System Overclocked 2 -ch 13- (Patreon)

Wrench, thankfully so, hadn’t been tempted to try eating the rotten Hume parts that he and Stripe had dug out.

Unfortunately, he’d had no choice but to drink the sludge water that was trickling down from above, though.

After two days, he’d forced himself to drink it due to his extreme thirst. His mouth had felt dry and Wrench had felt rather faint.

Except he did make sure to more or less turn off his taste bads. His tongue and mouth couldn’t taste anything and he didn’t plan on turning it back on until he got out of here.

It’d given him the added benefit of no longer being able to taste the foulness of the air as well.

Staring at his stomach, or more accurately the Digestive System in his systems window rather than his stomach, he saw that the red blob that’d bloomed to life only minutes ago after drinking the sludge, was fading.

“Geeze,” he murmured with a shake of his head.

Slowly, he started dialing down his digestive system to a normal level. Though he left his Lymphatic system still at a high level. Given how badly his stomach had turned into a crimson explosion of what he assumed was disease.

“I mean, I know a Hab goes bad real fast when the water gets fouled but this is-this is… yeah. Yeah. It’s worse than I expected but thankfully my stupidly strong cheat ability gives me the edge,” Wrench said to no one at all. “At least I didn’t have to taste it. I don’t even… I don’t even want to imagine the flavor.”

He’d become prone to talking to himself over the last two days. While he’d always been enjoyed being alone, the option to occasionally speak to people had always been a possibility.

When suddenly deprived of even the opportunity to talk to someone, he found he was rather lonely. He liked being along, but didn’t like feeling lonely.

Sitting down he picked at the slab of concrete next to him. Digging his fingers into a cracked corner of it he dug out a small piece of it and flicked it away.

Despite his best attempts, he hadn’t been able to get to a point that he could digest concrete. He’d only taken the equivalent of a grain of sands worth of concrete and eaten it, but it’d been a red blip on his systems the whole way through.

There was no way to change, ramp, or accelerate his Digestive System into something that could process concrete.

There had been a few precious weeds and strange green plants that’d gone much better. Those resources had been expended this morning though.

Distantly, far above, he could hear the rattle and thump of Greedy. It was obvious that even now they were still breaking down the Hab.

There’d been a few periods of brief quiet throughout, but it hadn’t lasted long. If the access elevator had been working, he’d have headed up if only to find out what was going on.

“Could always go over to the main-drain. That was a ladder access up. That’s probably intact,” murmured Wrench, his dirty fingernails clawing at the concrete. He pulled out another chip and rolled it around in his fingers. “Would have to somehow make it through all the rubble. Yards of it, no less.

“Could probably do it. Not sure if it’d be worth it though. For all I know that ladder’s as wrecked as the elevator is. Then what? Just stuck over there. Same problem, different location.”

Reaching up to his jaw, Wrench tapped at it with the concrete shard.

“Might find some weeds or whatever on the way. Maybe some algae? I could eat all of that,” he mused, contemplating it. “Mm, let’s do that. We can hunt for things to eat as we go.”

Getting back up, with an actual plan, Wrench felt a little better. Walking over to stand beneath the access elevator’s corridor, he looked up along it’s length.

He could see the corridor up to where it vanished into the ruins.

Assuming a direction based on how the Ducts were laid out, he began marching forward. It would take him some time, and wriggling through destroyed floors, walls, and what looked like the original buildings for this giant Hab.

He hoped it would be worth the calorie expense.

He didn’t have much of those right now. Fat reserves weren’t something he had in abundance.

***

Grunting, Wrench shoved at a concrete pillar that was blocking his way through.

No sooner than he had put a hint of force behind it, then he realized that it was all that was holding the fallen floor above his head, up. Bits of debris slithered down between the cracks and rained down on him.

Clicking his tongue, he stopped. Leaning against a torn apart wall, he tried to catch his breath.

Glancing down, he saw several clumps of algae.

Aglae he’d already eaten several times in his time down here in the sub-floor.

Reaching down, he grabbed them all and began to down them. At the same time Wrench altered his Digestive System.

Even as he chewed he had a momentary thought that it wasn’t as bitter this time.

Only to remember he had turned off his taste buds.

Nodding his head, he continued to stuff his face with algae. Chewing it down quickly and swallowing it.

Once he was done with his impromptu meal, the fourth such meal on his multi-hour long slog through the ruins, he looked around a bit. There was a small area that looked like he could wriggle through it.

If he exhaled completely and tried to push through, that was.

Gathering his courage, Wrench got down low and scooted forward.

Then the shattered ruins above him vanished. A sudden and bright white light washed down over him and left him feeling stunned.

Holding perfectly still, Wrench looked into the now open area above him.

Greedy was there.

She’d pulled out the ruins and was currently inspecting them.

Or at least he thought she was.

Tongsta had no eyes so it was hard to tell if they were looking at something.

Up to this point, most Hume assumed Tongsta used some sort of vibrational or echo type of sense to see the world around them.

“Uhm… I don’t… no. Not here,” Greedy mumbled, then vanished off to the side. Completely leaving Wrench’s view.

