Indepted to Science - Chapter 3 [Fanfic]

STORY SUMMARY: There are many questions surrounding Exor intelligence. A young scientist gets to experience them firsthand when he saves one and gains an unexpected companion on his journey to escape the facility.

==H==

Simon pulled out his employee locator upon hearing the voice.

He had gotten the device from Warren in exchange for a Peccary head. He didn't know why the security guard needed a Peccary head, but he hadn't complained, for it was a useful tool for helping regroup with other survivors.

The device confirmed that he wasn't hearing things. Someone else was indeed there, inside the room next to the closed garage door.

The same room his alien companion was currently storming towards.

"Reckless! No!"

He quickly rushed after him, entering the room just in time to be greeted by a scream of fear.

A woman was currently being backed into a corner and the scientist quickly got between her and Reckless before anything serious happened.

"Don't! No killing her!"

The alien snarled over his shoulder, still looking at the woman, but ceased his advance, which was enough of a win in Simon's book.

"Y-you tamed an Exor?"

So Reckless's species was called Exor? Simon mentally noted the information down for later, not daring to take his gaze from Reckless even as the woman spoke up.

"Taming is both pretty optimistic as it's unrealistic. Getting on his whitelist would be more accurate."

Reckless finally gave up trying to get past Simon and left the room with an annoyed snort, but not without first snatching a bag of chips from Simon's belt.

"Hey! Those are... whatever, as long as you don't harm her."

A crunching of chips was the only reply he got.

With his companion no longer a threat towards his colleague, Simon finally turned back around towards the woman, who was leaning against the wall with a hand on her chest.

"Sorry, he's just hungry... I think."

"That thing wanted to eat me!" the woman finally snapped.

"A possible hypotesis." Simon agreed.

The woman just blinked in disbelief, before shaking her head. "Just- just keep it away from me. Who even are you?"

"I'll do my best. My name's Simon, I'm new around here. Never got a chance to actually introduce myself to anyone before everything went down the drain due to that portal storm. Any idea what's up with that?"

"I'm Alice Mayfield. Doctor Alice Mayfield." The woman introduced herself. And no, I don't know what's going on either, but I'm not leaving without my data. I'm locked out for some reason and can't get through this stupid security door!"

Simon frowned. "Do you really think research data is our top priority at the moment? I honor science as much as every other scientist, but not when it's at the cost of lives. We should focus on escaping."

"But then everything will be for nothing!" Alice complained. "Years of research wasted. I'll never get a Nobel prize!"

"Besides, it will help our escape as well." Alice quickly added in a more diplomatic tone upon noticing Simon's frown deepen. "That door doesn't only lock me out of my data, it also blocks off the portal towards flathill. If we can get in there, we can use said portal to escape. All we need are the level-1 access codes."

That got Simon's attention. He still wasn't 100% sure if he could trust Alice's plan, but even if she was lying so he would help her, the access codes would remain useful elsewhere.

"You got a plan?" Simon asked carefully, getting the woman to brighten up and clap her hands with a nod.

"I do. During my time here I worked on the security bots. They got the access codes stored on their CPU, if we can somehow get our hands on those, we could potentially make something to hack those doors."

Simon nodded silently, pondering on the plan. Pretty solid, but with one glaring problem.

"How do we take out a security robot?"

-000-

Nothing.

Simon glared at his empty piece of paper that was supposed to contain his master plan, but all had managed to draw so far was a polarbear in a snowstorm. What were his PhDs worth if he couldn't think of a way to take out a stupid robot?

A polite snarl snapped him out of his thoughts. It was strange that he could use the words polite and snarl together, but his time with Reckless had given him a rough idea regarding the difference in tone between a "normal" snarl and an "I wanna kill you" snarl.

Knowing the difference was very important if you asked him.

The Exor chattered something incomprehensible as he walked over towards the scientist, munching on some anteverse wheat. Reckless ate a lot, to a point where the previously large stockpile of anteverse wheat he had collected in Far Garden was running dry at a scaringly fast pace.

If his knowledge of Pests was an indication, then the Exor's metabolism was running at unnatural speeds while inside this dimension. He needed to figure out that food situation ASAP before the Exor ran out of food and started considering putting humans on the menu.

