A Bio-Weapon’s Rhapsody

Chapter 281: The Hatchling… One?

It was, surprisingly, a very well-made VR environment. Ale couldn't find any faults with this setting, but then again. It was made half by an advanced artificial intelligence and the other was complemented by Alexanders.

"[Lady Ale, we are approaching the insertion point. I have a message from Master for you if you would kindly accept the invite?]" Ale had been messing around in the VR environment most of the travel till this point.

And so it was kinda surprising when the message came. Following the hyperlink embedded within the message, Ale was pulled towards another VR Environment...

"Wow..." Ale almost fell when she landed, perhaps her saying as 'Ale has landed' would need to be changed, if she couldn't land well then it was kinda wrong to use it.

"Relax, let yourself be acclimated." There was the voice of a young man telling her as such, Ale turned around and noticed that the VR Environment looked... grainy.

It was weird, she knew for a fact that this engine could render better 3d images, so why was this... so wrong?

"What happened?" Ale asked as she tried to anchor herself down, deciding if using Main Core to parse part of this virtual environment was the right idea or not.

"Ah yeah, the first time seeing other people's VR environment is always a hassle, we deal with that by using a translator... here, try this." The young man said forwarding a data packet.

Ale quickly grabbed it and fed it to Main Core and the Information Core to check it.

[Downloading datapacket....5%....20%...50%...99%....100%]

[Decompressing.....]

[Reading data...]

[Removing redundancy...]

[Removing unstable portions...]

[Depuring...]

[Do you wish to execute a new program translator?]

[Y/N]

"What is this?" Ale said aloud, both to the young man that she was speaking with and to Main Core.

"This will run my interpretation of the VR environment through a lens that will then translate it so you can perceive it in a more stable way." The young man said, "This program was made by Master to help us work better with each other members of the Spartoi program."

[The answer is correct.]

[To be precise, this program will discard the visual data provided and instead run it through Host. No other changes will be made to the virtual environment.]

"Okay then..." Ale said nodding and then... went ahead to read the instructions about how this was supposed to work.

She suspected one usually didn't run these programs in their brain like Alexa and her used to do. And sure enough, this was supposed to be used in conjunction with the pod that Ale was using at the moment.

Following the instructions she did as how she was supposed to...

And then ran a dummy virtual machine as she went ahead and started to run the thing on her information core.

The place stopped spinning in a granular, distorted way, and it turned to normal. Ale sighed in relief and took stock of her situation.

"Hmm...I can see why you are Master's sister now." Ale turned around to the voice and found... a very average black-haired man with blonde lightning strikes on his hair, "Greetings again, Lady Ale."

Ale nodded at the man.

"So... what is this message you said?" Ale said, looking around, the VR environment had put her in front of a house, there was a... kind of street in front of the house? Ale got the feeling that it was not a real street.

"Ah here it is... wait a sec..." The young man said fiddling with his phone, after a few seconds of doing that there was a holographic projection of Alexanders floating in front of them. "There it is."

"Hello again brat." The smug voice of Alexanders sounded, for some reason, very smug. "So... I don't know if the Spartoi that is carrying you right now showed you or not, but in case he didn't. Sapphire can you prepare the... thank you, you are the best."

Ale wasn't sure what it was, but a second later the VR Environment had a new feed of data and... For some reason the translation program didn't seem to be doing anything?

"Ah.... Typical Master..." The young man sighed as he started fondling the side of his head, "Sorry about that, Master's VR Environments can't be dealt with by the translator. Just grit your teeth."

"Ah... right..." Ale said nodding, the blonde man probably had ensured that the translator didn't change anything that he made, either to make everyone else shift slowly to what he envisioned... But that didn't explain why Ale wasn't feeling dizzy or bothered.

"Welcome, you are officially one of the very few living Humans that breached into outer space after the Mana outbreak." Alexanders said smirking and showing the video feed of the external cameras.

Ale... hadn't been able to get the plane to show her where they were flying, she had suspected they were flying high but... She hadn't thought that the man would actually make the plane fly straight into outer space.

