Xin Chao Anh Em, AsianShitposter's back with another chapter fresh outta the oven! Yeah, I gotta admit, I'd been really slack with my uploading date. But what can I say? Life's been hectic as shit, and still escalating. Since I'm a professional fencer now, my daily schedule is filled to the brim with training, mock matches, tournaments, etc... So pls understand for me. But hey, it ain't all bad! I got my first ever gold medal!

Also, just to clear things out, this fanfic has nothing to do with real-world politics, and shouldn't be treated as such. The event described happened in an alternate universe where the USSR didn't collapse, America fell for some reason and got rebuilt again, humanity discovered firearm technology WAY too early and had 5 world wars, and melee weapons still saw widespread use in militaries for whatever reason. Totally fictional. Also, pineapple pizza doesn't exist in this universe, so I would consider this an Utopia.

So yeah, friendly and constructive reviews only please!

Thank you and enjoy.

Chapter 5 - Saving Private OctaRyan

Aw shit… that's going to sting later.

I clumsily headed to the old technical room's entrance, scaling my hand along the wall while rubbing my bruised forehead where I hit the door earlier. My backpack dangled on my right shoulder by one sling, completely dyed in a vibrant pink just like my clothes and vest. I didn't have time to check if the ink had seeped through its fabric or not, but hopefully none of the backpack's contents was drenched by it yet. Especially the dry rations, solar charger and first aid shots - might as well go kill myself if something happened to those three, because I probably wouldn't survive for long without them anyway.

Despite my best effort to navigate in the dark, my feet still tripped on various tools and electronic components scattered all over the floor, some particularly heavy ones nearly making me drop dead from toe pain. About the fight with the humanoid… Well, that could've gone much better for sure. He wasn't the toughest opponent I've ever faced, lacking both physical strength and fighting skill. In theory, I - as someone with a yellow belt in Taekwondo and two years worth of melee experience from frequent school brawls - could've stomped him as easily as squashing a fly. And it could've turned out that way, if not for the humanoid's LOGIC-DEFYING agility that made him a pain in the ass to hit. That combined with my poor choice of weapon which is a lead pipe, had impeded my attack speed even more. Overall, the worst and probably most humiliating fight I've ever had.

On the bright side, the son of a bitch is dead, I managed to retrieve my gun (along with several useful-looking stuff from the humanoid's backpack), and it still came out relatively fine n' dandy - except for some bruises, multiple aching spots and a botched pair of lips. Can't really complain though, cuz once you enter a hand-to-hand combat, unless you're ridiculously skilled in CQC or you're fighting against a seriously underpowered opponent, getting hit is pretty much unavoidable.

I stepped out of the old wooden-framed doorway, cautiously glancing at both directions of the catwalk before picking my helmet up from the ground. After giving it a cursory inspection, I frowned upon finding out its HUD function had been damaged; a web-like crack has been formed where the beam of ink hit earlier, and the minimap on the top-left of my visor has been replaced with a distorted square frame filled with static. The map, as degraded and corrupted as it is, was still of use since a decent portion of its data was still intact. Now that was also lost along with the flashlight, effectively rendering me blind. And just when I thought this shit couldn't get any worse…

I flipped the helmet's visor up after strapping it to my head again, since it now serves no purpose other than obstructing my vision. Then I drew my sidearm and also gave it a cursory glance. Four shots left, and no spare capsule remained in my pocket. Yep, only four shots, that's all I have. Goddamn! - I thought with an annoyed tongue click - I burned through my ammunition faster than my dad burned through his cigarette stock.

Remembering my cranky dad, and his diehard heavy-smoking habit that he'd sworn (and failed) to fix, lightened my mood a little bit and I couldn't help but chuckle a little...

Suddenly, several white beams of floodlight shone from deep inside the hallway, with numerous humanoid shadows partially blocking it. Wow, great! Looks like reinforcements have arrived.

I stared at the beams, which rapidly increased in length and intensity as their sources moved closer, and contemplated my next move. Engagement is pretty much asking for death, since a puny survival knife and a near-empty pistol isn't going to do much against a whole squad of armed, professionally-trained, heat-packed scavengers. And as I've found out in the last firefight, my skill with guns is pig dog awful when it comes to shooting live targets, so I won't be able to last for long even with full ammo either. Empty beer cans? Sure, I can nail plenty of them in under 15 seconds. These bouncy lil' fuckers? Hell naw.

