1 Stranger Than Fiction (Worm Tinker of Fiction SI) by Deus_Ex_Transhuman
Notice: As this is the first offical fic chapter I am posting this here too since many might ignore volume 0
After so many people never bothered checking or not even bothering to think how websites work I am forced to write this
first of all most of the questionable questing fics I post are in the nsfw creative works part of the site which requires you to sign up to the site so you become an offical member after that process that particular section opens up and no It does no ask money like patreon accounts of authors questionable questing is a free site you are given acces straight up after sign up process is done
note that after doing the inital signing up they will want a confirmation done so they will send a confirmation request to your gmail or whatever equvelant you have for me it was gmail you need to confirm that first to open up previously locked nsfw section
the same logic goes for alternatehistory.com fics where most of then I posted from is either from alien space bats or fandom sections so repeat the process
and second of all....
those of you who constantly ask me the links....
those of you that actually do no bother to even read beginnings of the chapters I post.... before I go to the fic part I sometimes give my own introduction of the fic than I give the word count and bellow that is the links.... always in each chapter there is the links around the begining of the chps you people who ask just never bothered to check it up...
for those who are wondering why I am adding dash to the links after chp 193 and onwards well apparently webnovel admins like scre wing over writers so they made that if a link is posted normally it will not appear this is what I had to come up with for it to work
Aside from all of this I am slowly posting this in ao3 too
^The Above Site One is no longer the case turns out ao3 admins can be sore losers who could guessed they would not care constant citation and links of original creators works and not taking credit for fics as still plagarism sigh
Summary: A very good transhumanism fanfic that I enjoyed right now taking place only in Worm though the fic might branch out to other universes as time passes. MC has the tinker of fiction power, which allows him to obtain the tech base of other universes. Luckily, unlike most Tinker of Fiction users, he is no fool, so he immediately creates a memory data transfer machine to store all the scientific data and tech knowledge his power gives. This way, whenever his tech base switches, he does not really lose the tech base, unlike all the other Tinker of Fiction users. If you like and know the works of The-Black-Aengel-Mrk7 You will definitely like this. Expect transhumanism and eclipse phase themes.
Words: 103k+
Link: https://forum.questionablequesting.com/threads/14963
chp1
Disclaimer: I own jackshit
AN: Ok, so, I was trying to work on the next chapter of my other stories, but that was getting nowhere fast, since this idea kept bugging me after reading one too many Tinker of Fiction fics. So, I decided to write this and see how it turned out, something that seemed to involve a lot of exposition within this first chapter, but I figured that might be alright, since it sets the scene after the initial events have already happened. Still, hope you lot enjoy it, and tell me what you all think!
I walk through the door of my small apartment, water dripping onto the floor as the bag I'd been holding drops to the floor with a heavy Thuck! as I turned and pushed the door closed, locking it a moment later. Taking a step back, I paused long enough to allow an explosive sigh to escape my lips as my shoulders slumped in partial relief. Absently, I pulled my backpack free from my back, slipping it from my shoulders as I took it by the handle. My free hand reached up, pushing my jacket hood back as water cascaded down, soaking the cheap carpet under me feet as I kicked off my boots, not even bothering to untie. Taking a breath, I idly picked up the bag I'd dropped to the ground before marching further into the apartment, entering the joined living room/kitchen space before I put both bags on top of the small table off to one side. With both hands free, I took a moment to unzip my jacket before hanging it near a door and pressing the light switch as I glanced to the window on the opposite side of the room.
