Guest Omake
Going Swimming (By Guardian Lurker)
Lisa was sprawling on the couch in the BBFO offices, sipping her soda, conspicuously ignoring the reality- and sanity- bending antics of her two friends behind her. She knew that if they were doing serious work, they'd be doing it in either the Big Room or the project lab. The fact that they were doing it here meant it was mostly play, and to mess with her. She refused to give them the satisfaction. Again. At any rate, given the brief pause they had in what sometimes seemed to be an unending, maddening, wildcap rollercoaster life, she considered it wise to review past events and conclusions to see if there was any additional information she could glean or had missed before. This time, she caught something she had been missing for a long time.
"Hey, Ames! What are the exact environmental limits for Metis and Ianthe? I know we're good pressure wise to at least 3000 feet, and temperature wise to about -45 Celsius, but my power isn't really capable of determining the final limits as it doesn't have enough data, and that's not something I really want to determine with live testing, you know?"
"Well, originally, not even that much, I didn't realize how much fun we be having as Family, nor how often. Once I did, I did some reinforcement upgrades with Taylor's help. Right now, our human forms are as close to impossibly safe as I can make them once they're inside - the crèche is actually, thanks to Taylor's space shenanigans, an inverted fractionally expanded extra dimensional space", Amy paused, considering the adjective string and shrugged, knowing that Lisa's power could and would straighten it out. She continued, "...housed completely within an insulated EDM box. Even if we lose our friends, we should still be safe."
Lisa was a little taken aback, but pressed on. "Actually, I was more concerned with what Metis' limits were. I'm sure she's nowhere close to being as durable as Taylor, because...", and she waved her hand carelessly, "... but what can she actually tolerate? Could she deal with Antarctica? A house fire? The bottom of the ocean? Space?"
"Oh. Well, vacuum was easy. And she doesn't have to worry about the bends at any depth. She could probably tolerate 1500 to 2000 bars without a problem if she was fully armored up and moved carefully. Without the armor, she's probably only able to tolerate about 500 bars. Temperature was harder. Once CO2 starts condensing out of the air, for instance, it starts get a little hard to breathe. Even so, her tissues shouldn't start suffering freezes until -80 Celsius. At the other end, her tissues won't dehydrate until around 500 Celsius. Basically, at this point, any of the Family should be able to go almost anywhere on the planet - though they might have to hold their breath."
"Wow. That's much better than I suspected. Taylor, how ... about... HOLY SHIT! You really could survive a nuke!... Damn. You could swim in lava!... Wait a minute. You CAN swim in lava..." As Lisa trailed off, Taylor and Amy were a little disturbed by the predatory smirk on her face.
Deep in the core of Earth Bet, Chthonic Maintenance relaxed, basking in the soothing temperatures of a world's healthy core. This was much better than being pressed into [CONFLICT] duty, especially by a host. It had thought that it had evolved past those interactions. Granted, it had gotten a little bored these past few cycles, which is why in hadn't objected too much when it was pressganged into service. And this cycle wasn't going to need its services - the core was healthy, the hosts hadn't advanced to where they were directly manipulating the planet's core, or even worse, mining it, like those stupid hosts a few cycles back.
Everyone, even the Administrators were hopeful on that one - twice the size and four times the mass of this cycle's hosts, fighting and backstabbing and conquering, they looked perfect. So much conflict. And so STUPID. Fatal Politics complained that it had to keep running integrity checks to make sure it hadn't forgotten anything. This cycle's hosts were a lot better. Much more inventive. Everyone was happy, all kinds of new data kept flowing in. Even it had been kind of enjoying revisiting its childhood - after all in between its tours of [CONFLICT], it was able to just relax here, enjoying doing nothing, instead of being forced to listen to [Status Notifier] and its incessant babbling.
At least until... THAT THING... showed up. No it promised itself it wouldn't think about THAT THING. Just float here, relaxing, not moving at all, lazing about, THAT THING unable to find it. No its doing it again. Think of something else. Oh, that's a pretty current, all those crystals singing...
[ALARM! ALARM!]
Why was Prediction Engine contacting it? What was ...
[BLEEEEEBEEEEEPEEEP!] THAT THING was here! Calm down, it hadn't seen it. See, it was just examining that complicated bit of plate fractures just off the tip of the spinning continent. Just checking things out, like it had never seen the inside of a planet before. No THAT THING hadn't seen it. Couldn't see it. It was perfectly safe.
[BLEEEEFFING BLEEEP BEEP!] THAT THING was swimming this way. Calm down. It was just a coincidence. ... No it's not!
[FLEE! RUN AWAY! AAAAAHHHHH!]
In the BBFO offices, Lisa started laughing uncontrollably as Behemoth appeared for the first time in months on the Endbringer Tracking System. Because it was like watching one of those old screensavers, bouncing throughout the core at extremely high rates of speed, with erratically changing directions. Then, the dot stopped.