That left me with the other option: retreat deeper into the facility, then… I dunno? Plan my next move from there? But going head-first into uncharted territory without lighting and map seems just as suicidal as the first option. And there's the third option which is to surrender and talk it out. Though I'm sure after what I've done to their teammates, they would be more than willing to gun me down before I could say a word. Nope, not gonna happen.

So if both three options are shit, then I shall pick the least of all which is to scram. I put on my backpack and made my way toward the overseer's office, tip-toeing to make as little noise on the metal floor as possible.

As soon as I reached halfway, one of the floodlight beams suddenly shone at my position, making me hit the deck to avoid being spotted. They must've caught a glimpse of my movement, because the beam didn't move away after a while like I'd expected, but instead were followed by others as well.

Barely two minutes out, and already got back into deep shit again. - I thought, warily eyeing the light spot while trying not to move a muscle. The shrill and gurgling sound of the humanoids calling each other reverberated around the hall dome, and through one of the holes on the catwalk tile, I saw multiple dark silhouettes moving to the middle of the minipark. They were investigating my last battle site. And yep, they've brought out the big guns this time; four of them donning some sort of flamethrower/ squad gun connected to a backpack ink supply, that looks like the 80's concept of what rayguns look like. Gotta admits, even though they look quite intimidating, I still kinda wanted to stick around and see what they can do – despite the risk of being used as a demonstration subject. I had my wish granted a moment later however, when a harsh 'clang' suddenly rang out from somewhere in the opposite edge of the minipark, and the humanoids immediately trained their weapons toward the source of the noise.

The catwalk is hung high enough for me to have a complete view of the mini-park below, yet I couldn't identify the possible cause of the sound, or anything else other than concrete wall and fake grass for that matter. Oh, and did I mention the two remaining tank-tacles with triple the original amount of floodlights bolted to the front of its vehicle? They were ordered to stay overwatch at the two ends of the formation, so I wasn't entirely off radar either. The scavenger team began to spread out while slowly advanced toward the source, the collective light of their torches turning the drab-grey concrete wall around it a blinding white. I squinted my eyes at the noise's origin, and this time managed to make out the square shape of a wall-mounted vent grate... with something moving behind it.

The fuck? – I stared quizzically at the dark squirming "mass", trying to make out any further detail of it, only for the thing to turn around and stare back at me with a bulging orange eye, its snake-like vertical pupil dashing around ferally. The humanoid elite shouted a command, and all four LMG-like weapons immediately opened fire at the grate with continuous ink beams, eviscerating the strange creature without giving it the chance to scream. Quite the gristly way to go.

[Commanding drowning-in-toilet noise] – The Elite yelled with a raised hand, causing all four ray cannons to cease fire. Without the ink beams obstructing my sight, I was able to see the fate that had befallen the vent creature more clearly – literally plastered against the ventilation shaft wall by the sheer force of the ray beams, bones shattered and organs liquefied. Not gonna lie, I gagged a little bit upon seeing that shit, but managed to restrain myself from making noise doing so. To be able to deal THAT much damage in such a short amount of time… if my estimation is correct, then each one of those ray cannons must has the stopping power of a 50. Cal Anti-Armor MG, and even DOUBLE the fire rate! Jesus Christ man, what did I even do to be considered a big enough threat for that!?

'Clank clank clank!' – The vent grate began to shake violently, and all eyes turned toward the carnage site. I also snapped out of my train of thought, and looked at the grate just in time to witness two short, scaly limbs - or "fins"? Doesn't matter - reached out from the depth of the shaft, scooped up the gory remains of the creature, and retracted back into darkness again. Then, a cacophony of wild and low growl came out from the vent, causing the humanoids to steady their weapon grips in anticipation.

Ah yes, that thing called it's entire hood in. Cuz why wouldn't it?

The four ray cannons charged up and fired again, along with the tank-tacles' blob cannons and the Elite's SMG for extra effects. In the place where the creature's yellow eye once was, two more like it popped up and, after they too were killed, five more took their place and so on. The firepower of the whole team was more than enough to keep up with the creatures' spawn rate though, until one of the ray guns abruptly stopped firing.

'Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.'

Empty.

Soon, another beam cannon followed, and then another. The pile of body, both dead and alive, began to expand at a rapid rate, threatening to burst through the vent grate and onto the mini-park like a swarm of angry ants. The last beam-gunner – a male humanoid with a thick undercut hairstyle – notified his teammates of his nearly depleted ink tank, and they all pulled out their sub-weapons for imminent CQC. Only an idiot would not be able to see that shit's about to hit the fan right now, so I did the wise move and weaseled my way to the office's direction as quickly and quietly as possible, not taking my eyes off the escalating battle. Soon enough, the rusted and flimsy grate frame proved to be too weak to hold back the monstrous mass of creatures, and was snapped into two pieces, then buried under the outpouring swarm.

