replaced with surprise and shame for causing such a commotion. He wasn't a violent man, on the contrary, he despised violence. But the disregard for his team’s life and the theft of his life’s work had brought him over the edge.

"I, I am so sorry, I dint mean to, ah dammit, look what I did. I am so sorry everyone…" The man profusely apologized, stammering the words out and kneeling down to try and collect the rubble in a pile, using only his bare hands and ignoring the razor-sharp jagged edges of the glasses scraping over his skin, which seemed to not harm the man whatsoever.

"Please, please sit, sit, I am so sorry." Genady again apologized to his startled guests.

At the end the mess was cleared and everyone sat back down. The druid hastily gave everyone new glasses and poured more lemonade while apologizing yet again.

This time they held the newly distributed lemonade glasses in their hands, considering the table was nothing more than a pile of rubble.

"It’s okay Genady, don’t worry about it, it’s just pixels anyway. Hell, I myself am struggling with figuring out how strong I am all the time. My stats seem to jump up rapidly every time I sneeze, so I completely understand." Herman tried to reassure his anxious little brother.

___

Eventually the man calmed down and continued his story.

"I think Bertha managed to run away, but I don’t know what happened to her after that. I haven’t seen her here so she might still be alive. As for me… I tried to save Larry from the crossfire between the soldiers and that crab monster. I just managed to get him out of his containment cage and then… then everything went dark… The first thing I remember after that is me and him somehow waking up in the neutral zone." Genady said.

"I am not really sure how exactly did we end up here, last time I heard the integration machinery was quite bulky and clumsy thing to just carry around, let alone in the middle of a firefight. Still… I am glad that me and Larry arrived here together. I don’t know what I would have done without my faithful friend." Genady said as he pulled out the friend in question from his robe sleeve.

The chubby toad remained entirely unperturbed, having hidden away all this time. It leaned into Genady’s gentle strokes while its eyes glinted with malice, daring the startled guests to make a wrong move.

"Stay down everyone". Herman said, gesturing back with one hand at his startled companions, each one uncertain of what to do at the sight of the creepy albino toad.

The beast regarded them with its cold amphibian eyes, as if they were tasty flies about to be turned into snacks.

Herman tried to calm down his teammates, but that by itself was easier said than done. He himself was having hard time with following his own advice as he looked back with a grimace at the albino toad in his brother’s hands.

Of course it had to be that cursed toad…

He never really liked the damn critter to begin with. He always felt like the blasted thing was much more intelligent than it pretended to be.

It was their first attempt at recreating a living breathing being in a controlled environment. The beasty had lived, and without any health complications, but to Herman it always seemed like there was something very, very wrong with it…

He himself had considered shoving it in the incinerator on multiple occasions, but for some reason his little brother had grown attached to the creature. Thus destroying it had became just a fever dream of his.

He had in fact began to grow suspicious when he saw the green toads hopping around the neutral zone. But they weren’t albino’s so he quickly dismissed his concerns.

After the warefrog cultists chanted the name of Larry, he again began to grow suspicious, but Larry was a common name… It could have been any other Larry out there, it wasn't THAT unusual to…

Herman mentally sighed… Oh who was he kidding, the time for deluding himself was at an end. He knew things were related to that demonic toad the moment he first saw its clones…

Putting those thoughts aside for the moment, Herman continued to question his little brother.

"By mayor do you mean the Mayor of Fence Town?" Herman asked as he guardedly eyed the albino monster in the man’s arms.

"Yes exactly him." Genady replied as he continued to stroke the back of Larry Prime.

"Crab legs, carapaced body, humanoid arms, gray skin and carapace and beastly humanoid head, dressed in fancy over the top suit?" Polya said, describing the sleazy corrupt Mayor of the Generica border settlement of Fence Town.

"Yes that is the one." Genady confirmed.

"But he is digital, we all are! How could he be the one responsible for stealing the research and your death?" Polya questioned.

"I know what I saw." The man said with a defensive tone. The chubby toad in his hands reacting to its master’s mood and threateningly puffing up, squinting at the guests with killing intent, ready to pounce.

