The Airship: A Futuristic Dungeon Core (The Laboratory Book 2) Read online

  "How does that work?"

  "You don't want to know," Ophelia said.

  Oh, how very wrong she was. I very much did. I could run my own experiments, later of course, once I had a proper research lab again.

  "So when you say vampire, just what are we dealing with?" I said.

  "I don't know Sylax well enough to understand just how deep her dysfunction ran when she made them. According to the lore they are superhumanly strong, attractive, immortal and capable of healing even great injuries by drinking blood. Weak to sunlight, garlic, and fire," Anna said.

  "I can confirm the blood," Ophelia said, rubbing at her neck.

  I guess she'd gotten sucked on a bit during her excursions. Her blood was useful.

  "Has Hot Stuff tried burning any of them yet?" I asked.

  "Not yet. So far they've been leaving our deck alone, although we've seen them go past making raids on each other," Anna said.

  Were they utterly incapable of doing their own experimentation?

  The way I saw it there were two priorities that took precedence over all others. First, I had to get a set of research facilities again, and that meant either neutralizing or gaining an alliance with the Bats. Science was my core focus and where most of my abilities rested, and that had to come before everything else.

  Besides the Research deck the next most important was Engineering. We needed to get the engines operational again. I required power for my facilities to function properly and this airship was vulnerable on the ground. We needed to get back into the sky.

  "Where are Mechos and Hot Stuff?" I asked.

  "They went hunting again. We had to eat something while you've been down," Anna said.

  "You should have eaten Ophelia. Call them back to the ship," I said.

  "I'm not lunchmeat," Ophelia said.

  "Of course you are. Any muscle tissue you lose can quickly be regrown. Don't be ashamed, it means you are good for something. Anna is probably envious."

  "Not so much," Anna said.

  "I am seriously not cool with that," Ophelia said.

  Humans could be so very selfish. Ophelia still wore her testing bracelet. I'd have to modify it so I could render her tranquilized if necessary. I couldn't have the other humans starving or getting killed in the jungle, when there were better options.

  "Call them back," I said.

  I might hope that diplomacy could work with the Bats, but I wasn't going to depend on it.

  I recycled the damaged sections of the hull for some building materials and put them to use building traps near the stairwells and lifts. Electrified netting that could drop from the ceiling to block passageways. Even a bat wouldn't be able to squeeze through the mesh without getting a nasty shock.

  I was lacking proper fuel, but I did what I could with the limited resources to construct two flame jets in the throne room. I could direct a blast of fire at targets of my choosing. I wouldn't get more than a few seconds of use, but if fire was a vulnerability that would be enough.

  I could have relied on Hot Stuff, who was vastly more dangerous and powerful when it came to burning things, but she was also more unpredictable and not directly under my control.

  The others returned. Hot Stuff had more clothing than the last time I saw her, the woman now dressed in a tank top, shorts, gloves, and boots. Her gloved hand was on Mechos' arm. Were they indulging in courtship rituals?

  It didn't surprise me from Hot Stuff, but I'd thought Mechos—with questionable judgment—had his sights set on Anna.

  "Anna actually managed to restore you?" Mechos asked.

  "We thought you were gone for good, sugar," Hot Stuff said.

  "Unlike your friends I'm not that easy to kill," I said.

  Mechos frowned, he was fond of his Mechanites and expected Hot Stuff to take offense. Hot Stuff didn't seem to care, her Flames had only been her ex-lovers. Mechos should probably take that as some sort of warning. However, it wasn't my problem.

  "You shouldn't joke about that," Mechos said, on her behalf.

  "Your Mechanites are alive—some of them, at least. And if you didn't like losing the others you should have made them better in the first place," I said .

  Mechos had no excuse to be angry at that. Like me, he had his own upgrade core. The weakness of his minions was entirely his own fault.

  "Good to have you back. We going to burn some people? Hot Stuff asked.

