Author's Note: By this point in time, I've practically forgotten when I got into this fandom. Suffice to say I remember watching the premiere of every episode except the pilot. And I'm still here. Mostly lurking, but still here. I'm glad to see that there still is a fandom, a strong one at that, and still good ideas and good stories being generated. However, there is one large factor that negates from the- and I don't want to say quality here- but the potential of a good part of the fandom. That's Mary Sues. Not fan character, though, as every fan character is not automatically a Mary Sue and should not be thought of as such, because they can do a lot even as just a supporting character or catalyst. That's mostly what this story is: an exploration of little-used (possibly never used, in this fandom) character types. They're not invaders, they're not in love with a character from the canon (nor is a canon character in love with one of them), or… Never mind, I can't think of anything else, but I'm sure there are more, overshadowed in my mind by what I feel are the biggest character clichés. Which is why I get to alternate between standing on the soapbox of an author's note in a fanfiction and groveling through words for reviews. I really would like constructive criticism, because the worth of a character, once written and presented to the audience, is decided by said audience. I personally think that these characters are unique, and worthwhile, as I'm sure does the creator of many a bashed fan character and does the creator of a beloved fan character. Just because I think that my characters are a worthwhile addition to a story doesn't mean everyone else or even anyone else feels the same. So feel free to dislike, hate, maybe even be squicked by these characters; I'd like to know. The only thing I ask is that you're polite about it and frame your opinion in a tasteful, mature way. In other words, constructive criticism is as welcome as adding a story to your favorites list, but flames won't help a person's writing get any better. If you don't like something, give the person some tips to help them out, that's how a person improves.
And on a different note, yes, I do know that Zee is the name of a character on the show. However, to my knowledge she never actually had any lines and was more of a 'placeholder' character than anything; to the point that I totally forget she existed when I created O.C. Zee. So yeah, that's a 'my bad.'
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Warnings: Violence and potentially sensitive topics
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Trojan
As a rule, the higher your status, the more willing people are to look the other way in cases of moral and legal wrongdoing. It doesn't matter how that status is obtained, just so long as you have it. Zee had embraced this rule tighter than he would his own children, and took a machete to the jungle of worker suppression: bribing, threatening, and blackmailing his way to power. He could care less about the rich pay, cushy office, or elite status perks that came with his ill-earned power; he could wear a dress and not be deactivated.
His happiness was only interrupted by one large stipulation of his job: a very bored, very vengeful Control Brain. As head of the Core Smeet Hatchery of Irk, Zee was subjected to frequent meeting with the Hatchery's Control Brain, a male named Gnaven who was unfortunately different from the vast majority of the Empire in that he found himself a square peg in a round hole. Gnaven was originally created to uphold the laws of the Empire on a conquered and converted planet, but had been transferred to the Hatchery at the last moment. Several centuries of evaluating smeets later, Gnaven found the monotony of his work actually freeing his processing power. Distracted and immersed with his own thoughts, the Brain began damaging smeets with increasing frequency; connecting too roughly with their PAKs and screeching in their minds for their newborn questions and their unwillingness to cooperate with standard procedures.
Fearing for his ability to wear dresses, Zee quickly appealed to a higher Control Brain named Smidge to have Gnaven removed from the Hatchery and replaced with a different Control Brain. Smidge agreed with the suggestion, but never actually said she agreed with his motive or reasoning, because she didn't. Gnaven was replaced with a green-eyed female Control Brain named Mimar, who promptly created a new problem. Instead of frightening the smeets in to accepting the Control Brains as a force to be feared, Mimar fostered amongst the smeets an affection for her and, by proxy, a complete lack of fear or stricken respect for any other Control Brain. Later confronted by a typical Control Brain, they became disrespectful to it, warranting quite a nasty punishment in order to correct their behavior, which only confused them. The confusion gave way to anger and they only became closer to Mimar, alienating all other Control Brains.
It was with complete disinterest in the real issue that Zee pressed to have Mimar initiate smeets to life and have Gnaven deal with them thereafter. The proposal, written in thin, neatly formed letters, was accepted and the motion was completed. The smeets went on with their lives and Zee retired to his high-backed, well-padded chair for a silent victory party, which consisted of him doing absolutely nothing except running his fingers through the soft yellow fur of his pet, whom he had named Chao upon her birth.
