Michael Clark
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Tunnel Rat 366
🕑 Added 2024-11-18 21:21:58 +0000 UTCA little Raw, but these sort of roll out with a life of their own. Hard chapters to write. Warning, a bit more trauma and some more in the next chapter.
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Milo was quiet as Belinda opened the storage case and loaded the data disc with the research on Batch Four. She paused for a moment before telling Rusty to start skimming through it. "Are you ok with this? I know you usually plow through all the data instead of sampling the highlights."
Milo blinked, coming up from his thoughts, "It's fine. I'll be going through it several more times, I'm sure. Right now, we need to prepare for our meeting with your stepfather, which means we need the narrative, not the research. And then move past it."
"And find out what he did to me, and whatever the hell John thought he was doing. Ready?"
"Yes. Go ahead and start Rusty."
Both of them sat in the command room, staring at the multiple screens as Rusty sorted through thousands of pages of data detailing the experiments conducted to create Batch Four. Max was in the room with them, and the other Roomba outside. The two humans were showing signs of stress, and their guardians were on high alert.
Milo spent more time reviewing bits of the data, especially interested in the genetics used to create the embryos that became his family. Most of what he knew before came from snippets overheard by the children as their guards and doctors talked. Some of them were under the assumption the children were taken from orphanages or habitats, or bought on the open market where adoption laws were a thing of the past. Those assumptions were incorrect. All of Batch Four were hand-crafted with thousands of embryos discarded before they settled on the group of twenty-five that should develop the mental enhancements and quirks they wanted in them, along with the physical mutations that would slow their maturation.
Behind it all was Vigo's dream of a smarter, better human. Sadly, he didn't see Batch Four as what he wanted. These children were simply a step along the way and useful tools to be used. There were audio files where Vigo talked about his dream, but Milo skipped over those. He skimmed the transcripts and moved further into the process that led to his birth.
Belinda, on the other hand, listened to her Father talk. She'd never known him and barely knew her mother. Here was a chance to hear his voice and listen to him. She found him both interesting and horrifying at the same time. He was passionate about his dream, talking about a better world with better people, and pushing the limits of science and technology without being dependent on AI. If you only listened to this part of her father, he was inspiring, and she was sure that was what her mother and other people had seen. His reputation at the time of his death was untainted by any of this.
But if one side of Vigo Johansson was the tireless genius working for a better world, the other side was an uncaring fanatic who didn't care about the lives he broke in the current world. He had no concerns about his experiments, any more than his father had. All the lives created and discarded by his labs were no more to him than rats or mice. They were useful to him until he'd learned what he needed, and then they were discarded. The end result was all that mattered.
But the end result would take money, and a lot of it. Keeping his labs and activities secret was expensive, and he wanted to keep his ties to major corporations as loose as he could. What the major tech companies got ahold of became theirs, and they dreamed of money, not smarter humans. The solution was to start his own corporation and seek out people with money who also wished to stay unnoticed. That led him to Victor Simovich.
Victor could care less about Vigo's dreams, but he recognized the potential uses of Batch Four. At just two years old the children could hack into small corporations and bank accounts, moving small amounts of money around as they practiced their skills. It was Victor who took the programming tools used by hackers in the former Soviet block and gave them to Vigo. The combination of these tools, their enhanced links to their machines, and their ability to think and adapt quickly to security measures made Batch Four into highly useful tools that Victor could use to farm millions of dollars a day. Vigo was supplied with the money he needed to proceed, and Batch Four became Victor's property.
Belinda had always believed that her parents met by chance at a Tech Conference where Vigo's charisma and dreams intrigued her mother. They'd begun talking, then meeting up when they could, and finally marrying. The newspapers were filled with articles about the new 'Power Couple' where the Simovich wealth would fund the growing Johansson tech corporation. She saw that was a sham. Whether Victor suggested it, or Vigo went looking for a way to gain even more money, was unclear. But her father hadn't randomly met her mother.
And that led her to other suspicions.
She voiced them to Milo, "I think that either Victor, Vigo, or both were involved in the deaths of my Uncle and Grandfather. Things fall into place too easily. She was suddenly the only one left, heir to a huge fortune. Victor is at the funeral and they get close, then she meets Vigo, who is already working with Victor. And now Vigor had unlimited funds."
Milo thought for a moment. "Is it important to know? I have people I could leave hints for and start an investigation, but Victor isn't getting out of jail and your father is dead. I'm worried about someone digging too far."
Belinda thought about it, "I'd like to know, but it doesn't matter against the threat of people finding out that the two of us are genetically created humans. I'm tired of being a lab rat with doctors poking at me. I want to know the truth about myself, get free of John, and move forward with our plans. That's enough for now." Milo nodded and turned back to the screens. Belinda did as well, listening to her father and slowly dreading what was coming next.
Milo spent the rest of the day finding out more about his origins. Like him, several of his family were born with defects in limbs or organs. These were repaired, or in the cases of legs, hands, and arms, simply removed. The original plans were to graft cybernetic replacements, but as the value of Batch Four was discovered, those plans were ended. A missing leg or hand didn't matter when the members of Batch Four spent twenty hours a day connected to computers. Some of his siblings were documented as dying from internal defects that couldn't easily be corrected. Four became paranoid about being connected to the machines, terrorized by the thought of being caught by what lived in the data net. Two went catatonic and faded away. Proper medical treatment and psychotherapy might have saved them, but it was deemed better to discard them. Batch Four was becoming better and better at harvesting money from banks and corporations and even as their numbers dropped, the amount they made for their creators increased each year.
