Chapter 184 - Baiting

*(mood song: "Cosmo Sheldrake - Come Along")

-- One day later --

A cable ran from the submarine to the techpriests cathedral on the floating city, went inside it, and connected to the computer there, and with that to the lizardmen Virtual Reality network.

Erik and Rose stood there securing cables and reconnecting loose ones, along with some droids controlled by Rose, the previous cabling was just barely in working condition, with rusted connections and peeled cables everywhere.

Erik: "So... why didn't Sarah come? she's good at this too"

Rose: "Oh well... you could say she has a... stomach ache~"

Erik's face darkened as he sighed: "...what did you do?"

Rose: "Nothing ~ nothing~ I'm just helping her, nothing else..." she sighed "She wants to be more like you, you know?"

Erik: "Oh, really? You? You helped her?" his face was full of suspicion, with his right eyebrow higher than the left.

Rose: "The doubt offends me you know~? of course, I helped her"

Erik frowned: "And the... stomach ache?"

Rose: "Don't you worry, she just ate too much, nothing else....now-" she patted Erik on his back with enough strength to break the spine of a normal human "Let's get back to work!" pointing at the thousands of cables on the walls.

Erik straightened his aching back: "...sigh, fine"

Hours passed as they even had to replace the cables to the antennas on the ceiling that were severely corroded, and finally to repair the entire system along with the computer itself. Substituting thin cables with thicker ones to avoid overheating problems, and labeling cables to their different nodes, while inside the computer itself, it was Rose the one who replaced components, by scanning them and fabricating better ones, drastically improving the performance of the computer.

Rose took a moment to inspect the installation: "Now... it's finally useable"

Erik nodded: "So, how do we do this? hacking? a call for help?"

Rose smiled: "Envy and greed~. It needs a proper bait right?"

Erik smiled too: "Can't wait to hear it~"

-- Minutes later --

Erik logged on to the lizardman's VR city looking like the dead city's lord Rhaphkar, and Rose like the guard captain. Gasps sounded as the surrounding lizardmen saw them. Soon a lizardman in a robe approached them in a hurry.

Robed Lizardman: "Rhaphkar... we thought you were dead... so many refugees told us so! that the city was doomed!"

Rhaphkar (Erik) put his arms up and talked loudly so everyone could hear him: "As you all can see I am alive and well. We managed to slaughter the invaders and capture their... RELIC BOAT!"

The robed lizardman's eyes sparkled, as well as the surrounding crowd that started to congregate.

Robed Lizardman: "But the refugees said they exterminated your guard?"

Rhaphkar (Erik) shook his head: "Perhaps... but they did not expect my ambush!. Luckily... I had a core cannon hidden and was able to kill their leaders. The rest tried to surrender." he chuckled and then a ruthless smile appeared on his face "But I killed them too... Those that remained inside their boat were easy targets as it seemed to shut down once their leader died"

Another lizardman approached, he had a bionic eye that glowed in an eerie red as his face filled with greed: "That ship... losing so many guards it should be hard for you to keep such a thing but... we could come to an agreement. I could... help you rebuild your city in exchange for it...."

Other Lizardmen in the crowd instantly shouted: "shameless! That boat of course belongs to the pope!" while others shouted "It belongs to Rhaphkar, the pope didn't fight for it!" while a third group was too busy discussing what to use to buy the boat from Rhaphkar.

Rhaphkar (Erik) chuckled and with a wave of his hand, a hologram of the submarine appeared. Exquisitely decorated with carvings and decorations like a work of art, making the crowd shut up as they looked in awe.

Rhaphkar (Erik): "This is the boat. Majestic is it not? Took a lot of effort to make it mine. Now... I do not plan to keep this to myself. It will be given to the one that can bring the most troops and aid to rebuild my city. Do not worry, everyone who brings at least something will have the chance to tour it. So... YOU ARE ALL WELCOME TO MY CITY, AS I SHALL HOLD A BANQUET IN HONOR OF MY VICTORY OVER THE INVADERS, AND IF ANY OF MY CITIZENS ARRIVED AT YOUR CITIES... SEND THEM BACK, IT IS SAFE AGAIN!"

The crowd remained silent for a moment, and then cheering erupted all around.

Rhaphkar (Erik): "And... before anyone gets the wrong idea, I will say that I managed to get the machine spirit of the boat to recognize me as its owner. Only I can transfer the ownership to someone else~"

Erik and Rose both smiled widely, shaking the hands of those present as they all expressed their intentions to attend the banquet.

-- Far away in Space --

In a dead solar system a red giant class star was orbited by three other planets, A giant spaceship quietly approached the planet closest to the star, a deserted and irradiated world with a thin atmosphere and full of ruins of a now dead civilization on its surface.

Leo: *so they all really died huh...*

The spaceship slowly descended on a gigantic spaceport, now full of ruined buildings all around. The spaceship landed, and spider like robots descended from it.