Genady however immediately stroked Larry on the back, the familiar gesture serving to calm the beast down.

"I am sorry… He was there, I am absolutely sure of it." Genady eventually said, his voice much calmer. "Not only that, but he was completely immune to the plasma attacks of the Escaldian troopers. He just casually walked in past all the defenses as if he was strolling in the park. I would never forget the visage of that monster."

…

"Then the rumors were true, there is a connection between the real and virtual world after all. I harbored hope that for once the news were telling the truth, but now I have proof." Polya said as if to herself. Her dream of being a real life superhero didn’t seem so unattainable after all…

"But why would he do any of this?" Herman said, doing his best to ignore all this superhero business. He had known for quite a while that there was much more to the world of Generica than anyone suspected.

Thanks to his son he was even acquainted with a few of the real life super heroes/villains out there. Of course none of them had shared the secret to the source of their powers. There seemed to be some sort of restriction or oath they were all under. Still, he had his suspicions.

Regardless of any of that, in the here and now, he wanted to figure out why had anyone stolen his research and caused the death of one, possibly two of his friends. And not to mention all the soldiers guarding the lab.

"But why would the Mayor steal the research? What possible benefit would a digital crab have with a terraforming project!?" He eventually said.

"If anything the rest of humanity should have invested interest in reviving the world. Nobody likes living in the frozen behind of the planet. Hell, with what we have achieved, this technology could be used to terraform other planets too. Humanity could expand and prosper with the nanoids manufacturing everything for us, this could literally be the key to a golden age of humanity!"

"Why would anyone want to steal the research!? Everyone is gaining from the outcome regardless of who has the technology." Herman wondered, unable to understand why anyone would go to such trouble.

"Herman… you might be smart enough to break through the unbreakable nanoid mental defences, and yet stupid enough not to see what is in front of your nose." Staple said, shaking her beak in disapproval.

"Huh, what do you mean? I don’t understand." The old man asked in confusion.

"Isn't it obvious, the clues are all around us." Staple said, spreading her feathery wings to encompass everything around them.

"The research was stolen so that you wouldn't give it away to others. You might intend to use the nanoids for terraforming, creating food, water, medicine. But what do you think the humans in charge would use it for…" Not giving any time for the bewildered scientist to answer, Staple ventured on.

"For weapons! For war! Control over others! That is what humans do. It is encoded in their genes. You obviously haven't followed the political situation out there. But the city of Escaldia and the rest of the splinter colonies and scattered space stations in the Solar System are at the brink of full scale war with each other."

"Probably the Mayor is working for one of those factions. They will use your research to subjugate the rest of humanity to their will!" The assassin chicken said, having no remorse in revealing the dark truth to the idealistic human.

"N..no, no this can't be right, I... I, all this time we wanted to save humanity, not bring another dark age!" Herman said, his breaths rising, shaking his head as if to disprove what the bot was suggesting.

"Giving a free reign to nanoids to wage war is what caused the apocalypse to begin with. Nobody would be stupid enough to do the same madness again." Herman finally countered.

"Are you sure? How many times in your history have humans repeated the same catastrophic mistakes over and over again, despite the inevitable consequences?" Staple countered.

"No, no, I can't believe it! Staple, I am not some idealist who doesn't see the dark side of humanity, on the contrary, I have seen way too much of it. But I also know the stigma around nanoids and all things mechanical. Hell I don’t have to tell you that. Almost every human out there is hating mechanoids, AI’s and most of all Nanoids with fanatical passion."

"Tell her Genady, tell her that she is wrong." Herman said, trying to get support from his brother. However the zoologist averted his gaze and stared at the ground.

"Genady?" Herman questioned, uncertainty in his voice.

"I am sorry Herman, the talking chicken is right… When Generica used those towers to attack the internet, it shot a nanoid swarm at the clouds above the Internet metropolis. Those amphibians infecting it were created with my technique of biological reconstruction.”

“You are standing in the midst of the first testing of weaponized nanoids in more than 100 years."