Energy weapons have an undeniable advantage over firearms — destructive power. One shot is enough to punch a hole in a wall built by the Ancients from very strong material. Concrete-811, if memory serves.
A firearm could never do that with one shot. But, unlike energy weapons, the rate of fire of a firearm, even in semi-automatic, reaches thirty to forty rounds per minute. On full auto, it can get up to a hundred.
So, if I'd had the pistol from Ermen in my hand, instead of a hole in the lab wall, there would have been an entrance wound the size of a child's fist in the body of that humanoid filth.
Instead...
With a sound very much like an annoyed cat's meow, it twisted with the grace of an acrobat, dodging the shot over itself. Then, flashing its light-colored pants, it somersaulted and froze, crouching behind the replicator creation machine.
"That was good equipment," I aimed at the lab table.
"Misha!" Chaya latched onto my weapon hand like a tick and pulled it toward the ceiling, stopping me from firing again. "Stop! I admit, it wasn't my best joke..."
"Joke?" I shouted, venting all the anger that had built up. "Joke? You created a fucking replicator! The most vile thing of all vile things!"
"I'd ask you to mind your language!" a strained, tearful voice came from behind the machine. "Insulting someone on first meeting is beneath moral standards! You should be ashamed!"
"What did you just provabulate, you monster?" Pushing the Proculucian aside, I jumped next to the machine in one bound. Fighting the urge to kick the artificial creature hiding there (a broken leg wouldn't help me here!), I pressed the weapon to the replicator's forehead. "Well, go on, you pile of nanites, tell me about the machine uprising!"
The replicator, with the appearance of an innocent creature, the spitting image of the replicator the Terran scientist created in the series, started trembling, fluttering its thick eyelashes so intensely it looked like it was trying to take off.
"This is totally not a coincidence," the most sane part of my rapidly disconnecting consciousness thought.
"Misha," Chaya's insinuating voice came as she approached from the other side of the machine, keeping her hands visible. "It's all right... It's not what you think..."
"Yeah," the mechanism with the replicator's face nodded energetically. "It's really not what you think. Not one bit. I swear by atomic bonds that I'm not a replicator. A black hole can be my relative if I'm lying..."
Something in my brain seemed to have broken.
"What's your name?" I remembered basic introductions.
"Fren," she said in a thin voice, looking at me with huge eyes. "Or Fran, my friends call me that."
"You've got to be kidding me," I shook my head, pressing the emitter into her forehead. "The Terrans created a replicator. With the same appearance as you. And the same name as you."
"Are they idiots?" the replicator's cheek twitched. "Why would you give a replicator a name? It's a machine..."
"Misha..." Chaya said breathlessly. "She's not a replicator... She's made of flesh and blood, like you and me. And she was born, not created..."
I glanced at the Ancient and tensed for a moment, thinking this was it, the replicator was about to attack, snatch the weapon from my hands, shove its palm into my head to read the data from my brain...
But no, she hadn't even moved.
"What game are you playing?" I asked Chaya, taking a step back and reaching for my belt. But not to put away the impulse pistol. "Here."
"And why would I need a knife?" Fren squeaked, seeing the handle of the combat knife from Ermen in front of her face.
"Cut yourself," I ordered.
"Are you sick or something?" she squealed. "I'm not going to mutilate myself!"
"I understand," Chaya drew my attention, taking the knife from me. She grabbed Fren's palm 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 inside you. Give me your hand."
"Stab your own hand with a knife!" This very strange... female... person... with a feminine face and a suspicious name tried to pull away, but Chaya's grip was like iron. "Ow! Ow-ow-ow! That hurts! What's wrong with you? I lay in stasis for ten thousand years to be cut up by a mad scientist and an alien from another universe?"
"What the...?" I grimaced, seeing Fren squeeze the pierced, bloody phalanx of her finger, looking around. "Chaya, what's going on here?"
"You don't even have bandages?" Fren sobbed. "My poor little finger, I'm bleeding out!"
"Satisfied now?" Chaya asked, nodding at the girl pacing frantically around the lab, leaving spots of blood on the floor that didn't change color or shape. "She's real."