The elite let out a ferocious war-cry, which was joined by her subordinates and tank-tacles as they dumped everything they got at the charging horde. And yes, true to the deceased P-Sec guy's words, they ARE fishmen Indians, though mostly the medium and small types, with the biggest one only as tall as my shoulder.

Great, new problems emerged. Guess I won't be getting a break anytime soon.

At first, I expected the humanoid team to get instantly overrun by the monster horde given how many of them were there, but turned out they managed to handle themselves pretty fine, and were actually gaining some ground from the creatures; their ink-based weaponry proved to be surprisingly effective at crowd control. That combined with the fact that the fishmen's movement speed was so slow it made them look more like casually walking toward enemy than charging, made them even easier targets. Grenades were sometimes thrown to help disperse tight clusters of fishmen, each explosion flinging their corpses to the air like G-mod ragdolls. Despite the team's best effort, they were unable to keep the horde at bay and the creatures still managed to get into melee range. The ones at the front immediately leaped toward the firing line, brandishing their sharpened cleavers and frying pans while screeching in bloodlust. They didn't have the chance to do shit though, as one of the female humanoids simply whipped out a magnified glass cleaner (the same one that I've seen during first contact) and swatted them all away like flies. The ones who didn't have any melee weapon simply kicked any fishmen that got to close off-balance, then finished them off with a shot between the eyes.

I watched in amazement as a ginsu-wielding fishman knocked the Elite's SMG from her hand and tried to stab her throat, only for the black-haired humanoid to disarm it back, punched in its face several times so hard that its jaws went dangling, stuffed an ink grenade into its maw then roundhouse-kicked the choking creature back to its brethren. The bomb exploded not long after, vaporizing a large portion of the fishmen's frontline, though the humanoid team was unharmed by the blast. Woah, that was low-key badass not gonna lie.

Though I didn't want to stay and witness the battle's final result, it seemed like the humanoid were winning since the fishmen horde was starting to show signs of thinning. Sure, they managed to close the distance sometimes, but the humanoid casually beat them back every time in one way or another, like they've been through this kind of shit countless times before. Anyway, I tore my focus off the combat scene and looked at the long and utilitarian hallway intersecting the catwalk platform in front of the overseer's office door. The pitch-darkness plaguing it both made me hesitant to advance, and seemed to allure me in at the same time for some reason. This is the hallway leading deeper into the Polaris "fortress", that I'm supposed to enter. I took a deep breath and let the popping sound of gunfire fade behind me.

… I might regret this later. Well, shit. Here goes nothing!

' Thwack!'… 'Thump!'

The heel of Mira' right boot made contact with the toothy beak of a salmonid chum, planting the creature's face to the floor. It growled and snapped at her while struggling to stand up, but a single blast of her brella swiftly sent the salmonid to its ancestor, and its body went limp. She then kicked the creature's corpse over with disgust, rolling it into a nearby body pile.

"Phew! That's the last one of em'!" Mira exclaimed, eyeing the trench line made out of dead salmonids that her team had just built. "Yo guys! Y'all doing fine over there?" She asked over her shoulder, holstering the ink-dripping shotgun next to her folded roller.

"I'm good! Thanks, sis." Maurice called back, poking a dead smallfry with her octoshot. Though, the bruises on her left cheek and various cut marks on her body armor spoke of a different answer. She still looked relatively unhurt though.

"Still breathing!" Jason answered, a barely-alive chum tried to lift its head near his feet, but was quickly sent back down by a burst of his octoshot. "By the Great Oct, I'm not paid enough for this…" He mumbled to himself, wiping a small goop of green salmonid blood off his hair.

