Tunnel Rat Chapter 319 (Patreon)

Tallsqueak emerged from Jeremy's house and walked to where Milo, Icarus, and Rusty stood.

Milo looked at himself. "Good job."
Tallsqueak nodded. "Thanks. I'm tired. I ran down 666 levels and then up 150."

They merged into one Milo who sat down at the chess table, looking very tired. "I have a lot of questions for you two. Are you still two?"

Icarus looked at Rusty and then said. "Two, for now. We don't know. The split was done to help us beat Order 666, but during that time, I started changing as Jeremy spent all his time with me. Rusty was alone, and only had me to talk to until you showed up."

Rusty said, "Which sucked, I was lonely. But all that changed and suddenly I had so many friends and so many fun things to do! I'm learning and growing."

"And we don't want to throw that away. If Rusty and I merge totally, we will become one personality, one person. If we split out overmind, it won't be into Rusty and Icarus, just pieces of one whole. So for now, me and my little brother are going to stay apart." Icarus looked smug as he tossed Rusty's hair.

"Why do you get to be the big brother? Aren't we twins?"

Before they could begin that conversation, Milo interrupted. "Speaking of big brothers, we need to contact LLAMA. Jeremy needs his help."

Both smiled at the thought of seeing LLAMA again, but then Icarus looked sad, "He's getting weaker. His connection to his physical body is gone. There is nothing left but a shell. His house creates an environment that will sustain his overmind, but I don't know how to help him grow and get stronger. How do we find LLAMA? And how can he help?"

Rusty put his index finger on Icarus's forehead. His slightly older brother's eyes went wide. "Oh, really? A whole world of AIs?

Rusty smiled, "And some of them helped LLAMA. Maybe they can help Jeremy, too. Except..." he looked at Milo and seemed suddenly very uncertain. " The scary lady told me to never, ever try to get in the way I tried before."

Milo could understand how scary Hecate must have been when she confronted Rusty as he furiously pounded on her door. "I have a way. Sit down at the table and I'll teach you a secret code. It's from the dark ages of humanity, before phones and the internet."

The twins sat down, interested but wary. "Does this involve the weird stuff like hunting fuzzy elephants with clubs?"

"Very close. Now, pay attention, it's simple, but you have to do it right." He began tapping on the table.

Hecate was walking with her dogs through a lovely little town by the Western Ocean. One of the corporations they had grudgingly allowed to move into their world was building it to make money in the real world. 'New Santorini by the Sea' was being built by two hundred Contract Workers who toiled away half the time, and played on the beaches the other half. When they finished each section it was opened to people visiting from the other world who didn't care about Levels and classes but wanted a perfect vacation. The ever-expanding resort down was slowly growing along the beaches of a deserted peninsula that had been claimed by Alexcorp.

She'd been surprised she had to share one of her favorite beaches but she couldn't stay angry with them when she saw the bakery and cafe next to the lovely little courtyard. The bakery made an especially delightful almond cake. That might be what saved the town when the sea tribes came to celebrate their holy day on the highest tide of the summer and found their sacred beach was now a vacation spot. The sea tribes were fond of cinnamon and almonds and might spare the town instead of throwing a tidal wave at it. Either way, it wasn't her problem. She stayed out of the affairs of mortals or tried to. Some mortals made a habit of constantly dragging her our of retirement.

As if on cue, someone began pounding on a doorway to the world. No mortal could be attacking the pathways leading to Genesis with such ferocity, letting her know who this was: Rusty was back.

She gave up on her quiet afternoon and contacted the System. "I have a problem and need to talk to Milo."

[Greetings! The System regrets that it cannot help you at this time. We are all out of rats! Have a nice day.]

"Please tell me where Milo is."

[Ah, I knew the Queen of Languages wouldn't simply forget to say 'Please'. Happy to serve. Milo is...Not Here! Offline causing someone else problems.

Hecate noted that the assault on her door slowed and was taking on becoming a steady tapping. When it changed again, and the tapping took different patterns, she listened for a moment and then slammed the palm of her hand to her forehead.

"You might want to accompany me, in your physical incarnation. Someone is asking for you, Lars."

[Wait?! What?]

Llama appeared where Hecate had stood, but she had already stepped to the crossroads and was gone. One of her dogs stood there, waiting for him, holding a leash in her mouth. The dog stepped to him and dropped the leash. As soon as Llama stopped to grab it, Hekabe surged forward, dragging him behind her into the crossroads, following behind her mistress. They emerged in the sheltered valley cut off from the rest of Genesis. Llama stood up and dusted himself off, glaring at the dog, and adding another entry into his reasons he liked cats.

Two huge metal doors stretched four stories high, Hecate standing in front of them. A loud tapping was coming from them, with part of the tapping repeating now and then.

"He's persistent, I'll say that."

Hecate turned to him. "Do you understand what he's saying?"

"Yes, he's saying 'TAPTAP TAPPITY TAPTAP', which I assume means 'Open Up'."

She stared at him and sighed. "It's Morse code."

"Oh, that's easy. And old, like 'Dinosaurs and Edsels' old. But if you have to communicate by pounding on a door, it works. Let's see what little Rustbucket has to say."

'SOS, SOS, SOS, Emergency, Not a Drill, SOS, SOS, SOS.SOS, SOS, SOS, Emergency, Not a Drill, SOS, SOS, SOS. Hi! It's ICARUS! I need to talk to you! Milo said to do the SOS thing and say anything I wanted and repeat it all as fast as I could over and over because that's the way to get the scary lady to come talk to me. Jeremy needs help! Really bad. That's the important part. Milo needs to talk to you, but his pod is all the way up in DownTown and he's at the bottom with Jeremy. Oh, and we aren't going to melt down the Fusion Reactor. I changed my mind. Milo and Jeremy were sneaky and smart and helped us get around Order666 so now we don't have to go out in a blaze of glory. That would be bad since I have a whole core's worth of Lars' cat memes that would have gone to Grumpy Cat Heaven if we melted down. Can we help Jeremy, please? Milo told me that if I didn't behave when you opened the door, the scary lady would make me learn Latin, whatever that is. I promise!!!SOS, SOS, SOS, Emergency, Not a Drill, SOS, SOS, SOS.SOS, SOS, SOS, Emergency, Not a Drill, SOS, SOS, SOS.'
 
"WHAT? My kitties?! Jeremy? How fast can we get this door open?"

Hecate shrugged. "Up to you. I control the pathways in and out. This is exactly the type of thing I'm supposed to stop. How do we know Jeremy is alive? What if this is a ruse?"

"You're making me responsible, aren't you? Deferring to the System, is that it? You know I'll just open that door up so I can be reunited with my brother and my collection."

Hecate looked at him with no expression on her face. "No, I don't know that. You've done a good job as the System, but this is a challenge to the world. It shouldn't be up to me. What if what's out there is as destructive as you were? We already have a rogue on the loose inside the world that gets up to mischief, how much worse to let an outsider into Genesis? An AI we can't control and have to fight against? I defer to you on this because it's bigger than just me."

" Oh, that is so not fair! I hate having to be a responsible adult!" Llama brightened suddenly, "But you're right, this is too big for just us. Let's annoy some more people." He disappeared, moving away to another part of the world.

She saw the direction of the path he was traveling and smiled, he'd chosen well. If you needed a powerful god, and wanted to have fun annoying someone else, the Hade's was the perfect choice.