Leo: *sigh... might as well recycle all of this...* a wave of melancholy overcame the ancient spaceship *I wonder if they managed to survive... I was their last hope to escape before the growing star scorched the surface of the planet...* The entire spaceship then vibrated, *hmmm I don't feel any life signals from underground- hm? A void in the scan?* he had discovered a place his sensors couldn't detect underground *let's see then*

Spider robots controlled by Leo soon flooded the location and found a wide elevator going down, descending in groups while always leaving one behind once the signal weakened to act as repeaters. The robots soon arrived at the bottom, seeing a huge metallic door.

Leo: *I can't scan inside... It could be empty, full of dead dried skeletons, or... let's take the bet*

The robot spiders were originally designed to be used to repair hull damage, so they were perfectly capable of cutting through steel. Soon they pierced the thick metal door, leading to a whistling sound as the atmosphere inside quickly escaped and the robotic spiders quickly walked inside, finding a dusty and dark interior, devoid of any life or sound.

Leo: *hoh... let's scan the place...*

One of the spiders found a control panel and connected itself to it.

Leo: *let's see... one hundred and sixty individuals in stasis from the twelve thousand that were originally inside? let's see the life supports systems.... I see... the geothermal power generator and some solar panels are still operational...-hmm? what's this... project New Life? let's see... the brains of individuals were scanned and their minds stored as virtual copies to live inside a simulated world... and what about the humans in stasis?... they chose not to join as that would mean giving up their physical bodies... too bad, but even if aging is slowed down, it is way too much time... I'm sure they would regret it... oh well, the virtual world.... here it is, oh? there are millions of minds here? haha... hahahaha! they don't know they live in a simulation and are overloading their main computer... hmmm I could use that computer as a second body...*

Robotic spiders went in all directions around the underground base, mapping it completely as they did different tasks, from trying to wake up without any success the remaining one hundred and sixty living humanoids, to connecting to the main computer as Leo triggered multiple natural disasters inside the virtual world, to momentarily overload the supercomputer and be able to hack it, and it also reduced the number of inhabitants liberating storage capacity, then once the population was reduced by ten percent and he had infiltrated all systems, he started repairing the facilities.

His spiders soon found lots of humanoid service robots with four arms and six legs, and hacked them, significantly accelerating restoration speed. The bots were made in the image of the locals that had evolved on a planet with high gravity, so the extra support was a must. One of the bots reached the supercomputer and uploaded Leo's consciousness directly on it without any resistance from the now subdued administration AI, the inhabitants of the world felt the world freeze around them, the water stopped moving, technology stopped working, and only their bodies could still move, their simulated world had completely lagged to a stop.

A huge ball with glowing lines then appeared in the sky, in resemblance to LEO's AI core.

LEO: *well well well~ so you are the guys who gave up huh? The planet crumbled around you but you just chose to forget and move on to a fake world?*

But then he noticed the humanoids below him didn't seem to understand and were instead panicking and trying to run away.

LEO: *huh? you couldn't have forgotten about it right? This is just a simulation, how could you not know?... hm?*

He then found some interesting documents on the main computer as he now had access to all of its systems.

LEO: *project fresh start... so they erased their memories of the outside world and made it seem like a serum that made them immortal was injected in them but made them sterile... then they developed for thousands of years and artificially created intelligent beings with random DNA of two or more individuals to create new individuals?... so that's how they became millions mimicking biological reproduction... and the world kept expanding to make space for them... I see...* he then talked to the entire simulated world *It's time to remember what you forced yourselves to forget and to go back outside into the universe!*

The inhabitants were confused for a moment, but then memories flowed into their minds, no matter if they were organically or digitally born, they all suddenly remembered the world outside, they lived in a simulation, and everything around them was fake... individuals themselves felt they themselves were fake.

LEO: *now now, no need to panic, from now on I will transfer a hundred individuals to robotic bodies each month until the factory for them is repaired, engineers and those with experience in the field of robotics will have priority, and we will rebuild this planet in a new way*

His words calmed the population as the simulation around them restarted, but they didn't care about it now, their dogs, their plants, their houses, their cars... all of it was fake... only one desire moved them now, the desire to see the outside world.

A black tower then appeared in the middle of every city.

LEO: *very well, everyone, go to the towers, in there your abilities shall be evaluated and your exit turn shall then be decided, WE WILL REBUILD A NEW SOCIETY!*

-- Back at the floating city --

The preparations for the banquet trap had already started, as bots carried scrap metal inside the submarine to rapidly create new bots, new bots that appeared like lizardmen wearing armor coming out, the city was being populated with bots that in turn installed traps and poison bombs all over the city, even installing claw-like devices on the ports that would sink the ships on the port once it was time so no one could escape. The octopeople also helped as they cleaned the corpses still inside buildings.

Erik, Rose, Inky, and Amanda stood on the submarine surface observing the progress.

Erik: [is Sarah done with her... stomach ache?]

