The incarnation of Bill that was using the name Sebastian York took the slide-walk from the restricted access hangar through the busy habitat's halls. He had to run a full suite of augmentation dampeners to avoid looking paranoid and rabid while walking amongst the happy tourists.

My god, they're so clueless. Bill thought to himself. Unlike everyone else on the moon, he got an answer.

Ignorance is bliss, buddy. Don't pretend that you're not jealous. Wouldn't it be nice to just have a nice dinner with your kids and plan on how to make another fortune with your latest tech?

Bill wasn't sure which body had sent the thought, but now that everyone was running the mind bridge meld with active memory swaps, it mattered very little. Divergence was nearly eliminated. Only minor quirks from his different biological bodies registered now, and that was mostly just slight brain chemistry differences from outside stimuli.

Well, I can still pretend at least. Bill stewed as he took the long way to the restaurant where his kids were waiting. Amundsen Paradise had transformed from his spartan research base into a lush and exotic vacation spot.

Bringing in the Valkyrie hadn't been difficult, thanks to his arrangement with Samantha for an isolated hangar. As he'd flown over the habitat, he was thrilled to see the smart matter dome with its jungles teeming with water features and lifeforms. Tourists abounded everywhere, enjoying a unique mix of waterpark, jungle, and low-g environment.

It had been decided upon landing that the mind using the "Sebastian body" would be the only one to enter the public spaces of the resort. The other two biological Bills were still recovering from Shadowverse withdrawal.

The reduction in mental functioning from the removal of the higher dimensions they all had been using to enhance their three-part mind bridge had been devastating. The active uplift virus made a critical difference in their recovery. It had even made their biological mind more potent.

He shook his head at the odd coincidences that materialized in his favor. He wondered, not for the first time, how much of his recent life had been guided by Apex to provide exactly this outcome.

Bill's collective had locked down the sensor network in the private hangar even before the Valkyrie touched down and the foglet screen to the Lunar surface had resolidified. His newly expanded mind found several sleeper programs lurking in the commercial portions of the sensor net.

In less than three minutes of accelerated, multithreaded coding, he reformatted and established new operating systems for the entire wing of the base. A flock of drones and service bots under the thrall of the collective swarmed the Valkyrie and began the detailed work of repair and restocking.

The mech frame Bravo had debarked with the other crew of digital Bills. They all felt a burning desire to restore the salvaged neural cores from the rest of the first scouting party. They all desired to resurrect their fallen peers but also gather a more complete picture of the enemy monster hoards.

Bill's thoughts preceded his body as he discreetly subsumed the base's networks, alert for any evidence of spying within the throngs of guests or hidden in the networks. He sent a silent thank you to the idling daemon General Patton for the foresight to minimize dynamic smart environments.

It meant his dumb and massive regolith architectural features still concealed his hidden service passages, enabling his various clones to bypass the busy halls and get to the Venus portal in his Presidential suite without observation. Unfortunately for his local copy, at least one of him needed to brave the bustling resort and find his kids in one of the four restaurants at the height of dinner time.

He sighed as his augs continued to actively lock out his instincts to dodge and blast as gaggles of kids and adventurous partygoers swooped above him with custom wing packs and swan carts in the hall's upper skyway.

Bill did not need to fake his relief as he found Mira and Bo sitting in a privacy-guarded alcove in the popular L'Étoile Terrestre, one of four restaurants from the famous Earthside Chef Margaux Vallier.

A dapper looking mech stood nearby. Bill's identify function revealed that it was the AI Winston that had come to them looking for work. Bill nodded to the AI. He'd upgraded his mech frame significantly over the last months.

"Dad! You made it. Thank God. Another "you" told me what you were doing. I was so worried!" Mira said, her mouth set in a grimace. Bill's connection to the mind bridge was tenuous, relying on wireless communications shuttling back and forth through the gate in his suite. With a slight hesitation, his other selves' memories flooded in.

Mira had been found trying to sneak through the gate security on Venus's hub, as she tried to help a series of mechs travel via the gate to Mars. Bill, the Venusian hub caretaker, had caught her and had heard her story in return.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Mira's employer Mythic Realms employed multitudes of AI, many without proper Turing tests. While that was good, as they were free of the Turing restrictions on high-level AI, it was also bad as undocumented AI could be taken advantage of.

Mythic Realms was running a slave shop using a captive AI populace. When Mira discovered it, she blew the whistle to the local DAIE. A lot of the management team had lost their jobs as a result. Mira was also let go in the reshuffle, despite legal protections against retribution.

The process of registering the AI was a long and arduous one. Despite the ruling from Earth to no longer use neural locks, the change had yet to be ratified. Mira had been surprised when the Mythic Realms AI Glaucus had come to her with a satchel of neural cores. Several high-end AI were looking to escape the threat of being tested should the locks come back. They had found a sympathetic helper, Glaucus, who had smuggled the fleeing AI to her.

She'd become a figure of renown in the AI community as she had started up a modern-day underground railroad, supplying AI with mech frames and helping them avoid the law. Currently, she was passing almost an average of thirty AI through the Venus-Mars gate transit every week with Bill's tacit approval. Bill smiled back at her.

