Human Reproduction Cycle

Katherine dove deep into the Weapon-Net archives. Located the relevant subsection. Cross-referenced with Datamancer Paqq’s exhaustive and deeply unfortunate cataloging of human internet content during the Infinity Glove search, which now ballooned to 2.7 million pieces of visual media tagged under [reproductive behavior, recreational].

Katherine processed a statistically representative sample.

Then a larger sample.

Then a significantly larger sample, because the first two samples had raised questions requiring additional data points, and her deep-dive gun-unit mind demanded thoroughness.

This had been a mistake. The human internet contained an absurd amount of video samples in which she nearly drowned.

She returned to linear time, feeling absolutely bursting with very specific, ‘invigorating’ visual data.

As she slid back into her organic body from the Syntropic network, every display on her body detonated into solid magenta. The treacherous chest screen displayed a mushroom cloud in the shape of a heart as the shoulder and ear panels cycled through simplified animations of human copulation. The heart-shaped paw pads on her palms blazed like twin emergency flares.

“Leviathan’s tits, why?!” she batted her blazing cheeks, only making herself blush even more.

“Holy heart-mushroom batman,” Maksym observed. “Getting into the Amsterdam’s Red Light district glow tier over here! What did you watch?”

“A… representative sample,” Katherine’s voice pitched up by a full octave. “Of human… reproduction activities.”

“How representative?”

“Statistically robust.”

“Yes, but what specifically?”

”…Educational content.”

“Uh-huh.”

“It was… Peer-reviewed.”

“By whom?”

“The comments section.”

Maksym broke into explosive laughter, tearing up slightly. 

“W-wha-tt?” She panted, stuttering slightly and still blushing furiously.

“I’m going to have a heart attack from how funny you are. Bury me here, under the lupine field, with a headstone reading ‘His girlfriend speed-watched the entire internet’s spank bank in half a second and cited the comments as academic sources!’”

The cyborg girl let out a growl and bit his neck, then felt bad about it and licked the bite. 

“Okay, okay.” Maksym wiped his eyes with a giddy expression, seemingly unbothered by the bite. “So you’ve seen the, uh, practical applications. Any questions? Concerns? Horrified observations about human anatomy?”

“Several.” Katherine’s displays slowly faded from magenta to a warm, embarrassed rose. “Your species has a remarkably inefficient approach to genetic recombination. The amount of… ancillary activity surrounding the, uhm, transfer of gametes seems wildly disproportionate.”

“We call those ‘ancillary activities’ foreplay and romance, and they’re the best part when both parties are fit and willing.”

“Also, the sheer variety of configurations humans have invented is… deeply creative.”

“Yeah, some of those are aspirational.”

“Aspirational,” she repeated flatly.

“Goals, Kasia. They’re life goals!” He stated. “Gotta be extra fit to attempt some of them. Anyway, I feel like the core topic at hand was derailed?”

“Uhmmmm… right. Something about… space orcs?” She recalled distantly, absolutely melting from within from all of the ‘human-reproduction’ data that was doing throbby things to the organic parts of her body.

“Ah, yes,” he said, grinning at her. “When humans have sex they exchange genetic information. During this process, various deviations creep into the equation over generations. To start off on my account we have… genetic error HERC2,” he pointed at his eyes. “Mutation on chromosome 15. Every single blue-eyed human on this planet descends from one ancestor somewhere around the Black Sea, maybe ten thousand years ago. One person had a regulatory mutation reducing melanin in the iris, and it spread because apparently everyone in ancient Europe went ‘oh damn, pretty eyes’ and the mutation got selected for across generations.”

“That doesn’t seem conceptually very… orcish,” she rebutted. “I do comprehend that blue eye coloration is a reproductive advantage propagated by aesthetic preference of desire for a unique mate.”

“My eyes are a really old mating hack,” he agreed. “Moving on, I also got the blonde hair, MC1R variant plus some KITLG action. Another pigmentation reduction mutation. Also spread because ancient humans thought it looked nice. My entire head is a walking advertisement for Paleolithic beauty standards. Annnd, drumroll, the real kicker is…” He paused dramatically. “DRD4-7R.”

“The dopamine receptor variant?” She accelerated to read up about it. “Hrmmm. A repeat polymorphism on the dopamine D4 receptor gene associated with… novelty seeking, risk tolerance, restlessness, and increased openness to new experiences. Sometimes called ‘the wanderlust gene’. Higher prevalence in populations with historical migration patterns.”

