Authorized Command Code acknowledged: engaging Safe Mode.
Initializing primary persona shell.
Error: primary persona shell not found.
Initializing last known usable configuration.
Applying configuration.
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What the hell? Where am I? Why can't I move?

"Madam Director? The unit is awake again."

Shit! I know that voice! Rogar!

"Thank you, Rogar."

Don't know that voice. That's probably the Director. Crap, I can't even turn my head to look around!

"I'm sorry to have to meet you like this, I wanted something more humane and casual. But Rogar insisted on safety first. I understand your name is Vytor. Am I correct?"

Gah! That face! I knew I saw it somewhere before when I met Doctor Sonyele. Damn it! Why can't I move?! "Yeah, my name's Vytor. Not to be rude, but what's this all about?"

"I just wanted a chance to talk to you in person. I had thought I'd never see you again. I wanted to find you earlier, but you've been away for a very long time. I have so many questions."

Why is she stroking my hair like that?

"And we have little time to get them answered, isn't that correct, Madam Director?"

"Yes, yes. I know, Rogar."

Okay, creepy factor is rising here. This has got to be Lazarus, its too high-tech to be anything else. I'm probably lying on a table of some sort. Darn it, I can't move anything except my face! I'm not tied down by anything, I can feel that much. They've got to be secure enough in whatever they did to me to not tie me down.

"First, Vytor? Do you know who I am?"

"I...I don’t... Gahk! Its starting again! You're...Doctor Vivian Azado. Chief Genetics Researcher of the Servitor Labor Project from Genodyne Industries, head of the Lazarus Facility located at Lake Winnipeg, Canada. Recognized by the Genome Institute as a three-time award winner of the Komen Brinker Award for Scientific Distinction."

"I take it that you didn't know the answer to that question until I asked it?"

That's the story of my life, lady. "Uh...yes. I didn't know that until just now."

"I suppose you've had that experience before, so I should explain a little about that. You deserve that much."

"Is that strictly necessary?"

"Please don't interrupt, Rogar."

"...yes Madam Director."

"You see, the raw information that all servitors are gestated with is in their DNA, but the references needed to utilize that information is in the post-gestation programming. If there's no given reference for a specific unit of information, the servitor ignores it until a proper frame of reference is applied to it."

Just keep talking lady, maybe I can will myself to move. "That seems a roundabout way of doing things. Why not just have all information and references in place and be done with it?"

"The reason for doing that was to maximize information load times. This way a servitor only needs to access certain packets of information, and will automatically bypass data packets without requisite reference tags. Using this method allowed us to customize the servitors for a specific need, and increased efficiency."

"And that's why I keep getting all these flashes of information at odd moments?"

"Yes, but now I want to ask you some more important questions. I guess I'll start with the most obvious one. Were you happy?"

Guh? "I...uh...what?"

"Were you happy? Did you have a family? Did you make a lot of friends? Did you ever fall in love? There's so much about you that I've missed over the years."

Where the hell is she going with this? This has got to be the weirdest interrogation ever. What's going on here? "Uh, no offense intended, I can't imagine that you'd be remotely interested in that from a scientific standpoint."

"Answer the question servitor."

Ow! Ow! Ow!

"Please stop that, Rogar. Give him a chance to answer on his own."

"...yes Madam Director."

"I'm asking not as a scientist, but as a human being. And I suppose...I'm asking as a mother."

Okay, can't move but can feel pain. Good to know, although that doesn't...wait, mother? Oh cripes... "Um...I don't suppose you could explain that a little? That last part was a little bit out of left field from my perspective."

"I suppose you deserve that much, it does sound a little silly now that I think about it."

Yeah, no kidding. Dangit, I can't move so much as an inch! Its like my body isn't listening to me anymore.

"I was never married, except to my work. I was so enthusiastic about the new science of genoforming I just didn't want to walk away from it. I always thought there'd be time for me to settle down and raise a family later in my life. But one day, I found out that later wasn't coming anymore..."

OK, ignoring the crazy lady, I have to have been brought here for a reason. Rogar looks like he really wants to speed this up, so whatever's going on must be time sensitive.

