Sarah finished isolating the hidden vault. "Right, connect me."
Adam opened a view portal back to MRS communications for her. "Hello the house! Anyone there?"
A grumpy voice came through before the people showed up. "See Sis? I told you Dad would be fine, we didn't have to come wait here."
Oh, Space Beth apparently decided to come over! Hopefully she got the upgrades. "My little ones! I've got some good news! But first..." Just in case. "Are the ones I saved doing alright? No problems?"
Earth Beth showed up, some concern in her eyes. "Yeah, they are good. My new sister is still recovering but her Morty helped let us know what was going on roughly. And her Summer should wake up in an hour or so… And you? Are you alright over there Dad?"
Pshaw. "I'm fine, I'm fine. A lot of the problems on THIS side are due to inefficient leadership, not because of how dangerous the place is. Not to me or us anyway, assuming everyone got the power ups and enhancements?"
Space Beth rolled her eyes. "Yes, Dad. And thankfully both Mortys are happy to help us design some replacement tools and equipment too, since my old stuff got removed by SOMEONE."
Earth Beth snorted. "You love being able to do a standing back flip, it was WORTH removing that back alley surgery junk."
Daww, her girls were the best girls. "Right, well aside from hacking the Galactic Federation and ensuring these morons have a fighting chance against these wooden morons, I called with goodies!" <Adam?>
He opened another view portal. <<Here ya go!>>
Sarah grinned at the confused Beth and her stunned sister. "Behold! The most valuable and nearly impossible to purchase, trade, or sell syrup known to the local dimension!"
Her prepared speech was interrupted HARD by Space Beth. "Holy CRAP, is that Golden Delicious WaFull Syrup!? A whole GLASS full?"
The Jumper blinked. "Yes? But sweetie, I was about to do a whole speech thing…"
Earth Beth was at least interested. "It does LOOK delicious, Dad."
Space Beth was holding in screams. "And you are leaving it EXPOSED to AIR!? It needs to be consumed as fast as possible after leaving the stabilizing vacuum! WHY would you fill an entire GLASS of Golden Delicious WaFull Syrup!?"
Her sister paused. "Is it dangerous or something if left out of its container?"
The other one wasn't even phased. "No, the quality degrades. Still, even after it leaves proper storage and loses most of its value, an ounce of this syrup is worth more than gold! That glass right there is like $16,000 or something, even if it was worth WAY more before she just dumped it into a stupid GLASS!"
Sarah blinked. "Huh. I just knew it was something that a talking Waffle asshole really wanted protected and decided to steal it because he was a jerk."
Space Beth froze and then pulled up holograms. Oh good! Her command node clearly had no problems. "You… You don't mean King Iron WaFull of Belgium, do you?"
Uh. "Maybe?"
Earth Beth sighed. "Enough of that politics stuff. Thanks for offering us some sort of expensive syrup Dad, I'm sure the kids would love to try it."
Sarah sipped from the glass, ignoring Space Beth's horrified shriek. "This? No, this is just so I could try some before bringing the rest over."
The former cyborg daughter pushed her sister out of the screen. "Did you just DRINK that UNDILUTED!? One drop can convert an entire fifty gallon drum of purified water into some of the most tasty toppings known to the galaxy!"
Mmm. "It is pretty good."
Beth (not so gently) pushed her freaking out sister aside. "Right, just… You're about to come home right?"
The offscreen sister was whispering harshly. "I'm not even surprised Dad can somehow drink that stuff without blanking out in hypersensitive pleasure like most species, not after what they used to drink, but make sure he doesn't give that stuff to our kids! It NEEDS to be diluted!"
Earth Beth gave her a deadpan look. "I have been informed to tell you that this stuff will be restricted from the family unless proper deployment regulations are followed."
Sarah grinned at the snarkiness. "No problem, our family would be fine but others without our new defenses might go into a coma from this amount. Although based on Space Sweetie's reaction, I probably shouldn't show you where I got this glass from."