  "We're on a ship full of people supposedly vulnerable to fire. What do you think?" I asked.

  Hot Stuff grinned. "I think it sounds like someone is getting a giant plate full of cookies."

  I appreciated Hot Stuff, she was both murderous and responded favorably to bribery. Humans were best when they could be manipulated.

  3

  I took the opportunity to absorb the Ice Crystal. When Frost had it, the crystal resulted in vastly lowered body temperatures and the ability to regulate cold, but crystal powers could be erratic and I needed to see what I'd get.

  You have claimed a Frost Core

  You have unlocked the ability of overdrive. Technological systems can be overclocked for short periods, but heat is a limiting factor. With this ability you can now periodically vastly overpower your systems for a short duration with no chance of damage.

  That could prove useful. I preferred being able to plan in advance, but I'd also learned how battles could be decided in just a few key moments. Anything that could make me stronger in those vital seconds was worth doing.

  Absorbing a new power crystal also gave me a new core point to spend.

  You have an unspent core point

  Your host entity has unlocked new options

  Your options are

  Research 5

  Research 5 will allow you to build science drones. These are research drones that can be dispatched into your surroundings to conduct research and observe specimens in their native habits. This both adds an element of scouting and allows a steady trickle of research points that can be used towards new upgrades.

  Military 2

  Military 2 will allow you to control a greater number of defense drones. There is power in numbers. In addition, defensive systems all acquire a minor upgrade.

  Engineering 1

  Engineering 1 will allow the production of automated minions. They are capable of autonomous ship repair and will halve all build and production times for new facilities.

  Command 1

  Command 1 will allow status warnings. Currently you receive no notification when an individual component is in distress. With this upgrade you will receive alerts with the issue, severity, and suggested fixes.

  Espionage 1

  Espionage 1 will allow you to control a reconnaissance drone. This unit is capable of stealth and will allow visual and audio surveillance.

  Warning

  Currently several decks remain unclaimed and until such time those advantages will not be available.

  There were several options which were unfamiliar. Command and Espionage were completely new, and what had previously been Manufacturing seemed to have been renamed to Engineering.

  The extra options were fairly underwhelming. Espionage would provide little that the Research upgrade couldn’t, and the Command upgrade was nothing I couldn't achieve simply by paying attention. Still, my ability to multitask had been somewhat hampered since my upgrade to a biocomputer.

  The two that really stood out to me were the Research and Engineering upgrades. I'd put off anything related to maintenance until this point and it had hurt me. On the other hand, SCIENCE.

  As is right and proper, SCIENCE won. I assigned the point.

  Two science drones materialized. They were bulky, hovering disks laden with equipment, quite unlike the sleek spheres of the military drones. I dispatched both into the jungle.

  It was time to meet the neighbors and subjugate them to my will. This was my ship now and I had to make that clear. While my observation systems might not be working on the other decks I had no problem
with communication. I sent a message to the central research console informing them to appear on the Command deck.

  An acknowledgment response didn't take long to arrive—they were scientists. They were likely as curious about me as I was about them.

  Through my cameras I saw three come up the stairs. Two men and one woman, all in lab coats marked with a bat sigil and wearing thick goggles that obscured their features. They were more dangerous than they appeared at first glance. While their clothing beneath the lab coats looked typical, my scans were identifying it as some sort of anti-ballistic weave.

  They paused at the top of the stairs before stepping onto the deck.

  "I am Doctor Batavius, coming as requested. Do you guarantee safe passage for me and my companions?" the woman said.

  I didn't, of course. Fortunately I had no compulsion against lying.

  "Are you literally as blind as bats? How disappointingly silly. Do come in, I can't guarantee you won't bump into any walls, but I won't kill you," I said. That was even true, I'd have Hot Stuff do it, if it came to violence. My flame cannons were strictly a backup precaution.

  "Oh, good. An AI with an attitude, why has no one ever thought of that before?" asked the woman with droll condescension, moving on. It wasn't her first time here, she knew the way to the throne room.

