Max smiled at Nico. They seemed to have stumped the AI system in the base, and now it was trying to calcte what an appropriate fight for them would be. But, unfortunately, since they didn''t fight the targets that it expected them to, it couldn''t get a reliable data set from them.


    [Analysis failed. Please report for debriefing.] Theputer announced after a few minutes of silence, and the far door to the testing arena opened to show them a set of stairs headed downward.


    "Well, that''s a relief. I thought we were going to have to waste all sorts of time here, but perhaps we can talk directly to the one who is really running this ce and find out what is going on." Max joked as they entered the stairwell.


    As soon as they had both passed through, the door closed behind them, and a soft blue light illuminated their walkway. The stairs led to what appeared to be either an antique supeputer or perhaps the most glorious facility mainframe that they had ever seen. It took up an entire floor of the building, extending all the way to the walls, ording to his sensors, and surrounded by energy barriers and a precision climate control system.


    "Isn''t this a bit excessive?" Nico asked, gesturing to the room in general.


    [On the contrary. Thebinedputing power of this facility has been deemed insufficient to calcte our mission objective.] Theputer voice replied.


    "Why don''t you tell us what your mission is, and we will see if we can help you with that. As you said earlier, you may justck data, and the insufficient frame of reference may have led you to inappropriate test parameters." Nico offered.


    [This facility was designed to develop a method by which a sentient species could be made immortal and impervious to themon weapons of the Alliance species. This was done with the requirement that the end product would bepatible with a neural data transfer from the facility owners so that their selected subjects would be eternal and undying.]


    "And what about the hybrids upstairs? How did you end up at that stage?" Max asked.


    [The hybrid species were developed as test subjects before this facility was brought online. They were developed at anotherb facility and transferred here when they were determined to be ipatible with the mental transfer process. Their dominant strain overrode the mental transfers and led to the extermination of an entire batch of volunteer minds.


    As such, they have been deemed a failure and brought here as workers, along with their lobotomized leader. Its presence was deemed necessary to provide guidance for their activities, and with its mind inactive, this facility is capable of giving orders to its subordinates.]


    So, the Rain Shield Corporation was crazier than Max had thought that they were. This wasn''t the only ce where they had run insane experiments, and they were using poorly controlled Klem hybrids as vebour.


    "How many other species and samples have been removed from the Gxy where the Dominant Strain of your hybrids originated?" Nico asked curiously.


    [Only one remaining sample. A biomechanical sample was reprogrammed as the core of this AI facility.] <novelsnext></novelsnext>


    Max struggled to recall a biomechanical species in his gxy unless they meant a cyborg, but Nico caught on right away.


    "Would its original form have had multiple flexible arms and a round central processing core?"


    [Affirmative. I believe that your species referred to them as the Scavengers. The name was deemed inappropriate, as when provided with resources, the sample preferred to recreate their own items as opposed to scavenging them from the avable resources.]


    Nico chuckled. "The name came from their propensity for gathering materials from disabled vessels. So, did you use their programming as the core for your intelligence base? That might exin the issues that you have run into. Their database and programming are slightly wed, and they have problems understanding the nature of biological beings."


    [Confirmed. Arge amount of data was added to the Facility Core in order to offset the issue. The original data set conflicted directly with the objectives that were given to the facility, as the sample had already determined that organic life was in direct opposition to a goal of immortality.]


    That was how the Scavenger AI went rogue, to begin with. Its creator had tried to kill it off, and it had done whatever it could to survive before determining that a mechanical form was superior and that biological life should be eliminated from the universe.


    "Well, it is possible to create a nearly eternal biological life form, but your goal of utilizing a singr body for the purpose is the least efficient path toward your goal. Instead, if you took a species that self-replicated through mitosis, you can also transfer memories and personality, creating a clone that will provide functional immortality as long as the final copy is never destroyed.


    Then you just need to look for a way to make them longer lived so that a single body can be expected to survive three generations reliably, with a strong healing factor, and you will have achieved your goal." Nico exined.


    She was referring to the Myceloid species, and with a bit of tweaking for survivability, there wouldn''t be any issuespleting the task that this facility had been assigned without any more insane experiments on extremely dangerous and nearly indestructible species.


    Well, maybe it would need some experiments with indestructibility since the AI had been tasked to make the bodies impervious to most weapons, but it shouldn''t need the Klem to do that. Or, at least, it shouldn''t need any more Klem to do that, as it already had such arge data set for the species.


    [Please remain where you are while you are scanned for addition to the database.] The Baseputer announced.


    Energy barriers popped up around Max and Nico individually, and the soft blue lights in the room began to cycle between blue and purple in what seemed to be theputer''s version of the [working] animation that many standard tablets used.


    [Thank you for your cooperation. The data set has been amended, and the processing will beplete within seventeen hours.] Theputer announced, but Max noticed that it didn''t let them out of the barrier.