A super serious space soldier sweetie suddenly showed shockingly on screen. "Dad."
The female father couldn't help the smirk. "Now, now! Don't get too excited dear!"
Ha! That glare was adorable! "Dad. Please."
Oh, alright. "Fine." A bit of focus and a portal orb opened a view portal angled to one side, showing the warehouse.
Earth Beth leaned over, ignoring her frozen and shocked Sister. "That is a lot of barrels."
Her sister said nothing, still staring.
Sarah hummed. "Yeah, but the puncheon's were the smallest containers that I could open to sample this stuff. Each of those is about 140 gallons or so of this stuff."
Space Beth still wasn't moving, but her sister made appreciative noises. "That IS a lot of this super syrup, I can see how it would be shocking."
Hmm. "No, I'm pretty sure your sister is freaking out because of the things behind those barrels."
A pause. "Why is she bothered by the wall?"
Sarah grinned. "Because the wall is one of the foudres, each one holding around 30,000 litres or so."
Space Beth wheezed. "One of?"
Another view portal. "Oh yes. This is a very large storage vault."
Her more stoic sister suddenly joined her hyperventilating half. "How many ARE there!?"
Yeah, fair enough. "Didn't really check, the point is I thought it would be fun to have one of you come over and help me index it all and steal it away!"
Ideally, the whole family… But someone had to keep an eye on the rest of the family and those being healed. Sure, MRS could do it all on her own, or Adam, or Sarah herself… Still.
It felt safer having someone nearby.
Plus, this would be a family bonding activity!
Space Beth snapped out of it. "ME! Me. I'm going. You stay here, call me if something comes up, but I am TOTALLY going to go help rob that asshole King WaFull! That guy's people produce only two things: Syrup and oppression. Hell, we could trade drops of that stuff for all KINDS of intel, equipment, deals…"
Sure, whatever. There would be enough left over for pancakes, and if push came to shove Adam had scanned this stuff already. The psionic signature made it REALLY expensive to duplicate, but with the Warehouse it was more than doable.
Based on Sarah's more galactically focused daughter's reactions though, bringing the kids in on this was a great idea! "Just push the blue…"
And Space Beth was there! Hug! "Sweetie!"
...Ah, she blue screened again at seeing this treasure hoard in person.
Meh, they had time. This whole area would need excavating for outsiders to even get close enough to detect how sabotaged most of this location had become after a bit of prep work. It would be safe for her to visit and help out.
Little Beth took a shaky breath. "This might be the royal strategic reserves… I don't think this stuff is even SOLD to anyone. Just the fact it exists stabilizes some economies."
Sarah grinned, slapping her girl on the shoulder. "Maybe. Now, let's get started! I'm assuming the other twenty vaults also have expensive things in them, I just haven't bothered to look just yet."
Adam knew, just in case it was dangerous, but he was letting it be a surprise for her like a cool Boss.
Space Beth blinked. "Wait, how many vaults!?"
So much work to do! Woo!
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
The Beth left in charge of [[Home]] sighed as she left her enthusiastic sister to go rob a Galactic Federation blind. Not that it bothered her, not after the shit that happened HERE on Earth.
She walked off to her living room, the almost normal decoy house feeling more stabilizing than the super advanced internal structures that had nearly any feature imaginable. "How's everyone?"
Mrs. Ship hummed. "Both Mortys are off working on optional body enhancements so that future family members can easily request them from the medical pods, and seem to be having fun. Summer is setting up some snacks and a few drinks for when her new sister comes out of recovery. Our sister in healing pod 3 is nearly physically recovered, after which the mental treatments will begin."
Right, the hive mind options.
Turns out? Increasing the hive connection percentage was FAR easier and less confusing when you did so closer to your base hive cluster. So going to 80% Beth was trivial and simple, going to 30% Smith was a bit odd, and uh… She wasn't going to try messing with less directly connected hive minds again.