He was therefore most displeased when his door was broken down in the middle of his celebrations. The door slammed against the wall, making quite a lot of noise and leaving a dent in the metal of the wall. A Hatchery worker panted in the doorway, hunched over with one hand on his gut. When he finished wasting Zee's time by catching his breath, he straightened, saluting with hand to temple and a respective bob of his antennae. His eyes were a rich orange, an unusual color that quickly identified his person: Hatchery Drone Tembel.
Chao growled, not specifically at Tembel, but at the general existence of discontent. Her long, pointed ears perked forward before flattening back against her head. She shifted in Zee's lap, minding her claws against her keeper. Zee did nothing, only looked at Tembel with smoldering displeasure.
"Sir!" Tembel fairly squeaked, "There's been a- ah, um… Upset in the Hatchery." Zee blinked, tilting his head slightly and softening his gaze to mild annoyance. "One of the smeets is… some kinda not good." Zee went back to glaring holes in the drone.
"Myeh," Chao commented, picking up on her master's emotions. Zee sniffed in response, picking her up and pushing her over his shoulder as he stood. Chao's small tail wagged, mindless of the small triangular spike near the end, as she clambered over him, wiggling head first in to the white drawstring bag that had taken the place of Zee's PAK. Pet so secured, Zee huffed and pushed his way past Tembel, who shied away from him by pressing back against the doorway, hands drawn up protectively.
Mood decidedly darkened, Zee stormed down the metallic corridors, leaving Tembel behind as his blocky shoes stomped the floor. Navigating the hallways was usually easy, especially since he had a digital map of the building programmed in to himself, but in his anger Zee wound up making several wrong turns and was forced to backtrack more than once, glaring questioning workers in to submission.
Anger leaving no room for embarrassment, Zee threw open the door to the Existence Examination room in almost the exact same manner that Tembel had, except that this time the act was clearly in the right. Zee marched his way up to the platform in the center of the room, a cloud of doom hovering dangerously around him. He stepped onto the platform and raged as far as he could until he was stopped by a small smeet sitting on the floor. Before them, Mimar was emitting mindless cooing chatter and all of Gnaven's eyes were narrowed, a few them twitching. One of his tentacles was making jabbing motions in the direction of the smeet, arced over its head and pointed towards its PAK. Another tentacle was busy smacking Mimar's whenever she moved to scoop the tiny thing in to her grasp for a hug or a cuddle or some other disgustingly touchy-feely thing.
Zee peered down at the smeet, noting nothing wrong with the young male besides a bit of darkness around his eyes. The smeet stared back, facing away from him with its head titled backwards, seemingly in danger of toppling over backwards at any moment. With no verdict yet determined on the smeet's fate, Zee grimaced, sucked it up, and put one of his feet behind the smeet so it wouldn't hurt itself due to the weight of its head. The thing squeaked as it was touched, jerking away slightly out of reflex. In an attempt to catch it, the smeet wound up sitting on top of Zee's foot. It squeaked again, happily settling down and leaning against his leg, innocently looking up with wide red eyes, not even realizing the implications of such.
Composure shattered, Zee's face paled before he jumped backwards, flailing his foot around until he dislodged the smeet, who squealed as he was sent flying through the air before being caught around the middle by one of Mimar's tentacles. While Zee was busy going through a spell of disgusted twitching, the smeet gagged sickly, likely a result of its sudden flight and the blow to its stomach. When Zee recovered himself, he moved to stand with some semblance of respect before the Control Brains, vowing to regain all lost dignity. He flinched, however, tongue poking out as he found himself faced with two Control Brains and the backside of an unclothed smeet. And proceeded to force down all screams of horror and memory flashbacks, hastily backing away from the smeet and his own past.
Innocently, the smeet watched him, head upside down and antennae perked forward, curiosity winning out over gravity. With a gentle sigh, Mimar righted the smeet, holding him close with one tentacle underneath him and one along his side. As Zee fought with himself, she cooed reassuring nothings to the tiny male, rocking him gently. The little thing hiccupped, glancing around in a bit of a daze as his infantile mind tried to comprehend the being that was holding him and the ache in his belly.
