Energy weapons have a definite advantage over firearms – destructive power. One shot is enough to make a hole in a wall built by the Ancients from a very strong material. Concrete-811, if memory serves me right.
Firearms can never do that with one shot. But, unlike energy weapons, the rate of fire of firearms, even single shots, reaches thirty to forty rounds per minute. In bursts – even a hundred.
Therefore, if I had an Ermen pistol in my hands, instead of a hole in the laboratory wall, there would be an entrance hole the size of a child's fist in the body of this humanoid scum.
Instead of that...
With a sound very similar to the meow of a displeased cat, it twisted with the grace of an acrobat, letting the charge pass over it. Then, flashing its light-colored pants, it somersaulted over its head and froze, crouching behind the replicator production machine.
"It was good equipment," I aimed at the laboratory table.
"Misha!" Chaya, like a tick, latched onto my weapon-holding hand and pulled it towards the ceiling, preventing me from firing again. "Stop it! I admit, this wasn't my best joke..."
"Joke?!" I yelled, unleashing the accumulated anger. "You, damn it, created a replicator! The most vile of all vile things!"
"I would ask you!" a tearful voice came from behind the installation. "Insulting a person on first meeting is below moral standards! You should be ashamed!"
"What were you provoking there, monster?" Pushing the Proculucian aside, I leaped next to the installation. Suppressing the urge to kick the artificial creature hiding there (a broken leg won't help me here!), I pressed the weapon to the replicator's forehead. "Well, come on, nanite shit, tell me about the robot uprising!"
The replicator, with the appearance of an innocent creature, looking exactly like the replicator that the Earth scientist created in the series, trembled, simultaneously blinking its thick eyelashes so intensely as if trying to take flight.
"This is no coincidence," thought the most adequate part of my rapidly losing touch with reality consciousness.
"Misha," Chaya's seductive voice was heard as she approached me from the other side of the installation, her hands visible. "Everything is fine... It's not what you think..."
"Uh-huh," the mechanism with the replicator's face nodded energetically. "It's really not. Not at all. I swear by atomic bonds that I am not a replicator. Black hole as my relative, if it's not true..."
It seems something broke in my brain.
"What's your name?" I remembered the etiquette of introduction.
"Fren," she said in a thin voice, looking at me with huge eyes. "Or Fran, my friends call me that."
"No way," I shook my head, pressing the emitter into her forehead. "Earthlings created a replicator. With an appearance like yours. And with a name like yours."
"Are they idiots?" the replicator's cheek twitched. "Why give a replicator a name? It's a machine..."
"Misha..." Chaya said with a sigh. "She's not a replicator... She's flesh and blood, like you and me. And she was born, not created..."
Glancing at the Ancient, I flinched for a moment, thinking that this was the moment the replicator would attack, snatch the weapon from my hands, stick her palm into my head to read data from my brain...
But no, she didn't even move.
"What game are you playing?" I asked Chaya, taking a step back and reaching for my belt. But no, not to put away the pulse pistol. "Here."
"And why do I need a knife?" Fren squeaked, seeing the handle of an Ermen combat knife in front of her.
"Cut yourself," I ordered.
"Are you sick?" she shrieked. "I won't disfigure myself!"
"I understand," Chaya said, drawing my attention, taking the knife from me. She grabbed Fren's hand and brought the knife to her fingers. "Fren, he wants to make sure you're not a replicator. And that you don't have nanites. Give me your hand."
"Pierce your own hand with a knife!" This very strange... strange... strange... In short, the one with the female face and suspicious name tried to break free, but Chaya's grip was iron. "Ow! Ow-ow-ow! It hurts! What's wrong with you?! I lay in stasis for ten thousand years just to be cut by a mad scientist and an alien from another universe?!"
"What?!" I grimaced, seeing that Fren, having squeezed her pierced and bloody finger, looked around. "Chaya, what's going on here?!"
"You don't even have anything for bandages?!" Fren sobbed. "My poor finger, I'm bleeding to death!"
"Are you satisfied now?" Chaya asked, nodding at the girl darting around the laboratory, leaving non-discoloring, non-changing bloodstains on the floor. "She's real."
"Yes, of course, she's real!" she sobbed, wrapping her finger with a bandage. And where did she get it from? "You revived me after stasis yourself! You lunatics! I thought seeing a wraith when I opened my eyes was the scariest thing, but this?! And this so soon after my resurrection?! And do you trepan the others?! Psychopaths!"