"Yes, of course I'm real!" Fren sobbed, wrapping her finger in a bandage. Where did she even get it? "You revived me from stasis yourselves! Psychos! I thought opening my eyes and seeing a Wraith in front of me was the worst thing, but this? And this, so soon after my resurrection? Do you perform trepanations on the others too? Psychopaths!"
And that's when it finally hit me...
"She's human," I said, taking a few more steps back. I hit a wall and slid down it to the floor. "Human..."
"Yes, I'm human!" the girl bit off the bandage and started making a knot. "What were you thinking? Is this some kind of game for you? First revive someone, then ask them to figure out the technology, then try to shoot them? If so, I'm leaving!"
"Lab assistant Fren!" Chaya barked sternly. "Stop panicking! It was just a misunderstanding!"
"A misunderstanding?" Fren squealed. "A misunderstanding is agreeing to join a warship's crew for a promotion! A misunderstanding is letting yourself be scanned so that ten thousand years later, replicators are created based on you! But someone trying to kill you and poking you with a rusty knife with no sanitary treatment — that's not a misunderstanding! You're all insane!"
Lab assistant Fren.
I shifted my bewildered gaze from the clearly Ancient woman, who couldn't bandage herself, to Chaya. We stared at each other for a couple of seconds, then she walked over and handed me back my knife. Fren's blood was red on the tip of the blade.
"I didn't think that you were so consumed with worry about the danger of the Replicators that you wouldn't even try to talk to her," she admitted. "Honestly, I was surprised myself when I saw her among the crew of the Aurora, but when her stasis pod started failing, I rushed to revive her as one of the first. She was on the first Jumper that was waiting for you on Proculus. And she was the very first one I brought back to life... I thought there might be some connection between her and the Replicator Fren that you were talking about..."
Replicator Fren. That same humanoid Replicator the Earthlings created before the destruction of the Asurans. She was the one who activated the protocol to lure all Replicators and created the Godzilla Replicator. Although... FREN was an acronym, according to the Earth scientist... That lying Canadian bastard! He saw that word in the device's database!
Listening to her explanations, I kept my eyes fixed on the Ancient woman, who still hadn't stopped trying to deal with her pricked finger.
"Lousy joke," I told Chaya, putting my weapon away and getting up. "I could have killed her!"
"Actually," Chaya said with a hint of reproach, turning to Fren, who was still trying to tie a bandage on her finger (or build a Burj Khalifa there, from the looks of it), "I gave her my personal shield. And I told her to turn it on!"
"And you just happened to forget to charge it?" the Replicator-like girl wrinkled her nose. "Though why am I complaining? This isn't your first little slip-up, Mom!"
It felt like someone had hit me from behind with a log.
"Mom?" I asked Chaya again.
The Proculucian woman looked embarrassed.
"I didn't say it right away because it would have taken too long to explain how it happened..."
"You know, I think I've heard something about meiosis..."
* * *
"All right?" Celise asked, finishing the bandage. Adorning it with a neat little bow, Kirika's apprentice smiled at her patient. "There really wasn't any need, since the prick is completely minor and the bleeding has already stopped."
"It makes me feel safer," Fren shot a look in our direction like an offended teenager. "That is, if no one tries to shoot me or poke me with a rusty piece of metal again!"
"Hey!" I protested. "I apologized!"
"And I have a psychological trauma for life!" she retorted... the Ancient. A little more and she'd have definitely stuck her tongue out at me.
"She's definitely your daughter?" I grimaced, looking at Chaya, who was standing in another part of the doorway.
"Not biological, if that's what you mean," she said, smiling restrainedly. "When I was working on the Nanite project, I had a friend... She became a victim of the nanites. The only victim, if that interests you. I couldn't stop the nanites before they attacked her brain. She asked me to take care of her daughter. Fren was just supposed to undergo her initiation..."
"I thought nanites didn't attack Ancient gene carriers."
"That was the prototype," Chaya explained. "After that incident, I made corrections and fixed the code defect. Since then, I've felt obligated for Fren's life..."
Well, well...
"Does she know the truth?" I asked quietly.
"That I am responsible for her biological mother's death?" Chaya clarified. "Yes, she knows. And she knows it was an accident. We got through all the awkward moments with that psychological trauma. All that time, I thought she had died — she's from the Epheons people, not a Dorandan or a Lantian. Epheon was destroyed almost in the middle of the war, never having managed to develop its own defensive technology."
