INITIATING UPDATE
SYSTEM IS UPDATING
For several seconds there was silence inside the citadels. Everybody was staring at the hologram on the ceiling and waited for the voice to return, to tell them the update is finished and if there is anything new added which was not mentioned in the previous announcements.
"It is about to happen. I am sooo excited!" The Teddys squealed in unison. Their whole citadel was ready for it.
The second citadel was also in an uproar: "Time for a slaughter!" The Supreme King Geddos shouted from his throne, the other Geddos copies screaming in joy and laughing violently, happy for the slaughter they wanted to happen.
"We may die gentlemen, but we will die lazy." One of the pheddie copies muttered and the others just smiled. Their citadel did nothing to prepare for the update, they were just laying around.
The Teddy Emperor sat on his throne made from metals he ripped out of walls he thought were unimportant. "Finally." He whispered, "Finally, I can add more Teddys to my collection." His gaze shifted around the room, he loved the sight before him. Hundreds of Teddys doing their jobs, clothed in his hand-made outfits.
The citadels filled with Max and Lukas clones were getting ready to explore. While the Max clones wished to just watch and hide for the time being, the Lukas clones wanted to explore, maybe fight and pillage or make new friends.
"Deploy the shields and load the hyper-drive. Set goal coordinates to the asteroid belt around the center and hide between the rubble." A1 said. The bridge was manned more heavily than usual because of the update. His gaze shifted down from the system message towards the lower floors, landing on A24 who was being carried into the medical care section of the citadel.
The forty-eight thousand Lukas clones were waiting, hoping that the other citadels — which may be hostile — had slaughtered each other and had a similar small number of remaining people. It was a rather scary thought to fight one hundred thousand enemies, which may or may not have stronger armor and weapons.
On the eighth citadel the Teddys are just as happy as the Teddys on the first citadel while the Geddos copies — each bound to a Teddy copy so they would not kill each other — were annoyed. Would they have to socialize? That would be awful.
"We're fuuucked." A Max clone said, sitting in a bean bag with a Pheddie copy on his lap. The Max clones had been influenced by the laziness of the Pheddie copies and turned into lazy but happy people. The last remaining Geddos on their citadel had taken the captain position and stood on the bridge, ready to fight for the life of his subjects.
SYSTEM UPDATE COMPLETED
⟪⚪⟫
Without a moment of hesitation the first citadel entered hyper-space and shot towards the center of the universe.
Captain Teddy was standing in front of the stool they made for her and looked straight ahead. She was excited at the possibility of making friends and hummed a song they made up over the last year.
But in her hand she held a small remote with a singular button. One of her toe beans was hovering above the button, moving from side to side, ready to press at any moment. Captain Teddy would open the valve inside the cage in the lower districts to shoot out the thing she has trapped down there. She hoped it would protect them if there were any hostile beings, but she was not sure it would.
"Lowering speed to exit hyper-space. Hold on tight!" Pilot Teddy said.
The captain shot her a glance before sitting down: "Everybody heard her, sit down and put on the seatbelts." She commanded, "Please forward this to the lower floors."
One of the Teddys, the one sitting at the microphone, pressed a button and moved her mouth in front of the microphone. Her cute little lips parted and she began speaking into the microphone: "We are about to exit hyper-space! Would you all please sit down? The captain does not wish for anyone to receive any possible injuries. Thank you."
Once she released the button everybody on the citadel sat down somewhere they could hold onto something without damaging it or themselves.
"Leaving hyper-space in 3… 2… 1…" Teddy said and the citadel halted abruptly and entered a slow movement. The citadels have a diameter of about 10 kilometers and the citadel now moved with a speed of 4 kilometres per second. The center was still a minute or two away with that speed.
Pilot Teddy deleted the coordinates and started circling the center. She did not wish to stop in case there were enemies and starting movement took slightly longer than accelerating.
"Activate the scanners and announce any movement which appears to be coming towards us." Captain Teddy commanded and stood back up. "Tell them they are allowed to stand back up." Captain Teddy walked onto the elevator and pushed the holographic button in a certain movement. "First 1, then it was double 0… hm… 2, 0, 9, and then 0 I think and lastly 9 again." She thought while entering the code and the elevator closed.
"Where do you think the captain always goes?" Pilot Teddy asked.
Another one answered: "Well, she certainly doesn't go onto the lower floors. Maybe there is a higher one than the bridge?"
After having heard her thoughts, Pilot Teddy took a deep breath, looked back out the window and said: "That doesn't make sense, there is no button." She continued thinking how the captain entered the elevator: "Wait, she always moves her hands around the buttons so much when going to the secret place. Maybe there is a code which we haven't thought about."