  I'd manufactured up a table and chairs for the meeting. Anna, Mechos, and one of my drones would be on one side, with the delegation on the other. Hot Stuff and Ophelia were on guard duty.

  The doctor and her companions made their way inside and took seats at the table.

  "I'm Anna," Anna said, sticking out her hand.

  "I don't care. Let the important people talk," said Batavius.

  Anna gave a strained smile. "I'm the Queen of the World."

  "Then you're doing a terrible job. Does the smart one have a name?"

  "I'm Mechos," Mechos said.

  The doctor peered at him and leaned forward to study his mechanical arm. "You have an upgrade core and are choosing to be a mechanic, not an engineer. No, I'm definitely not talking to you either."

  "I'm Emma," I said through my drone’s speakers.

  "There you are," said Batavius, reaching over the table and grabbing my drone to turn it over and examine it. "A military model. Really? Is this thing even upgraded?"

  "The science drones are off in the jungle studying interesting wildlife, instead of a crazy bat who is already pushing her luck," I said.

  "As they should be." Batavius released my drone which quickly hovered away.

  "If you are quite done making enemies of all my allies by somehow managing to be even more unlikable than Anna, I called you here for a reason," I said.

  "I'm likable," Anna said.

  "Visualize the impossible and then try to make it a reality. Perhaps you have the soul of a mad scientist at least?" Batavius said. "And I imagine you want control of my deck, to gain my loyalty, so on and so forth. Will you get rid of all the damnable magic?"

  Anna looked like she was about to get punchy. I quietly materialized a plate of cookies.

  Anna reached for one and the doctor slapped her hand away.

  "If you're our new queen, you’ll have none of those. I'm not going to spend a decade researching ever-stronger thrones. We'll have no repeats of Lord Sluggicus."

  "I am not Lord Sluggicus," Anna said, her voice strained.

  Batavius explained, "He had an ooze core which let him absorb things. Powers, memories, buildings. Rather useless fellow, but great at expanding an empire—for a time. It got quite ridiculous at the end."

  "Anna manages to absorb cookies and lay about doing nothing even without an ooze core. It seems to be a natural ability. It sounds as if you are accepting my proposal then?" I asked.

  The doctor waved her hand airily. The two others remained silent.

  "I've no desire to be the queen myself. You seem quaint and ill-designed, and your associates charmless half-wits, but I'm happy enough to support you until somebody better kills you off," said Batavius.

  As she said this I felt a newfound rush of power in my systems and my awareness expanded into the deck below.

  The Research deck was something like an alchemist’s laboratory, walls covered with arcane sigils, a vast library, tables filled with an array of bubbling beakers and tubes. The magical runes were already starting to fade.

  Including the doctor and her two companions, there were a total of a dozen researchers.

  I began reconfiguring the deck at once to put in proper testing labyrinths and converting the mystical libraries into genetic facilities.

  I wasn’t given long to focus on those changes. At the other end of the ship we had some new visitors to our deck. They looked nothing like researchers.

  There were a half-dozen in total, both men and women, wearing heavy body armor marked with a wolf’s head on the shoulder, and carrying assault rifles.

  "You are as wise as you are insulting,” I told Batavius. “Now, we've got Wolves on the way. Tell me about them."

  Anna pushed back from the table and accepted a rifle from Ophelia.

  "They're vulnerable to fire, right?" Anna asked.

  Batavius replied, "What a delightful fantasy world you live in—where you can afford to eat cookies and your attackers can’t defend themselves against the things to which they are supposedly weak.”

  Anna slammed the butt of her rifle into the doctor's face, who cried out as her nose broke.

  "I'm your Queen, show some damned respect. Ophelia, heal the old bat," Anna said, tipping over the table.

  The Wolves were heading straight for the throne room. They'd been here before too. I doubted the timing was a coincidence. They’d waited until they could neutralize the leaders of two decks at once. I'd see them pay for trying.