"We got a wounded over here!" Anthia called out, and Maurice immediately jogged her direction with a medkit in hand. Turns out, some lucky chum managed to land a slash on the left flank octotrooper during the skirmish, creating a long bloody gash across its forehead that, luckily, seemed to be quite shallow. Despite the monstrous wound it received, the oversized tentacle behaved true to its kind's soulless stereotype; showing its discomfort with as much as a wince. Maurice quickly motioned the octotrooper to dismount from its combat scooter, then knelt down to open her medkit or some bandage and disinfectant. Sure, octotroopers are considered disposable resources in the Octarian army, and are often used as either meat shield, minesweepers and cannon fodders by the higher-ranked octolings. But now, this facility has been confirmed to be infested with salmonids, and they weren't planning to call for backup. When fighting against a horde of these little buggers, suppressive fire is key, and they can't afford to lose any source of extra firepower. After wrapping the sterile bandage into a simple tourniquet around the octotrooper's head, Maurice poured some more disinfectant into its wound, then packed the remaining healing equipment back into the medkit.

"That… wasn't the biggest horde we've ever faced. 62 salmonids in total, with no cojock or any special unit within it, just normal chums and smallfry. Most likely a small recon detachment." Oceanica commented, eyeing the now-deformed vent entrance with a quizzical look. Then she turned toward Mira and asked: "Mira, can you still trace Kaye's emergency signal?"

The roller girl pulled out her data pad again then pointed at the left wall catwalk after tinkering with its various buttons. "Yep, boss. Still up there. His condition seems to be worsening by the minute."

"Well, let's not keep the guy waiting, shall we? Retrieve your stingrays then move." Oceanica said, then folded her weapon and super-jumped on top of the catwalk series. Her team followed suit, except for the two octotroopers who were ordered to stay guard at the second floor's staircase, for the simple reason that their scooters can't climb stairs. The octolings immediately reverted back to their bipedal form in front of the technical room's entrance, then took cover behind the walls next to it. Then, they took a moment to run a quick equipment check in silence.

"You guys are all ready?" Oceanica asked loudly, receiving nods of confirmation from all team members. And since the enemy has probably known of their presence minutes ago, there was really no need to keep silent.

"Alright then." She racked the slide of her octoshot, "Anthia, you push first. Mira, go next with your roller. The rest of us will cover you from behind."

"Affirmative." Anthia replied professionally while revving up her stingray. "Mira, you ready?"

"On you", Mira responded. And that was the only signal the heavy gunner needed to kick the decrepit door open, and stormed in with the beam gun's spear-shaped barrel aimed forward. Her roller-wielding teammate followed right behind with a fierce "YAH!", weapon held abover her head and ready to smack any enemies into ink puddles. No retaliation.

"Area clear!" Both announced at the same time, giving the other three the signal to enter. The room wasn't interesting at first glance, filled with rows of unknown machinery - the ones closest to the entrance had been knocked over by the ink grenade - and empty plant vases. Its dirty grey floor was also littered with various tools and spare parts, some of which were recognizable to the octolings. At the far end of the room was a half-opened metal vault door with yellow lamp light seeping from the gap, ink formed into a thick puddle below it.

"...He's behind that door." Mira whispered, looking at her data pad which was vibrating faster and faster with each step she took. As the team made their way toward the signal's source, Oceanica - who walked at the formation's back end - didn't forget to create an ink trail along the way with her octoshot, which can be used as an escape route back to the entrance when needed.

"Ready to push." Anthia grunted, taking point next to the door again. She could faintly hear groans of pain from the other side of the vault door, in a voice that unmistakably belongs to Kaye. Her teammates also seemed to have heard it too, judging from their uneased facial expressions.

"On you." Mira called out. Anthia... well, struggled to push the vault door open, then jumped in again, with Mira following closely behind. The other three octolings raised their weapons, ready to provide cover fire for the two breachers in case things get awry.

And there was their rogue member, unconsciously slumped against the wall in a pool of ink, equipment stripped clean, clothes tattered and limbs bent in unnatural angles. A dented rusty lead pipe laid next to his right thign, most likely the instrument that either the strange creature/ salmonid had used to attack him with. Out of all the damage done to Kaye, his face suffered the worst, almost entirely covered in bruises and bleeding gashes, and was horribly deformed like a worn soccer ball. His eyelids were shut, grazed and swelled up like two overly-ripe eggplants, hanging above his sideway-bent nose and ripped bloody lips. Gone were Kaye's classy undercut hairdo, a sprawling disfigured mass of tentacles took its place instead. And worst of all, he was still conscious enough to feel all the pain. The scene was so horrible, that it made the entire team's stomach churn. Even the usually brave and prideful Oceanica stayed silent, disgust and shock written all over her face.