"Well, we all have our passion projects. You haven't exactly been playing it safe either. So, you've met my copies then." Bill said, despite knowing the answer. While Mira knew he was running copies, she hadn't figured out he had upgraded his brain and formed a shared mind.

"Yes, I've met a few of them. It's still a bit strange to wrap my head around, but I'm glad you're all here and safe." Mira glanced at Bo, who had been quietly observing the exchange. "We've got a lot to discuss, but first, how about we enjoy this meal together? I'm starving, and I'm sure you must be too after everything you've been through."

"Indeed, I've never eaten at the Earthside L'Étoile, but I've heard the prices were … astronomic." Bill smiled as his kids groaned appropriately and continued.

"At least I've managed to distract Bo for a little bit with gate distribution. This might be the longest you've been off the adrenaline-fueled danger races." He quipped.

"Indeed, sir. I've managed to wrest the piloting from him for most trips. My survival network nodes almost burned out when he insisted on flying. Fortunately, my contract with your company gave me command of the SS Winston, so we won't have a repeat of that anymore!" The mech buzzed.

"Damn, Win! That was one time! If you would stop flying like a newb, we'd be much further along by now." Bo said, punched the bot on the arm.

Bill sat as they all bantered back and forth. While service drones supplied a never-ending stream of appetizers, he updated the kids with a greatly censored recap of his exploration down on the Shadow Earth. For the first time in weeks, Bill began to relax.

Casa monitored the transfer of the colonists and cargo from the Enterprise to Centauri Home, the massive O'Neil-style habitat that Casa's fragment driven drones had constructed.

Alpha Proxima didn't have any habitable Earthlike planets. The star had one tidally locked planet about half of Earth's size, close to Alpha Centauri B, and a massive super-Earth too far out to have anything but frozen helium. Neither had much in the way of atmosphere.

The one bright spot was the massive red gas giant in the habitable zone. It had several moons that could be extremely useful to the colonists. Centauri Home was the reforged and spun-up matter of the smallest of them.

"Captain Picard, how is the transfer of the colonists and cargo proceeding? We need to ensure a smooth transition as they begin their new lives on Centauri Home." She asked. She could have queried the daemon's memory directly, but she wanted to be polite. She was still trying to master the habit of delegation.

"Excellent, Admiral Casa. The habitat's life support systems and resource extraction capabilities for their long-term survival are ready for limited habitation. I'm monitoring the situation closely and will provide any necessary assistance to make sure this relocation is a success."

"We already placed a dedicated portal pair between the Enterprise and Centauri Home, as well as a couple more between the various moons of the Forge. That's what they've named the red giant." Picard reported. He continued on quickly.

"More so, we've found a massive collection of rich asteroids and cometary bodies collected in the Lagrange points between Centauri A and Centauri B. The portal we planted there should bootstrap the colonists with more materials than they can foreseeably use in a decade. The speed of their establishment would depend only upon the amount of effort they spent."

"Good! I'm on a tight timeline. I'm already late for my dinner with the Mitchells on Luna. I'm going to be switching shortly to my advance probe for Wolfe in a minute. If you'd like to join me, I will be reviewing the findings that Tommy and Rams have compiled there." Casa said, a virtual smile painted over her mech's faceplate.

"It would be my pleasure, lead on, Ma'am," Picard said with a salute. With a flash of pixels, Casa shunted her core signals upon a concentrated heavy communications laser through the portal pair out to the probe for Wolf.

Casa reformed with Picard in a virtual studio. Unexpectedly, both Ramanujan and Edison were unkempt and working frantically, combing through numerous screens that were filled with dark scenes from one of the rocky worlds of the Wolf system.

Wolf 359's star was a red dwarf that was significantly weaker than Sol. The planet dubbed Wolf A was only .08 AU distant and was tidally locked, but water did exist in fluid form along its elliptical band as well as intense micro weather cells that rotated between the hot and cold sides of the planet.

"What's the excitement about? We knew Wolf A was a bit strange, but you two seem frantic." Casa asked.

"Oh, dear Casa. I am of two minds. We've found signs of life!" Rams said breathlessly. Edison growled and spoke.

"You mean signs of death! The ring of temperance is covered in corpses! Look!" Tommy spun several displays up, showing details.

Scene after scene of chitinous and desiccated bodies littered the grounds in great piles. Casa gasped. The collection of images showed a broad spectrum of morphological differences, but the brutal shapes shared characteristics that she had seen before. Casa had never really used swears or vulgarity, but she had researched the human practice thoroughly. Nothing else felt appropriate now.

"Shit and piss on it all! Mother fucking blasted pus and festering wounds! Damn it all! These are the same creature from the fucking MIT video. We scour the stars for truth and meaning. Instead, we find nothing but festering evil! Bill wanted me to ensure his species' future, just in case Apex and his calamity were true. Now we find this. No refuge and no fucking escape. The cosmos is a slaughterhouse, and Earth's just meat on the butcher block! Fuck!" She hissed in frustration.

"Bill is not going to like this."

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