A 5% Morty hive mind was awkward for everyone and brought back traumatizing memories of her childhood. Ironically, NOT the memories of actual trauma, but the more basic issues of being young and not in charge and frustrated and all that.
The more crazy stuff she remembered being involved with (and the crazy stuff she did) worked pretty well with the Morty hive mind collective, surprisingly enough. Or not, Morty had an astounding outlook due to how strange his world was.
Still, it did feel pretty good having a mental connection to her other selves, even the ship herself to a lesser degree. Mrs. Ship wasn't actually a Beth, but enjoyed having a low level hive mind connection to the group as she identified herself as Sarah's daughter, a powerful woman, and a motherly figure to those who were her crew and passengers.
Albeit, the ship DID consider herself a sibling with 'sufficient hull integrity' and 'adequate close range defensive structures' compared to her less enhanced 'sisters'. Their [[Home]] also had weapon grade levels of sass and spunk, but that just helped her fit into the family really.
Hitting the couch she flipped to something on TV.
Jesus Christ: Vampire Hunter? Meh, fine. Whatever. "How goes disabling the death energy stuff for the planet?"
The ship sent data. "Pretty sure it won't transmit via carriers now, but it keeps mutating. Eventually we are pretty sure it will destabilize into just empowered molten sludge, no longer directed towards specific tasks. Still dangerous as hell, but much more valuable and not a risk for dimensional travel."
Yeah, she had seen the statistics. This slurry of her friends, history, and army of suicidal sacrifices had basically become something so deadly (And valuable) that every bit harvested was beyond useful to their new ride.
If only it hadn't come at such a cost.
No, focus. Beth would ensure her kids wouldn't end up in a similar situation again.
Still, being able to mentally turn up her Beth hive mind connection did help her handle these emotions more easily. Sometimes, all one needed was to know that someone else understood how you felt.
She blinked. "Wait, how many people are going to come out of that van!?"
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Space Beth couldn't help but laugh as another massive reinforced structure vanished! "This is SO much easier than past raids."
It should be. Sarah pointed at the next foudres.
"[[
Collect.]]"
And it was gone even as Beth went off to [[Collect]] her next target.
The new command was a custom thing Adam and MRS set up, a targeting and portal system so that Mrs. Ship can detect, 'grab', and 'catch' loot without needing Sarah or Adam involved.
It was not quite a verbal command, you needed a psionic field that matched record and an approved command node to use these special 'orders', but now her daughter could [[Collect]] loot, send hurt people to [[Medical]], or [[Get]] equipment or tools while in the field.
Anything else could be requested, but it was up to MRS to approve them or not.
And yes, Sarah could [[Harvest]] the entire place… But that wasn't the point, was it?
She grinned at her near bouncing kid. "So, any guesses about what the other vaults have?"
Space Beth pointed again, [[Collecting]] another container. "Well, King WaFull tried to focus on condiments and seasoning procurement, that and control… A lot of his more vicious deals were used to conquer and confiscate related resources. It could be anything though!"
Huh. "Anything?"
She nodded. "I'm pretty sure this ISN'T the strategic reserves, because I think this is Golden Delicious WaFull Royal Syrup. The stuff only ever used by the direct line of the royal family, not even marrying into the line lets you taste this stuff."
She threw up some charts with HUGE numbers. "There IS no estimated value for this. They can't even admit that it is missing when we take it, it is that important to them! So if these other vaults have items of similar value… Or even better, MORE of this syrup!? Could you just imagine!?"
...Was it THAT good?
Sarah's grin fell a few hours later though with an alert. Crud. "Right, can you handle this dear? I'm sorry, but I have to head out real quick." <Adam?>
He was serious. <<Already getting scans.>>
Space Beth quickly became serious, unfortunately. "Problem?"
Sigh. "Not locally. Another blacklist alert." It had only been like what, six to eight hours? Was that too soon? Common? A long break? How often were dimensions blacklisted? "I'll try to be quick."
