Syn-En: Registration Read Online Free PDF Page A

countdown.
    Pink sweat beaded on Groat’s black armor. “Why don’t you just ask them how to rewire themselves. They must have a bit of self-preservation instinct left in their brains. They have emotions.”
    Bei blinked. Well, well, Groat possessed a working intellect and wasn’t just hired muscle. That could be good and bad. Bei skimmed his fingertips over the bugman’s wrist joint. Keratin layered on nanomesh. The armor was self-repairing, but what about the soft tissue and organs underneath? If they would cooperate with his plan, he could find out. “Unrecognized voice print. Instructions for repair not authorized.”
    Mopus shimmered into Bei’s line of sight. “You’ll tell me, won’t you? I would really like to help repair your wiring.”
    Chemical alerts flared inside Bei’s head, and he felt the tug at his consciousness to please Mopus. Bei quickly overrode it. In his experience biologics didn’t trust things that came too easily. “I— I— Instructions for repair not authorized. Three and a half minutes until self-destruction.”
    Groat clacked his mandibles together. “So much for your stink.”
    “Tell me how to help you.” Mopus’ skin turned a verdant green and his hair glistened. “Tell me how to rewire your brain to save you.”
    Oxytocin levels spiked. Bei made a mental note that ET changed color to access his mind-altering drug. Now to complete step two. The fool was bound to believe Bei wanted to please him. Despite the bright light, Bei commanded his pupils to dilate. “Remove blue wire in top neural net case.”
    He had only one, a special one that isolated the Syn-En’s from each other and prevented their free will from being over-ridden.
    Despite the risk, the isolating wire would have to go.
    Accessing a network would allow them to communicate with each other and coordinate their attack. After a slight tug, Bei’s legs flopped uselessly against the table. Yellow caution lights flared inside his head. He rerouted his processors and stabilized his necessary functions. Damn idiots! The technician had popped the whole circuit. “Self-destruct in one minute.”
    Mopus reached over Bei. Flesh smacked flesh. “What did you do?”
    “I—I had to remove the clip to take out the wire.”
    Bei refrained from rolling his eyes. Only a ham-handed  moron needed to remove the clip to extract a single wire. After a soft click, the yellow lights faded. Searching for Wireless Array. Bei waited for his systems to find a network to high jack.
    “There. I did it.” The technician rolled Bei onto his back.
    After twitching a few more times, Bei lay still. From the corner of his eye, he watched Keyes and Rome undergo the same procedure.
    Mopus’ color faded as he bent over Bei. “Are you still planning to self-destruct?”
    Hell, ET deserved some freeware for cooperating in his own demise. “Where am I?”
    Bei punched through the ET’s firewalls and connected to the network. Using his rank, he brought Keyes and Rome online.
    Their digital presence materialized next to him near a series of doors. The two collapsed into each other’s arms, stroking and touching each other. Hearts and question marks swirled around them.
    “Did Bug-ugly harm either of you?” they chorused in cyberspace. Each shook their heads but continued touching.
    “Report.” Bei ground his teeth together. Everyone could enjoy the reunion once he found Nell. His wife had better not have fallen under the spell of Mopus’ stink. The green ET would regret it, especially since many of Bei’s torture subroutines would work on his ugly species.
    After caressing Keyes’s cheek, Rome shifted away from her and opened one of the doors. His digital hands dipped into the stream of information flowing inside. “I’ll chase down the power supply to the magnetic tables and cut it. I suppose you want to give Bug-ugly an attitude adjustment?”
    Bei nodded before opening the next door. Once he tapped into the alien ship’s