And that's when it hit me, so to speak...
"She's human," I stammered, taking a couple more steps back. I hit a wall and slid down to the floor. "Human..."
"Yes, human-human!" the girl snapped, tearing off a bandage with her teeth and starting to tie a knot. "What were you even thinking?! Is this some kind of game for you? First, you revive them, then you ask them to deal with technology, and then you try to shoot them?! If so, I'm leaving!"
"Lab assistant Fren!" Chaya barked menacingly. "Stop panicking! It's just a misunderstanding!"
"A misunderstanding?" she shrieked. "A misunderstanding is agreeing to become part of a warship's crew for a promotion! A misunderstanding is letting yourself be scanned so that ten thousand years later they create replicators based on you! But being shot at and having a rusty knife shoved into your hand without any sanitary treatment – that's not a misunderstanding! You're all crazy here!"
Lab assistant Fren.
I shifted my dazed gaze from the clearly Ancient, who couldn't bandage herself, to Chaya. We stared at each other for a couple of seconds, then she walked over and returned the knife to me. Fren's blood bloomed on the tip of the blade.
"I didn't consider that you'd be so consumed by thoughts of the replicator's danger that you wouldn't even try to talk to her," she admitted. "Honestly, I was surprised myself when I saw her among the crew members of the 'Aurora,' but when her stasis chamber started to fail, I hurried to revive her among the first. She was on the first 'jumper' that was waiting for you on Proculus. And she was the first one brought back to life... I thought there was some connection between her and the Fren replicator you mentioned..."
The Fren replicator. The very humanoid replicator that the humans created before the destruction of Asuras. It was she who activated the protocol to lure all the replicators and created the Godzilla-replicator. Although... FREN was an abbreviation, according to the human scientist... What a Canadian bullshit box! He saw this word in the device's database!
While listening to the explanation, I watched the Ancient intently, who continued to try to deal with her pricked finger.
"Crappy joke," I said to Chaya, putting my weapon back in its place and standing up. "I could have killed her!"
"Actually," Chaya said with a hint of disapproval, turning to Fren, who was still trying to tie a bandage on her finger (or create something resembling the Burj Khalifa, judging by the look of it), "I gave her my personal shield! And I asked her to turn it on!"
"And you just 'accidentally' forgot to charge it?!" the replicator-like girl grimaced. "Although, why am I complaining?! It's not your first minor slip-up, Mom!"
I felt like I'd been hit in the back with a log.
"Mom?" I asked Chaya.
The Proculucian blushed.
"I didn't say it right away because it would have taken too long to explain how it happened..."
"You know, I've heard something about meiosis..."
"Is this okay?" Selise asked, finishing the bandage. Adorning it with a neat bow, Kirik's ward smiled at her patient. "Actually, there was no need for it, as the puncture is quite small and the bleeding has already stopped."
"It makes me feel calmer," Fren shot us a look of an offended teenager. "Unless, of course, they try to shoot me again or poke me with a rusty piece of iron!"
"Hey!" I protested. "I already apologized!"
"And I have a lifelong psychological trauma!" the... Ancient retorted. If she'd stayed a moment longer, she would have stuck her tongue out.
"Is she really your daughter?" I winced, looking at Chaya, who was standing by the other side of the doorway.
"Not by blood, if that's what you mean," she said, smiling reservedly. "When I was working on the nanite project, I had a friend... She became a victim of the nanites. The only victim, if you're interested. I couldn't stop the nanites before they attacked her brain. She asked me to take care of her daughter. Fren was just about to undergo initiation..."
"I thought nanites didn't attack carriers of the Ancient gene."
"It was a prototype," Chaya explained. "After that incident, I made corrections and eliminated the code defect. Since then, I've felt responsible for Fren's life..."
Indeed...
"Does she know the truth?" I asked quietly.
"That I'm responsible for her biological mother's death?" Chaya clarified. "Yes, she knows. And she knows it was an accident. We've gone through all the awkward moments with this trauma. All this time I thought she was dead – she's from the Epheons, not a Dorandan or a Lantian. Epheon was destroyed almost in the middle of the war, without managing to develop its own defensive technology."
"Let me guess – those stasis chambers you mentioned weren't damaged, were they?" I asked.
"They were," Chaya looked at me. "I wouldn't lie about that."