It was half obscured by a curtain, but the heavy downpour of rain was plain to see, pounding on every surface as the impacts reverberated through the entire apartment. Through that, it was just barely possible to see the high rises that were scattered within the field of view I had, the roofs of some smaller buildings just barely in view as the dark grey clouds loomed overhead. It was a gloomy sight, one that reminded me of where I was as I sighed again, less explosively this time, before taking a seat at the small table. Pulling the plastic bag closer, I upturned it and emptied it out on thick mat I'd left out on the table's surface, revealing several thicknesses of metal rods, a few pieces of sheet metal, and a few bits and pieces I'd picked up from a DIY store on the way back. Standing, I did some quick mental math as I considered the different materials, trying to decide how best to use them as I walked over to the window and pulled the curtains completely closed. Absently, my hand traced to one side as I felt for the switch hidden by the overhanging fabric. Pressing it, I felt my lips twitch up for an instant as my ears picked up the quiet buzzing that was now coming from the window as the sounds of the outside world faded to nothingness while my eyes glanced a small bookshelf off to one side. From where I stood, I could easily make out the title of the first book on the top row, the title shining it gold as I spoke the words aloud to myself.
"The Lays of Ancient Rome…" I whispered aloud, the words causing tension to uncoil in my gut as a small smile bloomed on my face, the pressure of the moment undone for a time. With that said, I stepped forwards, walking over to the small bookshelf and reaching behind it, fingers finding a small latch and pulling it upwards as an object is ejected into my hand. Feeling the weight was reassuring in a way, especially given the situation I had rapidly found myself in as I walked back to the table, taking a seat once more. Hands moved automatically, slipping the object over one wrist as I moved before taking a look at it as I sat down, a thick, bulky wrist band of segmented metal, coated in a non-reflective black paint that would have let it disappear into any shadow.
Somehow, seeing it made it all just seem… Real…
Two weeks.
That's how long I'd been here. Two weeks since I'd been taken from my home, my life, without even a by-your-leave or a message to say what the hell was going on. I'd literally been just leaving the toilet and, between one step and the next, found myself standing in a completely alien cityscape with nothing but the clothes on my back and whatever I had in my pockets at the time. No ID, no form of identification or anything, and I'd been dumped in some back alley with both walls half-obscured by rubbish bins, and several ripped bin bags that looked about ready to come pouring down. It had only gotten worse when I found out where I was now located, not helped by the sense of vertigo I'd been feeling the entire time as my world was flipped and the rug was pulled out from under me.
That first week had not been pleasant, as I searched for sources of income and a way to try and survive, only managing to do so thanks to a bit of research in a local library, my new capabilities, and more than a bit of luck on my part. Combing the local beach and a bit of dumpster diving had let me find a few odds and ends to sell, giving me enough money to survive, to have a chance to establish myself. It had given me a chance to rent the apartment that I now lived in, and to get my feet under me once more. To hit the ground running, as it were.
Something I'd need, since Worm, and especially Brockton Bay, was not the most forgiving of places, even on a good day.
With that thought, my fingers twitched as I watched the semi-transparent, orange shapes flicker into existence, forming a gauntlet around my hand and forearm as my free hand moved up, tracing over a holographic keypad as it formed to go with a screen that materialized above my forearm. Another twitch of a finger caused an program to run, bringing up images of simple clockwork devices and small trinkets as a beam of light shot out of the gauntlet, tracing over the materials lying on the table top.
It wasn't much, but it would be enough for a few things: Wind-up music boxes, simple wind-up cloaks, a few small sculptures of various designs, and at least one spring-powered crawling toy from this lot. Not much, but it was always nice to top-off my inventory just to make sure that I didn't run out anytime soon, especially with them selling rather well at the moment. Tourists loved them, and more than a few children had begged their parents for one after being entranced by the little things skittering around or playing simple tunes. It wasn't glorious, but it paid well enough for the moment. That would probably change, come August, when the schools went back in and Summer ended, but that was still a while off yet.
Still, it was always a good idea to think ahead, to hope for the best, plan for the worst and make every contingency plan with the understanding that things will start to go wrong immediately, if not sooner. That was how things seemed to work in the Worm-verse, and I honestly didn't expect that to change just because I had appeared in it. In fact, I fully expected things to go wrong for me at some point down the line, especially given my power, never mind my specialty.