When Zee triumphed over his mind and returned to the current situation, he came back on
guard. Gnaven had yet to flagellate him for an outward show of weakness and such physical disgust. That right there was an enormous red flag, complete with wailing klaxons, for trouble in the immediate future, or more precisely, the here and now.
Coughing slightly in to his fist, Zee once again composed himself before the mechanical duo, opting to deal with his vast loss of dignity later. With a courteous nod and dip of his antennae, Zee finally signaled that he was ready for the counsel to commence.
Gnaven's eyes narrowed, his tentacles drawn close his body, ready to strike when needed. Lifting himself impressively, Gnaven began speaking in his nasally voice, condemnation dripping from every nuance of his speech. "This smeet has presented itself as a new breed of defective," he stated, muddy red eyes looking down on everyone in the room with forthright, rank-given superiority. "It has adversely reacted to a process that billions of others have flawlessly undergone. This smeet failed to properly sterilize." Gnaven conclusively ended with an unvoiced sniff of disapproval.
Zee blinked thoughtfully, tilting his head as one hand came to rest beneath his chin as he deliberated. After a few moments, he straightened himself. "If I may, I do believe that there is no reason to destroy this smeet. If he is only fertile, and male, than he can be sterilized, as he is, after decantation. It's a simple process, not that risky. It can be preferred certainly by tomorrow, if not today." Gnaven made a noise of annoyance, his tentacles twitching in agitation.
"No you defect, it's not fertile! It isn't even male! It's some mixed-gendered type of defect…" there was more to the statement, but it deteriorated in to indistinguishable muttering and finally petered in to silent.
Mimar pouted at her fellow Control Brain, holding the mix-gendered smeet protectively. "Shush, you'll scare him." She pulled the smeet even closer, pressing the dark red curve of her hull to the other's small form. "It's not that bad; who'll ever know anyway?"
Gnaven turned to her, tentacles pulling closer to his body. "Who will ever know? What kind of idiotic question is that? The defect is slated to be a soldier; soldiers, I shouldn't need to remind you, are raised in barracks. Barracks! That means together, with other, normal Irkens who don't need that sort of barbaric filth in their existences!" The tentacles were twitching again, a dark fire of self-ascertained higher purpose burning in Gnaven's many eyes.
Mimar frowned, running one tentacles along the smeet's form soothingly. "Well who says he has to be a soldier? He hasn't even had his first download yet, we can just change his rank."
Gnaven snarled at her, fangs bared from a useless mouth as he berated her. "And what of the defect? You act as though it will never figure out that it's different! And then what? What sort of savage thoughts will it come upon than? This is what causes rebellions, revolutions, empires to topple!"
Mimar actually had the audacity to giggle in the face of Gnaven's impassioned speech. "Oh Gnaven, stop being so silly. That's all slippy-slopey stuff. Nothing bad will happen!"
Gnaven snorted. "Oh, really? How interesting it is, than, that the rate of defective deletions has risen since you were assigned here. I do not claim to be privy to the programming of the Counsel, but somewhere along the line a mistake was clearly made, as this position is most unsuited to your singular personality."
Mimar's shell tilted, confusion showing clearly in her wide eyes. "But I like it here."
Gnaven snarled, internally enraged that Mimar was not affected by his words. One tentacle lashed out, snatching the smeet from Mimar's grasp. The little thing yelped as it was grabbed, tiny limbs flailing as it squealed. Gnaven growled, lowering it until the newly decanted being was level with his primary eyes. The smeet whimpered as its small form was squeezed, screeching as the tentacle curled tighter, crushing its tiny body.
Zee shivered slightly, hands clenching and unclenching behind his back as memories fought to come to the surface of his mind. The frantic screams weren't helping and visions flashed before his eyes, wide as they stared at the morbid scene. Mimar was screaming, her tentacles scrambling at Gnaven's as she tried to free the little smeet. If she were capable, Zee was sure that tears would be brimming in her eyes and spilling out over her metal form.
Gnaven's eyes narrowed further, his gaping mouth set in to a frown of deep annoyance. The tentacle shifted slightly, wrapping around the smeet's head to suffocate its voice and breathing apparatus. The smeet thrashed still, eyes wide as tears fell silently over paling cheeks. The life was draining from its red eyes, the bit of darkness around its eyes becoming more prominent the more the color drained from the smeet's face.
