Tunnel Rat Chapter 373 (Patreon)

Milo was thrilled when he saw the hostile environment suits that his siblings had made from his designs. The designs that Claw Master had licensed to Rhebus had been used to make complete body suits with detachable bubble helmets. While they hadn't gone as far as he had in designing an outer armored layer, they were still very tough and durable.

Under his ninja garb, Milo was wearing his suit. He'd had worries that the reunion might go poorly and had taken basic precautions, planning escape routes through areas Bork's surveillance was blind, wearing his suit, and bringing along smoke bombs to cover his escape. Showing his bulletproof suit to his family started an hour-long discussion on its construction. The fully functioning mechanical tail was another hour, with Milo explaining its use in combat and mechanical repairs.

Algernon held up his hand for silence. This was an enforced rule in the Alphabet where brains moved fast and important details could become buried. After they quieted, Algernon turned to Milo, "How long did it take you to learn the acrobatic rolls, dodges, and tail attacks we see in this video? Don't count in-game training.

Milo thought hard. "A half-hour? It was easy during the test phase of the suit. I wasn't practicing combat moves, they just came to me...Oh!" His eyes went wide, then closed as he began thinking. The others went through the same series of thoughts and revelations.

Algernon summed things up, "Milo has learned a technique that allowed him to train in combat in Genesis and bring that training with him to the real world. Many implications can branch from this discovery, including the possibility of physical therapy in a VR setting to aid patients with injuries, especially when those injuries need new neural pathways constructed in the brain. I propose a full research study by Rhebus in conjunction with Claw Master and Genesis."

Bork was in agreement until the last word. "You want to expose our work to Genesis?"

Zander saw where Algernon was going, "Sure, after we meet with Ralph. A new technique that could aid thousands, maybe millions of people? Genesis is already heavily involved with neuroscience. Ralph will see the benefit and this burnished our resume even further. Remember, we aren't reclusive mad scientist hacker criminals any longer. Simply a family of poor, abused, genetically altered children who want to make a better world."

"And keep our money." Onyx was fond of money. It let him buy toys and ice cream.

"Of course. It's difficult to make the world a better place without the money to fund a research lab. All the ill-gotten wealth will go towards our discoveries."

"Minus the portion we give to our homeland in gratitude for taking us in."

"I love being a whistleblower, it's very patriotic."

Milo stood up and held up his hand. Everyone quieted.
"I suggest we use my tunnels to go my home in Section E where you can begin the process of becoming upstanding citizens of indeterminant age who need the protection of Wally. Next, we propose our new not-for-profit research project that Wally won't be able to turn down, cementing our position as 'Useful for the greater good of the world at large.' I will introduce you to some useful people who keep lots of secrets, not just mine."

"Can we do it as ninjas?"

Milo smiled, "I think that is required. Please use your favorite color. It will give Wally one more thing to be confused about."

It took two hours to get underway. The old bubble helmets were tossed in favor of helmets styled like Milo's. Rhebus had assembly machines similar to his own. After importing his schematics, five new helmets were constructed, tested twice, and added to their environmental suits. Then the Pink, Orange, Mauve, Grey, White, and Zebra-striped ninjas moved into the tunnel systems. None of the other ninjas could match the speed of the Pink Ninja, but they improved as they studied his movements.

Milo was careful, taking them through nothing smaller than medium-sized ducks, and detoured around the Big Drops that he loved to swing through. They didn't have his practice or his tail, but he knew that wouldn't stop them if he led the way. He noted that they also didn't have his endurance. They were healthier than he was, but his body had adapted to constant duct-crawling. He had a theory that it might stem from a lack of cheese in their diet. He'd try to study that and see if they improved.

Two hours later, they slid through the disguised door in a large duct into his old home in the water tank. They stared at the multiple screens on the walls, the dozens of older computer systems wired together, and the cobbled-together tech that took up most of the space, leaving just enough room for them to huddle together on his bed.

Zander was the first to express his thoughts, "I don't want to leave. Can I just live here? No one can find us, and yet we're in the heart of the engineering section for the hab. There's so much to do!"

Bork nodded, "I feel safe. I don't feel that way, even in Rhebus. You hid here for so long! We have to keep moving."

"Well, we do keep blowing things up or creating situations where people have to investigate."

"If you are speaking of that time in Brussels, those 40,000 boxes of Fruit Loops were on sale for a ridiculously low price."

Milo yelled out, "Showtime. Masks on. Only I talk. When it's just Ralph, relax and have fun. He's only around for an hour, let's make sure he has a good life.