Then again, no ever said being a Tinker of Fiction was easy…
Over the last two weeks, I'd rapidly learned that being paranoid was, quite possibly, the only thing that was going to keep me alive and/or independent from any of the groups that might want to 'recruit' me. I'd already known that fact, but my online searches had further highlighted it as I found a thousand and one horror stories of young Tinkers, freshly Triggered, being press-ganged into one group or another. The methods varied from group to group, with some using more carrot than stick, others doing the opposite, and a few using a balanced approach that seemed to work rather well. Still, even the most seemingly benign offer carried a hell of a lot more strings, and chains, then I was entirely comfortable with, something not helped by the metaknowledge I had crammed in my skull. It didn't help matters that there were online guides to spotting Tinkers, and the SOPs of a lot of hospitals, nationwide, was to call for the PRT and Protectorate the moment it was discovered that a Parahuman was present in their facilities.
The fact that, in Brockton Bay, the local PRT were about as secure as a sieve was to water thanks to how many spies and moles filled their ranks, didn't help things either. So, the moment they found out a new Parahuman's identity, I didn't doubt that other groups would find out in very short order, with Coil being the first to find out thanks to his power, methods and just how compromised the PRT's computer network was to him. Mind you, I didn't even know if I counted as a Parahuman, since I didn't even know if I had a Corona Pollentia and Gamma, but I didn't plan to try finding out through any publically available methods.
The only good news, I'd found, over the last two weeks had been in relation to my Tinker power and my current situation.
For the first, I'd already discovered that I was a Tinker of Fiction, meaning that I could recreate technology from whatever game, movie, book or any other source of media that I happened to specialise in during a given timeframe. Though, that wasn't entirely accurate, since I'd found myself able to replicate a lot more than just technology, something I'd found out by accident during my first week as I faded through crowded areas like I'd been doing it my entire life. Theoretical knowledge, training, muscle memory, and the instincts that only came from a life time of experience had all been transcribed directly into me from just a few days of making use of those same skill sets. The fact that my first specialty had been Mass Effect had been both a blessing and a curse for a number of reasons. A blessing, since the skill sets I'd imprinted into myself gave me the skills of an experienced Infiltrator and Engineer, and access to a lot of tech that was at least a century and a half ahead of the current techbase. And a curse, since it meant that nearly every single piece of tech I could make required me to use Eezo to make it, something that required me to build a miniature particle accelerator to even have a chance of doing so by replicating the conditions of its creation.
Building that particle accelerator had been nerve raking, since I fully expected the PRT and Protectorate to come crashing down on me at any moment, despite the fact that I had shielded the thing as heavily as I could. The device itself had been a Synchrotron-based design barely a metre in diametre, powered by a half dozen half-full car batteries that I'd managed to… Acquire and controlled by a reprogrammed laptop that I'd fished out of a dumpster, one that had clearly seen better days. The process to make even a single gram of Eezo had taken hours due to the inefficiencies of my jury-rigged Synchrotron, a time I spent in a state of hyper-tension. I'd spent most of an entire night like that, with a hand gripping a handgun and perpetually holding my breath as my eyes roamed the inside of an abandoned warehouse, the only source of light being the laptop screen with its brightness dialed as low as it would go. It was only when dawn came that I'd packed up and left, doing my best to leave as little forensic evidence as possible behind me, but happy with the two and a half grams of Eezo I'd walked away with.
Those two and a half grams had allowed me to make my first Omni-tool, which had allowed me to then make several improved iterations in rapid succession, along with an Omni-Foundry, which was just the fabrication module of an Omni-tool, but scaled up enough to be used for larger projects. An improved, better shielded, Synchrotron had rapidly followed after the creation of the Omni-Foundry, being my first priority, along with Optronic-Eezo-based computer nodes, managed by multiple independent VIs, to improve my production of Eezo. After that, I'd looked into personal equipment and had given myself a tactical cloaking module for one of my most advanced Omni-tools, a few Mass Effect weapons, some Tech powers, and a non-intrusive neural interface system. That last one was probably one of the most important ones, since it had let me transcribe a lot of information into a newly built, hardened, Optronic computer node, kept separate from everything else. Scientific principles, engineering guidelines, biological information, training techniques and methods, anything and everything I could think of was streamed from my mind to that computer as a failsafe in case I ever needed to start over.
