The Mech Touch

"What is the point of biomechs?"

"Pardon, sir?" Avalon Perris looked confused.

"Seriously speaking, why would people want to field biomechs when there is always a chance they can turn into beasts?"

The woman frowned as she turned to Ves. Though she still felt disturbed by the massacre she had just witnessed, she did not lose her pride as a biomech designer.

"Sir, biomechs have almost never gone rogue. While I cannot rule out the possibility that a handful of isolated organic machines have gotten out of control, it is always the fault of their creators. They overestimated their capabilities and engaged in experiments they did not fully comprehend."

Ves gestured at the empty cultivation tanks. "Like the Supreme Sage?"

"Don't lump the Supreme Sage with those incompetents! This is completely different! Project Cyclops is still incomplete and the unfinished specimens need a lot of debugging before they are ready for use. I think the performance they have shown so far is quite decent considering their current state. Besides, out-of-control machines are not a problem that is exclusive to biomechs and other bioproducts. Mechanical battle bots are also prone to behaving outside of their parameters if their programming is tampered with. There is no difference in this regard."

Ves didn't agree with this assertion, but this was not the time to hold a debate over this issue, so he declined to argue any further.

To be honest, the more he stayed in this state, the sooner he wanted to leave it all behind. While Dr. Perris was right that machines could be subverted, at least the deviations still fell within an expected range.

It was a lot harder to predict what would happen when it came to organic products coming to life!

Once they grew a mind of their own, their complex biology and brain structure affected them in many different ways.

Biomech designers and beast designers liberally spliced both human and alien genes together in order to develop a new species that was capable of performing different jobs.

The problem with this was that it was difficult to determine the exact roles of every single gene. Perhaps one gene allowed an organism to develop a thicker skin, but it could also cause the creature to develop a hunger for human skin!

Genes also interacted with each other in many different ways, some of which couldn't be modeled. This was also one of the underlying reasons why so many powerful leaders went mad during the Age of Conquest. The geneticists who cooked up radically new gene templates never bothered to test their innovations over long periods of time.

The market for genetic modification was so competitive back then that the regulations at the time were wholly inadequate to ensure that the industry leaders performed their due diligence.

This example illustrated the many dangers of messing with the building blocks of life. Unlike mechanical creations, living organisms possessed a lot more depth.

"The cyclopes are doing something." Dr. Perris noted as she looked at the footage transmitted from the spy drones their team had deployed.

The monstrous humanoids had already cleaned up all of the bodies by stuffing them into their apparently-functioning stomachs. It did not matter if they swallowed entire pieces of hard bone metal armor. None of the tall beasts appeared to be suffering from any stomach aches.

Apart from hunting down the stragglers that were spread elsewhere on this floor, the cyclopes hadn't done anything else for a time.

Only after they eliminated the final straggler did they begin to follow a new set of instructions. The fifty cyclopes all gathered together again and moved to a specific corridor. Once they arrived in front of an entrance, they stopped and turned as silent as statues.

The transition from rampaging and maneating beasts to completely silent and frozen bioproducts was uncanny. Ves wasn't sure which of these two facades reflected the unfinished creations better.

"I think we need to move forward." He said. "The way ahead is clear now. The opposition… has been taking care of, so we don't have to worry about tipping off our presence in this lab."

The cyclopes had been quite thorough in that. They not only 'removed' every human in the lab aside from his own men, the giant humanoids also wrecked all of the organic machines and equipment that didn't belong to the pinnacle lab.

The team of Larkinsons cautiously advanced forward and got closer to the bloodstained decks and the stinking detritus that were too small to eat for the big monsters.

Both Ves and Dr. Perris decided that they weren't in a hurry to advance all the way towards the entrance to the next floor. They instead opted to enter every lab room in order to check up on the research projects they hosted.

Different from the lab rooms of the previous floors, the ones they just entered all showed signs of human activity.

The scientists that had intruded into the room had forcibly taken or disassembled some special lab machines. Some of the storage tanks containing valuable specimens had been torn apart. Even the local databases showed signs of tampering and intrusion.

Fortunately, the research data was still intact. The ones that came before showed at least some restraint.

The various experiments on this floor were mostly related to Special Project 'U'. Ves and Dr. Perris encountered various studies where the Supreme Sage sought to improve various capabilities related to large organic products.

They clearly found references that also tied back into Project Cyclops.

None of the research projects he stumbled upon impressed him in any way. They weren't relevant to his core interests and he didn't see how he could use any of it in his own work.

Though Dr. Perris was much more fascinated at the high-level projects that the Supreme Sage engaged in, much of it was too complicated for her to work with. The sheer amount of high technology involved in the advanced studies was so excessive that she didn't have any hopes of completing any of the projects without access to the right specialty machines!

Ves didn't want to get too distracted at this time. The current floor may have been cleared of human threats, but who knew if those cyclopes would snap and treat Ves and his men as their next meals!