"But you didn't mention the daughter..."
The Proculucian gave me a guilty look.
"It's... complicated... She's... a difficult person. Epheons only met the minimum criteria for junior races. I think if they hadn't been a fully developed civilization, they wouldn't have become part of the Confederacy... Mentally immature, as Moros used to say."
"What does that mean?" I frowned.
"And he's cute," Fren winked, approaching Chaya and standing next to her. "Even if he's nervous. Are you already married?"
"That's pretty much it," Chaya faltered. "She says what she thinks."
"I see no reason to be insincere," Fren snorted, smiling at me. "So, Mikhail is free then..."
M-Mom... Ancients with teenage behavior?! What else is missing in this 'Santa Barbara'? Incest? Betrayal by a family friend? A dark secret of a wealthy family? A slave past?
"I think I've landed in a cosmic version of 'South Central'," the confession slipped out automatically.
"And what's that?" Fren asked, interested.
"A movie from my past life," I explained. "There, a child also looked older than their parent."
It took the girl a second to understand...
"Rude," she stated and left the infirmary. "If anyone's interested, I'm going to the mess hall! I need nutrients to recover from my physical wound and soothe my offended virtue!"
"Check in with Trebal when you get there," I shouted after her. "She'll give you some life-giving medicine for growing up!"
The girl pretended not to hear me.
"How old is she?" I asked Chaya. "Fifteen? Thirteen?"
"Biologically, her cells are over ten thousand years old," Selise's voice came. "And they're in excellent condition."
Right... We have another teenager on our conscience. As if we didn't have enough trouble, the devils decided to add more.
"Don't you have work to do?" I asked Kirik's ward.
"I'm running a few tests, but nothing special," she smiled. "If anything, I'm free."
"Then you can start studying the medical database," Chaya said with the smile of a kind teacher who makes you clean the fifth-graders' classroom after six lessons when it's already May outside.
"With pleasure," Selise said, a little sadly, returning to the infirmary. "I don't need the holographic room anymore anyway, so I'll look at the database from the sickbay..."
"We need to talk in private," I nodded to Chaya, gesturing towards the corridor.
"Just not in the sickbay or the mess hall," she understood my hint. "There's a small lounge area nearby..."
The latter were scattered all over the city. It gave the impression that the Ancients just rested every hundred meters.
Filling a couple of glasses with water from the ancient equivalent of a cooler, proudly called a drinking fountain, Chaya handed me one and sat down on the sofa.
"You have many questions," she stated.
"Yes, and I'm afraid to write them down so that no one finds the records and considers me a two-faced psychopath," the water was cold and refreshing.
"I think I deserve it," Chaya smiled, taking a sip of her drink. "But you're not going to ask about that, are you?"
"I've already asked my question."
"She underwent initiation at fifteen," Chaya understood me immediately. "Since then, her biological aging... I'd say it's slowed down. After this therapy, Ancients can live for several hundred years – it just depends on the development of their initial physiology."
"And..."
"She's a little over seventy."
"You wouldn't guess she's over fifty," I winced, taking another sip. "And..."
"Yes?" Chaya looked at me innocently.
"Well..."
"Yes?" she glanced even more playfully.
"You know what I want to ask," a sigh of helplessness escaped my chest.
"I can guess, but I'll keep silent," she smiled mysteriously. "And no, you're wrong. I'm older than her... Technically," she added, after thinking for a moment. "Probably by giving up my Ascended state, I returned to the appearance I had in my prime physical condition."
"Let's agree that you're no older than thirty," I suggested.
"Twenty-five," she said, widening her eyes.
"The universe, the galaxy, the race changes, but the female approach to calculating one's age remains the same," I sighed.
"This is dictated by biological needs and programs of the female body, as well as stimulating attractiveness for the opposite sex, where a younger age serves as a synonym for fertility," the Ancient stated.
I massaged my temple.
"We need a stop word," I voiced my thoughts. "So you understand when not to lecture me in conversation."
"Understood," Chaya nodded. "Chuan'duraatoros-shink."
"Bless you," I said.
"That was the stop word," the Ancient replied. "Literal translation into Proculucian."
"And I thought you sneezed... Chua... Chupacabra?"
"Close," Chaya said, covering her mouth with her hand, unable to hide the amusement in her eyes. "But my literature teacher would have hit you on the head with a cane for that."