Another moment and it was limp. Gnaven sniffed at it, unwinding his tentacle and letting the body fall to the floor with a sickly thlump. Nodding slightly to himself, Gnaven drew his tentacles back to himself, closing all of his eyes contentedly as he settled to the floor, resting on the cushion of his tentacles.
Mind silenced by the vicious display, Zee took small, slow steps towards the smeet's still form. He couldn't remember the last time he had seen violence so unexpected. Yes, he had had pets that had run amok and caused much damage: destroying computers, killing drones, smashing smeet tubes… But those had been an expected event, not set for any particular time, but with the distinct possibility of a rampage lurking ever just under the surface of their furry forms.
Eyes distant, Zee stooped to pick up the still-warm body of the smeet, watching with a detached morbid fascination as its limbs moved limply, drawn down by gravity with no muscles to fight with. It was odd, holding something dead when there was no visible cause of death. A laser wound, limbs blown off in an explosion, a pile of goo-coated bones removed from acid; any of those he could understand. Deadly illnesses had been all but eliminated thousands of years ago, and the few that remained left visible scars as marks of their victories, a reminder of the mortality left in the near super-predator species. But this… There was no reason for this, no logical cause that could explain the smeet away in to the darkness of death. And everything had to make sense; the Empire would accept nothing less.
It was in this haze that Zee left the room, Mimar's pitiful sobbing going unregistered. He walked down the hallway in a trance, pace steady and mind blank. His footsteps were not stomps as his rather rectangular shoes usually made them, but soft as he move silently through the hallways. It was this unnerving silence that made the hatchery drones scurry out of his way when they heard the slight but distinguishable thunking of his shoes.
He arrived at his quarters later than he usually would from just a walk back from the Existence Evaluation room; almost an oxymoron considering that one would likely be pressed to move faster when transporting a dead body. Sighing, he eased the still form out of his arms, depositing it on his desk before finding his way around it and hefting himself in to his chair, feeling worn down by the past half hour or so. The day had been going so well up until he'd been summoned… With a sigh he slumped down, head resting heavily on the padding of the chair's back. He grunted a bit, reaching down out of habit to fix the skirt of his dress, straightening out the bunches in the fabric before they left marks and playing idly with the hem of the dress where it rested just below his knees. He fiddled idly with the material between his ungloved fingers, sighing softly before he rolled his head to the side to look at the smeet. That had been… heinous. There really was no other word for it. Yes, he'd seen blood sport before, but at least there was some semblance of a fair fight; Irken against Irken or else an Irken's intelligence, battle armor, and PAK against the shear size and brawn of some alien beast. But to kill a smeet by hand? The smeet had absolute zero chance to win that fight, with no natural defense, no better than intermediate speech and motor skills, and no knowledge of the uses of its PAK. And to fight a Controller? Not even a Tallest had a chance to win that fight, at least not without subterfuge and underhanded trickery, not to mention a slew of broken laws. He sighed again, letting the fabric of his dress slip from between his fingers, bringing up his hand to massage his head. Gnaven was always calling everyone else flawed. Irony said that that meant he was really the defective one. He wondered if he could pursue that, the idea of being stuck in the center of the planet with an unstable Control Brain enough to motivate him.
'Time to collect,' he decided as he opened up one of the draws of his desk, taking a piece of pale grey stationary paper off of a neat stack and pulling out a sleek black pen, the paper's silver trim and the gold highlights on the pen shining slightly in the light of his office. Closing the drawer with his stomach as he scooted closer to the desk, he placed down his paper, only a few inches separating the sheet from the body resting near the edge of his desk. He held the pen thoughtfully for a moment, his other hand smoothing non-existent wrinkles and dirt further out of existence. Putting pen to paper, he began his letter, Chao's claws kneading at his back.