Greedy wasn’t a huge Tongsta, and while the Hab was large, it was more vertical than not. That and Tongsta could elongate themselves significantly.

It gave a Tongsta an ability to be in many places you wouldn’t expect.

Right now though, Greedy was apparently taking the entirety of the Hab apart, piece by piece.

All in an attempt to find him and get him out of the Hab. Which was something he’d never seen a Tongsta do before.

Realizing things were about to get worse, he scrambled away from the spot he was in. Scrambling back through the holes and gaps he’d wriggled through previously.

Turning sideways he side-stepped smoothly two broken walls. Using his hands to push himself through it a bit quicker.

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

Squirting out the other side, Wrench dialed up his Nervous and Endocrine System once again. Running it right up to the point where he’d get an unimaginably terrible headache, and feel quite sick for a while.

Hopping over a crater, he then ducked down low, and squirmed up under a fallen beam. Coming out the other side he kept moving.

Keeping his pace up as fast as he could, he slipped, slid, and darted through every opening he could. Going for whatever would get him through the quickest.

In no time at all he wasn’t heading back the way he’d come from. Now he was just looking for whatever would get him away from where Greedy had just been as quickly as possible.

As he grasped hold of a metal bar of some sort it was suddenly pulled upward. Being torn out of the mess of twisted broken bits of Hab.

Shit.

Wrench looked down and watched the ground fall away in slow motion. In no time at all it was a considerably distance away.

He could let go and hope he didn’t hit too hard. Though that was fairly unlikely. At this height it was probably a gurantee he was likely to break a leg.

At that point, he’d either have to be handed over to a Mender again, or be euthanized. Because with a broken leg there was no way he’d be able to escape away from Greedy.

She’d be able to corner him in no time at all.

A broken leg would make it near impossible for him to get back through the debris. His capture would be more or less a guarantee as soon as it happened.

Realizing there was no good option here, he hung on instead.

With that choice made, he squirmed up into the section of ruins that’d been pulled out, and squirmed deeper into it. He got up into a crack in the wall and tucked himself into it.

His feet were tucked up to his chest and he braced his body in the hole. Doing his best to hold there even as Greedy pulled him around through the air.

“I thought-no. Nothing,” Greedy whispered. It sounded as if she was holding him right in front of herself. “Okay then… ah… nothing there.”

All the while she spoke, Wrench could feel a light headedness creeping down from his head to his toes. Wherever he was at the moment wasn’t completely conducive to a Hume’s needs for atmosphere.

The broken Hab junk was shifted away and set down.

There was an immediate strangeness that attacked his senses. Leaving him feeling as if he was semi-weightless.

Okay, definitely a Tongsta living area though it’s not entirely specific to them. This is a possibly shared area.

Wrench quickly worked to dial his Respiratory System to better process the atmosphere here. To take whatever available oxygen was utilized as effectively as possible.

Holding still, he waited for a full minute. Greedy had to have moved on by this point.

Even though his body was doing the best it could, at some point, he’d need to move away from this location. He could feel a steadily increasing burning that was making it hurt to breathe.

Maybe it is a purely Tongsta living space. Maybe the area is being flooded by Hab atmosphere. I can’t linger then. I need to get moving.

Easing himself out of the crack, Wrench started to wriggle free.

Only to realize that he was indeed weightless.

All he managed was to shimmy around in place. The ruins moved slightly, but not much. Clinging around him as if he were some type of snail.

“What?” Greedy asked suddenly.

Suddenly, the ruins were pulled away from him. Exposing him to the overhead light once again.

“Wrench! You were there. You little xxhht!” cheered Greedy. “Boy, they weren’t kidding when they said you were the absolute pinnacle of genetics. You managed to hide for an entire xxhht. I don’t think that’s ever happened to me before. Ever.

“Now… let’s get you put away safe this time. No more accidentally hurting you.”

A smooth plastic bag like object was brought past Wrench. Catching him in it easily since he couldn’t actually move at all. A weightless environment was the bane of all Humes.

Once exposed to it, without gravity, there wasn’t much a Hume could do.

The fastener at the top was pulled shut, closing Wrench inside.

Greedy then pulled him over to one side and he realized he was now above the Hab.

It’d been systematically pulled apart. Everything was set out in a systematic way across the area around them. There were also a number of Hume carriers, bucket like objects, and plastic bags.

Humes were in all of them and clearly were being held there in Greedy’s search for him. They were spending a surprising amount of energy to find him.

He didn’t miss the fact that Seventh, Stripe, and Joy were all in one bucket by themselves. It was a lot of space for just three Humes.

Someone probably got stupid and Seventh hurt people.

That’d be my bet.

Greedy put the bag up to some type of device and Wrench could suddenly breathe a lot better. The oxygen that was trapped in here with him became rich, clean, and full.

“Fuck,” complained Wrench bitterly. “Fuck, fuck. Whatever… I did my best. I did all I could. There’s really not much else I can do about this. I didn’t leave anything on the table, so to speak.”

Sighing, Wrench grabbed the interior of the bag, and pulled himself to a sitting position against the top of the bag. Getting into a spot where he could remain and be comfortable at the same time.

