It was cold.
"[Warning, blood pressure lowering from cold environnt...Manually increasing the amount of oxygen in the brain by the use of nanites.]"
Her coverings were getting ripped here and there thanks to the crystal forming on the walls, and her upper appendages were getting wounded all over the place leaving behind red liquid.
"[Warning, closing wounds, using bio-mass to recover and increase skin density.]"
She was wasting energy by increasing the oxygen in her brain, she was wasting energy by nding the flesh that was torn apart by the crystal growths in the tunnel, and she was wasting energy and biomass by fixing the upper appendages endings as they turned purple.
And most importantly.
"[Warning, body temperature decreasing further...Continued exposure in current model could lead to the critical failure of functions.]"
[Main Core] had deed that her current location was overly hostile to her current form, her previous asures of the place seed to indicate that while dangerous it should be survivable to a specin with her rough estimates of her body.
This body while smaller and more squishable was more complex than her previous Crab one, so she assud that it would be in turn more resilient. It wasn't.
Her eyes were leaking a weird compound of water, electrolytes, proteins, and fats. Her nose was expelling the overflown liquid that couldn't be expelled by her eyes too, mixed with so of the mucus that was there already.
Her feet while more dextrous than her previous legs...Were weaker. Her hands while more nimble were weaker even.
She had stopped fully healing them and was just patching the more serious wounds, her covering was already full of rips and tears further exposing her skin to the environnt, and so parts of her were turning purple from the dead cells in her body.
She would probably burn most if not all the stockpile she had planned to use to make her escape more easy.
So instead she was only left with few options of what to do.
"[Query: How far have we traveled within this tunnel?]"
"[Answer: Host has traveled around 15 ters.]"
That...Wasn't as much as she thought it would be, looking behind her she indeed noticed that the turns, ups, and downs she had gone for didn't allow for a good depth perception, so maybe that was it?
She felt like she had walked quite a long distance... But then again...Looking down...Her legs were quite small.
"[Order: Check surroundings beyond the tunnel walls, and find an exit point.]"
"[Acknowledged]"
Imdiately afterwards she felt her perception of the world expand as her body produced tendrils that expanded into the walls and bored deep within them. Most used small micro fractures already present within the material, while others made their own. But most of them showed that the walls within this tunnel were too dense, only the ones below her were flimsy enough to be broken through without further deficit in her energy reserves.
"[Notice, found a similar design to the one used to access this tunnel 3,14 ters ahead. Exit point seems to be within a small den-type location with a single entry point. No box-shaped organism nor human around.]"
And at the idea of leaving this place she made the effort to continue walking forward, instead of trying to move with precision she instead moved slowly and thodically, not trying to decrease the amount of movent needed to dodge the crystal growths but trying to take the least amount of ti to get to her destination.
This ant that she ended up taking more wounds true. But since she had given up on that front if it allowed her to escape this place faster, even if that ant losing more blood and biomass, at least the low blood pressure she currently had ant that it would be less blood lost.
So small victories? It didn't feel like a small victory. If anything it felt like she had given up and had thrown a tantrum to get away faster from trouble, either way she found her target and got to work, once again she created the design that allowed her to deal with the small tal things used to attach fake walls to this tallic tunnel she exited it into another den.
This one was dark, like one of the settings they did when the box-shaped organisms and the humans wanted to test if she was good enough to work in low-light environnts, "Activate low illumination settings." She intoned to [Main Core], her voice sounded....high pitched for so reason.
Was that the setting this body had by default? She wasn't sure how it should sound, so she would leave it like that for now. Instead, she focused on looking over the new den she found...After closing the entryway into the tallic tunnel, she had arrived at this room quite high and didn't want to tip her hand quite yet.
Her exit into this den had arrived near a box-shaped entity stuck into one of this den's walls, unlike the box-shaped organisms this one didn't seem to have the sa texture on its front, so it shouldn't be a live one.
Either way, she quickly secured the entry into the tallic tunnel and got down from the box-shaped thing she arrived at, after landing on the floor without making a sound (Being this small and light had its advantages). She analyzed the den she found herself in.
It held several box-shaped constructs and so square-shaped things stuck in the middle, sustaining itself with a single unique leg stuck to the floor. Interesting.
The walls didn't seem to be of the sa material as her den, and one of them even held a variant of the entryway the maintenance crew used to access her den!
The only difference was that this one wasn't hidden, but denoted by a translucent material that seed to reflect what was in front of it to so degree, standing near the thing allowed her to see herself for the first ti.
Her current body was small, barely high enough to stand near one of the box-shaped beings in this room, not a single one had deed her enough to speak or say sothing to her yet, but she was wary nonetheless, her main body held four appendages like most humans, each pair a reflection of the other. Two below her torso and two almost at the top of her torso, with a single body part that housed most (If not all) of her sensory organs, a head as the body had filed on its blueprint.