Reckless meanwhile stepped next to his workbench, still chattering something. At some point he seemed to remember that Simon couldn't understand him as he abruptly stopped, awkwardly standing around the room for a moment, before walking over to a nearby chest to pull out a wooden plank.

Simon watched with interest as the Exor started scratching into it, fascination once again resurfacing inside him. Could they write? Did Exor have a written language, some kind of alphabet maybe?

Simon was mildly disappointed when he wasn't presented with alien text, but a crude drawing of sorts. In hindsight it made sense, if Reckless wanted him to understand something, he most likely sought to communicate in a medium Simon understood and drawings were pretty universal.

That still left him with the burning desire to know whether or not Exors had invented writing.

Showing the mystery aside into his mental pile of unanswered questions, he focused his efforts on understanding the sketch.

It was rough and far from a masterpiece, but he believed to understand what he was looking at.

A portal, at least, it looked like one. Judging by the strange circles around the main portal he had a good idea which one Reckless was referring to.

"The Far Garden portal?"

Reckless pointed at himself, then at Simon, before pointing at the door, followed by tapping on his drawing.

Simon nodded thoughtfully. Let's see if he understood that correctly.

He pointed at himself, then at Reckless, mimicked a walking motion, before pointing at the drawing.

The Exor chirped something, making a strange motion with their hand, causing Simon to hesitate as he realized something. They had no way to communicate yes or no.

True and false, the fundamental concepts that made communication and understanding possible in the first place. That needed to be fixed as soon as possible.

He quickly grabbed a pen and the still empty paper to make a quick sketch of his own. He needed only a second to think of a good way to communicate the concept.

Math!

He separated the paper into two parts as Reckless curiously walked over to take a look over his shoulder... well, more like a look over his head. The Exor was large, especially with Simon sitting down at the moment.

On one side he drew a group of 3 lines followed by a group of 2 lines. He then completed it with a group of 5 lines. On the other side, he drew a thumbs up.

He then took a second piece of paper and repeated the procedure, but this time he drew a group of 2, 2, and 6 lines followed by a thumbs down.

Placing the two papers next to each other, he repeated the motions from earlier.

Me - You - Walk - Far Garden portal

He then lifted both his hands, giving Reckless both a thumbs up and a thumbs down, waiting for a reply.

The Exor shifted his gaze from the papers to his drawing to Simon. Despite lacking most human features or facial expressions, the scientists could see the gears turning in his companion's head.

After about a minute of pondering, he slowly lifted his clawed hand, giving the scientist an unsure claw up.

Exor knew math! Oh, and they had a way to say yes and no to each other, that was also important.

Still, Exor's knew math!

Simon had the biggest grin on his face, until Reckless snapped him out of it, by impatiently tapping his drawing.

Right, he had agreed to guide the Exor to the portal.

Giving the Exor a happy thumbs up, he headed towards the door, only stopping upon hearing the by-now-familiar sound of a Peccary.

Frowning, he slowed down. In hindsight he kind of regretted having barricaded the windows of the cafeteria, cause it also blocked his view outside now. Carefully opening the door, he nearly jumped out of his socks upon seeing what was on the other side.

Murphy's law have mercy on him!

An army of Peccary and Pests had assembled in front of his base, lying on the floor, sitting around, or just lazily walking in circles, but they all stopped to turn towards him when he opened the door.

The Peccary were the first to react, rising to their feet, while those already up started to crackle with energy as they prepared their charge.

Simon was the second to react, stumbling backwards as he raised his shield, while his life flashed in front of his eyes.

Bumping into Reckless, the Exor quickly grabbed him and pushed the man behind himself, shielding the scientist.

What happened next would've almost been funny if Simon hadn't been so terrified.

The energy build-up around the Peccary collapsed as they desperately tried to come to a stop and avoid ramming the Exor, stumbling over their feet and into each other, creating nothing short of a perfect mess.

They still were more effective compared to the pests however who mostly failed to interrupt their leap attack, causing a handful to slam into the Exor, before landing at his feet, quickly hopping away once they got their bearings, chittering something in the process.

Reckless meanwhile just watched the entire exchange for a while, before letting out an angry screech that monopolized everyone's attention.