But then again, the fact that they had provided her with a pod that would ensure her safety... yeah, Ale should have seen that one coming.

"So any reason why you did this?" Ale asked the projection.

"Ah sorry Lady Ale, but this is a pre recorded message, Master is not actually-" The young man said still clutching the side of his head, was it that bad?

To Ale it looked normal though.

"Now, if you are as smart as I think you are, you should have asked why I am showing this." Alexanders said, "And if the Spartoi is as squimish as I remember them to be, he should be puking his insides out right about now... even though they shouldn't even need to puke, or get dizzy..."

".... He does really know us." The young man said sighing, "I'm sorry Lady Ale I can't... I'll leave you to the message, ping me when you are done if you can't return back. Sorry!"

And like that, the young man disappeared from the VR environment.

[Spartoi Pilot subject has exited the VR Environment, currently only the Host is within the VR Environment.]

"As for why I am doing this... well, you have a few things to consider." Alexanders then shifted the view of the cameras, "If the plane is following the schedule and nothing happened, then this should show you our planet. Terra Nova."

The external camera showcased the verdant planet, and.... Ale could see a few spots that didn't look natural on the surface of the planet, comparing with her internal database... It was one of those spots that they had mentioned before, that weird desert that consumed all biomass?

It was probably that.

"This external view should showcase a few of the dangers of flying into outer space..." Then a new video feed started showcasing a new scenery, this time Ale could see some... asteroids? With tentacles? Why? WHY MORE FRICKING WORMS?!?!?!?! SPACE WORMS?!?!? WHY?!?!?!? "And here are a few of the orbital weapons we have, some that are from old governments and a couple from the corpo pseudo governments that have been blooming here and there."

Then a map of the planet and the things in orbit at the moment. Ale could see that these weapons seemed to create a cover for a few spots above the planet.

But not a single one of them seemed to extend beyond some specific places. That was... interesting.

"So.... The outer space is dangerous... But flying within the atmosphere is dangerous, which is why this plane is designed to fly into outer space... But that is also dangerous?" Ale was confused, this plane was designed to fly into outer space because normal flight was dangerous.

But here was Alexanders saying that flying into outer space was equally if not more dangerous.

"Now you see the predicament, we can't actually fly safely within our planet, but doing so in outer space is equally dangerous since these assholes will try to shoot you down and say 'Sorry we thought it was some of the megafauna'." Alexanders did an imitation or mockery of someone as he spoke that bit, "So, options... what options do you think you have?"

Ale thought about that. What options did she have?

"I can't teleport back to Ohio because I haven't actually set that side." Ale pointed out raising a finger, "Flying within the atmosphere is dangerous if you don't have the right weaponry... I do not have that, so if you aren't providing... Space would be the only option right?"

"Now I hope you came up with bad ideas, because if you had a good one I'll be pissed." Alexanders said with a nod, he looked like Alexa in times like these, "And if you had a better idea than the ones I will give you now, tell them to the Spartoi and he will tell you if they are viable, since, again. I am not really speaking with you right now."

Ah... right, he was a pre-recorded message... This was why people said he was an asshole.

"First option, continue traveling like this. This has a risk of getting shot down in re entry into the planet, risk of being shotdown by the megafauna and finally. Risk of being assimilated by one of those weird space octopi." Alexanders then put a projection of the Drake One. "It has a... relatively higher chance of survival since Drake One is sturdy, even if they shoot you down, you will survive landing and probably long enough for the Saintsworths' rescue team to arrive."

They would send a rescue team to save her?

"Since they think I am in that plane and I did not provide my permissions to anyone else, they will do their best to 'Rescue' me and will probably find me grievously wounded, in my last moments I will then give them everything I own so that they save me. They will fail of course, as it is obvious, but they would have done their best." Alexanders smirked as he nodded, again, like Alexa.

"... So they would send hitman after the plane because they think you are here. And I would be able to kill them, take their equipment and finish my travel back to Ohio." Ale understood what was the plan B on this first plan.