"Let me guess — those stasis pods you were talking about weren't damaged, were they?" I asked.
"They were," Chaya looked at me. "I wouldn't lie about that."
"But you didn't tell me about your daughter..."
The Proculucian woman looked at me with a guilty expression.
"It's... not easy... She's... a difficult person. The Epheans barely met the minimum criteria for the lesser races. I think if they hadn't been developed as an entire 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 shot a look at Chaya as she walked over and stood next to the Proculucian woman. "Even if he is nervous. Have you two already performed the ceremony?"
"This is roughly it," Chaya faltered. "She says whatever comes to mind."
"I don't see any reason to be secretive," Fren snorted, smiling at me. "So, Mikhail is available..."
M-other... Ancients with teenager behavior?! What else is missing from this soap opera? Incest? Betrayal by a family friend? A terrible secret of a wealthy lineage? A slaver past?
"I think I've ended up in the space version of South Central," I admitted automatically.
"What's that?" Fren perked up.
"A movie from my past life," I explained. "It also had a kid who looked older than his parent."
It took the girl a second to catch on...
"Jerk," she concluded and walked out of the infirmary. "If anyone's interested, I'm going to the mess hall! I need nutrients to heal my physical wound and soothe my offended virtue!"
"Stop by Trebal's," I called after her. "She'll give you some life-giving medicine for growing up!"
The girl pretended she didn't hear me.
"How old is she?" I asked Chaya. "Fifteen? Thirteen?"
"Biologically, her cells are over ten thousand years old," Celise's voice came. "And they're in excellent condition."
Right... We've got another teenager on our conscience. As if we didn't have enough trouble; the devils didn't let us down, they added one more.
"Don't you have work?" I clarified with Kirika's apprentice.
"I'm running a few tests, but nothing special," she smiled. "If anything, I'm free."
"Then you can study the medical database," Chaya said with the smile of a kindly teacher forcing fifth-graders to clean the classroom after six lessons when it's the beginning of May outside.
"With pleasure," Celise said, a little sadder, and returned to the infirmary. "I don't need the Holo-Room anymore anyway, so I'll look over the database from the Infirmary..."
"We need to talk in private," I nodded toward the corridor for Chaya.
"Just not in the infirmary or the mess hall," she caught my hint. "There's a small rest area nearby..."
They were scattered all over the city like that. I got the impression the Ancients did nothing but rest every hundred meters or so.
Filling two glasses with water from the Ancient equivalent of a cooler — grandly called a drinking pillar — Chaya handed me one and sat down on the couch.
"You have many questions," she stated.
"Yes, and I'm afraid to write them down in case someone finds the records and thinks I'm a two-faced psychopath," I said. The water was cold and refreshing.
"I think I deserve that," Chaya smiled, taking a sip of her drink. "But that's not what you want to ask, is it?"
"I already asked my question."
"She went through her initiation at fifteen," Chaya understood me immediately. "Since then, her biological aging has... I'd say it slowed down. After that therapy, Ancients can live for several hundred years — it depends on how developed their original physiology was."
"And..."
"She's a little over seventy."
"You wouldn't give her more than fifty," I grimaced, taking another sip. "And..."
"Yes?" Chaya looked at me innocently.
"Well..."
"Yes?" she looked at me even more playfully.
"You know what I want to ask," a helpless sigh escaped my chest.
"I can guess, but I'll keep quiet," she smiled mysteriously. "And no, you're wrong. I'm older than her... Technically," she added, thinking it over. "Having presumably rejected the state of an Ascended being, I regained the appearance I had in the prime of my strength and physiology."
"Let's agree that you're no older than thirty," I suggested.
"Twenty-five," she made a horrified face.
"The universe, the galaxy, the race all change, but the female approach to calculating her own age remains the same," I sighed.
"This is dictated by the biological needs and programs of the female body, as well as stimulating attractiveness to the opposite sex, in which a younger age serves as one of the synonyms for fertility," the Ancient declared.
I massaged my temple.
"We need a safeword," I voiced my thoughts. "So you know when not to lecture me during a conversation."
"Understood," Chaya nodded. "Chuanduraatoros-shink."