He loved his position, he decided as he wrote. It wasn't the job, per say, but where his work put him that went beyond being enjoyable. It wasn't even the people that he knew, he reflected as he glanced back at his addressee, but his comparative influence, legitimate or not. He grinned to himself, intelligence visibly working in his eyes, as he signed his letter, the dainty black letters flowing from the pen with casual ease. He smirked slightly as he clicked button at the end of his pen, the silver nib retreating in to the body of the pen for the time being. Pushing himself back a bit, Zee opened the same desk draw as before, replacing the pen in its assigned spot and closing the draw once more. He then proceeded to open another draw, fishing out a message transport tube, holding in firmly, and managed to snag an address label with one finger and pin it to the side of the tube long enough to pull his hand out of the draw. With his letter in one hand, Zee let the label slip from his grip onto the surface of his desk, being much more careful with the tube as he placed it down and popped the lid off. Using both hands, he rolled up his letter and, once completed, picked up the tube again and placed his message inside. Holding the tube, he used one finger to tap the edge of his letter down so it wouldn't be deformed by the cap, which he picked up with his other hand and, after moving his finger, pushed it back onto the container. So done, he lay the tube down and picked up the address label, which he had filled out ahead of time. Pealing the sticker off of its backing, he held the tube still with his wrists as both hands fought to attach the label straight and wrinkle-free. After a few false starts, he placed it down, smoothing out any potential air pockets as he went.
Finished and happy with the letter's appearances, Zee grabbed the tube, turned his chair to face the wall, leaned forward, reached out, and shoved the tube in to the mail slot, where it was promptly sucked away to be processed and sent to its recipient. Face showing all the signs of contentedness, Zee turned around and stood up, pushing his chair back slightly in the process. He sighed, stretching his arms above his head and straining his neck first to the left and then to the right, a few cracks and pops accompanying his movements. Pushing up onto his toes, he stretch his back out as well, before moving his arms out to the side and finally dropping back to his feet, arms lowering to his sides. Small break finished, Zee lowered his gaze to consider the still form on his desk. After a minute or so, he walked around his desk and slid his arms under and around the smeet's body. Gently lifting the body, he pulled it securely in to his arms, holding it in a manner very similar to that used when properly holding a live smeet.
'Screw you, charlatans,' he thought as he stalked deliberately in to the center of the room, standing still as a thin line became visible in the metal that made up the floor of his office. He kept his stance as the circular platform began to lower in to the floor, exposing the grey metal and dim blue lights of the elevator shaft. The elevator descended with barely a sound, only gentle humming sounding through the duct. Without a sound or bump, the platform halted a few millimeters above the floor, waiting for Zee and his cargo to disembark before returning to the surface, lest anyone wander in and find a hole in the floor. Until it returned, nothing but a hologram would keep this place a secret.
Red gaze hardened and dark, Zee marched forward, further in to the hidden underbelly of his office. The corridor branched in to three with no arrival room; the elevator had merely been built in to the wall. The metal wasn't shiny, but clean enough to not make one flinch or draw the eye to it. The hallway was mostly barren, with only a closed door or two breaking up the smooth metal. At the end of the long, sweeping hallway, there were corridors to the left and to the right, a dead end straight-ahead. He turned right and made his way quickly down the narrower vestibule. At the end of the hallway was a large, imposing door, made smaller by how far away it was. There were four other doors before it, several yards separating the first set of parallel doors from the second. Starting from about two feet above the walls and extending upwards to about a foot below the ceiling, the metal changed from smooth paneling to long, metal strips, the sort that one would see on a garage door. Paying the rooms no mind, Zee strode down the corridor with his eyes locked on the far door. When he reached it, he shifted the body in his arms so that he could open the heavy door. He placed his hand upon a slightly lighter colored rectangle of metal attached to the door a firm push, activating the pressure transducers. It beeped, running a scan on pressure points and levels as well as a bio-signature check. Satisfied, the system pinged and the large door opened, slowly grinding upwards to reveal the infinite darkness that it hid. A second later, a row of lights flickered on, followed by the rows behind it, until the entire room was bathed in pale yellow florescent light. The entire room was really one large open space, but had been divided in to workstations and walkways by large blocks of computer equipment and metal paneling propped against and between machines.
