Next Plan of Action

"It's okay you don't have to tell me and even if you told me...it wouldn't lower my opinion of you", Dean assured with a small smile.

Feeling assured, Kat muster up the courage to reveal another aspect of the Paxian, [During the nuclear war, my people serve as utility or support roles, but when the Golden Age of Space Colonization began, some humans thought they had the freedom to do anything including unsanctioned experiments and creation of artificial intelligences. While some of the AIs ended up being friendly and taken to our virtual homeworld, some were not friendly towards both humans and even us as our ideologies clashed with one another.]

"I heard about this in History of Space Colonization 201, but we were told the alliance marines kept order on the frontier. Huh, so your people was what kept humanity on expanding peacefully", said Dean as Kat stopped her explanation temporarily for Dean to process a new hidden piece of history.

She then continued shortly after, [Both Paxians and UHA marines tried to neutralize the rogue AIs with conventional methods like physical attacks in both reality and the cyberworld but the AIs manage to slip away to another system using the Galactic Network and even viruses don't work as they were too weak to affect 'a fully aware living being'. Luckily my ancestors kept the AIs isolated in the outer sector so they had a slow noose tightening around them but the progress was too slow and more rogue scientists were creating even more AIs. In desperation, we developed an extremely deadly virus called Null that isn't infectious but only Paxian can wield them. Ummm...in simpler terms...]

Kat took a deep breath then, in her holographic form, stood up and walked in front of Dean suddenly summoning a heavily modified scythe but it changed into a sword then a gun continuously changing into different weapons. The various weapons changed into various shapes and forms but all of them were ominously black with a white skull painted. 

[This is a null weapon, and it lets me delete anything in the cyberspace...permanently. This weapon was what Paxians used on rogue AIs and from what I witness in the historic vids, this weapon brought no pain but only emptiness to its victims in their last moments. And this weapon can kill a Paxian with ease. I even used this weapon sometimes to remove fake videos of you doing unsavory things from the source.]

Kat declared with a serious aura while maintaining eye contact with Dean, inwardly she was nervous but she didn't let that show. Dean, on the other hand, remain silent as he was deep in thought.

Paxians had a weapon that could potentially destroy the UHA's infrastructure as it can permanently 'delete' anything in the cyberspace and possibly any electronics. Dean could ask Kat for confirmation but he feels that she's already uncomfortable with the subject, but he still had a couple questions.

"Do all of you possess this 'null' virus weapon thing?"

[Yes, we all possess one and are fully trained to use our 'null' weapon.]

"How many humans know about this?"

[Less than 100 humans in the entire UHA that are entrusted to not spread panic or cause unwanted conflict with us.]

Now it was Dean's turn to hesitate before asking, "Why entrust this secret to me?"

Kat paused for a moment before smiling and answered,

[From your perspective, you've only known me for over an hour, but for me I've known you for four years. Enough time for a paxian to form a bond with their human partner. Our short lifespan helps us to form deeper bonds with people in our lives. So in short, when you reassured me, I knew that I can trust you.]

Dean's curiosity was satisfied and he relaxed on Melanie's lavish couch feeling the silky smooth material and inhaled deeply with the scent of jasmine and roses invading his nostril. 

Jasmine and rose?

This was Melanie's favorite perfume.

How did Dean know this?

Well bumping into each other figuratively eventually turned into bumping into each other physically though the latter were very rare occurrences. 

Grumble

The sound of his stomach rumbling signaled Dean to grab a calorie bar from his fanny pack and munch on it. Kat notices and quickly scanned his bar to generate a digital copy of it, wanting to enjoy the same taste of the calorie bar. Normally Kat can 'store' data of foods, but Paxians prefer to create the feeling of 'food longevity'. She then sat back down and munch on the bar alongside with Dean. The flavor....was plain vanilla, Kat didn't dislike it but...

[No strawberry in that pack?]

 "Nope, all vanilla."

[Next time can you get strawberry pretty please? Oh I know how about 'borrowing' some of Melanie's calorie bars?]

"Maybe and definite no, end of discussion."

[Simp...]

Dean ignored her last comment and finished his bar, then he grab his water canister to quench his thirst. 

"How much time has passed?"

[It is...huh?]

"Hm?", Dean turned his head towards Kat.

[I think something is messing with the clock here because its only 6:40 am and the date is the same too.]

"Weird...it definitely felt like more than an hour has pass by", Dean replied with a hint of confusion.

[Yeah...I'll investigate the cause during our down time but what's the next step when we leave this room?]

"I was thinking of clearing all 15 floors of this building to find any survivors", answered Dean as he still desire to link up with anyone and seek answers to what is happening here. 

Though Kat shared her own opinion, [I think we should head straight down to ground floor as the group we encountered earlier seems to be hunting for survivors and after the 13th floor, the other floors are so massive that it's most likely to contain more of those monsters and maybe even worse.]

The floors below 13 were indeed massive to accommodate the rest of the 8000 4th years who weren't in the top 100. The ground floor contains the 4th year student housing office, storage for this building's maintenance drones, and the janitor's 'office'. 

"Then how about this, let's check floor 13 then whether there's survivors or not, we'll head straight down after."

[Fine by me.]

After confirming their plot of course, they stood up but Dean noticed something strange, "Umm...Kat did you notice that corner there?"

[Huh? Corner?]

Kat turned towards the direction Dean was pointing to.

[Huh? HUH?]

**********

A/N: What's in the corner of Melanie's living room? Accepting right and wrong answers XD.

 What about Kat's null weapon? It'll be important down the line.

 The extra long backstory to Kat's secret weapon? Well....world building?