Old Friend

Azoth's surroundings became out of focus. It felt like he was on a rollercoaster as many blurs went past him. A few seconds later his surroundings were back in focus and Azoth was standing in an empty space. Below him, you could see a galaxy slowly spinning.

[Beep - an invitation has been sent by your friend Telath. Do you want to accept the invitation?]

[Yes] [No]

A list with 5 names came up and Telath was highlighted. Above the names, there was a menu saying 'friends'. Azoth lifted his finger and pressed the yes button in front of him. The button dispersed in front of him. His surrounds started to move again and he zoomed into an areal view of a planet. The planet was full of skyscrapers kilometers high. They were so tall you couldn't see the bottom of them. His vision blurred again. This time he appeared in a dark lite room.

"Azoth! It's really you!" a deep voice happily yelled behind him. Azoth turned around. A three meter tall and slender humanoid alien with grey skin and four thin arms bent down and hugged him.

"Telath. Long time no see." Azoth mumbled awkwardly as he let his friend hug him.

Telath released Azoth and looked deeply into his eyes. He looked happy and confused. "Long time no see? I haven't seen you in 120,000 years." Telath replied as he was remembering the past. "We all thought you had died." he said with a tear falling down one of his cheeks. " When we heard that your race was exterminated by the Galactic Government, we thought you had already died. Any information on what happened was kept a secret and anyone who was looking for answers disappeared shortly after. What incident so secretive could have been so bad that the Galactic Government would erase the Auenor race, one of the top ten races for?" Telath asked puzzled.

"Me and my clansmen were working on creating a Symbiotic AI which would massively increase the Strength and Intelligence of the biological lifeform that it would pair with. One of our clansmen was a spy for the Galactic Government and when we succeeded in our experiments, the results were far better than expected. When the Galactic Government found out about our results, they thought it was too dangerous for one race to control, so they ordered our execution and tried to steal our research and results." Azoth explained as he saw the different phases of emotions crossing his friends face as he told the story.

"Those bastards!" Telath shouted. " If it wasn't for the Auenor sharing their research and technology, they wouldn't even exist." He clenched his fists and rambled on. "Half of the sentient beings in our galaxy were uplifted by your race, and they choose to exterminate you because of their fear and greed."

Telath calmed down after a few seconds then he looked back at Azoth. " Where are the rest of the Auenor. Are they in hiding too?"

" As far as I know, I am the only one left.

When the Galactic Government broke into our lab, I was shot with a plasma rifle through my heart's. They left the lab to search the other rooms for more people and to clear out the area.

When they left, the AI symbiote broke out of the chamber which was accidentally shot by one of the soldiers in the prior skirmish. After escaping, it morphed with me, the closest bearly living person to the chamber.

It transferred my consciousness to itself and used my memories to hack into one of the computers in the lab. Using the encrypted network and my administrator privileges, it uploading me to one of my family's servers. After it had hacked the server and obtained the information to a secret research lab owned by my family, it transferred my consciousness into an android located within the secret lab.

After looking around the lab to see if there were any scientist still doing their research all I could find were research papers. Apparently, the family called everyone over when we were working on the Symbiotic AI and left the normal AI to run the lab while they were away.

Because of this, all the equipment and test subject I could need was already in the lab. Since then, I've completed various research tasks left behind in my families lab. However, because of it's location, I can only connect to the Galactic Web 1 hour every 10,000 years because of the background noise from its surroundings." After Azoth finished speaking you could see the pity on Telath's face.

"since you only have less than an hour left then let's enjoy it before it's up." Telath took a step back and clicked one of his four hands' fingers together. An antique looking wooden table appeared to his side. In the center of the table rested a fountain of golden liquid. It's strong aroma spread throughout the room and entered into Azoth's nose. " You like the smell?" Telath chuckled " It's Celestial Golden Necter"

"Did you say Celestial Golden Necter?" Azoth looked surprised as he asked. " I thought it was extinct eons ago."