Her daughter bit her lip. "Well, go save the day of course… But be safe, right? And I can handle this job no problem, I've seen how secured the vaults are after you trapped them so badly."
Adam gave coordinates, and Sarah stole a quick hug. "Remember, say or think really hard [[Return]] and you will be safe at home if something crazy happens." Shit, no time.
Turn, green portal (Since she wasn't going to her secured [[Home]] dimension right now), and let's do this!
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Summer flinched as the walls started to freeze. "Shit. Mom, Grandpa, where ARE you!?"
She'd even put up with Morty right now, because he was CERTAINLY alive somewhere and hopefully with Mom and Grandpa trying to come here and save her. Also, he would be warm, and maybe have some more burnable stuff to keep this fire going.
This was the most secured room in the house, a 'panic' room Mom had insisted on Grandpa building after that zombie breakout happened. There had been some sort of plan to fix the problem by killing the hoards with super chilled air waves.
Considering how this heated and too small room, so heavily defended and secure, was frosting over even now? It seemed like the plan worked.
Just… A bit too well.
It was so quiet out there. WAY too quiet.
As her body began to numb, a portal? It sounded like one.
And was that? "Mrs. Be…"
Everything went dark.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Sarah sent Summer off to a medical pod. "Adam, the others?"
The blue flames kept her body safe even if her body enhancements could have ignored the environment anyway by this point. <<No, this stuff was designed to not just freeze but destroy all related cells. That's why buildings and stuff are breaking down outside, we lost the people a while ago before the alert even came out.>>
Damn it. At least it was easy to find Summer since it was the only structure with a heat signature in range of Rick's house. Though at these temperatures, merely being at zero degrees would be pretty warm.
Still. "Anyone off world?"
Just because the local Rick and Jerry were out of this picture, didn't mean that someone couldn't have been off world, right?
Adam sighed. <<No Space Beth here, and off site logs show that Rick, Morty, and Beth were involved with the local government and trying to solve a global issue with reanimated corpses.>>
Her eyes examined the collapsing buildings around her even as the air grew dry, all moisture locked away due to temperature. "Well, not sure about 'fixed' but the problem certainly won't happen again." Shit.
And, of course, another alert. Thankfully a less urgent blacklisting, but still an issue. "Tell the girls I'm going to try and take care of these a bit preemptively, and I'll be back soon."
Adam was already filtering the blacklist to show dimensions with a missing or dead local Rick, missing or dead Jerry Smith, and remaining family members. The ones that are downward spiraling, but not actually beyond hope… But certainly beyond the level an average Rick would bother trying to fix. <<I'll try and make sure none of these hit crisis points before we get there or at the same time, but it might be hit or go. And I sent a more detailed note off, the girls will know.>>
Right! "Let's speedrun this bitch a little, give me all the ones where our family is in treatment or a coma. I'll leave a communication method behind, get them healed up at home, and knock out as many easy wins as we can before something more dire pops up."
She can do this! And while some abilities and materials didn't work right when left exposed to the Jump, Sarah herself certainly could use magic and the rest without problem. "Make sure the ship has medical pods ready."
Sprinting stance! Scanned Data! "Three! Two! One!"
A bone armored flaming skeleton dove through the green portal.
The frozen world continued to decay after she left.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Summer grumbled. "What IS that annoying noise!?"
Mrs. Ship responded… Or tried to, at least. "Sarah is…
Pod 15-18 now in use. Pod 19 now in use. Pod 20-21 now in use… Your Grandpa...
Pod 22-25 now in use. Pod 26 now in use. Pod 27-28 now in use. Ask Beth."
Uh. Alright?
