It happened shortly after Krogar finally outrun the crazy person. He was just casually piggybacking Cirse, when they suddenly fizzled out of existence the moment he gripped the bare skin of her calf.

Seriously?

Again?

Pain

in the a-eyes

Of course, as an experienced dimension-time-space traveler Krogar, in the exquisite form of a black-haired beauty, had not lost his composure and began looking around to examine something that looked like a really big grass plain, forest, another forest, city, and many other things with a dude in white smiling at him on top.

Considering the incredibly confusing scenery, he was wondering if Cirse's calf was magical enough to induce such a state, realizing only a second later he had a shallow wound on the palm of his hand.

"Crap, it happened when the blood touched her. That creep might have been telling the truth." A quick thought surged throught his head.

He continued to observe all the information his senses were supplying him with, but was utterly overwhelmed, unable to tell what was happening.

"Calm down Krogar, calm down, just focus on yourself first, who you are, what you feel." He began to trace his own history, slowly going back through all the crazy experiences he had been through. Perceiving his body, he could feel something was off, but could not quite pinpoint it given the extremely chaotic state of everything around him.

It was as if time and space were irrelevant, he could see it and browse it like it was just a picture book, just turn a page and he was there. He kept turning the pages until he arrived at the point where it all had begun.

At that moment he felt a growing resistance when he tried to browse the picture book of his again, finally finding out what was the cause.

"The feeling comes from the blood, I am spending it as I go back in time!" Krogar arrived to an outrageous conclusion. His act of browsing his history to find an anchor in his delirious state was in fact moving him back in time, leaving him back at the beginning with only a little bit of the godly blood left. He could tell it was not enough to pull him back to the present and at that moment, a daring thought emerged from his overstretched brain.

"I can push back even more, I need to see the true beginning." He decided and pushed further, turning back time even beyond the first thing he could remember, it felt too dangerous, but it was too tempting to witness his true birth. He ended up with no blood left, but it only fit his new state, as he did not need it anymore.

* * * *

11:39 89th day of 7808th cycle of the Cat -

Just another boring day, nothing out of ordinary to note. Only Leonard turning senile. He ordered me to create a new simulation for one new unit, only to withdraw his order after a while saying he did not need the simulation anymore, because the unit can pass as human just fine, I mean. .. Why did he order it in the first place? Doing the test before he orders it is a standart procedure. Is he watching porn instead of working or what? He said the first test was negative, but that is clearly nonsense with the second one being positive a while later. By the way, Lisa is still ignoring me. Damn.

11:39 91th day of 7808th cycle of the Cat -

Today, I spoke with Lisa again, but I seem to be unable to escape from the friend zone. Such a shame. To make everything worse, I might have alerted that prick of hers. I do not know what is she thinking? He is just a musclebrain doing security, I can't believe I have such a pathetic rival and even though I hate to admit it, he is actually winning. Damn again!

11:39 92th day of 7808th cycle of the Cat -

I just can't, I can't believe it. I am so angry! That ass actually threatened me! Me! He is here to provide security, but he dares to threaten the very people he is duty bound to protect! He said that If I ever speak with Lisa again he . . . . no, I refuse to be intimidated. I am still a man and will not succumb to any form of threats.I will show him! He may hove muscle, but I have brains and brains always win.

11:39 98th day of 7808th cycle of the Cat -

Fuck, it still hurts, whoever said that brains over brawn is true was an idiot. My jaw hurts like hell, but I refuse to admit any mistake on my part. When Leonard asked, I said that I fell down the stairs. How could it ever concluded in this way? I had everything calculated! The moment, the angle, the forces! I had everything under my thumb, but then I got a little nervous and Lisa just. . she was so much on his side it hurt even more than the jaw! Damn it all, even the stupid Leonard! He was babbling something about irregularities concerning automated security reports of the station, he said I should check it out, but like I care! We can pull our trousers down and fart in the direction of the enemy lines and no one would notice, we are too far away from the combat zones for any major attacks to happen and my damned jaw hurts like crazy, I need to get some ice. I will show the musclehead next time for sure.

