A One Votan Job

"This seems like folly to me." Elly had come back after the ark brain was finished giving Xanthiana instructions on what to do, the EGO device was not happy with the situation. Xanthiana was driving hard, the Arkbrain told her she didn't have a lot of time and she trusted it for good or bad, she figured bad, but she was a pessimist like that.

"Which part? The part where we are taking on long odds by ourselves, or the part where if we fail an ark brain will unleash a virus on the area that will make the entire bay area completely unlivable for non votanis people forever?"

"Both!" The plague didn't really concern Xanthiana as much as a votan weapon killing humans in general concerned her. If the weapon was unleashed she was certain a new war would start up and this time no one would survive it.

"I can't have the ereps involved or they'll blame the votans, and I have no connection to the votanis collective, and or they'll want the weapon for themselves just in case. And as far as the weapon, well I'll be fine if we fail so you know we'll keep living."

"You're such a pessimist."

"Of course I am, if you had my life story you'd find it hard to believe in anything good in this, holy shiiiiittttt." Xanthiana slammed on the breaks and almost collided right into a Volge. The creature was just standing in the middle of the road like a lost animal, it didn't even seem to notice her at first. She sat frozen in the car, her hands gripping the steering wheel.

"Do they normally just stand there?" Elly broke the silence, if only in Xanthiana's head.

"I've never seen a volge in person before, I don't know what I'm supposed to do other than turn the car around and drive in the other direction as fast as possible." The volge stood there in the road not moving still, Xanthiana didn't know the creatures to travel alone, then again she had little actual experience with them outside of campfire tales.

"Do you think we can kill it? I'd love to study a Volge."

"I can kill anything given enough time, the bigger question is, can I kill it before it annihilates me with some volge horrible, I have no idea." The creature lurched once and the collapsed, it was of course surprising to Xanthiana. In theory anything can get sick and die, Xanthiana didn't know shit about the volge let alone what could kill one.

"Quick we have to examine it!"

"Why?"

"Because whatever killed it might be fatal to you as well."

"So you want me to examine the corpse and possibly get infected."

"There's some optimism assuming you already aren't infected."

"Elly please, don't be you for just like a little bit ok."