Capítulo 45: Want a hug?
"We don't really have to go back to my room, you know, Dr St. Claire," insisted Alice after Lily started leading the girl back to her room upstairs.
Lily was just as insistent, "Yes, yes, we do. I've tried to make zhe calibration process much, much smoother zhan my own, but I assure you zhat it isn't something you want anyone to see, and being in your own place will be a comfort."
"Stop touching your face; you're just like a kid after they came back from the dentist. It will feel funny for several hours," Lily chastised her. The girl reminded her of her daughter from her previous life, a little bit. It was something that Lily decided she liked.
The Apprentice sighed. She seemed nervous for some reason. If Lily didn't know such things didn't exist, she would have expected to find posters of boy bands on the girls' wall or something. "Why is my hearing worse than before? Is that temporary?" asked Alice, somewhat worriedly.
Lily brightened at a chance to show off, as a proper Mistress should, "Ah, yes. I replaced your ears with digital audio transducers, which are powered by a very small betavoltaic battery which should last several thousand years. If you live longer than zhat, it will be up to you to replace it; I've included the blueprints for your skull and computer in your computer."
Lily coughed as she selected the sixth floor on the elevator, "In zhe normal operation zhey connect digitally to your computer, which zhen pipes the sound directly into your cortex."
"Wait, you replaced my EARS with a microphone?" demanded Alice.
"Well, yes. They're much better; you'll have better hearing than a dog does now. However, your ears are operating in a backup failure mode since it has detected your computer is not accepting its input. In zhis mode, it connects directly to zhe cochlear nerve, as normal ears do. But it is a little bit worse zhan regular hearing zhis way. Especially since they 'aven't been calibrated," Lily finished her explanation.
Alice stepped out of the elevator, but the girl was giving her a side-eye. Finally, she said, "I suppose that is part of my skull." Lily nodded, glad the girl understood. "But what if they get damaged? If my regular ears were damaged, the medichines and phoenix system would have repaired them."
Lily clucked her tongue and diplomatically offered, "Zhe medichines will still do minor repairs and maintenance. 'owever, the microphones are extremely ruggedized. I can't see any situation where zhe microphones would be damaged while you would live through it. 'owever, if you ever do need them replaced, either come see me or better yet learn how to do it yourself, no?"
"Oh," said the girl. Then she nodded, "Right."
After watching Alice perform what was obviously a coded knock on her door. After Alice opened it, she followed the girl in. It made Lily frown, 'Just how bad was this so-called orphanage if they have such codes and passwords even here?' It made her feel bad because the Apprentice and her siblings should feel safe. But, it was hard to change learned behaviours.
"Hi, Miss Lily!" exclaimed Alice's sister, followed by a similar greeting from the little boy.
"Hello Isis, Nick... how are your studies going?" Lily asked the kids. Lily was concerned about them because they couldn't really leave the building. Lily didn't even like Alice leaving the building, and Lily would trust Alice to survive a swarm of ghouls these days. Although she wasn't much older than they were when she became the Apprentice to a Doctor as they both fled Shanghai.
The boy was quick to reply, "Pretty good! And we all watch a movie almost every night. Plus, we get food anytime we want, so it's great, Miss Lily!"
Well, she supposed she was worried for nothing. She chuckled, "Which film are you guys watching tonight?"
The two children spoke simultaneously. Isis said, "Love Sets Sail!" while Nick said, "Last Stand at Fort McGee!" Then they glared at each other.
Lily chuckled at them. Alice turned to them, "Alright, gremlins. Don't disturb us for an hour or so; we're going to be doing some work in my room."
They nodded solemnly.
Lily did not notice it right away after being led into Alice's room, but it sure noticed her!
Hearing a hiss, Lily turned to see that damned white stoat lounging on one of the Apprentice's pillows like it lived here! It took her another second for her to realize that it DID live here! The creature certainly recognized Lily and didn't seem to like her any better than before. Alice hurried over to it and petted it to try to calm it down.
It allowed itself to be mollified, but Lily felt that it would begin hissing again if she moved any closer.