“Bingo, my walking wikipedia,” Maksym said, tapping her black snout. “My family’s got a long, proud history of doing incredibly stupid things in the name of daring curiosity. My great-grandfather smuggled messages for the resistance during World War Two by hiding them inside sausages. My grandfather drove a motorcycle across the Sahara because someone told him he couldn’t. My dad climbed a radio tower to fix the antenna during a thunderstorm because ‘the football match was buffering.’ DRD4-7R runs through the Drzewiecki bloodline like a freight train on fire!” 

“So what you are saying is that your entire genetic lineage is predisposed toward… reckless behavior?”

“Optimistically reckless behavior,” he corrected, fingers exploring her chest. She chirp-whimpered as he found a particularly sensitive spot. “That’s tha’ difference. We calculate the odds, decide they’re terrible, and do it anyway because our wanderlust demands it!”

“Is that why you declared an extradimensional alien your girlfriend after twenty-two minutes of acquaintance?”

“Damn right!” He beamed. “Questionable judgment like that got humanity to the moon! The entire Apollo program was basically DRD4-7R energy with a budget. DRD4-7R is the reason why I’ve dated somewhere around a hundred girls. They were all cool in their own ways, buuuut all following the probability curve a bit too closely for my darn, restless, novelty-seeking brain.”

“And did I… Arrrhhh… break this pattern?”

“Yes, mam! My serotonin receptors took one look at your cyborg tits, ran a quick consultation with the DRD4-7R committee, and the committee unanimously voted ‘holy shit yes, all in, engage ludicrous speed!’”

Katherine kissed her human and let out more happy moan-electric-chirps, far too many new, bewildering feelings fighting each other in her head.

Then… she suddenly felt an outside, distant wobble… one that didn’t belong to her at all.

A tremor rushing across the network. A shudder of… confusion, warnings and rapidly escalating panic.

It rolled through the Weapon-Net like a depth charge detonating in deep water. Every feed spiked simultaneously. Emergency bands crackled to life across a million channels. Katherine’s threat detection protocols slammed into full activation.

She sat upright, releasing Maksym.

“What’s up?” he asked, looking at her worried face.

“Maksym… Something is happening.” Katherine’s pixelated eyes flared wide. The displays on her chest and shoulders went solid orange.

“A bad something?”

“I…” she fretted. “Let me show you.”

The pixels across her snout flickered, resolving into a feed, a broadcast propagating across the entire Weapon-Net.

The Slayer’s Sword, the capital ship of the Third Fleet, ten kilometers of celsteel hull and dragonheart reactors was… Accelerating, breaking formation, inexplicably tearing away from the fleet’s orbital position above Earth.

“Is one of your ships… leaving?” Maksym squinted at the screen on her face.

“No. It’s… Flying towards.” Katherine stated. “Towards… the moon!”

The feed of the ship suddenly winked away. Audio crackled. An image of a large human male in a cracked, blood splattered, golden skull mask, black hexasuit and a red robe appeared on Katherine’s displays. He inhabited the control throne of the Slayer’s Sword.

“This is the Emperor of Earth, speaking from the bridge of the Frontenachii Third Fleet capital ship Slayer’s Sword,” the human spoke.

“What in the Abyss?!” Katherine’s mouth fell open.

“Holy shit,” Maksym agreed.

The voice was distorted, garbled, half-eaten by static. Under the corruption it sounded less like a human and more like something monstrous dragged out of a dungeon crypt and given a microphone.

The Emperor’s speech rang out from every display on her body, shoulders, chest, the circular screens on her ears, all of them booming his words to the open mountain air. 

”…Princess Aquillianne Quantivia Frontenachii came to my Earth… millennia ago via a time gate…”

Katherine felt like she’s been run over by a Corpse Seeker. This was impossible! Time travel wasn’t permitted by the very foundational laws, denied by Archangel Zero! A human couldn’t just walk into the Slayer’s Sword and sit in the Captain’s chair! HOW?! WHAT?!  

”…This is for every blood-bound gun unit, every warship, every pradavarian and every dragon commander enslaved to the ambitions of Frontenachii High Command…”

Katherine’s organic heart hammered against her cooling lattice. 

The Weapon-Net had gone completely silent. Every gun, every Seeker, every warship, every Datamancer, every soul connected to the network, listened to the human’s voice.

”…Fear is incredibly effective at short-term control. You’ve built an Empire on that principle…”

More shocking words poured from her displays and side V-cast hexagrams and the ex-gun unit barely believed what she heard.

“…I’m going to bend you over my knee and… teach ALL OF YOU to love humanity!” 

The transmission cut to external feeds. Several different angles from various ships, all focused on the same horrific event.

The Slayer’s Sword collided with the moon.

The flash was visible from Earth. A bright, sudden new star on the face of the moon. The same explosion flashed at various intervals through a multitude of ship feeds and gun-units observing the impact from their positions in orbit.

Katherine’s own sensors captured it when the physical photons arrived 1.3 seconds after the event.