Vigo was deep in his new research and hated the idea of creating a second batch. He was moving into new territory where he would create a better Batch of tools to provide his needs for money. Batch Five would bypass the physical needs of earlier batches, getting around the need for the slow maturation process and the physical deformities, focusing only on their mental enhancements. Batch Five would barely be human. Their brains, spines, and some internal organs would be housed permanently in metal pods, unable to interact with the world except through machines. Vigo began the work, but another laboratory would finish it, he had other things to do. The fate of Batch Five wasn't mentioned as the rest of the disc displayed the data on Vigo's next phase of human enhancements.
These involved genetic modifications of a naturally produced human embryo with additional treatments as they matured within the mother. These would result in the enhanced nervous systems that were developed in Batch Four and increased brain development.
Human testing began immediately, running into the usual problems with early development, but Vigo was sure that with a few dozen more tries he could perfect the process.
He was almost done when Ekaterina became pregnant. "I need a break." Belinda stood up and began pacing. Milo finished with the last experiments he was reviewing and then shut down the screens.
"We don't have to meet with your father tomorrow."
"No, I need to do this. Just give me a moment. I can shove a lot of things off to the side, but hearing my Father's plans for me is a little too personal to do that with."
"I don't need to go on. How about we move slowly, at whatever pace you like?"
She let out a deep breath. "Thanks. Just let me grab a snack, I'm starving. I don't know how you forget to eat all the time."
Milo realized he was starving. Mama's reminders about eating were already sounding in his brain. She had packed enough food for several meals when they announced their plans to review as much of the stored information in the data discs as they could today.
"Eating the processed food cubes in the hab can make you ambivalent on meals. I have to remember sometimes that I eat good food now."
"I can't believe how basic the food is in the habitat. Thank god you've been adding more recipes for the people in your section."
"And Wally is copying my changes for the Sections that he leases for Genesis. It's actually starting a migration of people from the outer sections to the floors assigned as residential in ours. I'm having to watch things more carefully. There's more load on the water, waste, food, and electrical systems now."
"So people can freely move?"
"Nope, you have to request a move from the Section you're in, and then get permission from the new section. Most places never approve anything, since they get paid by the person. In fact, I don't think some of them even pay attention to move requests anymore. They sure don't seem to notice when I go into their files and approve them all."
Belinda ate the sandwich Mama had packed for her, aware that most of the hab would be eating food cubes forever. "We should buy the rest of the hab. All the sections we can. Rhebus owns theirs, and Genesis owns their block, but all the rest. Take it over."
Milo blinked, his mind thinking about all the work, all the building. "I can barely keep one Section running."
"I'll help!!!" Rusty's enthusiastic voice rang out. "Put me in, coach!"
Milo considered if he could copy what he did in Section E, and set up enough surveillance, maybe Rusty could help. "I need to think about that, a lot."
Belinda stood up and moved back to her chair in front of the screens. "Make a note to remind him, Rusty, after I have my trust funds."
Part of Milo's brain was still thinking about the new idea as the next section of data loaded. Or tried to. "I can't. It's locked and I can't break the security on it. It's asking a question, 'Which duckling won't come home?' I don't know the answer and can't break in."
Belinda looked panicked, worrying Milo, but then she took a breath and calmed. "What's wrong?"
"It's the grey duckling, I'm sure of it. The grey duckling won't come home. I stepped on it. My mother had gotten me these little duckling toys and a mama duck. I was two or three. I remember breaking the grey one and crying because he couldn't get home to the nest. She didn't fix it, just said, "No, not all of them do." Only my mother would know that."
Rusty called out. "It works. Grey is the answer."
A video appeared of a woman, sitting in a chair, staring at the camera. Milo recognized her from pictures and the resemblance to Belinda. "Hello, Belinda, we should talk."
Comments
Cymi
This cliff is killing me!!! not sure how many times I've checked there hasn't been a random bonus fast next chapter....
Engineer4God
Tank oo fur da chap!
Michael Clark
The only tool I use is a spellchecker. Would love to have a big staff like Sanderson. :) Maybe in a decade.
Thando vanika
How do you edit and release so quickly. Do you use tools or have proofreaders. I’m struggling with a fraction of the word count you mange to pullout weekly.
NameGame
Oooooh that's getting interesting. Thanks for the chapter.
Michael Clark
I might do that. Another part of it was the chapter with John and Eric was easy to write, and the chapters with Belinda and Milo are far harder and wearing on me.
PlasmaticPi
Honestly unless there is gonna be some viewpoint swapping back and forth between the meeting itself and now in the next chapters I would just switch the chapter numbers of this one and the previous. I mean I get your trying to build suspense while lore dumping but at this point we can already guess what is gonna be revealed and it just makes things more frustrating and confusing to constantly flip around like this.
D d
The cliffhanger!!!!
Michael Clark
Yes, Happening before, I should make that more clear.
Jacob Lawlor
I confused, is this the day before Belinda called Eric and John and organised the meeting that they were headed for? P.s loving the story
brennon Petersen
Tftc!