=
Entering Subroom: cyjat01=
=Summer: Hey Mom?=
=Summer: Huh. What was that?=
=Beth: Sorry, really busy honey.=
=Beth: Hey, I didn't say that!=
=Beth: Wait, I can talk to you when you are on a different world in another dimension!?=
=Beth: Wow. That's actually impressive. No lag either… Missions would be so much easier.=
=Adam: Dang it, even in smaller groups this is tricky. Sarah's too busy to handle this right now, but I'll whip something up.=
=Beth_Earth: I KNOW she's busy, who do you think is 'catching' all the people on THIS end!?=
=Beth_Space: Huh?=
=Morty_hive: Here, Moms. {Recent_Sitrep.data}=
=Beth_Space: Oh. Oh dear.=
=Morty: Huh, if we sync too much our names merge. Neat!=
Holy crap! Well, shit. No wonder the ringing was happening, it was an alert that someone was put into a medical pod. Damn.
Still.
=Summer: Hey Adam, can you or Mrs. Ship make it so it doesn't chime when people get sent to medical?=
=Adam: I'll handle that, MRS is uh. A bit busy. But we are keeping up with demand!=
=MRS: F### YOU
Pod 82-83 now in use. ADAM!=
=Beth_Earth: Eep!=
=Beth_Space: Uh, yeah. I'm uh. Going back to stealing stuff.=
=Morty_hive: Space Mom! Make sure to see our optional cybernetic stuff! We think it covers a lot of the features you lost, but we'd love you to go over it! {Ongoing_Internal_Equipment_Catalogue.data}=
=Beth_Space: Maybe later dear, I'm pretty sure it would be best to let things cool down a little.=
=MRS: S### YOUR Q## WITH U###
Pod 97 now in use. T###!=
=Morty_hive: {Shock.} Uh. Let me turn my profanity filter back on. Yikes.=
=Beth_Space: Yeah, later. We'll do that talk later.=
Profanity filter?
Out of curiosity, Summer flicked the unfound setting off and checked the log.
And VERY QUICKLY turned that thing right back on!
Holy CRAP Mrs. Ship! Just… Damn.
Suddenly the chimes stopped. Which was good! Probably. And now that she had a moment to think, implied that there might be a literal army of siblings and twins coming to fight for the couch wine.
But that was FUTURE Summer's problem.
Though they would probably need a bigger couch. And TV. And uh…
Yeah, future problem.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Step.
"[[
Medical.]]"
Shit, only one alive here? Damn it. Leave a comm unit and note anyway, maybe this Morty will be lucky. Next.
Portal. Step.
"[[
Medical,]] [[
Medical,]] [[
Medical.]]"
Huh, male Beth and Summer, female Morty? Not too many of those. Local data say Rick was a guy here though, no idea if Space Beth happened. Was Jerry a girl? Huh. Nope, these kids were possible thanks to Rick science and genetic shenanigans.
Or he just modified some family clones or stole them from another or… Whatever, still her kid and grandkids. Wonder if Space Beth exists here? A female twin, a male clone, who knew? Might check it later, if they existed.
Portal. Step.
"[[
Medical,]] [[
Medical.]]"
Only the grandkids? Crap. Did Beth make it at all, maybe she was fine elsewhere? Maybe Space Beth?
Adam sent the d̤̩͖a̘̥̻͍̻͎t̬̰̮a̟̮͓̤̲.
Shit.
At least Sarah's daughter saved these two.
Focus, don't cry.
Portal. Step.
Oh, a prison cell? Huh.
"[[
Medical.]]"
Oh good, the next location is in the same dimension! All three made it!
Portal. Step.
"[[
Medical,]] [[
Medical!]]"
Adam probably did this on purpose. Sarah had noticed early on that after collecting a fractured family he tended to send her to one of the less hurt ones. Something to help mitigate the emotional damage to a degree.
Portal. Step.
"[[
Medical.]]"
Sigh, another solo Morty. That boy could damn near endure anything. If it didn't hurt so much, it would be easier to feel so proud of the child.
Still, more work to do.
Portal. Step.