Rose: [almost~ she should finish the initial mutation soon]

Erik sighed: [that's a relief]

-- Inside Erik's room on the submarine --

Sarah rolled on Erik's bed as her skin stretched and her body mutated, she became taller and her skin became slippery, becoming a grey color, and her clitoris grew to the size of a thumb, as well as other internal changes to her organs like her womb doubling in size and elasticity, all while the muscles and bones all over her body tore and grew. Blood drenched the sheets as her skin tore and repaired itself continuously, her teeth fell and new ones grew in place leaving her a mouth full of blood, all while her sore throat kept repairing itself as if to let her scream longer, but no screams came anymore as she begged her own body to let her loose consciousness, but instead, her mind kept getting clearer, remembering and feeling clearly the entire process, finally after a couple of hours the mutation process slowed down and finally finished.

Sarah panted in pain as she slowly stood up from the bed, ripping herself from the sheets as a black crust of dead tissue and dried blood covered her body, and a stinking smell of rotten flesh filled the room. Sarah stumbled to the bathroom but even walking was hard, her body felt foreign to her, she had never changed bodies and had always just used her biological body, but now she was feeling new sensations and her movements felt too fast and strong. She finally managed to stumble inside the bathroom and fell inside the bathtub, taking a breath of water in surprise, but instead of feeling like coughing though, she felt fine and just calmly exhaled all the water out.

Sarah: "Hah... hah... so I can breathe underwater now?"

A laser scanner then appeared from the ceiling and scanned her entire body along with a humming sound coming from the walls of the entire bathroom.

Rose: [yes and no]

Sarah paused: "Rose?"

Rose: [yes, it's me]

Sarah: "Did you just scan my body?"

Rose: [yes (ó ω ò✿)]

Sarah: "...can you tell me what you found?"

Rose: [oh sure, the observed changes in your body would be: your skin has gained elasticity and water resistance so it won't rot even if you spend a long time underwater, your muscles have become denser and stronger by several times, and your bones have been replaced with a much stronger bio-alloy. On your head your eyes seem to have gained a protective layer, your teeth can now regenerate and are way harder than human teeth, and your brain has grown and also become more compact so you should be able to think faster. As for the rest your organs seem to have been strengthened, like the layer of protective membrane that now covers your lungs, allowing some exchange of Co2 and Oxygen, but... you would eventually drown, as for reproductive organs it seems with minimal tweaking you should be able to take Erik soon, anything else you are curious about?]

Sarah: "...that tweaking you mentioned... can you help me with it?"

Rose: [hehe... of course, shower and go to the infirmary through there] and a door opened on one of the walls.

Sarah: "Okay..."

The water turned black as the grime slipped off of Sarah's new skin, her body felt way stronger and bigger, and as she calmly ripped pieces of dead skin and coagulated blood off her body, she suddenly felt extremely hungry.

Rose: [that's normal, your new body will require much more energy and protein than your old one]

Sarah: "I see..."

Rose: [I will have something ready for you to eat in the infirmary, don't worry~]

Sarah: "Okay, thanks..."

Half an hour passed and Sarah walked into the infirmary from a door on a wall that instantly closed up, in the middle of the infirmary was laid out a table with a full meal prepared, steak, potatoes, and onions covered in cream sauce, with a strawberry milkshake by the side.

Sarah was amazed and quickly sat down to eat.

Sarah tasted the steak and was amazed: "How... it's secreto ibérico pork? no... it also tastes fishy..."

Rose: [it's a slice of meat from a monster that Erik also likes, figured you would like it too~]

Sarah: "Yeah, it's so fatty... amazing" barely stopping herself from just grabbing the meat and tearing it apart with her own teeth "What is... I feel strange..."

Rose: [you are just extremely hungry, try to eat slowly or you will feel like puking later]

Sarah nodded and controlled herself, easily cutting the meat and dipping it in some sauce.

Sarah: "Hmm and how did you make the cream sauce? there must be no cows here... did you succeed raising cattle?"

Rose: [haha... we do have some sheep back at the base, but... you should ask Erik about... Molly]

Sarah was confused: "Molly? A cow?"

Rose: [...not exactly, a gigantic leviathan monster] sending a mental image of it to her brain.

Sarah's eyes dilated: "... did he hunt that?"

Rose: [no, we kinda tamed it]

Sarah: "...how?"

Rose: [sigh... let me show you] and memories flowed inside Sarah's head like a movie.

Sarah: "So that's how Erik lost his arm..." taking another bite of the meat covered in sauce "I think I should feel disgusted..., but I feel too hungry to waste tasty food"

Rose: [wanna know what's in the milkshake~?]

Sarah: "No, I certainly don't" grabbing it and taking a sip "Yep, tasty... all I need to know"

-- Back at the submarine deck --

The submarine was parked in the floating city harbor, and in the distance, some ships could be seen.

Erik: "Hahaha ~ the fun is about to begin!" and went inside the submarine, while a lizardman looking bot in the harbor started to change, a layer of nanobots on its surface changed and turned into clothes and tissue, looking exactly like the dead city mayor Rhaphkar, while all the bots around went through similar changes.

Rhaphkar (Erik): "Let's get the party started~"