Chapter 28

The birthing pool of the Swarm had grown tremendously over the past few days. It continued spitting warrior after warrior into the world. Any soundless that were born got thrown into another pool but this one was filled with a type of acid and dissolved the soundless within seconds.

"How goes the production?" an advisor asked, gliding down next to the sorter and folding his wings behind him.

"Half of all born are soundless. Rates increasing with each warrior," slurred the sorter as his multiple appendages darted over the pools.

"Well, we can't afford to make another pool, so you'll just have to add the soundless to our army." The advisor stepped closer to the pool, grabbing a soundless out of the fluid and shaking it to no response. "It's stillborn. If you find any more of these, re-digest them."

The advisor threw the lifeless body of the soundless into the acid pool and walked off.

"Yes, they are dead and need to be re-digested," the sorter slurred, nodding its bulbous head and skewering another stillborn soundless.

The mantis-like claws of the sorter punched straight through the soundless's body; the hooks along the edge of its claws kept the soundless from falling off. The sorter ripped the soundless in half and threw both pieces into the digestive pool. It continued this process until a warrior was also born dead.

"New genetic material is needed for the birthing pool to produce more warriors."

"What was that?" the advisor returned to the edge of the pool and stared down at the dead warrior.

"Re-digest it as well. Make sure that if any more are stillborn you notify me."

"Understood."

Stabbing a claw into the pool, in order to retrieve the newborn warrior, the claw glanced off the abnormally thick armor of the warrior. Lowering a second claw into the pool, the sorter lifted the warrior out.

"Wait, before you send it to the digester, let me see what's wrong with it," the advisor said scanning the warrior.

The sorter set down the warrior and returned its attention to the pool.

The advisor turned the warrior on its back and ripped open its stomach with its own shorter, and much sharper claws. Inside were deformed organs, muscles where there shouldn't have been, and a black rotting ooze. It had been in the womb for too long. It was already toxic.

"Do not throw any more of these into the digestion pool. You are poisoning it with rot."

The sorter turned to examine the open cavity of the warrior and recoiled at the sulfuric stench emanating from the corpse.

"We have a major issue," the advisor noted, wondering what to do. The Prime Sentient was asleep.

xX At a human artificial womb facility back on Mars Xx

"Are you sure about the rot?" one scientist asked.

"Yes, year 108 isn't going to make it. Something made its way into the fluid network."

"Save as many as you can and clean out the entire system. The dead can be composted and spread on the fields," the second scientist said coldly.

"No, you've got to see what's happening," the first scientist retorted.

Sighing, the second scientist got up from their chair and walked over to the monitor station. After a brief moment, they began running to the vats. Upon arrival, he stared in disbelief at the black mixture swirling around in the tank where a human should be.

"How can this be? The breakdown is nearly complete and we've only just discovered it!"

"That's what I'm saying! The solution must have been tampered with to cause such a fast reaction. I took a sample earlier to see what that black stuff was and, according to the analyzer, the solution is almost ninety percent organic enzymes and a bonding agent found in platelets."

"It's showing up as horribly unstable. How can the solution be made of so much of it without causing issues?!"

"That's the thing. The bonding agent is forcing it to be stable and gives it the black color."

"What about the rest of the pods?! Are they contaminated?!" the scientist demanded, grabbing the other one by the collar.

"All of the ones for this year are identical to that one."

The scientist released his partner and leaned against the wall for support. "Purge the system and put this facility on lockdown until we know more."

xX Aboard the Crystalid ship Xx

"Are you certain all of the growth chambers were broken?" the chancellor asked the young eidolon he had put in charge of checking them.

"I was the last one born without the instability that all the rest are starting to exhibit. I have locked some of them in confinement to study the effect of the instability after they mature. If this displeases you, I can destroy them all," the eidolon said, kneeling with its head down.

"No, continue to hold them in confinement. We do not know if this instability is contagious yet. Make sure not to interact with them too much. If you need assistance, the bridge eidolon should be able to assist you," the chancellor said turning back to what he was doing.

The eidolon stood and walked off to find the bridge eidolon, who was missing, having traveled to investigate Loyd.

xX Speaking of Loyd, let's go back there Xx

"Nice work, Griffon! Now you just need to design a way to make your muscle strands," Loyd said.

"Can't we just make the crystal muscles and grow something over them?"

"No, the crystals would react and try to consume the rest of the muscle system," Tiny claimed.

"So, we need to add the crystal muscles to existing tissue? That makes my discovery almost worthless. I can't design a way to add the crystal muscle to existing tissues without tearing the tissue apart," Griffon complained.

"Sure, you can. Healing and growing next to crystal would cause the crystal to consume the muscles but what if you grow the muscle around a mesh and then just replace the mesh with the crystal," Tiny asked, intrigued by the idea as it went against everything his people believed.

"That might work but we'd have some issues using the swarm DNA like you're wanting to in the simulation. Aside from the bits I was born with, that stuffs way too unstable."

"What do you mean unstable?" Tiny asked examining the tablet.

"We were going to get cancer and other harmful mutations with every cell our bodies replaced," Loyd said pausing. "I used human DNA to fill in any inconsistencies that I could find and fixed all of the damaged or incorrect sequences. If I go into it any more, I'm afraid your head might explode."

"So, the swarm has the ability to manipulate their genetic material?" Tiny asked.

"Pretty much it just takes a few hours and a mutation chamber like the ones I put the soundless through when repairing them. That's how they got to looking like they do, and I've renamed them as they're now new creatures."

("Loyd! Turn the TV on to channel thirteen! Something big just came on!") Sara shouted.

Loyd swapped the tablet over to the news channel Sara had mentioned and waited for the signal to come through.

"I'm here in the lab of the NexGen facility where something major has happened to our next year's generation!" the reporter shouted over the sound of people running and shouting. "The tank behind me has turned completely black with what the scientist in charge of the facility has told me is an unstable chemical solution of organic solvents. Normally yellowish brown, the chemical has bonded with something in the patient's platelets and turned it deep black."

The reporter turned as something broke behind them. The camera panned over to show that one of the tubes had broken and a black lump had fallen out with the chemical mixture.

"EVERYONE GET YOUR MASKS ON NOW!" one of the scientists shouted. "If you breathe the fumes from that stuff, you'll be dead in seconds."

The reporter put on their mask and took a few steps back as the lump in the black ooze started to move. "It's moving! Could it still be alive?"

"Not in a million years. That's just the exposed nerves and the sludge reacting with the air."

The thing that had come from the sludge began to get up. It was nearly ten feet tall and was almost entirely bone muscles barely hanging on. The monster finished standing, its lower jaw hanging slack as it took in a breath. The cry it put out was deafening and caused issues with the news cameras microphone.

A guard came around the corner and shot the wailing creature in the head, stunning it. The creature turned to the guard and charged him, tearing him apart.

Loyd shut off the tablet. "Looks like the swarm wasn't the only one with bad genetic material."

"This is fascinating, because the growth chambers aboard my ship were also malfunctioning," Tiny said looking at Loyd. "This is too coincidental. Have you had these issues before?"

"Nope, only since you've arrived," said Griffon.