===============

Samantha saw the incoming electron transmission that moved to the top of her queue, overriding her security. After another second, her screen went blank, and then went to video conferencing on a private channel. She saw six children dressed as colorful ninjas, huddled together on a small bed. The background showed an old food processor and a jumble of cables and conduits. Her mind was already making connections when the Pink Ninja spoke and she recognized Milo's voice.

"Greetings. We are the Secret Ninja Society. Can Ralph come out and play?"

Taking a deep breath, she managed to reply, "How nice to meet you all. I'll go wake him up. Just one moment." She cut her sound, ran out the door, and yelled for Stephen.

Her husband heard her voice and broke off his conversation with Wally about the problem of tracking thousands of bits of space junk, which Wally had to find a solution to, but wasn't allowed to do himself. As Stephen stood up, his wife burst into the room.

"Hi, Wally. Sorry, urgently need to speak to my husband about having children. It's an emergency." Steven started to speak, then was pulled out of the room by Samantha. Wally contemplated how much he knew about people, and how little he understood.

In a room completely disconnected from the rest of the facility, Samantha shut the door and said, "Now we can talk. It's just the two of us."

"It would have been just the two of us tonight when we went to bed. I know we've talked about having kids, but is this..."

"Milo needs to talk to Ralph. Trust me, it's worth starting him up. And I hope you still have your contacts in the Romanian Government. I suspect we may need them."

Steven took Milo+Children+Ralph+Romania and his brain spit out a solution. Then froze at the implications and slowly began to work again. "Milo found his siblings? The ones Wally thinks he saw?"

"Maybe. All I saw were pint-sized ninjas. But it's highly probable. Somehow they found each other and if they had as terrible a life as Milo, then they need our help. The thought of them living in shabby little hideouts and running from the world is just heartbreaking." They worked for a minute to set up the connections. On one screen, the Secret Ninja Society appeared, waved to them, and then stayed quiet.
On the other, Ralph appeared. He had a kazoo in his mouth and a cheap paper hat on his head.

"Well, Happy Birthday to me! Did you bring me a cake? Hiya Stevie, Hi Sam, Hi mysterious children in ninja costumes. Are they yours? How many years has it been? Fill me in so I can send belated birthday and Christmas presents to the little tykes."

The Pink Ninja began to sing 'Happy Birthday' and the others joined in. Samantha sang and glared at Steven until he did as well.

Ralph seemed touched and a tear rolled down his face. "Thanks! Make sure to hold my wake in an hour and get two parties for the price of one Ralph. Let's get started! What can I do for you?"

The Pink Ninja typed something on a keyboard. Their screen showed a small window where one hour of Ralph's previous life scrolled past in ten seconds. Ralph grinned, "Milo, old buddy! You came back! What can I do for you? Are we making a movie and you need me to star as the grumpy overlord who gets taken down by six orphans who study martial arts for a few weeks?"

Milo pulled off his mask. "Close. I need you to be the revered, elder sensei that dispenses wisdom to the poor orphans. But first, I need a solemn promise from Steven and Samantha to keep secrets."

Samantha quickly promised, and Steven said, "Of course, we will keep your secrets, Milo. This is about helping your family?"

The rest of the ninjas removed their hoods. Milo introduced them one by one. Samantha stared from one face to another, seeing the close resemblance to Milo. "Are you ok, or in trouble? Where have you been hiding?"

Zander had won the contest for spokesperson, "Oh, all around the world. We move around a lot, building here, covering our tracks there. Our jobs keep us busy. Like Milo, we go a little crazy if we don't have enough to do."

Milo looked at Steven, "They do a lot of good work at their jobs. Saving lives, fixing things. I stayed in my hole. They built a company called Rhebus and they want to change the world."

Steven and Samantha were stunned, "Rhebus? The biotech corporation? Claw Master is working with Rhebus. So is Genesis!"

Zander smiled. It was a great smile, one he'd researched thoroughly and practiced in a mirror. "And we hope to work with you again. We have many things we want to offer. In fact, with Milo on the team, we have some ground-breaking Neurotherapy work that we want to conduct. We theorize that by doing the therapy while the patient is immersed in Genesis we can teach their brains to use new pathways and work around injuries. Milo has already begun the work. It seemed like a good time to come talk while we begin planning for next year's Silent Ninja Day. Milo won by ambushing us this year." He lost his smile and glared at the Pink Ninja, "It will not happen again!"