“Boy oh boy, Wrench,” continued Greedy, chuckling. “You’ve really taught me a lot about Hume. A lot. I don’t think I can ever take you lightly again.

“Clearly I didn’t do this the right way or you wouldn’t have run off this time. That’s my fault. I won’t be doing anything like that ever again.”

“As if it mattered,” countered Wrench, glaring at Greedy.

“We’ll just put the Hab back together, enough to put all the Hume back, then we’ll go get you situated,” Greedy explained, holding tight to the bag with two tentacles. “I managed to get a hold of some specialized Hume breeders.

“I got a breedable population of each and every type of Hume for you. Every one. It took a lot of work but I even got a breedable Mender. You don’t even want to know what I had to do to get her.

“I don’t… I’ll never do xxhht again. Not for any amount. Never xxhht again. Ever.”

Wait… what? A breedable Mender? How the fuck did they manage that?

Those are extremely regulated. Extremely.

I don’t even-what?

What?

Shaking his head, Wrench had no idea that could have happened. He was incredibly curious about that. Incredibly so.

Greedy quickly began inserting parts of the Hab, though it looked like she was replacing the lower sections with actual usable Hab parts.

“I’ve been meaning to fix this you know, I just never wanted to actually xxhht and do it,” claimed Greedy, fitting in new sub-floor sections. Wrench was able to watch at it happened.

In finding him, Greedy had actually removed everything. The only thing at the bottom was the floor of the Hab. She’d even removed the drainage tubes and disconnected the filtration systems.

“Oh well. I’ll just consider it a xxhht at the same time. This’ll make it easier for the Hume, too. In fact, I bet I could get the bottom floor working and get even more Hume. Those Admini and School breed fast enough that I can keep adopting Hume out. Business has been great lately,” drawled Greedy as she continued to put things back into place. Fitting everything back where it should be and connecting it all up

From his current point of view he could see Greedy was stretched quite thin. She wasn’t a very large Tongsta but given their strange body physics that didn’t seem to bother her.

“Look at that. It’s actually flowing. How nice,” stated Greedy, prodding at a drain cover with a tentacle. “That’s in place and nice and tight.

“When your kids grow up, we’ll have to put a few Fixers here to make sure they take care of it. Especially since it’ll be at least a generation or two before we can start offering your genetic line to the public, you know.

“Until then… well… you’ll just be a breeder. I’ve got an entire line-up for the next fifty years planned out. I’ve put in several orders of specialty breeds, as well.

“And your Hab? Your Hab is amazing, Wrench. I spared no expense for it. No expense at all. It’s something I can attach to any other Hab, too. It’s part of a new modular brand from xxhht in xxhht.”

“Modular? Huh. I think I saw those in my past life. Once. It was that super breeder Hab, wasn’t it?” Wrench muttered to himself. “That dude had so many breeders to take care of.

“I guess that’ll be me this time. Well… there’s worse things. Far worse things.”

“There we go! That’s the sub-floor. Next we need to put the flooring back in, and the Ducts that lead into it,” remarked Greedy. “You know, it’s surprising that for non-sentient life that you can use primitive machinery. There’s been more than a few xxhht who have theorized that your species might have made it to sentience. With a few xxhht more xxhht.

“They were laughed out of their profession unfortunately but still. Given how you hid from me I’m actually more inclined to believe that.”

“Uh huh,” grumbled Wrench, feeling worse and worse by the minute.

All he wanted right now was to go home with Goodie.

Greedy fit the flooring in without an issue.

They spread out the sealant quickly and got it put in perfectly. After that they stuck in the Ducts, then the posts for the Hab platforms.

The Lower Parts and the Upper Parts went in smoothly afterward.

Greedy didn’t put the Skybridge back in surprisingly. Instead she put in an access tunnel that came up to the Upper Parts.

It’d make it nearly impossible for the Lower Parts citizens to do anything at all going forward.

“There. Now those nasty little Brawlers can just stay down there. I can’t believe they nearly killed you Wrench. I need you alive for a long while. I’ve got an entire family of Menders just to make sure of your health exclusively,” revealed Greedy.

“Great,” hissed Wrench.

There was a strange vibration that ran throughout the area around them.

“Oh, a customer. Ahhha… one moment!” Greedy called loudly.

There was a response that Wrench couldn’t hear to Greedy.

Much faster now, Greedy slammed the remaining Hab parts into place. They let some of the Hume go into the Hab as if to test if everything was okay.

They were primarily from the Lower Parts, but there was some from the Upper.

Surprisingly she was rather gentle about it and had separated the Lower Parts from the Upper Parts as well.

Wrench was tucked into a carrier that was only half closed without a word from Greedy, blocking out the light completely. He felt himself being carried off.

Considering he was in a bag as well, there wasn’t really a concern about him not having breathable air.

“Hello,” came Goodie’s voice. He recognized it instantly. “I was wondering if you had any Hume from the rescue operation on spssss? My Hume were lost on it. I’ve been going around to Shelter nearby to try and find them.”

Goodie!