"... By the Oct..." A totally-mortified Maurice mumbled, staring at Kaye with unblinking eyes. Jason, unable to handle the sight, bolted to a far corner of the outer machinery room, then proceeded to retch and puke what was left of his dinner out. He had never been the stress-tolerant type, that guy. Anthia and Mira, despite also being disturbed by what they saw, thankfully managed to keep their composure, and rushed to give first aid for the wounded as per protocol. Others also quickly snapped out of their trance upon seeing the two's action, and joined in to assist as well.

"O-oh cod... Oh shucks, I-I totally didn't... Didn't s-sign up for this shit, man..." A teary-eyed Jason, now had completely ditched his usual calm and carefree demeanor, complained softly to himself in a shaky voice. This, of course, earned him the annoyed glare of Anthia and Oceanica, which promptly caused him to shut up. Oceanica ceased her work, and turned to the still-shaking octoling:

"Listen, soldier. Don't shucking whine with me right now. If you can't handle this, then go stay guard outside. You ain't got no business here anyway; four people are more than enough to handle this." Jason didn't need to be commanded twice, and quickly left the room in silence.

"Oh carp... This does NOT look good." Mira - the team's medical expert - exclaimed in a worried tone while giving Kaye a cursory damage assesstion. The octolings boy, despite being only half awake, grunted and jeered in pain each time her delicate hands touched a bruise on his fully naked body. "Moderate external lacerations, multiple limb cartilage fractures, a disjointed right arm, 5 broken fingers, several snapped ribs that has probably caused internal damages, left femur in pieces and I think... his skull, the frontal area, is also fractured. Our Kaye should've died several times over from half of the most serious ones. Quite the miracle that he survived all that, let alone staying conscious for this long." She shook her head in pity.

"Well, carp. So... how do we bring him back? Simply lifting him up will just cause more internal damage for sure." Maurice asked, her voice slightly muffled by the medical mask she wore.

"First, we need to secure his limbs in place with some splints. A shot of adrenaline should be applied to prevent seizure, but we don't have that luxury right now, apparently. Then, we need to load the guy into a stretcher, in order to safely extract him. Thing is, we shucking left our only one back at the seeker, and turning back out to grab it is not an option. Maurice, go search around the room for anything that can be used as one." Mira spoke to her sister. "And by the way? Face mask? You serious? What did you think we were gonna do? Perform an autopsy on Kaye or something?"

"Oh right, sorry. Just put it on in case, y'know, we do something like that." Maurice replied meekly, took the medical mask off, then left the room to do her assigned job. As soon as the octoling girl exited through the door, her eyes immediately set on the rows of rusted cabinets lined up along the wall, and she began to brute force all of their doors in hope of finding an unhinged one. Unfortunately, all of them are made of ultra-durable alloy designed to withstand the test of time, which left Maurice furiously gasping for breath after only several tries, and promptly gave up on ripping them off. Meanwhile, the other two took out medical splints, bandages and various chemicals from the medkit, and began to patch Kaye up to the best of their abilities.

Damn the Precursors and their habit of making everything so tough! - Maurice thought grumpily, eyeing the room for an alternative option. Table surface? Too heavy, and also made of the same material, so no hope. Tech room's door? Looks too worn-down, probably going to snap in half under Kaye's weight. The ceiling vent grate? Maurice would probably be court-martialed if she decides to lie Kaye onto something with THAT many protruding edges. Dude's already learned his lesson the hard way, so no need to assign him more homework. After a moment of observing, Maurice decided that the whole room was useless to her, and continued her search outside instead.

"Hey, whatcha doing?" Jason, who was leaning against the catwalk safety bars in front of the entrance, asked the girl with mild interest.

"O-oh hey, Jason. I'm just looking for something sturdy enough to used as a stretcher for Kaye. Can't carry him out in this state without breaking several more ribs." Maurice answered with a slight blush, then suddenly took notice of Jason's sickly pale face and red, post-crying eyes. "So... You good now?"

"Yeah, quite. Thank you. Might actually get PTSD or insomnia after this, but still ok overall" Jason replied assuringly, not forgetting to add a little joke that earned him the cute giggle of Maurice.

"Yeah, right. I can relate." Maurice agreed with a smile. "Actually, I'm second-guessing my decision to take this part-time job right now hehe. Never would've thought we would be having this kind of incident on a monthly basis. Anyway, I need someone to cover me while I search, so can you... like, help me with it?" She asked, darting her eyes down to the corpse-filled mini-park below, partly to scan for enemies, and partly to avoid making eye contact with her secret mate-interest, and screw up their relationship... somehow, she doesn't know but it's best not to take risks. No (living) salmonid in sight, neither does the Stranger - a name that they'd all agreed on in order to not dehumanize (de-octorize? De-sentientize? Ah whatever) the now-confirmed-to-be-sentient creature. Salmonids tends to not abandon their prey easily during a coordinated assault, so just as Oceanica had said, it was probably a scout or scavenging force, and the main hive hadn't been notified of their presence.

