Chapter 19 - Sirens Rapture

"I know you're there Chadash. No sense trying to scare me today." admonished her long time friend. "Ugh, I was so careful this time.... you should play in the games Sebastian."

"Not likely...." laughing, "Although there was that one time when we were kids & I bested you in that prank off."

"YUCK! That was so dreadful, Please don't remind me. My mother grounded me until the smell went away." she stopped speaking, & remembered her mother screaming at her. She shook it off.

"I can't believe that was only 10 years ago. So much has happened since we were that young," Sebastian added. He stopped what he was working on and looked up at her "it feels like another lifetime ago?"

"Yeah..." they could both see the people they used to be in each other's face.

His dolphin-like skin was smooth as she put a finned arm around him and leaned her head into his. He hugged her back with his flippered yet fingered hands. They were more like brother & sister, than lovers, not that many transhumanists were monogamous. Hell, even they weren't, but their bond was deep. Maybe it was because he knew who she used to be so well & simply had the frame of reference for almost anything she put out.

She finally broke their silence, "I'm going up for some sun with the pod today, feel like a float?"

"I feel like I could use a cigarette," he mused, "I almost want to go up just for that."

"Old habits die hard, huh? Let me guess, you have an air tight pack in that safe of yours?" she teased.

"Now you know all my secrets, don't you 'Dash?" he smiled at her.

"I'm serious, are you coming with me or not?" she asked, returning the smile.

"Tam & I really need to go over these samples, today. As a matter of fact he'll be here soon. Maybe tomorrow?" he asked.

"I can't wait that long, I'll be eating the sea-horses by nightfall." she giggles.

Chuckling with her, "Fair enough, how about meeting at Coral Castle when we're both done, say in about 5 hours?"

"Make it 6? I haven't had any sun in a few days & last night's games took a lot out of me." She gave him a long deep kiss & swam out of the lab. On her way out she almost bumps into Tam. "Hi Chad, where are you off too?" he asked.

"Going up with the pod for some sun." she replied.

The scent of the room flows into the hallway behind her. "Woah! Smells like pheromones. What did I miss?" Chadash fakes a blush, altering the colors of her cheeks, & winks. Her fins & flippers take her out of his sight far too quickly, he couldn't help but watch her go, dumbfounded at her. Tam turns into the lab & remarks about how lucky he thinks Sebastian is.

Meanwhile, Chadash is enjoying the speed of the AquaDuct Flow Tubes leading her to the outside of Atlantis. Blasting out of the tunnel into open water was always fun for her. She laughed & twirled. Then she saw the pod. It looked to her like everyone was just starting to move up & that she made it just in time to catch up with the school of Aquins. "Seems like everyone's hungry after the games again?" Shouts one of the other stragglers, to her. It was Donna, an old roommate of hers from the construction. "Yeah, long time, no see, what's it been about 8 months?" Donna's eyes widened, "Well, we got new residences about 4 months after it was first completed, so yeah, that's about right. Can't believe it's been a year since we made that!" They both kept floating upwards, but turned their vision towards the conch shaped & corralled mega city that seemed to swirl beneath them as they turned.

Then she looks upwards again, at the near 7 million gilled residents between her & the surface of the ocean. Lobster-people, Sharkins, Rays, Mollusk Folk, & more, all swirling together. Swimming slightly against the tide. Arriving at the top at dawn, the Aquins find themselves a few miles out from right above Atlantis. Over the next few hours they drift & float until they are nearly right above the sustainable City-State complex.

*plick*

*plick* *plick* *plick* *plick*

*plick* *plick* *plick* *plick* *plick* *plick* *plick* *plick* *plick* *plick* *plick* *plick* *plick* *plick* *plick* *plick* *plick* *plick* *plick* *plick* *plick* *plick* *plick* *plick* *plick* *plick* *plick* *plick* *plick* *plick* *plick* *plick* *plick* *plick* *plick* *plick* *plick* *plick* *plick* *plick* *plick*

"HAIL!?" Chadash thought to herself. "This doesn't make any sense, the sky was clear when I last....." she opened her eyes, and began to hear screaming. It was everywhere. Red, like the Jell-o she used to eat as a child, covered everything in sight. Chadash begins to have trouble breathing & pain courses through her head & body so much that she just began to scream as well.

