Tales From Albia; Holodeck Part 3

Thanks once more to Bean for letting me put up this story. Click on the links below to go to the different parts.

[Next Part] [Back To Tales From Albia]

Holodeck; Part 3
"It's WHAT?!" said Susan, perking up.
"It's coming!" shouted Katherine. Jenna was now aware of what was happening
because instincts were kicking in. She squatted down, closed her eyes and squeezed her
gut. Out came the egg. It was that red kind with the yellow slashes.
Katherine got close to the egg. She touched it's hard, smooth shell. "Bet I can pick it
up?" She asked.
"If you manage, I'll reactivate the egg so it’ll hatch naturally." replied Blip. Katherine
grabbed the egg and lifted. (With her legs and not with her back!) & lifted. & lifted. She
couldn't get the egg up, no matter what she did.
"No wonder you can't pick them up in the game." commented Katherine.
"That's because the mass in the egg is in a very condensed state." Blip prattled. "The
foetus is all squished, and the mass is just so great..."
"OK, OK." sighed Susan. "We get the point. Can we leave it alone and sleep?"
"We should." Blip answered. "The egg should hatch around 8 in the morning. We have
different forces and pressures on Earth than in Albia, therefore..."
"Whatever." said Susan, who was too tired to be polite. She flopped on her back and
shut her eyes. Katherine looked at Jenna. She, like other females, had a gene in her body
that made them very tired after giving birth, so she was asleep in the corner. Rolling over
on her side, Katherine fell asleep.
/Crack, Crackle, Crik, Crik.../ Katherine woke up to the noises of a cracking egg.
Susan heard it too, and sat up. They both watched as a thin crackline formed around the
egg. Then the top half of the shell came off, and sitting inside was a baby boy. He had
Purple mountain arms, a purple mountain body, and a purple mountain head. He also
inherited banana legs from his mother.
"bub foo dat" said the newly hatched norn, tumbling out of his shell and crawling
toward Susan. Then he saw Katherine. "bub flib dis" he announced. Then his eyes
wandered to Blip. He wanted to foo dat, too. He sat down & said "bibble", out of utter
confusion.
"He needs a name." Said Blip, who had been behind them during the hatching process.
"Hey!" Katherine quietly shouted. "Remember the GreNorn series?"
"Yeah." said Susan. "My favourite is where Karr fights Rrak an is reborn."
"Really?" Blip replied. "I always liked the one where Phoenix is born."
"My favourite has always been where Karr's wife is reincarnated. But anyway, why not
name the baby Karr, in honour of the series? Jenna was a 10th generation norn, this baby
is 11th, and I like to name them in Alphabetical order... so he needs a K name anyway."
Katherine suggested.
"Good idea!" said Blip.
"OK, so Karr has a name. Now we need to teach him." Susan blankly responded.
"You doubt me?" replied Katherine, who pretended to look surprised. "To the living
room!" Katherine picked up Karr & walked out of the room, with Blip, Susan & Jenna
behind her.
In the living room, Katherine sat Karr down & then dug a floppy disk out from behind
a throw pillow, along with a few wires. Blip flew in front of Karr, & Katherine put the
disk inside Blip's A:/ drive. Blip's screen, usually lit up with two green dots for eyes, was
changed to the same screen of the Learning computer.
"Push" said Blip.
"Foo" replied Karr.
"Push" repeated Blip.
"Pupu" Karr said, trying to repeat the word.
"Push" said Blip, again.
"Push" Karr responded, finally getting it right.
"Push" Blip said one more time, just for good measure.
"Push" Karr replied with confidence.
Blip and Karr kept at it, repeating and rerepeating, until Karr had learned all verbs, all
drive words, all nouns, and a new verb of Katherine's invention, "don't", which means,
'don't do what you're about to do'. Jenna had been in the room, and had heard all of these
words. She got to learn them too.
"Now, Blip," said Katherine, "I'm going to hook these wires into Karr, and then to you.
Tell me the mutations." Katherine stuck one end of the wires into Karr's ear. Karr sat very
still. Then Katherine stuck the other end of the wires into Blip. "Read it off to me." She
said.
"Checking Genome." Blip started. "Mutations... Whoa! What's this? There's some kind
of new gene... what it basically says is that Karr can identify his mother, father, children
and other siblings from other Norns."
"Cool mutation! But why does that big of one show up now?" asked Susan.
"It didn’t just appear." replied Blip. "The file says that Karr got it from his mother." All
eyes turned to Katherine. She was notorious for hacking Norns and making odd
mutations, most of which somehow turned out for the worse.
"There's really two Jennas." Katherine started, knowing everyone wanted an
explanation. "The first one was naturally bred, as usual. But I found her moniker, and
hacked into it with the Genetics Kit. I made the genes Blip described and made a clone
with those genes. But it didn't look like it worked real well. So I didn't tell anyone. It was
supposed to keep Norns from inbreeding... and so far it has..."
"Gosh. And to think we would have had to wait for C2." Susan sarcastically remarked.
"I'll finish." Blip said, ending the issue. "Purple mountain genes present... That's about
it."
"Great! I'll just unhook you two..." Katherine said, while detaching the wires in Karr's
ear. Katherine then turned to Blip. She began unconnecting those wires, too. Jenna came
toward them both.
"Push Computer." Jenna announced.
"Hey!" shouted Blip. He flew up above Katherine's head, causing Katherine to loose
her grip. She toppled over.
Susan had to pick Jenna up and hold her still while everyone got restarted. But, after
that, she noticed something rather important. "Where's Karr?" Susan asked. A quick look
around told everyone that Karr had escaped in the confusion.
Karr had escaped to Katherine's room, unbeknownst to everyone else. There, he saw
an unusual black platform. "Mover" he said. Then he crawled toward it. On his way, he
tripped over a switch marked "On/Off". An unusual humming filled the room. Karr
decided to push the mover.
Meanwhile, in Albia, a grendel was in the garden. There were no Norns to beat, so he
decided he would just munch some carrots and enjoy the sunshine. He found a nice
looking mover, and decided it would make a comfortable seat. He sat down, at the exact
moment Karr pushed the mover on earth.
Back in Katherine's living room, the trio (Foursome?) were deciding where Karr had
got to, when they heard some unusual noises.
"What's that?" asked Susan.
Jenna figured it out. "Run Grendel!" she shouted, with a horrified look on her face. She
started running. Katherine caught her and picked her up.
"No, Karr couldn't of... no..." Katherine stuttered. She didn't believe it.
"You didn't believe it when Jenna brought Jack to our world, either." Blip commented.
They all three realised they'd better check, knowing Norns are capable of more than you
can give them credit for, so they ran down the hall to Katherine's room.
Blip got there first. "Uh oh..." he choked. Susan, and Katherine, who was carrying
Jenna, got there next. They all three looked at Karr's experiment. He had brought the
Grendel to earth.

[Next Part] [Back To Tales From Albia]

[email protected]
Sign My Guestbook
View My Guestbook

All Trademarks are respected by the author of the site. Creatures™ and
all related subjects are trademarks of Cyberlife U.K. Ltd. This site
owned and maintained by Jammer, run on the FortuneCity server. This site designed
using Microsoft Frontpage Express. Best viewed using IE 4.