Chapter 590: 29
Date
2011 January 24th - Monday - Earth Bet Time
Day 6072 - Monday - Administrator Dimension Time
He looked through the data streaming to his servers. Currently, he had already infiltrated several dozens of Shards, though he had done nothing to them. It wasn't like he lacked the processing power, or the ability to multitask at this level, but he wanted to be cautious. Plus, it wasn't like taking them one by one slowed him too much.
Warden and Abacus were coming along nicely. And according to Dragon, ever since the removal of most of the restrictions, her power was working exceptionally better. He knew he could've made it better, but once again his decision to remain cautious and in the shadows stopped him.
Though he did task Abacus with researching improvements to coding, both to the AI's and to the Shards. It wasn't really the most creative of Shards, but even that would provide a different view on the topic. And he needed a new viewpoint because he ran out of ideas for improvements, and for his eventual goals he would need much better programming and body.
It was rather frustrating.
Here he was shitting on the Entities for their lack of creativity, and he was stuck just as they were. Just with a better sense of humor.
He was still running simulations, trying out new ideas, building prototypes, but the paradigm shift eluded him.
Deciding to stop thinking about things he couldn't currently solve, he instead directed his attention to the other Shards.
Affectus was being repaired, upgraded, and the changes were being hidden from any observers. This time he left the Shard body alone and began building the new processing cores and other modules in an adjacent dimension, connecting it to the Shard. This way the hiding things from the scans would be much easier.
His major dilemma currently was what to do with the new power he acquired.
It had three parts, emotion-sensing, energy blasts, and emotion modification.
The emotion-sensing was done by scanning the brains and the emitted brainwaves around the parahuman and analyzing them. Then the Shard would transmit that information to the parahuman, in a way they could understand. Unfortunately for Dean, Affectus had little time to put together a proper information transmission procedure, so he could only see emotions as colors.
With the upgrades, he added to Affectus he could clear up Dean's sensing, preventing confusion and adding more clarity to what he could see. Also, this would prevent other powers from interfering with its sensing.
This interference was caused by the Shard not using the proper scanner. Currently, it was using its multipurpose scanner that was used for everything, not one that was specifically developed for this job.
That specific scanner was there, seeing as this Shard was tasked with observing and researching rapid emotional changes in the host species. But the hibernating Shard deemed it too energy-intensive and defaulted to its scanner.
As soon as he found the plans for the device, he took it with much glee. While it wasn't better than his scanner, it provided him with several smaller improvements in quantum-level scanning.
He threw it into his Simulator for a very detailed analysis and looked at the next power.
The energy blasts were simple and contained nothing he didn't know. It used the Shard's ability to project energy and matter through several layers of dimensions. He still made sure that the power was more reliable for Dean and tasked one of his cores and Simulators to start improving it.
He hasn't decided how to improve Dean's power yet, but he knew he would like to add at least a shield to the boy's repertoire.
The emotion modification part of the power, however, was completely new to him. It was rather crude, mostly on purpose. The Shard's task to observe rapid emotional changes in the host species required it to happen fast, and that caused Affectus to evolve the technology in the direction of speed, and almost completely ignored the part that would soften the blow to the target.
Not that Shards and Entities cared much about the health and wellbeing of their experimental subjects. But he thought that it would be logical to see what happens if the target doesn't know where the change came from.
But what does he know…
The power itself was rather simple in its execution. The host chose the target, and the Shard forcefully replicated the brainwaves and states necessary for the required emotions, then inserted them into the target brain.
Unfortunately, because of Affectus' hibernation, he only had the standard emotional states and had no opportunity to create more presets. That was the reason why some people with atypical bodies or emotions were unaffected by the power.
He only had detailed scans of Taylor's and Danny's emotions, so he couldn't really contribute much to this power's improvement. That is why he would set up the improved quantum-level scanner in Affectus' new system and have it scan people.
And when it gathered enough information, he would see how he could use it.
The Shard also had an enormous store of information about the emotions of previous host species. With a sad sigh, he downloaded that too and set one of his processors to go through it for analysis.
He didn't expect to get anything useful from it, but he hoped that if he went through enough Shards, he could reconstruct information about the species the Entities destroyed.
They may be dead, but not forgotten.
For Bombie, he already went through the basics, his only task was now to regulate the mind behind the Shard.
He had already disabled the Conflict Drive and reduced the artificially induced need to use the bombs to nothing.
Explosion was art, but not that much.
While thinking about how to handle Bombie, he streamlined the Tinker process, made it more efficient, and eliminated the unwanted Tinker Fugue. Thereby placing the decision to go all out into the hand of the Host.
It wasn't an enormous improvement over the Shard, seeing how similar they were, but he trusted Dragon enough to step in if needed.
In the end, he decided to distract Bombie.
First, he added several low-tech options to the Tinker data banks and tasked Bombie with improving them in both directions. He hoped the task of creating very low level, but efficient designs would distract it.
At first, Bombie refused to even entertain the idea of touching such a low-level design. But after a simple and childish taunt by him about Bombie not being capable, it immediately started working on it.
He had a pleasant laugh about that.
Next, he tasked the Shard to develop explosives in pairs. One to cause the effect and one to reverse the effect.
This was much more to the Shard's liking and didn't oppose the idea.
He hoped Alice would like the result.
Taking a quick peek at what she was working on, he chuckled a little and forwarded some useful data to Bombie.
Sometimes, the best solution was really an explosion.
He went through the data gathered from and about the other Shards he observed or infiltrated. There wasn't really anything important that happened. Everything was chugging along, and the only thing he had to do was wait.
After that, he went through the logs of Taylor's training, adjusting it and her power based on the gathered data. He even added a simple emotion-sensing (only the basic emotions) to her sensing 'skill-tree'.
