by

Yanick Champoux (38%)

Lee Watts (18%)

Josip Nað (17%)

Michel Lacombe (16%)

Dorian (4%)

goldkngt55 (3%)

Andrew Avila (2%)

Marten (1%)

Oliver (1%)

Part 46

Josip Nað (24/5/2002)

Sergei's lifeless body floated limply in the dining room, globules of blood and brain tissue sorrounding his blasted head like a reddish halo. Nobody could have survived such a wound, and Sergei was no exception. However, deep inside his chest cavity, a powerful think machine was now initiating a program. Unlike the complex organ that had been blasted to oblivion mere moments ago, the computer didn't posses a shred of intelligence. It merely monitored the blood pressure, the rate of heartbeat, the rate of breathing and the electrical activity of the brain. And right now, all the measurements were showing a straight line. Sergei was dead, but the computer didn't care. Its program merely forked down another path, one that it had never followed before. It started a child process, compiling a piece of code. Once the code was compiled, the program executed it. In a true act of parenticide, the new code's first step was to delete the original program and to take all the think machine's reasources for itself. But the worst was yet to come. The new program accessed the very large capacity storage area attached to the think machine and checked the timestamp of the recordings that it could find there. Selecting the recording with the latest timestamp, the program quickly and efficiently compressed it and appended its own executable to it. Then it fired up the short-range transmitter attached to the think-machine and sent the transmission out. Twice. By the time the transmitter was done, there was a large charred spot on the body's chest. It didn't matter, for the transmission had already flown on the wings of radio waves and found the appropriate host.

Trotting briskly behind his nephew, Skull felt an odd tingle at the back of his head. His radio receiver had just received a transmission. Flicking a shred of his attention to it, he noticed it was a program.

"How odd." thought Skull absentmindedly. He was just about to dismiss it offhand when the proverbial lightbulb blinked over his head. Who could be sending a large program over the radio? And then a very real warning light flashed in his mind. The program had executed itself! It had executed itself and there was supposed to be no bloody way for it.....

AAAAGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH! Skull's high pitched scream ripped through the corridors and Maddie almost jumped out of her skin. What the hell? She whirled around, only to see the old man thrashing wildly on the floor. His mouth emmitted a high-pitched, ululating scream, his hands and feet flailed wildly around, his eyes flared wide open at one moment only to end up clenched in the next, foam and blood from his bitten tongue started coming out of his mouth. Suddenly, his body stopped thrashing and he stopped screaming. His muscles twisted into knots, his body tensed like a coiled spring and twisted like a pretzel, the old man almost hung in mid-air on his plams and feet. Then, just as explosively as they had tensed, the muscles went limp and the old man flopped on the floor, the puddle that started spreading from between his legs and the stench that started emanating from him mute witnesses that he had soiled himself.

"What was this?" muttered Maddie under her breath.

"I don't know." replied Demuel "But, if I had to guess, I'd say that all the excitement was too much for the old geezer. He's just had a seizure of some kind and I'd say he's gone."

"You think he's dead?" asked Maddie incredulously.

"Deader than an Avestite's common sense." replied Demuel.

"Still, let's check" replied Maddie and bent forward to grab the old man's wrist so that she could check for pulse.

HOST ACQUIRED. ATTACKER PROGRAM INSTALLED. HOST ELECTRONIC MEMORY DELETED. HOST BIOLOGICAL MEMORY WIPED. ERASURE OF HOST PERSONALITY TOTAL. UNCOMPRESSING BACKUP PERSONALITY. BACKUP PERSONALITY UNCOMPRESSED. BACKUP PERSONALITY INSTALLED SUCCESSFULLY. BEGIN AUTOMATIC RESTART OF BACKUP PERSONALITY. BACKUP PERSONALITY RESTARTED SUCCESSFULLY.

The large green letters that scrolled across Sergei's face meant nothing to him. He was there, and he wasn't. He floated weightlessly in perfect darkness. He screamed trapped in a robotic body. He felt an old heart, many times enhanced, beting in his chest. He tried to move his hand, but it wasn't there. Then it was there, but it wasn't his. His hand used to be young. This one was old and wrinkled, with metal skeleton and artificial tendons. He opened his eyes but they weren't his. His eyes were young, these were old, frail and yet strong, foggy and yet sharp. Mulitple greenish lines, crosshairs, menus and icons scrolled across Sergei's field of view, clearly visible over the background blur. Slowly but surely, the blur solidified.

Arrrr... 'OOOOOOO aaRRRiiiiGGGt??? The voice, if it was a voice, was a blurred jackhammer in the ears that were not his. Suddenly, bold green letters appeared superimposed over Sergei's field of view.

SENSORY AND MOTORIC DIFFERENCES MAPPED. COMPENSATING.

Suddenly, everything sprang into clearness. He had a body again, two hands, two feet, ears, eyes, a bitten tongue that had already stopped bleading. And he had cybernetics. A veritable treasure cache of cybernetics. And he had his memories. He had the memory of that same woman, who was now leaning over him, pointing a gun at his face. He also had a smug memory of "there's no way she's gonna kill me" kind. Well, she obviously had killed him. Fortunately that the personality backup device had functioned properly. Now, if he could only...

"Are you all right?" the woman, who was now shaking his shoulder, wanted to know. "We thought you were dead." she added.

"Never again." snarled Sergei through gritted teeth, and activated his personal defense field.

The woman looked at him blankly, and then yelped as the activated field singed her hand. Her yelp of pain was all the enticement Sergei needed. His limbs a blur, he sprang to his feet, tearing the woman's pistol from her belt, kicking her in the belly and sending her spinning into the nearest wall. The woman was good. Even completely surprised as she was, she had managed to land a telling blow at his crotch. Fortunately, it was as effective as throwing pebbles at a concrete wall when pitted against his field.

"Whoever you were, you sure knew your cyberware." thought Sergei silently towards the man his reviving had killed, and then, out of sheer paranoia, ran a quick check of all the places where a personality backup might be stored. Nope. The attacker had wiped that other guy's personality clean off the board.

The woman tried to use this momentary introspection by launching herself at him. She swung at him left and right but he dodged or blocked with ease. Then, checking a hypothesis, he grabbed both her hands with his, turning the contest into a pure contest of strength. Yes. Just as he had thought. The old man's body, enhanced as it was, was more than a match for hers. Out of sheer joy for being alive he headbutted her and then used her moment of confusion to steal a passionate kiss, managing to draw back his tongue just in time to avoid losing it when her jaws closed with an audible snap. His face split by a wide grin, Sergei laughed loudly, then tossed her away almost negligently. There was a quotation that his father often used, and he couldn't think of a more appropriate time to say it.

"The Wheel of Fortune goes round and round.
What comes up, must come down."