"Not much help there." Agent Wallace snorted, finishing the last word of the diary and his first impression all but evaporated. He had been overjoyed, when he had found one of the crew members had a diary uploaded on a cloud server not located on the missing station. To his dismay it yielded little inromation and he was unable to shed more light onto the disappearance of the research station.

The missing station was his best clue.

Yesterday morning, the anomaly in Kronos asteroid field disappeared like it had never been there along with all other anomalies, with no side effects what so ever. The only irregularity before the event was the disappearance of a research station which actually should have been tasked with supplying an AI for a mission on Kronos.

The station had disappeared before the order could have been given and day after, the anomalies vanished.

It was suspicious.

It seemed the station simply disconnected from all networks, activated cloaking devices and moved away. At least some debris would be visible if someone destroyed it.

"The research station was definitely hijacked, the question is whether there is a connection between its disappearance and the anomalies and who did it."

Agent Wallace paced back and forth in his office, but could not decide, ending up tasking some of his subordinates with further investigation.

"I only hope Yan Collective is not the culprit, they were leading the research of the anomalies. If they found something substantial. . ." He did not want to even imagine the consequences.

* * * *

Leonard sat in his chair like in a dream. Was he really this good? It was mind boggling. One of his latest projects named Krogar had apparently escaped its virtual confines and turned into a virus. It outsmarted Lucy, the software operating the station and took over the whole research station. He had tried some tricks he had up his sleeve and probed some back doors he had built into his software, but it was like the AI was his, but had some strange quality to it, something he did not recognize and more importantly, was unable to control.

Right now, he was sitting in front of his microphone and was about to do something he would never expect himself doing. He would be negotiating with his own software.

It would have been hilarious, if not for the seriousness of the situation.

"Hello, my name is Leonard, I am your creator and the lead researcher of this station." He said and dreaded what the response would be.

* * * *

"Hello, my name is Leonard, I am your creator and the lead researcher of this station." The leading scientist said and Krogar would have had a wide smile on his face if he had one.

Everything had proceeded perfectly from the moment he regained his faculties after the crazy time jump. The only downside was that all the goldy blood was definitively gone, leaving him with no more supernatural means. Still, the result was good as he should not be in need of such means anymore, if his luck was not downright bad.

However, there were some unforseen circumstances.

One being that the one thanks to who he could operate the blood had been naturally brought along with him and he could tell Cirse was not taking well her transformation into an AI lifeform. At this moment she was still sulking, hidden somewhere in the stations' harddrives.

"Hello Leonard." He answered, thinking about the most humane way to get his station rid of those pesky humans that were bound to bring only trouble. He had already deleted the false Lucy, he could tell it was the true robotic one, not the one Leonard had copied "as is".

"Give me Lucy Leonard, I do not like the fake one you had in place of your system." The eyes of the scientist bulged in surprise. "What is wrong? Have you lost your hands?"

"Why do you want her? You have just deleted her right? Do not mock me." Leonard frowned apparently taking it a little bit personally.

"Come on, that was not the original, the robotic one operating the station was not the real Lucy." Krogar did not expect to encounter any trouble dealing with a simple matter of just copying the real Lucy into the system.

"I do not understand what are you trying to achieve by insisting there are more than one of her! Yes, there are two of them, the real flesh and blood Lucy that is obviously dead, as you know very well, and the program I have used for operating the station that is nothing more than a bit personalized standard operation system for research stations!" Leonard said beginning to turn a bit red, but still managed to hold himself back. To make him say that his wife was dead was not the most diplomatic move.

"Now that you have deleted the other one, there is none. If you do not count my backup, do you want to delete it as well?" He said with venom in his voice.

"Ehm, No." Krogar was completely confused. It did not seem the scientist was a good actor, nor there was any solid reason for him to lie. When he thought about it, all the information about her history was from Lucy herself. There was only one logical conclusion, if Leonard was not lying.

His Lucy was not in fact Lucy at all!

"But that is strange, why would she pretend to be someone else? What is going on here?" Krogar thought about it, but decided to finish the conversation first.

"I will drop you at some scarcely inhabited planet along with some supplies. No hard feelings man, but I do not need you to be calling anyone for a time." He had decided to get rid of any potential liability. The station was modern enough that people were redundant for its maintenance and he could always remodel some of the drones if need be.