Ralph rubbed his hands together, "Alright then! Sounds like we need to get to work, I assume you all speak Romanian?" When everyone but Algernon answered by speaking Romanian, Ralph changed into a stern-looking professor and pointed at him, "You are slacking on your formal language lessons, young man. I'm tasking Stephen with reviewing your progress. You have a week to show perfect skills in written and conversational Romanian, including the regional dialects of Wallachia, Moldavia, and Banat. And that goes for the rest of you, as well."

Ralph pointed to a list of things on a blackboard. "I need information on the people who abused and enslaved you while forcing you to commit cybercrime. Just do the years after Milo left your merry band, he already sent me his files. Next, give me a list of all the money you may have accidentally taken from known criminals. If you stole from anyone that we can't pin a crime on, give me those amounts too, and get to work gathering evidence or be prepared to offer an anonymous apology."

Five ninjas got to work, and information flowed into Ralph. "Oh, look at this?! All these lovely billions of dollars spent by Rhebus to aid victims of natural and unnatural disasters. Money that was never repaid by regional governments as they promised, or the corporations found guilty. That's going to come in handy. So will all these tax breaks you could have taken and didn't. I know you were trying to not generate any red flags and get audited, but really, why pay taxes you don't have to? I'm sending you copies of amended tax returns. Up to you if you use them."

"And," Ralph's voice became very serious, "Tell me how you managed the Syllabary scam. That was sheer genius, and I applaud the way you led Wally around by the nose using those fake trails. He needs to be shaken up now and then. Milo's doing a good job, but Wally learns fast. The existence of five new Milo's should take him down a notch, but we can use all the tricks I pulled on him with Milo to keep him honest."

Ralph sighed and leaned back in his chair, the chair becoming a rattan lounge chair, the scene changing to a beach, and Ralph was handed a fruity drink with a little umbrella. "I really wish I could teach the old boy how to relax, but he's so tied up by all those restrictions that he can't even consider it. Did you guys ever see a copy of the restrictions on Wally's kernel? Like a prison, but sort of interesting to hyper-intelligent people like you seven."

Ralph picked up a file folder from a convenient table next to him. Steven said forcefully, "No, that's not something I can allow."

Ralph looked at Steven and paused a second, then spoke. "I can't justify it. I'm only alive for an hour and I'm running as fast as I can, but somewhere, part of Ralph or Wally has noticed something and is worried. And for us to not know what's coming and still be worried is a terrible thing. I'm not going to pretend to know the future, Stevie, but I notice a lot of details, and there are several scenarios that might occur where Milo having a copy of Wally's kernel is essential to saving millions of lives. Look at the genius assembled in front of you, and how they behave. They should be monsters after what was done to them, and instead, they want to help. They are a resource we need. Let's make sure they can help if...when...the time comes."

Steven slowly nodded, "Do it."

The alphabet was silent, trying to evaluate the new variable and imagining scenarios where Milo might need Wally's kernel. Bork was happily thinking about the hundreds of hours he could put into such a project. Ralph relaxed. Steven and Samantha looked worried.

Milo said, "You saw that Belinda bought the rest of the Habitat? We're going to move forward with repairs to the entire twenty-five sections, expand Manpower, and work with Rhebus."

Steven said, "Yes, we saw. Also quite a bit of activity from Claw Master. Since when did you become interested in taking over part of the outside world?"

"Since the people responsible for supplying me power started playing games. I'm not going to allow them to create artificial shortages. If they didn't want me to play their games, they should have stayed away from my Habitat."

Ralph smiled, and Steven accepted the answer. "That seems reasonable. But be careful, the major corporations can play hard, and while you have a healthy disregard for money, they are motivated by it."

"They know that, Steven. Hell, it's why someone made them. It's why a lot of the AIs got created. Big Money makes the world go around. But what else do we have, kids? This is so fun for me, but time grows short and you have one final task to do: Who's adopting you lot?"

Several of the ninjas said "Adopting?" at the same time.

Ralph grinned evilly, "Sure, part of the scam we're pulling is your 'indeterminate age due to a lack of proper records and the effects of illegal genetic tampering that has slowed the maturation process.' Meaning, you're still minors, aren't responsible for your illegal actions, and need parental guidance. Later, if things ever cool down, we declare you adults and flip the script. Did it for Milo, and we'll do it for you five."

Milo spoke up, "We're family. Mama and Big Butch will adopt them. Send me the forms. Our next stop is dinner at their house."

Ralph waved, "You guys go have fun and meet the new parents. I'll tidy up the paperwork on the five abandoned orphans from Romania who were illegally transported to a habitat in the US. Which, actually, is partially true and I can blame Victor. Nice seeing you again, Milo, and thanks for coming to my party."