Narrowing her eyes, Lily said evenly, "Apprentice. Care to explain?"
Alice frowned, "He just showed up one day! He mostly spends time outside, but he likes me!" She looked like she was working up her courage before she finally said, "Sir Longius is my pet now, Mistress!"
The aforementioned stoat crawled into Alice's lap, and then sensing her distress, he longed out to his full length and even puffed out his fur, giving Lily a death glare as if he was ready to defend the girl from her.
Lily stared at the girl, and her pet FEV mutated stoat for some time before rubbing her temples and sitting in the other chair in the room, which was at the Apprentice's desk. Then, finally, she said, "Fine. But you're taking care of it. And it's to stay out of zhe way!"
Alice actually squeed in joy and said, "He mostly takes care of himself, Sir Longius does! Don't worry, Dr St. Claire, you don't seem to like each other, but I'm sure Sir Longius will warm to you. He even helps me keep the gremlins studying when they're supposed to. He's so smart."
Lily very much doubted that there would ever be any kind of civil relations between herself and this shitty weasel, but so long as it didn't try to bite her, she supposed it would be fine. It didn't look like an FEV mutant, more like an albino otter with a pug's face, so it wasn't like she was really at any risk for exposure.
She didn't think the thing would let her get within five feet of it, actually. So Lily pursed her lips, "Apprentice, when you can get a scan of it using zhe diagnostic scanner. A full brain scan, if you can. We can compare it to other stoats if we can find some."
Alice blinked, petting the stoat before she nodded. It was clear she was curious too. "Alright, what do I have to do? And why were you implying this calibration would be unpleasant?"
Lily explained the process and didn't leave anything out or try to sugarcoat it.
"Well, the first part doesn't sound so bad. I hope you're correct that the map of your senses as a starting baseline will make it much less unpleasant," the Apprentice said, a little unnerved.
Lily nodded, "I found zhis first process a little weird. It may take up to zhirty minutes, so I'll just work on another project. Are you ready?"
The Apprentice nodded and laid back with her eyes closed, so Lily connected to her computer, which was operating in safe mode and started the process of Alice's medichines to unspool tens of thousands of carbon nanotubes throughout the girl's brain.
Lily kept a progress bar in the corner of her vision while she launched the CAD software, which she had gotten ported over into the brain-computer. It was even more effective than when she used it on the laptop, except that it had a bit of a drawback. It rendered fully immersive virtual objects in front of her, and she had to manipulate them with her hands.
This means she looks like a crazy person when she was using it, grabbing, pinching, pulling, tapping and twirling something nobody else could see. However, she could work with the interface very quickly, so she didn't particularly care and just wouldn't use it whenever there were strangers around. All the projected virtual objects felt like a real object, though, with its own perceived weight and textures.
She was, of course, working on a prototype electrolaser pistol. She wanted to get a working model made and printed before she left. Also, possibly, a module for the arms of her robots. She was taking seven of them with her, as she expected there to be a lot of manual labour in Vault 108.
It would be nice if they had more self-defence options than whatever she had to give them to carry. The Protectron software had reduced accuracy with carried firearms and lasers. She had already detected that bug, but it wasn't an obvious fix.
She was removing the diamond in its manufacturing, instead using carbon fibre and metal reinforcement in areas. She had the idea to sell these weapons, potentially, and Lily didn't want anyone to know she could produce diamond materials cheaply enough that she used them for everything, with simple aluminium would have worked just as well.
It did mean she would have to build it in at least two parts and assemble it, but that was not a problem.
Lily hummed and used her hands and subvocalized commands to reduce the diameter of the diamond gain media and output coupler by over forty per cent. She just needed it to be powerful enough to ionize the air out to a hundred fifty meters. She didn't expect much use beyond that distance.
However, if she wanted to use this weapon as anything more complicated than a "lightning gun", she would require two laser beams, much like a regular taser requires two probes.
If she wanted to stun a person as a taser did, there would need to be two ionized plasma channels, one for the electricity to travel from to the person and another for it to travel back from the person to the taser.