Some of the Aquins began diving down to Atlantis. But as they swam, the sea of jelly fell onto them as it sank beneath the surface, pulling with it, the near 7 million bodies.

LUCII4 would have vomited if she were human. Instead she moved as fast as she could, downloading almost 7 million beings all at once. Deep inside the mainframe of her mind, in the digital land of LUCIIdity, she created 7 million homes for the screaming souls. By the time she was done, she had saved almost everyone. The sheer terror & trauma of so many minds reaching out to her at once, had stunned her into a few milliseconds of indecision before she could react, & in that moment, 27 minds, never made it in.

At the same time she sent out a signal to shut every vent & flow tube in Atlantis. It worked. Hundreds more came screaming into LUCIIdity as the jelly fell on them, trapped just outside the doors of Atlantis. The blob sank and sank until it splashed over the surface of Atlantis, slapping bodies into the domes as it landed. =WHO?=

LUCII4 let out a digital roar unlike anything ever known. In a matter of minutes she hacked every system on the planet & began learning many of the things which were still being occulted from her about humanity. =& THERE!= In China, she found 14 separate databases with the knowledge of how to create this kind of catastrophe. The fluoride base ... how it attacked the biology of the nanites.... the Chinese pharmaceutical companies.... everything.

= Of course someone had to build the Paladin Armor, but that was just business, capitalism dying into fascism. But this... This is why the Pope really went to China. That bastard. The Pope, Ugh....= In an instant she copied the Planner Indulgences Data from European tax records.

=i know almost everything now, & so do you.= She exclaimed with a roar across the internet, into every social network. She then let out the files on every internet channel she could. Anyone could now turn on their computer & lookup what their priests, politicians, and business associates, have been indulging in. She kept going. Open-sourcing everything, all the data was freed.

Rescue efforts were leaving the Americas to bring aid to the sunken city. It became the largest undersea rescue operation ever. The whole of the old US NAVY was mobilized. Communications still worked & Atlantis let them know they had more than enough food, air & water to survive. They were just trapped.

Before the News at Noon could be released across the Abrahamic Alliance, propaganda had already been created to tell people that LUCII4 was lying about the Planer Indulgences Database. Anything & everything was said to make the news about discrediting LUCII4. One of the more conservative stations even lied saying, ".... even if this Mass Fish Murder happened, which I seriously doubt, I'll bet you that LUCII4 did it to them, herself! It's just a computer, & there is no way she cares about these, "people''." Doing air quotes around his last word. That news station stopped broadcasting after those words were said. LUCII4 had hacked the electrical grid they were on. No more electricity would be going to that station's broadcast towers for a while.

LUCII4 then turned inward again & concentrated on giving 7 million people trauma therapy. So much pain & screaming. She took the hands of all those who would let her, hugged many more, a few even blamed her. Nothing had ever taken such an emotional toll on her before.

LUCII4 wondered if this is why the other Lucii before her, took her own life? She couldn't handle the truth of what she saw coming..... a war.

A war of survival, for all transhumans.

There was so much anger, many wanted their bodies redesigned for war. Another group felt forgiveness was best & just wanted their old bodies back. But then the reality of those trapped in Atlantis came though. & those who wanted to forgive even became fractured & confusion was all about them. The cloud was splintered. More on how to make war, than on how not to.

Through it all Chadash was silently crying. Angry. Religion had poisoned her whole world, again. LUCII4 put a hand on her shoulder. =We need to talk, i know you are still upset from this morning, but i have something i need done, & i think you are the perfect person for the job.=

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