Zee walked quickly down the central row of equipment, navigating the maze that he had made until he reached a corner at the back of the enormous laboratory. Here was step one in his latest experiment. Lining the back wall of the station were tall cylindrical tubes, their dull metal bases anchored to the floor and ceiling, hiding the machines behind the larger, better machine. Holding the body in both arms again, Zee approached the tube in the center, giving the base a prod with his shoe. A flooring panel to the right of the machine shivered, sliding down and under one of the tiles next to it. From beneath the floor, a control panel rose, an inclining block on a thin, sharp-sided arc connected to a base the same size and color as the tile it was replacing. Once more holding the smeet in one arm, Zee tapped a button on the control panel, letting the machines hum for a fraction of a second before it fulfilled his request, the shear tubing of the cylinder and its grey top sliding upwards, allowing him to place the tiny form inside. Pressing the same button as before, the glass-like pipe slide down and closed securely with a small click. Rapidly punching in a series of buttons, Zee paused to watch the affects. From the bottom of the tube, an odd, swirling liquid began to emerge. It churned slowly and awkwardly, yellows and what appeared to be purples mixing as though in slow motion. If Zee had bothered to have a pride and joy, a crown jewel of his work, this may have at one point been that favored achievement. The idea for the machine was not his own, but the vast improvements he had made to it were. First of all, his time status field tubes were much more energy efficient. After all, if he was going to be stealing power from the future of Irk, he may as well cut back instead of going wild. What was the point of bringing his master back to a diminished empire? More importantly, his improvements allowed for a much greater range of time alteration. Other machines of a similar source simply didn't work at the levels he needed them to. In this case, he needed to essentially stop the affects of time on the body. The machine couldn't really stop time, but slow it down to the point that, for all intents and purposes other than specifically stopping time, it stopped time.
Now, onto other, harder things. With the body so preserved, he had to decide what he wanted to do with the smeet. He could just leave it in the status field as he studied it, to prevent the body from decomposing, or he could revive the smeet for live observation. In all honesty, brining Irkens back from the dead wasn't hard at all. They were grown in labs anyway, so a simple DNA sample could be used to grow an Irken a body identical to their old one, minus any changes incurred during life, such as scars. Smeets were even easier, since it was very rare to find a smeet with scars. Usually at so young an age, a damaged smeet would simply be destroyed and another made to fill its place; smeets just didn't have enough life experience to really contribute anything to the Empire, only their potential as full-grown Irkens. For both, memories took virtually no effort to reinstate. All that needed to be done was move the Irken's PAK onto their new body. But for this one… He really wasn't quite sure what affect the smeet's memories would have if he revived it. Adult Irkens were taught to embrace death, so long as they died for the Empire or at the Empire's hand. That was an honorable death; giving ones life to better the Empire by serving it or having your progress-hindering self removed from the Empire.
'Wait a minute…' There was a thought. He'd been thinking so much about what he was going to do with the smeet, he hadn't even bothered to find out its name. It didn't really mean anything unless he revived it, but now that the tiny Irken was of real interest to him, he may at least have the decency to refer to it as something other than 'smeet.' Walking briskly over to a metal table with miscellaneous supplies set neatly around three of its sides, he picked up a pair of seemingly ordinary latex gloves. Pulling on the off-yellow safety measure with a sharp snap, he made his way back to the time status containment unit, pressing another button on the control panel. A few feet from floor level, at a comfortable height for Zee to work, a hole appeared in the tubing. The machine kept the status field in check, however, so none of the yellow and purple anomaly leaked from the container. Without hesitation, Zee reached in to the tube, gently nudging the smeet in to a workable position with his covered fingertips. Once in a convenient position, Zee pressed one finger against the pink patch around the top of the small Irken's PAK, depressing the spot and releasing as the hatch popped open. Tongue poking out slightly in concentration, Zee hooked just the first joint of two of his fingers in to the PAK, twitching them around in search of the data cable he knew was contained somewhere underneath the metal shell. Unfortunately, the smeet's vertical position put the opening at a bad angle to penetrate, especially considering the comparative size of his fingers and the size of the port he was working with.
Removing his digits from the smeet's PAK, Zee hooked one finger on the other male's shoulder, pulling him closer to the glass and also in to a horizontal position. Once the smeet was suspended rather eerily on its back, he placed his finger under its side, carefully pushing up and over until the smeet has rolled to hang in suspended animation on its stomach. Now he had better access to the PAK and didn't have to worry about jarring the small Irken's head while working. Working his fingers back inside the PAK, he frowned, pulling them back out and reinserting his pointer finger and thumb. Biting down slightly in his tongue, Zee leaned against the smooth curve of the tube as he tried to move his digits deeper, brushing something just out of reach. With a soft grunt, Zee pushed his fingers deeper, feeling the metal that comprised the edge of the access point digging in to his latex covered digits. Ah, but there was the cable he was looking for. Forcing his fingers just a little deeper, he was able to get a grip on the cable's circular connection plug, grasping it between thumb and forefinger. Carefully, as not to let the cable slip from between his fingers, Zee pulled his hand back, biting back as soft hiss as he had to pull trapped flesh and latex out from the metal edge of the tight port. With a small smirk of victory, Zee freed his fingers, data cable caught between them.