The Peccary quickly untangled each other and got into something one could call a line while the pests hid behind them.

What followed next almost reminded Simon of a parent chastising their young as Reckless angrily chattered a small novel while the rest of the Anteverse-II entities obediently listened without the slightest peep.

After a while Reckless stepped to the side, revealing Simon. He pointed at the scientist, before slamming his fist against his chest, saying a few more things, before the rest finally spoke up, giving short replies, alongside various gestures, which, judging by the context, probably meant something along the lines of "understood".

Simon still felt uncomfortable, but the hostility was gone, and Reckless seemed to have some kind of authority here. At the same time, however, he also suspected that the Exor was responsible for the group showing up at his base in the first place.

Noticing that everyone was staring at him, he quickly tried to recall if something was expected from him.

The portal!

Simon stiffly started moving, and everyone just kind of fell into line behind him.

What followed was probably the strangest migration in GATE history. A scientist leading what was supposed a bunch of dangerous entities around the facility with no safety equipment whatsoever.

Even Warren was impressed, judging by the fact that he promptly disappeared beneath his counter as they passed through the plaza like some form of twisted class on a road trip.

That made him wonder, were Peccary and Exor related? He remembered that Carbuncles evolved into Pests, who in turn evolved into Peccary. Where Exor the next step in this evolution chain?

There certainly was a heavy resemblance suggesting this. Did that mean that he had spent his early days after the incident fighting alien children and teens? He didn't know how to feel about that and mentally stamped a big "Unconfirmed" on that theory until he knew more.

He only snapped back into reality upon reaching the mentainance lift leading towards silo 2, where he stopped to call the elevator down.

His companions got restless at the strange sound, but it luckily swapped to curious fascination when the lift came into view.

Once the lift had come to a stop, the peccary and pests quickly got to work inspecting the strange phenomenon while Reckless gave Simon a look, pointing at the elevator with a curious or confused squawk. He assumed...

Simon decided it would be safe enough to give the Exor a thumbs up, before pointing upwards, hoping no miscommunications would occur.

The Exor simply grunted before he proceeded to herd his little group onto the lift. It was cramped, but luckily everyone fit. Simon did NOT want to have to split up from Reckless because they had to go twice.

Finding a place close to Reckless and trying not to step on anyone, Simon pressed the up button.

What followed was some form of restless excitment. This was probably the first time any of them but Simon had ridden a lift and Reckless had to pull some of the Peccary back as they got to close to the edge to curiously peak down.

A short ride later they arrived at the top, and Reckless gained some excitement of his own upon spotting the portal. He appeared to have completly forgotten about Simon as he proceeded to quickly herde, almost chase his little group trough the door.

Having nothing better to do, which was definitely not just a bad excuse for being curious, Simon slipped after them as well.

He was greeted by two familiar exors. The healers... no, monks. Exor Monks, that's what they were called. As a professional he was expected to use the correct terms after all.

The Exor Monks were currently inspecting the various pests and peccary for... something. Health check maybe? Simon wished he knew. Reckless meanwhile was guiding some of the pests toward the portal, encouraging them to jump through it.

One of the Exor Monks looked over at him and proceeded to stare at the scientist, completely halting what it was doing. After a while Simon decided to slowly lifted a hand. "Uhm, hi again?"

That finally got a reaction, as the Exor Monk promptly stood up and beelined for Reckless. 5 seconds later they were in what Simon assumed was a heated argument.

He decided then and there that it was a good time to silently slip away.

==H==

AUTHOR NOTES:

Thanks for reading my story. I'm glad that in this fast paced world I can still find some people who are willing to put a few minutes aside to read this story. My latest chapter had a whopping 8 likes, that's a honor!

As always a special thanks to the devs for making this amasing game.

PS: 10 out of 10 scientists confirm that constructive criticism is an excellent tool towards improvment, so if you got any, hit me with it, even if it's negative.

-000-

Next Chapter: Soon...

Previous Chapter: https://www.reddit.com/r/AbioticFactor/comments/1kauydq/indepted_to_science_chapter2_fanfic/

First Chapter: https://www.reddit.com/r/AbioticFactor/comments/1k71yw7/indepted_to_science_chapter1_fanfic/