"He was a tough guy," I assessed.
"It was a woman, and she was seventy-three years old," Chaya corrected me. "But a very feisty and demanding old lady. My head always hurt after her classes."
"Well, there you go," I sighed. "First, we hit girls on the head, and then we wonder why they grow up to be fools."
"Misha," Chaya widened her eyes.
"Okay, let's get back to our problems. Did Fren work on the nanite project?"
"In its initial stages, which the Lantians conducted here, on Atlantis," Chaya switched to a businesslike tone instantly. "She's a lab assistant, a junior researcher. Like a technician for engineers. She performed technical work, serviced equipment, and so on."
"Did you learn anything new from her?"
"Not as much as I'd like," Chaya admitted. "The project was indeed developed here, on Atlantis. Under Janus's leadership. At some point, when the nanites started rewriting their basic coding, excluding key algorithms, the project was moved to Asuras. Fren says that the Asurs scanned the technical personnel before that."
"Why?"
"That happened for various reasons," Chaya mused. "Giving holograms their appearance, for example."
"Or replicators," I suggested.
"I had the same thought," the Proculucian admitted. "In the base code, in your and Fren's words, there's a prohibition on copying appearance."
"Of Ancients, living and dead," I recalled.
"Ah, here we made a mistake," Chaya said. "The prohibition on copying appearance and causing harm applied only to Lantians. At least, while the project was here."
"Uh-oh," I said. "The Lantians were in charge of the project, and the technical staff could be at risk?"
"It seems so," Chaya agreed. "I wanted Fren to tell you everything herself, but..."
"Don't drag it out," I waved my hand. "I already have no illusions about my biological relatives."
"When the project started to get out of control, when the first cases of uncontrolled nanite development into more complex structures appeared, the Lantians stopped visiting the laboratory. Only technical personnel worked there. Janus and others controlled everything remotely."
After thinking, I said, "If everything had gone downhill, only the technicians would have suffered. And the Lantians could have stopped them."
"Or they could have recorded the scale of nanite changes and their methods of attacking people," Chaya added. "But no fatal cases were recorded. The project was sent to Asuras. Janus personally negotiated with the Asur leader about it. And the device was returned after it became known about the development of a nanite colony into humanoid replicators. The Lantians went to Asuras and returned from there with the installation. Fren says they resumed experiments, then stopped them without any explanation. And after some time, it became known that Asuras was destroyed. Initially, it was said that the cause was an attack by Wraiths. Then there were rumors of a technological accident."
"And there were no rumors that the Lantians destroyed them?" I asked.
"There were," Chaya sighed. "When, in the midst of the war, the fleet defending Atlantis suddenly jumps into hyperspace, questions arise. I think the truth actually surfaced because someone from the crew let it slip."
"In any case, this information doesn't give us much," I concluded. "Well, the Lantians lied about destroying everything there. It happens. After all, the planet was taken over by replicators capable of penetrating a human body and killing it by destroying all cells. Anyone would be scared."
"Understanding the root cause gives us a path to finding a solution," Chaya said philosophically. "Misha, Fren and I looked at the data on the device that produced the nanites."
"We're not going to create replicators," I cut her off.
"I wasn't looking for that," Chaya said. "I wanted to understand how General Hippaphoralkus managed so quickly, that the Ascended couldn't stop him, to reprogram a device that created inanimate technology into something that created a human body. And a developed human body at that."
I was silent for a moment.
Took a sip.
Another.
"I have a bad feeling," I admitted. "Just don't tell me he didn't create my body."
"Technically he did... Misha, how much longer?!"
Her last exclamation referred to me taking out the knife and cutting my hand with it.
Since my first excursion beyond Atlantis, I had been under a personal shield. So I couldn't get any damage. And I couldn't check if my wounds would heal either.
The cut on my hand bled a thin stream, dripping onto my uniform. Drip, drip...
I wiped the blood with my sleeve and looked at the cut. A normal skin incision that wasn't healing at all.
"I scanned you with a medical scanner," Chaya reminded me. "If there were nanites in your body, they would have shown up on the monitor. Your body is clean, there are no nanites in it."
"But they created my body, didn't they?" I asked.
"Yes," Chaya said. "You were created by nanites, Misha. And, judging by the latest data in the device, that was the Lantians' last work with this machine. They were trying to create more developed Lantian bodies using nanites."