Removing his hand from the tube, Zee carefully passed the cable to his other hand so that he could push a button on the control panel to close the hole in the tube, making it constrict around the cable. So sealed, Zee began walking towards a computer bank that made up one of the walls, his progress reflected in the large black screen. When he reached it, Zee reached forward, gently tapping at the keyboard, awakening the slumbering machine. A few more keystrokes and a panel slid free on a large, smooth plane of metal to the left of the monitor. Attaching the data cable to the newly revealed cable port, Zee turned back to the keyboard, both hands now free to initiate a file transfer. His job done, Zee pulled his hands away from the computer, clenching his hands in to fists until he heard the satisfying pop of his knuckles, no doubt a sign of completing hard work. Cracking his neck as well, Zee stood before the computer, staring out with relaxed eyes, head tilted to one side, and arms folded loosely over his chest, watching the green bar advanced towards completion. He tapped his fingers against his arms, eyes rolling about a bit in search of something interesting before settling back on the computer screen.
The data extraction progress bar slowly crawled towards completion. It was truly amazing how much a smeet as young as this one took in. Without the data downloads, information was chaotically unorganized, a giant mess of unanswered questions, set upon for a second before being abandoned in the face of a new inquiry. At least the standard information package was organized… Ah, there it went, almost done. The computer beeped as it finished its task, a new window opening to display the contents of the smeet's PAK. At the top of the page, the smeet identification number was displayed in large letters: GI1CSoCM524152751814411. In other words, a male smeet destined for the soldier class decanted in the general smeet laboratories at Irk's core. Actual, pronounceable name: Cinsiyet.
'Not for long,' Zee mused. An opportunity like this was rare in presenting itself and therefore utmost care had to be taken in extracting the largest amount of information possible from the subject. Which meant he needed the smeet alive. Which meant that he needed a new name, since Cinsiyet was registered as defective, not to mention dead. It was ridiculously easy, he thought as he opened a new window and began to type, to change one's identity within the Empire. Especially given his influence and affluence. His fingers slowed, hovering over the keys as he gazed at the fake ID he was creating. The smeet would need a new name… Finally, he typed in a name and moved on. Laboratory created at: Custom Laboratory; Irk. Class: Student; Apprentice (D.S.H. (Irk, Core)). Gender: Male. Creation number: 125157114.
There, a new Irken. CI1StCM125157114, to be better known as his apprentice, automatically inheriting his status as an elite. Now all he had to do was revive the body of the smeet formerly known as Cinsiyet. Typing a string of commands in to the computer, he let it process and, once given confirmation that the orders would be executed, moved back to the status tube the young male's body was being held in. There really wasn't that much work to do with the body. Really, all he had to do was fix or replace the brain and reboot the PAK, which would then spark the tiny body back to life. Although Irkens need it to function properly, the brain really wasn't that important. All it really did was act as a link between the PAK and an Irken's organic shell, translating the PAK's signals in to electric pulses the rest of the body could understand. Which, in this case, would bring the smeet back from Irkalla.
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I claim no credit what so-ever for the idea of Irkalla. It's not an original concept, but a mythological underworld. The basis is that it is the holding place for those who are not really dead yet or were wrongly killed and capable of being saved. The souls only stay there for a short time, however. If not revived, the soul will rot and, ultimately, die in Irkalla. I figure it's a good concept for Irkens, since they don't seem like they'd want or believe in any sort of higher being or afterlife, but clearly they know they can come from being dead, since they're revived by their PAKs when possible.
As a last note, dialogue, what's dialogue? Yeah, sorry 'bout the lack of conversations, but for the bulk of this Zee didn't have anyone to talk to. So speech had to be sacrificed so Zee didn't become a mad scientist who talks to himself. He's not crazy, just a bit lawless. And, yes, a cross dresser. Why? Because he needed to wear a maid's dress. He just did.