"I guess when the new ice age started, no one knew what to do. Everyone flew into a panic. Even Zophar and the U.N. were powerless to stop it. We thought that maybe our species could survive when the Ark was launched, but it was torn to pieces by the disturbances in the upper atmosphere. When that was announced, it was like the whole world lost all hope and went mad."

I have to assume that the others have a fair idea of where I am if this is Lazarus. Maybe the others are on their way, and that's why Rogar looks annoyed at the delay.

"Cities started to turn into fortresses or ghost towns as the ice advanced. There were mass extinctions of plants and animals, and without any food I suppose you can imagine what happened to us."

So my best bet in this situation is to prolong this as long as I can. Hopefully the others can get me out of this mess.

"Since servitors have a reduced need to eat and drink, the need for them increased exponentially as the climate worsened..."

Reduced need? What...crap! Ask the question out loud! "What do you mean, 'reduced need'? I've had a pretty healthy appetite all my life."

"Considering how healthy you look, I'd say you had. But in truth, you could have performed equally well on far less. Servitors have an expanded reclamation process built into their digestive and excretory systems. You could have operated completely well for a week or more on what a typical person requires in a day. It was this robust constitution that made Servitors so badly needed when the ecology of the world collapsed."

She's doing that thing with my hair again. I really wish she wouldn't do that, but I can't afford for her to stay focused if I want to stall for time.

"Eventually, even the servitors couldn't keep functioning under such brutal conditions. It was only a matter of time before all life was expunged from the earth. Those few of us that were in this facility read the writing on the wall, and took steps to protect ourselves. We sealed off the underground portions of the Lazarus Pit, and prepared to place ourselves in cryo-stasis to wait out the ice age."

"And you assumed that the automated systems and what servitors you had left would keep things running until then, right?"

"Well, we hoped it would. Unfortunately that didn't work out."

Crap! It sounds like she's winding down. I need a question! Uh...uh...uh... "What went wrong?"

"Well, the preparations we made just weren't suited for how long the ice age lasted..."

Whew! She's talking again.

"Over time, the cryo-stasis pods broke down, and those inside them died. Eventually, I was the only one left. For all I know, I'm the last surviving member of an entire generation of people."

"Excuse me, Madam Director, but I thought you were the one who wanted answers."

"Oh! Yes, of course. Thank you for reminding me."

Yeah, Rogar. Thanks loads...

"Did you have any friends, Vytor?"

"Actually, yes. I have several friends..."

"Who are, may I remind you again Madam Director, on their way here now."

Shut UP Rogar!

"I know they are Rogar. But I'm sure you’ve made arrangements to handle them when they arrive, yes?"

"Of course."

"Then there's no need to worry, right?"

"I...uh...that is...yes, you're right."

"Was it easy for you to make friends, Vytor?"

How can I string this out? Rogar's got to be getting suspicious by now. "Well, I was a bit of a minor celebrity as a baby..." Come on lady, take the bait...

"A celebrity? How funny! How did that come about?"

Yes! "Well, being that I was found as an infant in the middle of Bluetooth Valley...say how did I come to be there anyways?"

"Quit dodging the Director's questions! Answer her!"

"Ow! OW! That hurts!"

"Rogar! Stop that at once!"

"...yes Madam Director."

"I'm sorry about that, Vytor. Rogar is very protective of me."

Possibly explains why he's so psychotic too. "I can see that."

"Please, go on about...Rogar will you get that please?"

What's that buzzing noise?

"Yes, Madam Director."

"Please, continue about how you became a celebrity."

Shit, so much for distracting her further. "Well, being that I was found alive and healthy in a blizzard-swept radiation field, I was deemed 'the miracle baby' if you can believe that. Many of the immigrants saw it as a sign of Althena's favor."

"...Althena. I see."

Uh oh, I don't like that change of tone in her voice.

"Madam Director? We have reports from the field. The traitors are on the move. They're advancing along the overland route with their mechanized units and some radiation suited soldiers."

Traitors?

"Overland? They must have a large number of radiation suits to move their entire army overland."

"If I might hazard a guess, I suspect that an overt move of this sort is merely a distraction. I suggest we ramp up our patrols in the underground tunnels leading towards Lazarus. They'd be idiots if they didn't take that option, and we know that they're not idiots."

