Kapitel 8: Hospitality [3]
Eventually, mental exhaustion overtook him, and Liam collapsed on the ground in his shack. He didn't notice that he no longer felt the cold outside or hunger.
Liam awoke the next morning and sat up with his eyes closed. When he did, he felt a sense of vertigo as his body nearly rose to its feet just from the effort of trying to sit up.
Liam opened his eyes wide in surprise and looked at himself. He had always been a fit man, but he was decidedly average in height. Now his pants were 3 inches short on his legs. His shirt was short too and yet he seemed to have a proper ratio in his body size. He was at least six foot six now. 8 inches of height overnight was unheard of. But that wasn't all.
Liam always kept a military crew cut, but now his hair was long. It cascaded down his back all the way to his waist. The hints of grey around his temples had vanished completely and there wasn't a wrinkle to be found. When he gazed into his little pocket mirror he couldn't help but take a deep breath as he counted.
4…6…8..10…12
His abdominal muscles were proud and prominent with a staggering 12 segments neatly divided leading down to his tapered waist. His shoulders were broad, and his arms looked like they were sculpted out of granite. His body looked…perfect.
He thought he would have a beard all things considered but was surprised to see just a little more than a five o clock shadow that wrapped around his strong angled chin.
His physical appearance wasn't the only thing that had changed. As he looked around him he realized he was seeing colors he had never experienced before. His vision spectrum had widened to include ultraviolet, X-ray, infrared… the entire spectrum of light seemed to appear in his eyes.
He also realized that as he concentrated, he could control the spectrum to see what he wanted.
As Liam was concentrating he realized he could feel some sort of…energy…passing through his body. It circled around inside his arms to his torso to his legs and came back to his brain.
As he followed the energy to his brain he "saw" within him, a small glowing crystal that seemed to constantly spin. The crystal looked metallic one moment, the color of blood the next, and for a flash it looked an emerald green color.
"Hmm, that must be the remnant of NANO." He muttered. Suddenly, Liam was shocked to hear.
<Hello>
"What? Is that you NANO?" Asked Liam in disbelief. He thought that NANO had been dismantled.
<No. I do not have a name. I spontaneously was created by the combination of your memory and NANO's memory. Looking at your memories, maybe I could be called your conscience?>
"Get real, I've had a conscience long before I ever spoke to you, and my conscience doesn't sound like a girl."
<Oh, I see. Maybe I'm a partner then. Ooh! Can I be Lois Lane? Since you're Superman?>
"Are you taking pop culture references from my memory? No! And superman sucks anyway, I liked batman better."
<Great! I can't use legs either, so I'll be Barbara Gordon to your Batman!>
"…why did I even mention Batman… How about you just be my Butler Alfred. He wasn't annoying."
<Gross, 2 men in one body is not cool. I can be cute and bubbly! Look, since you've been talking to me your neural stability has improved to 59% so don't try and turn me into a man!>
"Damn it, ok just call yourself whatever won't get me sued for copyright infringement…"
<Who's gonna sue you? Everyone else is dead…oooh there goes your neural stability! I'm sorry not everyone is dead, look down in the Valley! There's people!>
"Hey, at least your slightly more convincing of a liar than NANO…"
<No! Seriously look!>
As Liam gazed down into the valley to humor…whoever was stuck in his head… he froze. Down below him a white streak was moving into the valley with a group of brown streaks moving behind it. As he focused his attention he saw…fox ears?
<Ooh she's pretty! You should go pick her up!> "Be quiet, I am not trying to pick up anyone, I'm just trying to figure out what's going on, there's actually people!!!" <Tsk. Born to be a forever alone. No! Wait, get your Neural Stability back up and go talk to them!>
He hadn't seen people in over ten thousand years. All concepts of etiquette and greetings left him at this moment as he felt fear. What if they didn't want to meet him? What if they had been trapped here for eternity like him?
While Liam's inner turmoil was causing him to start to panic, the white streak came to a stop in front of one of his old trespassing signs. He had put it up in a dark fit of humor more years ago than one could count, and rather than take it down decided to put his military information on it when he was feeling hopeful one day.
As he saw the blurry outline come into focus, he realized two things.
One, this woman wasn't a normal human. She had a fox tail and fox ears on her head. She must be one of the rejects from the super soldier projects since she could never pass in society with those traits and the Fox hybrids were made for espionage. Blending in was a necessity.
Two, she was injured. Severely at that. Blood pooled around her ankles, and he saw even from afar that she was badly mauled.
Liam frowned when he saw this. It looked like she had been in a battle. A particularly vicious one. When he saw the 8 brown streaks behind her stop his face contorted into a frown.
"What are the serpent hybrids doing here? I thought they were all wiped out when the first warheads went off…"
<Gross! They don't even have hair and are bald uglies! Clearly they are the bad guys Liam, go rescue the damsel in distress!>
"Idiot." <What? What did I say wrong?> "Plenty. That's why I've picked your name to be Idiot."
"They are clearly the bottom of the barrel Serpent warriors, they don't even have wings. Their lack of the majority of human features means they are descendants of an early experimental reject who probably wasn't on the front line."
<So? The fox girl still can't handle them, and they are ganging up on her, it's so unfair! You should step in and help her!> "With what? My bare hands? They all have weapons."
<Idiot.> "What did you call me? We can't both be the idiot, stop being annoying I'm not changing your name." <I called you an idiot! Idiot Idiot Idiot! Do you not remember the Deer from earlier??>
"What about the Deer…Ooh. Yeah that was nasty." <Your body is the weapon. Lets go help her out.>
"I guess it wouldn't hurt to at least show our uninvited guests some…hospitality." As Liam spoke these words, an electric blue light flashed in his eyes and he set off down the mountain to greet his guests.
Wöchentlicher Energiestatus
-- Power-
Rangliste 
-- Power-
Stein