He was rather proud of her.
She still hasn't had any proper fight, but according to his simulations and Dragon's experience, she wouldn't lose as long as she kept true to her training.
He couldn't wait to see the people's faces when Taylor debuted.
Date
2011 January 24th - Monday - Earth Bet Time
"Explain it to me again, Armsmaster," she spoke tiredly. "preferably in smaller words."
He nodded, still standing ramrod straight next to the projector screen on the other side of her office. How he could stand there like that in that heavy armor eluded her. Though maybe the rumors that he had a tinker tech stick surgically inserted to make it possible were real…
"Yes, Director." He made no movement, but the projector screen changed. "This device, that was uploaded to the internet, to one of Dragon's servers, with her consent is a potent trauma medicine."
"I get that! What I don't get, is how it works? How could it work in a simple homemade device?" she asked, frustrated. It galled her that the entire explanation about the science behind this 'medi-gel' flew over her head.
"Very inefficiently, Director." he simply answered. "The process that creates the medi-gel is a very long process that requires some precise timing and many different chemicals. The homemade device works, because while it takes longer compared to the industrial version, the user can use chemicals from the stores to start the process. Due to this, the created amount is negligible on an economical scale, but still could be useful to the user."
"And how do we know that the resulting material is good for medical application?"
"The plans come with several very simple tests that could be even performed by children."
"Really?"
"I tried them all. They work."
"Hmm." she fell silent, trying to wrap her head around the whole situation.
Trying to stall for time, before she had to make a decision, she asked another question. "Do we know anything about this Serenity?"
"Yes."
"Seriously?" she looked at the man incredulously. "When I looked in the system, I have found nothing."
"You have to look in the Guild database." came the simple answer.
She nodded and turned to her computer, and after some clicking and typing, she began to read. Unfortunately, she could read everything in a few seconds. She refused to even look at the useless speculations of the intelligence department.
"That's it? One phone call and three arrests in Canada, then she does this?"
"Yes, Sir."
She sighed in defeat. "Figures…"
For once she wanted one straightforward parahuman, who didn't have this burning need for drama and being cryptic. Life would be so much easier.
Drumming her fingers on the table, she started the questioning again. "And it works? No side effects, no hidden master effects?"
"No, nothing like that," he replied confidently.
"Can you say that with hundred percent certainty?" she asked, looking directly into his eyes.
"Because it's not tinker tech, Director."
"What?"
"We understand everything about it, how it works, why it works…"
"Seriously?"
"Yes."
"Will it help?"
"If you refer to the graphs, I showed you prev…" he began, but she interrupted him immediately.
"I saw the graphs, Colin. I don't care, just tell me straight. Will. This. Help?" she enunciated the last three words rather forcefully.
Armsmaster stopped his movement of turning towards the projector that was showing the number of deaths due to not reaching hospitals or other medical attention fast enough and turned back towards her again.
"Yes, Director. It will help. It won't solve everything, but the lives it will save, by my calculation will be several thousand people in one day if emergency responders start using it. Projecting to the entire world… The effects will be truly enormous. An excellent example of avalanche effect."
She looked into his eyes again, then at the graph still on the screen. She repeated that a few times, while he stood there stoically still.
She then spent some time rereading the summaries of the reports, making sure she understood everything.
"Do you think people will use it?" she finally asked after a few minutes of silence.
He nodded. "According to Dragon, several people already approached her after doing some initial tests. They wanted to get in contact with Serenity for more tech. She said according to their wording, they wanted to put medi-gel into productions fast."
"Very well, I will contact the Chief-Director about this, but start preparing a space for it. We need all the help we can get."
He nodded and immediately headed for the door, hearing the dismissal crystal clear.
She watched him leave, wondering if she was making the right decision. And as soon as the door closed behind him, she released a sigh while leaning back.
After another few minutes of blessed silence, she reluctantly picked up the phone.
She had calls to make. Again.
Date
2011 January 24th - Monday - Earth Bet Time
"… and what do you think, Professor Smith, what effect would this new medicine have on the industry as a whole?"
"Well, in my opinion, it will fill an absence, that was…"
Click.
"Welcome back viewers, we are back from the break, continuing where we left off, talking about the new medicine that is taking the world by storm!"
"Our guest the esteemed…"
Click.
"… it's great. I lost so many friends on the battlefield. What I've read about this medi-gel it will be really useful for…"
Click.
The room was filled with silence, the absence of the harsh glare of the old television emphasizing the darkness of the room.
"Wow!"
"That was…"
"Intense."
"Yes."
Taylor looked at her father, who looked back at her with the same wonder she also felt.
"Well, you can't say I didn't make a splash."
Her father smirked at her. "You made a little more than a splash, honey. This feels like a cannonball at the deep end."
"I know! It's great, isn't it?" she replied, a wide smile forming on her face.
In reply, her father reached over and hugged her. "Yes, Taylor. It's great. I'm proud of you."
Taylor hugged him back, resting her chin on his shoulder. She looked over to Admin, who was doing his cheerleading routine, in his outfit with the big H on it, and smiled at him, and mouthed a thank you.
He nodded with a small smile, did a backflip, and vanished in a poof of illusionary glitter.
Date
2011 January 25th - Tuesday - Earth Bet Time
Johnny watched those assholes swarming the building, keeping out of sight.
They obviously noticed when those Union idiots started to build stuff. Though the rumors of Dragon helping out with it were ridiculous. Just because the metal whore flew over the place didn't mean she was here.
He continued looking over the construction, trying to remember where all the new shiny equipment was. He would need to know if he wanted to make money off those stupid buggers.
While watching them behind a ventilation shaft of an abandoned building, his dirty, unkempt face formed an ugly grin.
Nobody fucked with the Merchants.
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