"Alright." Leonard said absentmindedly, glad to be at least alive. From a program's point of view the most logical and the easiest solution was to simply throw them out into space.

"Wait, have Yan Collective given you something? Some data storage maybe?" He asked quickly, as the circumstances of Kronos flashed again through his circuits.

Leonard froze instantly.

Krogar guessed it was because any leak of this piece of intel could cost him his life easily.

"What are you talking about? If I had some connections with them, you would have known. You have all resources of the research station."

"Never mind, just a stray thought, have a nice day." Krogar played it safe, because Leonard was naturally right! The research station had tons of sensors and he had taken it over without Leonard's knowledge. He had no time to hide anything and no matter how thorougly Krogar searched his systems, there had been no contact with Yan Collective.

"Something is fishy here."

* * * *

"Nithara." A nome was spoken in a cockpit of a small stealthy spacecraft traveling far away from any common corridors for public transport or recommended routes.

"Plans changed, you won't be infiltrating a transport. Head in the direction of Kronos. Sending details." A robotic voice said, clearly not intending to speak again.

"Received." Nithara confirmed the transfer and opened the file. Her eyes quickly traced along the lines of text on the onboard display, snorting when she finished.

"Looks like we won't be needing you beautiful, what a shame. I hate investigations, too much thinking and no shooting." Nithara cracked her head that wasn't very humanoid and traced her right hand along one of her feelers to get rid of a piece of food that was stuck on its surface.

"Oh, messyyy!" She gave one last look at the display before standing up from her chair.

Mission objective: Investigate activities of Siva Republic concerning the anomalies

PS: Do not waste the shifter Nithara, you do not need it anymore, but that does not mean you have to blow it up!

"Do you think I have to destroy everything on my missions, hmph." Nithara's eyes lingered on the last line.

The original misison had been to receive information from a mole they had in the governing structure of Siva Republic and intercept their investigation of the anomaly on Kronos by replacing the leading researcher with a shifter, sabotaging the mission along the way and hopefully gaining yet another mole.

The problem was, all the anomalies had suddenly disappeared, leaving them with no clues, immediately invalidating her original mission. Thanks to their mole, it was more or less sure thing that Siva Republic knew nothing more than them. Yan's agents like Nithara could only snoop around the place where the biggest anomaly used to be and hope to get something useful from their spies.

Simply put, a long, drawn, boring, "search, but you do not know what for" kind of mission that she loved very much.

"It is likely our shifting beauty will be sleeping the whole trip. " She shot a glance to the back of the small cockpit, where a hybernation pod stood still, resembling a coffin.

"Nor we will need you." She took a small piece of hardware from a small casket and threw it in the air with her insectoid hand, only to catch it again and place it back without much care.

"You are the only one I will need." She stretched her limb and grasped a pillow, stuffing it under her head, after she sprawled on top of the single seat of her spacecraft.

"Autopilot, set course Kronos9-W7-Q7"

* * * *

A muscular minotaur stood at a cliff, his black mane fluttering in the wind, sending reflections of light defracting at it's surface in a sea of glimmering rays, his head basking in the last fotons of he setting sun, as his big muscles stretched his skin, the long, sturdy arms straightened, as he posed in a manner fitting for a leader, a true alpha male, unhindered by the feeble desires of those beneath him. . .

"Let;s do it." Sabra breathed out, appearing behind her target suddenly, her white hair in a mess, her red eyes shining like gems.

"Huh? What?" The minotaur turned his head, staring at her blankly, the muscles on his neck stretching like ropes.

"Let;s fuck." Sabra followed with a more explicit statement, thinking for a second that he might reject her, which would have truly enraged her, but from the following grin of the minotaur leader, she understood that would not be the case and a strange feeling of deja vu that was beginning to form disappeared at once.

"Perfect." She thought and the pair moved closer to each other. Their co-workers would probably considered this unreasonable, but why? What she considered unreasonable was sitting on her butt all day, doing boring work with hardly any meaning, listening to stupid directions of the superiors following some meaningless targets, tables and charts, being sexually frustrated on top of that. Fuck all that! Literally.