She hadn't gone over the whole thing yet to see the nas since she only needed it to be functional, but this material was useful, it allowed her to analyze in detail her current body, her current sight sensors (Eyes) were blue, was this a defect like the one the [Human] she fought before had?
The growths on her head had the sa color as that [Human] after all, so perhaps this ant she could pass up as a mber of his caste? That would be useful, he seed to have so degree of authority over the box-shaped organisms.
But for now, she would focus on investigating the things around her, the box-shaped things were made of dead bio-organic material that seed to focus on filtering nutrients by the use of internal roots to distribute the nutrients and water along them. It was interesting to know that they had used dead organisms to create these, and it ant that the box-shaped organisms were more war-like than she had expected.
None of the ones here seed to be alive, not even the central one that had a single leg stuck into the floor, so she was still safe, most box-shaped organisms seed to be neutral at best so far, not like the [Humans]. So maybe she could find live box-shaped organisms to negotiate with. She wouldn't mind taking one of them with her in her escape plan (So long as it didn't put her at risk).
With so luck then this could an that the hierarchy was more stratified than she estimated, perhaps sothing closer to that P-series subject that fought with a hive strategy?
Either way, she found several sub-compartnts in the box-shaped dead bodies of those organisms, it seed that they used them as storage units. Interesting, it was a good way to recycle materials if nothing else.
This also brought her a chance, so she searched within the multiple box-shaped storage units until she found one that seed to not have been perturbed in a long ti, it held so square white fiber material with so squiggle-looking lines on them, tons of them.
She took a sample of one and found the black material was so kind of dye and not inherent of the white fiber thing, after filing it for later use she moved the boxes to re-organize them better and give herself so space on it.
Then making sure she would fit within she settled in her small new nest hiding spot and placed so boxes atop herself, using so thin tendrils to get everything into place, and for the finishing touch, she dislocated several of her internal bones (Who even uses those on the inside? They are better on the outside protecting the squishy bits!) and cut the pain receptors to fold her body to get more space.
"[Warning, prolonged state in current configuration can lead to atrophy of muscle mass. Current ti limit of this configuration without movent, 30 hours 16 mins.]"
She wasn't planning on staying that long here, just long enough for at least to see how the [Humans] acted and what they did in a nonhostile setting, would it be necessary to stop her heart from beating?
"[Warning, current configuration Brain is required for the prolonged function of main consciousness stream, ti before the brain cells cease to function without oxygen: 3 mins.]"
That's a no then, the brain and lungs must keep working. And so she inflated part of her thorax to allow her lungs to expand and moved her heart so that it would be comfortable enough while pumping blood, that ant that she needed to reconfigure her body to allow the blood to travel well enough within her.
So after moving here and there she was finally ready!
"[Hostile bio signature detected, wake up protocol initiated]"
SHE WAS AWAKE!
Main core had taken a habit of jolting her awake by stimulating her nerve endings, the thing was useful yes. But also it seed to relish in torturing her for so reason, was it angry at her for making a copy of it to be rained up with the [Gun] type weaponry?
"YOU GOT SUBJECT P4 KILLED?!?" Yikes, sonic attack.
She almost got into battle configuration, only to flop her limbs aimlessly as nothing was connected between muscle and bones right now, at least nothing made a sound to compromise her position.
"Sir, P4 started to plan an escape so the protocol indicat..." It seems they were fighting over her assud death.
"SHOW THESE ESCAPE PLANS THEN!" And one was having trouble modulating her [Voice] it seems.
"The core dump..." While the other had this undertone in its voice that she found annoying.
"[Undertone cataloged as Smugness]"
Yeah, the second voice seed confident in its success already, and since it was defending her death...It was the [Human] that had commanded the [Gun] type weaponry to attack her huh.
"...You ordered P4 death over these?" The second voice had got itself more calm. "These obviously tampered logs?"
Oh, so the second voice tampered with her logs? Good thing she was filtering those then.
*slap*
"Sir?" The first voice sounded no longer smug, but...
"[Undertone cataloged, Pained.]"
"Get out before I send you as the replacent for P4....No wait." The second voice said, "Get into the den and fish out P4's core."
That got a reaction from multiple voices, if she was mapping it right the place was full of [Humans], most hushed tones as they gossiped among themselves.
"Sir...The procedure..." The first voice stated saying, unsure about sothing.
"The procedure states that no [Employee] may interact with a subject directly, unless it is for a test. Or is it for maintenance, is that correct? Yes?" The second voice stated.
"Yes sir. I'm afraid..." The first one started saying, regaining confidence.