Having a complete electrical circuit to and from the target was the only way you could use small levels of voltage and vary them electronically to create the incapacitation effect she was looking for.
Mentally, she saved her work and pulled up scans of the taser that Alice shot her with earlier, then working quickly with her hands to yank all the guts out until she was left with the electronics of the device, 'Way too big. I should be able to miniaturize all of this.'
Before she got too far into the project of reverse engineering the taser, a mental alert notified her that the process was complete with the Apprentice. Saving her work and closing the CAD program, she said, "Okay, zhat part is done. How do you feel, Apprentice?"
"Uh, fine. There was a few times where I felt a bit odd, though," Alice reported.
"Hmmm... yes, me too. I have my suspicions as to what generates zhat sort of feeling in this sort of procedure, but zhere is little way to prove it, so we'll just table zhat discussion for now," Lily replied. Lily handed the girl the diagnostic scanner, already set up in laptop mode and a small piece of paper.
Lily hummed, "Okay, Apprentice. After I begin the initial start-up of your computer, I will lose access to it. Listed 'ere on this paper is zhe initial password set so you can log in to your computer, as well as zhe list of commands to calibrate your senses. I have adjusted zhese commands to work consecutively, not concurrently as I did with myself." She couldn't help but shudder, which Alice saw and grinned.
But the girl tilted her head to the side, "You won't have access to my computer at all?"
Lily looked at the girl funnily, "Take it from my experience. People won't agree to 'ave a computer inside zheir brains unless zhey are zhe only ego in control of it and it only works for zheir own benefit. Especially one that 'as the potential to access zheir senses and memories." Lily shook her head rapidly.
"Even tyrannies where I come from know zhis much, usually," she qualified. Then she hummed and added, qualifying, "I am the manufacturer of it, so I can send you OTA updates, but even zhose will 'ave to be reviewed and approved by you before zhey can be installed."
Alice looked thoughtful before nodding, "Yeah, that does make sense when you say it like that...." she trailed off before asking, "Dr St. Claire?"
"Yes, Apprentice?" Lily replied.
"Would you mind sitting with me while I go through these sense calibrations?" the girl asked softly.
Lily smiled good-naturedly, "Of course, Apprentice. I'll just be sitting 'ere working on other zhings. It definitely won't be as bad as my experience, but it will probably take an 'our or two."
Alice nodded and then turned her attention to the laptop.
Lily sat back at the girl's desk before returning to her own work.
She got a lot accomplished before Alice finished, and it was pretty clear which sense the girl was working on by way of the exclamations Alice was making. For example, she was pretty sure the time the Apprentice gagged, she was calibrating taste/smell.
Lily kept an eye out, and while it certainly seemed a lot better than her experience, it didn't seem very fun, either.
"F-finally! It's all done. That touch sense was uhh... really painful, Dr St. Claire," Alice told her, eventually.
Lily stood, minimizing all her work windows before walking over to the girl. The Apprentice had been crying, and there were tears in the corner of her eyes.
Lily wasn't sure what the appropriate social response should be at first until she recalled a similar situation where her daughter was crying in her room, apparently having had her heart broken in some teenage drama gone awry.
Lily tilted her head to the side and decided to copy her own actions from back then. She held her arms out and asked gently, "Want a hug?"
Alice nodded, so Lily reached out and held the girl. That was weird; the sobbing increased in intensity! Was she doing this wrong? She gently patted the girl's shoulders as she considered.
After a while, Lily left Alice's room. There seemed to be something in her eyes, so she rubbed them.
---xxxxxx---
Lily looked at the prototype and considered it. She made such quick progress on the device that she didn't entirely trust it, but it seemed to work.
She ended up having to add a third laser onto it, except it was a low-powered laser range finder, so it barely took up any room at all, less than a laser pointer would. First, however, it was necessary to ensure that both ionizing laser beams hit the target, as at longer ranges, the beams tended to diverge slightly and had a chance of one missing the target entirely.
Now, the range finder would detect the distance to the target you were aiming at and correct the semi-steerable beams so that they both struck the target within ten or fifteen centimetres of each other.