"4000 years ago an unknown alien species corpse was found in a cryogenic chamber. When they scanned its memories they found out it had drank the Celestial Golden Necter, so they copied the memory of the taste and sold it at the Galactic VR auction. I bought the copy and hadn't used it yet as it's a one use item. What better time to use it than in a reunion with an old friend.

Azoth sat down on the chair opposite to Telath. Telath handed him a goblet filled with the Golden Nectar as he filled his own goblet as well. "Cheers!" they said as they clanked their cups together. Azoth raised his goblet to his lips and as the Golden Nectar ran down his through a message appeared in front of him.

[Celestial Golden Nectar - Copied into the database. Do you want to view the data?]

[Yes] [No]

Azoth said 'No' in his head and the display closed.

---

[Warning Critical damage to bio-habitat 4278161]

40 minutes later Azoth hurriedly stood up from his chair.

"Is it time for you to leave already?" Telath asked with sadness written across his face as he stood up from his chair and moved towards Azoth.

"Yes. Something came up. I will miss you my friend." Azoth hugged Taleth. His body slowly became transparent before completely disappeared.

'Send 1 Billion copies of the Celestial Golden Nectar to Telath' Azoth said in his head as he was logging out of the Galactic VR.

A few seconds later he woke up in the cryogenic chamber inside the android he was in earlier. He opened his eyes and saw red lights flashing everywhere.

[Warning Critical damage to Biohabitat 4278161]

"Show me live footage of Biohabitat 4278161." Azoth said. A second later a live feed of what was happening inside the habitat came on. It was a water habitat full with sea creatures. Inside you could see a diversity of sea creatures from fish and sharks, to crabs and some alien species that looked nothing like any species on earth.

"What's the problem. I can't see anything wrong?" Azoth asked the AI of the ship.

[Biohabitat has been damaged and test subjects have escaped]

The AI said as it zoomed into the glass of the habitat. The vision changed from visible light to infrared. At a corner of the Bio-habitat, there was a group of a small red section where the glass was. When the AI zoomed in more, Azoth could make out some tentacle looking creatures jumbled together.

"Analyse the data on those creatures," Azoth said hurriedly.

[Analysis Complete :

Class: Cephalopod

species: Mimic octopus

Original Abilities -> New Abilities:

Camouflage LV 5 -> LV 9

Shapeshifting LV 4 -> LV 8

Mimicry LV 2 -> LV 7

Ink shot LV 1 -> LV 6

New skills:

Acid spray LV 9

Super-regeneration LV 4

stats:

Strength: 2 -> 7

Agility: 5 -> 8

Dexterity: 6 ->11

Intelligence: 4 -> 9 ]

"How long have they been exposed to the Virus?" Azoth asked as he was reading the data.

[ 1 hour 12 minutes and 36 seconds ]

"Wow, they evolved so quickly compared to the last test group. Have the other creatures evolved at similar speeds? ]

[Yes. currently, nearly all the species have completed their first evolution. The only thing that limits their growth is that their energy levels aren't high enough to start the second evolution.]

"You said that test subjects had escaped. How did they escape?"

[The mimic octopuses changed their skin texture to be as hard as the reinforced glass used for their Biohabitat. They then increased their body's pressure by overproducing acid and ink. The pressure made them explode like a grenade and the hardened skin chipped away at the glass. Since they have super regeneration, they healed back up and continued the same process. Currently, ten octopus escaped and the ones remaining have changed their texture to match the glass and have huddled together to fill the hole as if nothing has happened.]

".... Isn't that over the top. They turned into a kamikaze octopus and grouped up to escape. Normally octopus live alone. Send some drones to catch the octopus and move them to a stronger facility."

[ I have already sent them and they are on th...WARNING ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELD ACTIVATED.] The lights in the room started flashing red again.

" What?? What has happened?"

To answer his questions, CCTV footage of nearly a dozen octopuses flicking switches and pressing buttons randomly, appeared in front of him.

[ You need to switch off the EMF before it affects the Quasar black holes.]

As the warning was playing in his head. Azoth collapsed onto the ground, grasping onto his head as a spiking pain ran through him. The last thing he saw before he passed out, was a bright light.