"Remove Subject P4 from the testing roster, unless soone can prove that stupid crab is alive he will no longer stay in the roster." The second voice said and then a voice spoke.
One she rembered quite well.
"Subject P4 shows no activity within Den. Analyzing...Subject P4's Core isn't active. Subject P4 is no longer part of the testing roster."
The box-shaped organism had scanned her den? And it found nothing? Perfect. Her plan was moving quite well.
"So? What are you waiting for? Unless you want to offer yourself as a replacent for P4?" The second voice spoke, a hidden edge in its voice.
"...I will go for the..." The first voice spoke, it sounded weak...It sounded like...
"[A prey.]"
"Since the test chamber doesn't have an active test subject no hazmat suit of any level will be loaned, you can however pay for one from your pocket if you wish to do so." The second voice spoke matter of factly.
"[A Predator.]"
"Move it." And like that, she heard the sound of sothing in the back followed by the steps of a human walking, then after a second or so, the sa sound again of sothing hitting a wall.
Then silence.
"Get to work everyone, prepare the scanners, with so luck, P4 is sohow still alive under all the debris and we will get a new P4-series." The second voice said.
"Doctor Williams...Isn't that illegal?" Soone spoke after a few seconds.
The second voice made so weird sound as if wind had gotten stuck in it before saying "Of course not, you all signed the right paperwork that allows to do this. I won't do this unless soone tries to do sothing like this again... I swear to god, he only killed P4 because he wanted to make a cat girl...." The second voice, now identified as Doctor Williams said so.
"[Logged new identifier, Doctor Williams to the database.]"
Silence, so much silence caused by this Doctor Williams. So was this [Human] the blonde [Human] spoke to?
No, this one sounded sowhat different, its inflections weren't like that, if anything the inflections the other human transmitted through the box-shaped organisms seed closer to hers.
"Get to work, also soone get the last core dump P4 perford." Doctor Williams spoke and then the sounds beca more calm.
They seed to work in silence as small sounds of clicks and clacks sounded, only hushed voices spoke. It seed that none had co in the direction of her current hiding spot, so she sent one tendril with a primitive light sensor to check.
"[No hostiles detected within range.]"
And Main core reported as such, so moving more biomass towards that tendril she turned the primitive light sensor into a fully functional [Eye], this would allow her to look around while hiding the organ and not exposing herself.
Everything was a blur of movent, multiple [Human]s moving from one place to the other, all going over squiggly lines on white panels embedded within square boxes made of so hard polyr. They seed to be absorbing the squiggle lines and turning them into information?
"Doctor, the last core dump doesn't show anything out of order. There are so notes from Main Core about the Subject coming close to the checkmark for sapience but no conclusive evidence." One of them said while pointing at his square box.
And then one of those among them walked, he seed to be sowhat more damaged than the rest, his skin seed to be more wrinkled, less elastic, his eyes more tired. And they seed to hold sothing within, an emotion she hadn't seen.
"[New emotion cataloged, Anger.]"
"And who designed the sapience check?" He asked, the one that brought his attention gulped and the others seed to move back, like they didn't want anything to do with this [Human].
Would she be able to log a confrontation between [Human]s?
"That...It was...The.....amm....Chief Scientist...Alexanders....Sir?" He answered as such.
"[New identification found, Chief Scientist...Logged under the profile of Hostile Human Alexanders.]"
"Yes, he was the one to create the thing, he is also the one who forbids us from tampering with it since 'It wouldn't be fun' so tell ...What does this tell us?" The [Doctor] asked, he had moved his mouth in a weird way. The tips seed to curve upward, as if he was showing part of his teeth.
Was this a hostile warning?
It seed to be a hostile warning, "That....P4 was gaining sapience?" The other [Human] was drenched in a translucid liquid now, his face was damp, and his textile covering was damp too.
Was he experiencing a malfunction?
"No. It tells us that whatever arbitrary check Alexanders put, P4 was about to achieve it, it may be the reason he sneaked in the last combat Test. But we will never know, since the thing is dead." The [Doctor] said, and then he started making so weird noise.
"HAHAHAHAHA, Suck it Alexanders, you may have toyed with my subject but at least the stupid crab will not achieve whatever you wanted!" The [Doctor] moved back and went to one of the doors, and the others didn't move till the voice of the [Doctor] wasn't heard anymore.
"ARE YOU CRAZY?!?" One of the [Humans] near the drenched one spoke, "Never talk about the big boss near Doctor Williams!"
"I DIDN'T KNOW! " The drenched human said, "I just moved in here from Doctor Eversoul's lab!"
They all continued speaking and [Main Core] kept filling in information about what they said, this would be an informative session, she could see it, and they would give her enough information for her next move!
Yes, this had been a good choice indeed. Everything was going according to plan.
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