"The second option is to use one of the drop pods," Alexanders then showed the image of a cilindrical device (A drop pod), "This is just the pod you are in right now with some extra padding, we will drop you in one of the pick up spots and then a land vehicle will pick you up and take you the rest of the way to Ohio, this is the boring way by the way."

Ale didn't see the issue with that, well, she understood why Alexanders called it 'the boring way' though. There was no flair or anything with this method. It was merely efficient.

"And finally, the fun way." Alexanders smiled deviously as he said that part, "This is... Hatchling one."

There, Alexanders first discarded all the other projections in the VR Environment, and then, with the highest amount of flair he could give, a new image was projected.

It was the image of a small plane-like device, it was smaller than Ale could reasonably think it could get, if anything, it was barely bigger than the pod she was in...

"...That is just an engine, some wings and a few pieces to give the pod some aerodynamic form.... is it not?" Ale said aloud when she finally understood what she was seeing.

"This is an orbital insertion plane. It is designed originally as a rescue device or an evacuation device." Alexanders started speaking, "It is, in a nutshell, a drop pod with extra steps. It will allow you limited fuel and full control over your trajectory."

Ale could see the specs of the thing, limited fuel? That thing had barely enough fuel to point itself toward the planet and pray for the best.

Since it had no fuel tank, it might as well have had no engine whatsoever.

It did have wings and flaps, so it could control its flight pattern, but it was basically a glider. It was designed to glide into orbit.

"And with this, you are small enough that no radar, ladar, or any surveillance device can catch you." Alexander's smile was something to behold, the man was one step away from laughing like a super villain at this point. "That means that you can do the rest of the travel back home and I can use this chance to fish some annoying pests too. The Drake One will move from holiday vacations to a mission I have been delaying... Don't worry about the pilot by the way, their actual body isn't there... Don't tell them, but this one died like... a week ago."

What?

"Yeah... I have been meaning to tell him but... How do you even go about it? Like... 'Ah yeah dude, sorry about it, you died... What? How are you still here? Well... Funny thing, it seems like we managed to digitalize you in time! But yeah, you are now stuck in our servers... So, want to fly to Cairo? Want to fly my sister back home? Whatcha wanna do today?'... Like seriously, how do you... I mean, is this one the religious one? Is he an atheist? Sapphire doesn't even want to tell me who he is!" Alexanders groaned into the screen, "By the way, she is laughing at my misfortune. She didn't even tell me the body of this one had died! She only did it because she is still mad at me because of the stupid marble I made for you..."

The marble?

Ale couldn't help but touch her forehead, she knew that it wasn't there. The marble wasn't installed into her but into Alexa after all. But why was she mad at Alexanders because of it?

Ale had assumed the purple woman hadn't come because of the same reason that-

[Warning, error count has increased by four.]

DANG IT!

"*sigh*" Ale merely sighed and added that to the list of things she SHOULDN'T think about it.

"So yeah, if you want you can go ahead and tell him. Spin the usual bullshit you do for one of your streams where you give me this edge lord big bad evil overlord if needed or something." Alexanders sighed yet again, "Or not, I'm not your boss. Whatever you pick up, the Spartoi will do their best to accommodate you, so... good luck."

And like that the video feed was cut. Leaving Ale alone with three data packets floating where Alexanders had been before. A poke from Ale and she got the rough descriptions of what they had.

The first had the travel path that they would follow and the contingencies in case someone managed to shoot them down. It also had a few suggestions in case the rescue teams actually rescued her and not... You know... try to murder someone who wasn't actually here.

The second data packet had instructions and the whole protocol that she would need to follow during, before and after the drop pod descent. Ale was most tempted by this one if she was to be honest.

She wondered if she could get a video feed from the outside as she went into the planet, if so... she could use that as a loading screen or intro screen for her streams. She was, after all, the Fallen Ale(Angel).

As for the third data packet?

It was the one with the design of Hatchling One. The drop pod/glider plan...

And probably the one she would pick up. What? Whoever said they didn't want to fly and control a subsonic glider that was getting back into the planet was a dirty lying piece of shit.