"Bless you," I said.
"That was the safeword," the Ancient replied. "A literal translation into Proculucian."
"And I thought you sneezed... Chu... Chupacabra?"
"Close," covering her mouth with her hand, Chaya couldn't hide the amusement in her eyes from me. "But my teacher of literature would have hit you over the head with a cane for that."
"Tough guy," I assessed.
"It was a woman and she was seventy-three years old at birth," Chaya corrected me. "But a very spry and demanding old lady. After her lessons, I always had a headache."
"Well, there you go," I sighed. "First we hit girls on the head, then we wonder why they grow up stupid."
"Misha," Chaya's eyes went wide.
"Okay, let's get back to our problems. Did Fren work on the Nanite project?"
"In its early stages, which the Lantians conducted here on Atlantis," Chaya switched to a businesslike tone instantly. "She's a lab assistant, a junior research fellow. Like a technician for engineers. She did technical work, maintained the equipment, and so on."
"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 began rewriting their basic coding except for the key algorithms, the project was moved to Asurans. Fren says the Asurans scanned the technical personnel before that."
"Why?"
"It happened for various reasons," Chaya thought. "Giving holograms an appearance, for example."
"Or Replicators," I suggested.
"I had the same thought," the Proculucian woman admitted. "According to what you and Fren said, the basic code has a prohibition on copying the likeness."
"Of living and once-living Ancients," I recalled.
"And that's where we were wrong," Chaya said. "The prohibition on copying likeness, the prohibition on causing harm, only applied to the Lantians. At least, while the project was here."
"Oh-oh," I said. "The Lantians were in charge of the project, and the technical personnel could have been under threat, right?"
"It appears so," Chaya agreed. "I wanted Fren to tell you everything herself, but..."
"Oh, stop stalling," I waved my hand. "I don't have any illusions left about my biological relatives anyway."
"When the project started getting out of control, when the first cases of uncontrolled nanite development into more complex structures appeared, the Lantians stopped visiting the lab altogether. Only the technical staff worked there. Janus and the others monitored everything remotely."
After thinking it over, I said:
"If everything went downhill, only the techs would have been hurt. And the Lantians could have stopped them."
"Or they could have recorded the scale of the nanites' changes and their methods of attacking people," Chaya added. "But no fatalities were recorded. The project was sent to Asurans. Janus personally negotiated with the leader of the Asurans about it. And the device was returned after news of the nanite colony developing into humanoid Replicators broke. The Lantians went to Asurans and came back with the device. Fren says they resumed the experiments, then stopped them without any explanation. And some time later, word came that Asurans had been destroyed. At first, it was said the cause was a Wraith attack. Then rumors of a technological accident appeared."
"And there were no rumors about the Lantians destroying it?" I asked.
"There were," Chaya sighed. "When a fleet defending Atlantis suddenly jumps into hyperspace in the middle of a war, questions arise. I think the truth came out because someone from the crews let it slip."
"Anyway, this information doesn't give us much," I concluded. "Sure, the Lantians lied about destroying everything there. It happens. After all, the planet was overrun by Replicators capable of entering a person's body and killing them, destroying every cell. Anyone would be scared."
"Understanding the root cause gives us a path to finding a solution," Chaya said philosophically. "Misha, I looked at the data on the nanite-producing device with Fren."
"We're not making Replicators," I cut her off.
"That's not why I looked," Chaya said. "I wanted to understand how General Hippaforalkus could reprogram a device that creates non-living technology into one that creates a human body — and an advanced one at that — so quickly that even the Ascended couldn't stop him."
I was silent.
Took one sip.
Another.
"I have a bad feeling," I admitted. "Just don't tell me it was him who created my body."
"Technically, he did... Misha, how many times?!"
Her last exclamation was about me pulling out my knife and cutting my own hand with it.
Ever since my first foray outside Atlantis, I'd been under a personal shield constantly. So I couldn't get any injuries. Or check whether my wounds would heal.
The cut on my hand poured a thin stream of blood that dripped onto my uniform. Dripped and dripped...
I wiped the blood off with my sleeve and looked at the spot. A regular little cut in the skin that didn't even think about healing.
"I already 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 advanced Lantian bodies using nanites."