"Yeah, sure. Let's go." Jason happily replied, unholstering his stingray and followed Maurice. He was all to eager for some action, even with those dreaded salmonids, to hopefully distract himself from the horror he had just witnessed moments ago. The duo walked cautiously down the catwalk series, frequently stopping in front of room entrances along the way for the octoling girl to take a peek in. Then they would continue to walk again, with a visibly deflated Maurice leading the way. It wasn't long before they reached the first stair where Kaye's previous makeshift shield was discarded, the holes on its surface still warm. Jason knelt down, holstered his weapon and ran his finger around one of the holes. Tiny bits of dried paint that had once been white were scraped off the door, slipping through the grated industrial platform and slowly falling to the ground below like ugly snowflakes.

"Such power. No doubt the work of the Stranger's weapon." He commented with a raised eyebrow. "What do you think of this one? Ideal for a stretcher isn't it? Sturdy, lightweight, wide enough to handle Kaye's fat ass, and probably gonna worth several dozen credits at base when we're done with this shitshow." As to prove his point, Jason grabbed the edge of the cabinet door with one hand and lifted it up, only to drop it down again and cough furiously as the dust caked below it flew up.

"Yeah, that'll work just fine I think." Maurice nodded. Then, they grabbed the two ends of the door, and began the work of carrying the cumbersome thing back to the tech room.

Meanwhile, deep inside the underground facility...

Underneath the hazy, flickering green light of the emergency exit LEDs, a lone figure could be seen walking along the narrow degraded hallway. Its movement doesn't look human, or belong to any kind of living creature for that matter, but stiff and mechanical, and eerily... perfect. As if every step it took, every movement it made was pre-calculated and scrutinized to the most minimal detail before being executed. No matter what kind of debris lie on it's path, the thing's footsteps were always exactly 1, 2 meters apart from each other, and it's legs always moved in a perfectly looped sequence, almost like a repeating GIF. Sometimes, a long-broken ceiling lamp of the hallway suddenly flared to life before dying again just as swiftly, briefly revealing the figure's metallic, cube-shaped head with two vertically-stacked camera lenses for eyes, and the black tall skeletal frame of it's torso dotted with some patches of green. In its upper lenses, a small white series of texts was displayed in yellow and white background:

[DESIGNATION: MIL-GRADE A.M.C.U UNIT, DESIGNATED 'VAUBAN-171684-SA']

[STATUS: ALL SECTIONS INTACT. FUSION POWER LEVEL AT 74%]

[REACTIVATED BY SUPERVISING A.I UNIT: Tartarus_1467.]

[AUTHORIZATION ID: _110076382_]

...

...

...

[CURRENT OBJECTIVE: _unknown_. ]

... /Loading...]

...

...[Done]

The robot stopped at the intersected end of the hallway, then turned to the left and began to emit a red scanner beam from it's shoulder, shining it on a puddle of green slime-like sub below its feet.

[UNKNOWN ORGANIC SUBSTANCE DETECTED. POSSIBLE BIOHAZARD WARNING!...]

The robot retracted it's scanner beam, then tilted it's head in puzzlement. It then squatted down and wiped the strange goo with it's right middle finger, then smeared it all over it's hand while running it's deep analyzation program.

/Loading...]

...

[UNIDENTIFIABLE ORIGIN/ 0 MATCHING TRAIT(s)/ FOREIGN DNA STRUCTURE/ CONTAINS MILD PARALYTIC PROPERTIES/ VIRTUAL TESTS REVEALED 56,762059142551% SIMILARITY TO INK PRODUCED BY THE 'ONCORHYNCHUS TSHAWYTSCHA' SPECIES, OR PACIFIC CHINOOK SALMON.]

R:/CREATING: OBSERVATION LOG #01... Done]

The information was completely irrelevant to its current objective, but the robot saved it into it's database nontheless. Its human master might find the log useful one way or another. Standing up and activating its scanner beam again, the robot traced the trail of green slime and followed it to the end of the hallway, turning left and disappearing into another faraway corner.

Yeah... I think I'm focusing too much on details with this fic. Might simplify it in future chaps... or not.

Thanks for reading.