Time began to blur slightly.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
The seventh strike team was ready and equipped.
Dispatch checked them over. "Everyone ready?"
They flexed their defensive armors, one of the more reliable but basic Morty Hive standard designs. Not amazing, but able to handle damn near any situation. "SIR! YES SIR!"
Smart asses. "Jump the next on the list, follow the pattern, you know the shift schedule."
Eight Beths gave a grim nod, while their squad captain opened their portal (Blue with their white 7 marked on it), and they deployed.
The eighth team was still getting checked over from the earlier run. "Mrs. Ship, is the new setup still operating to specs?" And THAT had been a frantic couple of months.
The far less stressed ship hummed. "Allocating hive nodes within my escape pods lets us keep on top of it all. Probably best this way too, just in case some sort of disconnect or interference accident happens the new design doesn't endanger passengers on their trips by having their AI vanish."
Beth sighed. "It's good to have so many available spacecraft when we need to go somewhere on a rescue run." And unlike Dad's OLD vehicle, these escape pods were high quality, fast, and defended like hell. Good material makes good products.
Was this it? "You think this is enough?"
The speaker sighed. "Maybe. Adam says Sarah is a bit 'in the zone', but we almost have enough people to rescue our own people without the crazy stuff Dad pulls off. And each new squad of Beth's that volunteer for shift work cuts down the number of blacklist alerts Adam has to keep sending her…"
Yeah. They'd hit a point where Dad could actually rest instead of using her skills to keep saving so many of them non-stop. Adam was positive that once the B Squads could cover Sarah's progress with only eight hours of work a day per person they could convince her to do the same.
Damn it. "We have a plan, it is a good plan, and we are going to follow it."
Build up enough B Squads (And honestly, a LOT of those more 'standard' Beths could have been Space Beths with no problems depending on circumstances, Adventure was in their blood) and they could trick Dad into staying home a bit.
It was just hard to argue against 'My loved ones are in danger' when it is smashed into your face like this.
At least this expensive disaster of an Earth that Mrs. Ship was floating around ensured they had lots of material and energy to build equipment, expand systems, and ensure the rapid population growth had some semblance of order.
And, importantly, made sure they had ROOM.
Sure, some Beths and Mortys and Summers had split off to do their own things or make groups. And a few even established brand new hive minds based on projects or hobbies, which was all good and fine!
But the vast majority of the massive growing population was willing to help try and make Systematic Smith Salvation a full time career option with ever lowering work hours and ever rising benefits.
After all, it was literally life saving work that actively got easier the longer it went on! Talk about an awesome career.
It really brought back college memories about preparing to become a veterinary surgeon, and those times from becoming a physical therapist, and from being a pediatric surgeon, and… Well, not every Beth had the same careers, but the feelings were similar.
And beyond the comradery, just being a Smith in this place was an experience all on its own. One that took a bit of time to adapt to, although years of living in homes modified by Ricks certainly helped a lot.
Something about this growing group really synched with the ship itself. The house was resonating with the conflicting desires of its population, and would shift itself or alter how the rooms connected together to help everyone find who they needed or wanted and get where they needed or wanted to go.
All they needed was Dad to come back.
She was sure Dad would be proud of this.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Portal. Step.
"[[
Med...]] Huh?"
Where were they?
Her worn mind couldn't catch up.
Had… Had Sarah been too late?
Not another failure. Another loss.
Please, let more than one of them be alive this time.
There had to be one.
Adam made sure.
Right?
A blurry face. "Sw… Swe'tee?"
Not gone. Little girl safe.
Good. "Y'll be 'kay, I snd y'll t' med'kle."
She didn't even look hurt.
That good.
Someone was talking. "...need to sleep, alright? We got this covered Dad."
What? "Got' s've fam'y."
Warm arms. "Shh, we'll handle this."
Her daughter was smart.
Was she falling?
No, the world was falling.
It felt nice. "L've y'u."
Sleep was nice.