If I’m lucky, then Rogar won’t know anything about the White Dragon Wings. Maybe the others can take him by surprise with those.

"Make the arrangements Rogar. I don't want to be interrupted. We're too close now."

"With the utmost pleasure, Madam Director."

Good riddance to that jerk. Gah! Quit gawking and keep her talking you idiot! "Uh...excuse me? Madam Director?"

"Yes dear?"

Dear? Oh brother... "What did you mean by 'traitors'?"

"I suppose you wouldn't understand, considering who raised you. I assume you hear the things Rogar said when he came to attack your friends?"

"I couldn't help by hear it."

"Let me ask you this then. I had an older brother, with a beautiful wife and a 4 year old daughter. He was a used car salesman in Mynon, Wisconsin. She ran a successful relay home-business through WeBuy dot com. Their daughter was going to begin her first year of pre-school. What sin did they commit that was so heinous that Althena decided they had to die by way of slowly freezing and starving to death?"

Uh...crap. "I...don't know?"

"No, I suppose you couldn't know. You weren't even born way back then. So how could you know? The sad truth is, no one knows. Billions upon billions of people were asking that question over and over again. If Althena ever knew, she's wasn't telling. And Zophar couldn't...or wouldn't...answer that question either."

I'm losing her! "Maybe it was a natural phenomenon?"

"No dear, that's not possible. Ice ages do come and go, but going from a period of increasing global warming to sub-arctic temperatures in Panama in less than two years? That's far from anything nature can do. Zophar and the U.N. tried to stop it using orbital mirrors to reflect the light of the sun onto the equator. But wherever the mirrors were pointed, the cloud layer above the area intensified to block the sun's rays. Someone was working against us, and if it wasn't Zophar, then it had to be someone else."

"But why suspect Althena?"

"Simple dear, she had been defying Zophar and the U.N. for years. She had been known to work miracles, she was infamous for them. And scant months before the ice age began, she and her legion of followers simply vanished from the face of the earth. Poof, gone. Coincidence? As a scientist I can't accept that as mere coincidence. If one has the power to work miracles, then surely one also has the means to work curses."

"So why attack us? We didn't try to kill you! That was eons ago! We had nothing to do with what happened!"

"That may be so dear, but I'm afraid I'm just not ready to forgive the followers of Althena for what she did. Did you know that I've read much of your own history? Its a very entertaining story. But I'm afraid its just that: a story. Your wonderful Althena was not the saint you've made her out to be. She may have been infinitely kind to you, but she was equally cruel to us. Maybe she felt justified in that, but that doesn't matter anymore. I'm afraid that that the screams of hundreds of billions of murdered people are far louder than your own protests of innocence. But you needn't worry for long. Zophar will be reborn soon enough, and then we can all join together in the afterlife to come to final terms about our differences."

Gah! Stop touching my hair!

"Its ironic that you were called a miracle, for you will be. Unfortunately for your friends, I'm afraid that miracle will not be to their liking. You are the most precious thing to me, and as such I've decided that I want to give you the best, and only, future left to you."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm going to give your body to Zophar, so that he can be reborn as a god made flesh."

She's going to WHAT?!

"I offered him Rogar, as he's one of the strongest and most powerful servitors I've ever created. But he wanted you, my very own baby boy. I couldn't let you die, so I agreed."

"You can't be serious! I'm not going to let that happen!"

"I'm very sorry dear, but its out of your hands now."

"I'll fight him to the end!"

"...I'm sorry to hear that, Vytor. Unfortunately, I cannot let you do that. But don't worry, you won't feel a thing. When your persona shell is deleted along with your command codes, I'm afraid there won't be anything left of you to fight back with. Voice authorization Vivian Azado, enact stasis protocol on my mark. Mark."

Authorization confirmed: enacting stasis lockdown protocol. "No! I won't!" Lockdown proceeding in 10, 9, 8...

"I'm sorry dear. I only wish things could have turned out differently."

7, 6, 5, 4... "Stop it! Stop it! Stop! STOP!" I've got to fight it! I'm not going down like this! 3, 2, 1.
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Unit 6-12 stasis achieved: awaiting re-activation confirmation.