It would also dynamically power down the laser emitter at close range, so it didn't set the victim's clothing on fire or give them second-degree burns when using the non-lethal setting.
The three settings available on the weapon were non-lethal, lethal and high-output. The non-lethal and lethal settings both worked somewhat similarly, in both lasers were utilized to create an electrical circuit with the intended target.
In the non-lethal setting, Lily copied the operation of the actual taser, and it should "stun" a human briefly, probably for about fifteen seconds. While the lethal setting used a much higher current and a sine wave of alternating current that Lily felt would likely induce immediate cardiac arrest in most flats, so long as they were struck in the chest.
The high output setting, however, only used a single laser to create a plasma channel and just dumped the entire capacitor bank into the target without trying to get any of the energy back. It was basically a "lightning gun."
Lily designed it for use against robots and machines, which she felt it would be very effective against or possibly large animals like Deathclaws, but she had no way of knowing just how effective it would prove to be against such monsters. It might kill one, it might injure one, and it might just piss one off. She wasn't about to hike up to Old Olney to test it.
The non-lethal and lethal settings were very energy efficient and rapid firing while the lightning mode was neither, but them's were the trade-offs.
She had to admit, the brief moment you could see the blue laser tended to be superimposed with an arc of electricity in whatever mode was used, which looked really cool.
[Alice: This is amazing, Dr St. Claire!]
Lily blinked. The girl had found the instant messaging features. Although considering this planet had such a dearth of connectivity, their networking was more or less ad-hoc, and messages and data couldn't be sent over farther than a few kilometres, it was still quite a useful feature.
[Lilium: Ah, you've found the IM functions, I see. Take a look at this.]
Lily opened her collection of digitized memories and considered them. She trusted the Apprentice. Otherwise, she wouldn't have given her a personal computer. She decided on a memory of when she was hiking up Pike's Peak during the spring in Colorado, selecting a number of clips and excluding her thoughts and monologue from experience using the sensorium editing tool she had made.
People in the future looked at minors experiencing raw sensorium with the thought track enabled the same way as people back in America looked at minors watching pornography. As in, it was taboo, so Lily edited all that out.
It wasn't so much because it was lewd; the taboo existed for purely G-rated experiences; it was that it was thought by the mind engineers that it was best not to contaminate a young mind with the thoughts of another.
She picked a total of a couple of minutes of incredible green trees, blue skies and a few moments where she was so high that the cloud deck was at her same level as if it was fog. She was sure it was something the girl had never seen before.
[Lilium: Sit down before you open this file.]
[ *** Lilium wants to send a file to Alice (Clip.xp) *** ]
[ *** File transfer complete *** ]
There wasn't any reply for a solid three or four minutes, presumably while the Apprentice played the experience file.
[Alice: Wow! That is amazing! That looks like one of the films of before the war, but better. Is this a real place? Where is it?]
[Lilium: It is a real place. It is a place called Pike's Peak; it is in Colorado. It's a mountain where the peak is higher than four thousand metres!]
[Alice: Wow. I definitely want to go see that place myself, someday.]
Lily chuckled a little nervously. She didn't think that the Pike's Peak in the Fallout universe was as green or blue skied as her memories, but that would be for Alice to find out herself.
She brought her mind back to her work. She needed to convert this prototype into a design to be manufactured, and she wanted to incorporate it into every robot's arm, even the old-style Labourtrons that she intended to eventually replace.
She would feel a lot better about leaving on her adventure if, in addition to the two Protectrons, Alice had the dozen or so Labourtrons with effective energy weapons to protect her and the hospital. It wouldn't be a completely wasted effort, as she might be able to incorporate them into a Protectron hand to give those robots either a less-lethal or an anti-robotic weapon option.
She also had to take some time out to discuss things with Tombs and to make sure her absence wouldn't adversely affect either their burgeoning water or power business. They hadn't started billing for power or radioactive water, but they were already making a considerable sum on selling purified water.
As expected, they were spending a lot of that on mercenaries and security to protect the water purifier and power substation, but what else could you expect in the Capital Wasteland?
Estado de energía semanal
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