  4

  The Wolves paused outside the door to the throne room and one threw something inside.

  Batavius, still bleeding from her nose, took a small device from her pocket and tossed it. It rumbled through the air leaving a trail of fire and hit the Wolf’s grenade. An explosion of black goo from the device dampened the flash and detonation of the grenade. What should have been a massive blast became instead a damp fizzle.

  The Wolves weren't deterred. They were already advancing into the room, spreading into the corners and opening fire on anyone upright. They were aiming for headshots—they weren't trying to take prisoners.

  One of the researchers was flung backwards with a massive crack in his goggles. Ophelia could afford to be fearless, standing her ground as she kept her fire focused on the doorway. She caught two of the Wolves before her skull exploded in a spray of bone and brain.

  Anna was firing over the table, but even that proved risky as a well-aimed shot from a Wolf blew off one of her fingers.

  "Did you bother to set up any defenses?" Batavius asked, as she and her surviving companion began to quickly assemble something behind the table.

  Hot Stuff was still standing, any bullet that came in her direction melted before it reached her. With a snap of her fingers she began to burn even brighter. The clothing on her smoldered, fire resistance only going so far, and it began to turn to ash and drop to the ground. "I love them with all those muscles," she said, sauntering forward and ignoring the gunfire now coming in her direction.

  "I hate Pyros," said one of the Wolves, dropping his rifle and taking off his gloves. His hands began to transform, massive claws springing forth.

  "Your dick doesn't do that, right?" Hot Stuff asked.

  "Err," said the man, taken aback.

  "You don’t go all doggy? I mean, I'm pretty freaky, but that isn't my thing," Hot Stuff said.

  "You get used to it. Well, you won't, because we're going to kill you," said one of the Wolf women.

  I didn't care about their banter. I'm guessing the Wolves had some measure of fire resistance and actually posed something of a threat to Hot Stuff. There was nothing supernaturally durable about her, she simply burned so hot mo
st threats turned gaseous before they could touch her.

  I zipped my defense drone out from behind the table and charged the man. Rifles were already tracking the sphere by the time it got close, bullets tearing it apart. I managed to get out a blasting zap that sent the Wolf to the ground twitching.

  "I was flirting," Hot Stuff said, delivering a punch to the face of the woman. There was the sizzle of burning flesh and she dropped howling to the ground.

  One of the Wolves had been scrounging in a pouch at their waist and now leveled a pistol. A shot took Hot Stuff in the stomach. Frozen mist surrounded the bullet in the air and when it hit Hot Stuff she went soaring backwards, her bare abdomen a bloodied, frozen mess.

  The round probably would have killed a normal human, instantly freezing them solid. The flesh was an unhealthy bluish grey surrounding the wound—although already that was fading.

  "Emma, I need some cover," Anna said, crouched at the edge of the table near where Hot Stuff lay.

  Did she mean to rescue the woman? It wasn't a good idea. With Hot Stuff at her current temperature the effort would gravely wound Anna. Ophelia was there, but her skull had only managed to piece itself back together —she was still regrowing a face.

  "Go," I told Anna.

  I brought my second defense drone in behind the Wolves. My target was that pouch. It obviously held specialized ammunition. They must have brought an assortment of rounds suitable for a wide range of potential threats.

  I rather wanted it to study, but for now I needed more of a distraction. As before, the Wolves were simply too good for my drone, rounds beginning to tear it apart quickly. But again the suicide run got in range and I hit the pouch with a full-powered zap.

  The explosion was impressive. I picked up traces of at least twenty different sorts of Power cores as the Wolf wearing the pouch was torn apart.

  Anna used the opportunity to rush forward and grab a hold of Hot Stuff's arm, dragging her back behind the table. The results were as terrible as expected, the skin of Anna’s hands searing away to reveal the bone beneath. I was surprised that Anna held onto consciousness long enough to manage it.