"Don't forget about our main goal. We may have gotten closer to the core of the pinnacle lab, but it's clear that this floor doesn't contain what we want."

If the pinnacle lab had five floors in total, then they were merely on the fourth. The one above them ought to be the most central and heavily-guarded location. There was a significant chance that Ves would be able to access Special Project 'V' and be able to retrieve the serum produced by the Supreme Sage if he moved again!

Yet before he moved past the waiting cyclopes and entered one of the teleportation portals that connected to a different floor, he took some time to study the possessions of the soldiers who previously occupied this floor.

It was not easy to retrieve any useful information out of the broken parts. The giant one-eyed monsters had eaten a lot of bioequipment and crushed everything else that they didn't want to consume.

Ves carefully poked a pile of scattered flesh with a spare rod until he managed to fish out an amputated forearm.

A set of enormous teeth had sheared the limb off its original owner. Ves guessed that the individual in question ended up in the stomach of a cyclops while this loose arm coincidentally fell to the ground.

"Yes! I knew it! This guy still wore a biocomm at the time of his death!"

He clearly spotted a slender bone-like bracelet wrapped around the wrist. Once Dr. Perris pulled out the biocomm with a disgusted expression, she carefully attempted to access the device.

Though both Lucky and Ves possessed advanced hacking tools, none of it was very effective against biological devices. Aside from being able to hack simple bioproducts whose bioprogramming closely mirrored that of regular machines, many other devices were simply too different!

This was why Ves had little choice but to wait for Avalon Perris to issue her judgement. She turned the biocomm around a couple of times while she attempted to access its contents with the help of her cranial implant.

She shook her head. "I don't specialize in biohacking, so it is considerably challenging for me to access the data stored in this device. I can already tell you that this is a military-grade biocomm, and not a regular one either. It has already wiped all of its data once it realized that its carrier has likely died."

Ves and Dr. Perris continued to search around. They found more biocomms and other small devices, but their security measures were so thorough that it was impossible to retrieve any useful data from those devices.

Perris finally managed to achieve a breakthrough when she found a broken biocomm. Though the device had been snapped in half and couldn't be booted up anymore, Perris was still able to access some surface-level data from an organic component that acted as a temporary cache.

While the data stored on the chance should have been wiped out as well, this routine somehow failed to activate when the biocomm got snapped.

"Look at this, sir. I think we can determine the identity and allegiance of these soldiers."

From what little data that Perris managed to pull out, the owner of the biocomm was a soldier who quit the military and joined a private military corporation that answered directly to the conservative faction.

Every soldier who died in this lab room used to be tasked with guarding the scientists who were digging around on this floor. It was only later that they encountered invaders who entered the pinnacle lab from another entrance.

"Poor fellows." Ves shook his head. "These soldiers fought and died for a cause that isn't related to them in any way. No matter who manages to retrieve all of the research data and abscond with the serum produced by the Supreme Sage, none of it will benefit the average Lifers."

Despite being responsible for unleashing the monsters that cruelly killed them all, Ves sympathized with the plight of the soldiers. They were just following orders and acting like any pawn should act.

Years ago, Ves used to be in the same position as these slain soldiers. He suffered so much during the Aeon Corona Mission that he developed a strong desire to never serve as a pawn to anyone else ever again!

Fortunately, he succeeded. By breaking away from the Bright Republic and founding a nomadic clan, it was no longer mandatory for Ves to rely on any state and its rulers.

Of course, the Larkinson Clan was still far from becoming a completely independent entity. It still relied way too much on states for manpower, resources and revenue.

The expeditionary fleet in its current state was not fit enough to become completely self-sufficient. Ves still needed to obtain several critical capital ships and expand some of the neglected aspects of his organization in order to achieve an acceptable degree of self-sufficiency.

Until then, Ves would still remain vulnerable to the whims of others. The situation he was currently in was a direct consequence of that, but he wasn't complaining too much right now because he still had hope of leaving this planet with the most valuable prize on the planet in his possession!

"We've learned enough. Let's go. According to the scattered data we've managed to retrieve, the core labs are located on the next floor."

They moved to the entrance of one of the teleportation portals that led up. This unfortunately brought them closer to the unmoving cyclopes, who remained unmoving while they stood on two sides of a corridor.

It was quite eerie to walk between the giant figures. Their mouths and chests were still stained with dried, coagulated human blood.

When they finally reached a teleportation portal, it didn't activate as normal.

Instead, it expanded in size. Even though the active energies in middle looked increasingly unstable, the portal diameter had grown so big that Ves already had an idea what would happen next.

"Move out of the way!"

The Larkinsons stepped to the side just in time for the cyclopes to come close and pass through the expanded gateway one by one. As these bloodied giants entered the next floor, Ves knew he didn't have to worry about bumping into any hostile humans when he followed suit.

The only downside was that he wouldn't be able to distance himself from the maneating monsters!

"What are these giant beasts doing? What is their mission?"