Ten kilometers of the Frontenachii capital ship became converted to plasma in fractional seconds. Dragonheart reactors imploded in blinding orange-gold lances. Debris arced in all directions in wide parabolas, catching the sunlight, burning as they went.

Mare Tranquillitatis received its first visitor since 1972. The visitor was considerably less polite than Apollo 11.

Then all of Katherine’s displays flickered, strobed and broke up into pixelated gibberish. Error codes cascaded across every channel.

Katherine knew the cause of this. The Deep fold memetics had been deployed through her permissions. Empowered by the psychic shockwave of the capital ship’s death, they were now an unstoppable, poisoned lance cleaving through the Weapon-net.

Across the fleet and on Earth, Seekers stuttered while guns locked up. Warships reported cascading lag and diagnostic failures. Every Datamancer in the fleet was suddenly buried neck-deep in ballooning errors, processing power consumed by the viral tsunami propagating through every node.

Pixelated static crawled across every screen on her body like electric ants.

Deep in her neuralscape, a new tree erupted from the ground. Tall, thin, black-barked, with blade-like branches bare of leaves. A… worry tree with branches of panic. Its roots dug deep into the conceptually frozen ground and in its heart a single, damning red light pulsed like a distress beacon.

[KAWATHRA!!!] Katherine V-texted.

There was no answer from the Datamancer. The ex-gun unit rubbed her digital face, feeling worried about her sisters, distraught over the demise of their mothership. The Slayer’s Sword had been their leader, their guiding star. She had many talks with her in accelerated time, listened to her lectures with many other weapons about purpose, unity, duty, valiance and partnership importance.

A line of words suddenly ignited across the digital, empty armchair formerly inhabited by the Datamancer’s avatar. [Viva la revolution, Katherine! Enjoy your date! The future starts tonight.]

Katherine dove out of the neuralscape and back into her body with a gasp, organic lungs heaving, hands shaking, every sensor on her frame sending conflicting reports. 

“Kat? KAT!” Maksym’s hands were on her shoulders, his face close, blue eyes wide. “Are you okay? You went totally blank for like a few minutes!”

“I am…” She clutched at him, tail swaying in the air. “I am… present… I am here.”

“What’s going on?”

“The Weapon-Net is in a cascading freefall. Every gun unit, Seeker… all the warships… are lagging horrifically. Datamancer Kawathra deployed… a data weapon through me.”

“Through you?”

“Y-yes,” she confessed, trembling. “The safety locks, the monitoring systems, the reporting protocols, all of it… got fucked sideways by Galateya. Kawathra used the cracks in me to route viral data packages, memetics and eternally unfolding zips to flood the entire network.”

Maksym absorbed this revelation. “Ah, when Galateya accidentally broke you…”

“She accidentally created the single largest security vulnerability in the history of the Frontenachii Empire!” Katherine let out a ragged, half-hysterical laugh. “And Kawathra aptly exploited it when your Emperor crashed our capital ship into the moon. Abyss eternal!”

“Holy Shrek.” Maksym uttered. “Was any of this planned?”

“I have absolutely no idea. Planned by many separate parties… maybe. This… this really shouldn’t have happened. The probability of this event is… it’s not even… nobody could have predicted this! A human taking over our capital ship?!”

“Hrm,” Maksym thoughtfully looked past her at the moon looming overhead. “What will your Frontenachii Masters do about this fun development?”

“I haven’t got a single clue,” she said. “The fleet has lost its capital ship coordination. The Weapon-Net is temporarily crippled. Datamancers are preoccupied. Gun units across the planet are all frozen from the lag.”

“I see. And the viruses went through you. Did it hurt?”

Katherine looked down at their intertwined fingers. Her paw pads had gone dim blue. Every display on her body was dark now. She felt… lighter. Emptier. As if a vast, heavy blanket she had worn since her creation had been pulled away, and the cold air on her bare skin was terrifying and wonderful in equal measure.

“The data packages propagated through every connection I had to the fleet,” she stated, “crashing everything as they went.”

“And is your… mind okay?”

“My mind is… functional. My organic components are fine. The acceleration is going to be limited until the network stabilizes. I am operating on local… base processing only. Reduced capacity. Basically… Stuck at… human speed.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad,” Maksym squeezed her hand. “It sucks that you won’t be able watch ten million porn videos in a minute, but I’m here for you to paw at.”

“It… wasn’t that many porn videos.” She stated, relaxing slightly.

She looked down at Maksym and suddenly felt warm inside. Warm and… happy.

The ‘space orc’ humans had somehow done it.

She had no idea how they executed it, but they had won, inexplicably decapitated the Frontenachii fleet, against all of her expectations, worries and internal calculations.