Admittedly, at the time, I didn't know I was a Tinker of Fiction, but I didn't want to take chances and had wanted to ensure that I could do so even if I suddenly lost my Tinker-intuition the next day. Again, at the time, I'd thought it was entirely possible, since I'd gone through the entire week with a timer clicking away in the back of my mind, and next to no idea what it could have meant. However, when that final day had passed, and I'd felt it click over, I'd found out what it meant.
Namely, it had been a timer for the minimum amount of time I had to keep a specialty before I could roll the dice for a new one, with a second timer appearing in the back of my mind for, what I believed to be, the maximum length of time that I could keep one, which stood around three weeks. It hadn't really hit home that I was a Tinker of Fiction until after I'd pressed that big mental button that had appeared in the back of my head, my intuitive knowledge of Mass Effect-tech mostly disappearing before being replaced by something else. I say 'mostly' because it wasn't all gone. Anything related to the devices I'd built remained, lingering even as the new knowledge settled in, mingling with the information I'd retained. That mingling was how I'd discovered my new specialty, confirming that I was a Tinker of Fiction as words like 'Arcanotechnology,' 'D-Engines' and 'Engles' floated through my mind, much to my horror.
You see, having access to Mass Effect technology, for all the initial problems it had given me, along with the inability to access anything beyond the 'current' Cycle's technologies, it had been relatively user friendly, so long as you followed the proper procedures. Something not shared with my new specialty, which had a tendency to drive researchers batshit insane if they tried developing new technologies. Thankfully, once developed, the new technologies were relatively safe to use and produce, something I was grateful for, since I had access to several finalised blueprints that I could work with. That was the only saving grace, the only thing that preventing me from having a mental breakdown the moment I realised what my new specialty was.
Such was the nature of the Cthulhutech RPG and the horrors that existed in that particular universe.
Still, even that didn't detract from what that universe had to offer, such as the unlimited power offered by Cascaded D-Engines that drew on extra-dimensional energies to power anything connected to it and Nanofactories or various sizes. This also came at a good time, since by that point, I had found out enough to establish a legal identity for myself thanks to the particulars of the Worm-verse, hence, the second piece of good news.
Turns out that, in Worm, it's actually a rather common thing for people to be presumed to be dead, only for it to be discovered that they are still alive. In fact, it wasn't uncommon for some Villains to come along and blast entire settlements off the map for one reason or another. The Slaughterhouse Nine were the most well known example, where they cleared out entire communities in the space of an afternoon in a fit of boredom, but they were far from alone. As a result, the process for reintegrating S-class and A-class refugees back into society had been streamlined, something that made the government happy since it meant less people falling off the grid, where they couldn't be tracked and monitored. Through online research at a local library, I'd found several examples that had happened years ago, where victims were still showing up every once in a while, years later. Still, it was a grim subject, and I'd only really looked further into it out of morbid curiosity as I'd collected enough information to make things work.
In the end, I'd chosen to be counted as one of the few surviving victims of an absolute nutter of a Villain calling himself The Mighty Messiah, who had appeared out of the Midwest of America, claiming that he would unity mankind under a 'New World Order' and led them to salvation. The nut had the ability to extrude some kind of liquid that could master anyone that drank, or touched, it, giving Messiah instant access to their minds and memories. He'd taken over a dozen small settlements that way, turning the local populations into his soldiers after sharing the memories and skills of several retired soldiers, some of which had been Special Forces before they'd been discharged during one of the latest rounds of budget cuts that had sapped money away from the armed forces, and towards the PRT and Protectorate. With his Mastered army, he'd taken a month to put them through enough boot camp to get them into shape before launching his campaign of conquest.
By the time anyone in power realised what was going on, Messiah had managed to take control of Alabama, Georgia and at least half of Florida. Armed conflict broke out as the National Guard got involved, with a lot of people dying on both sides. The fighting lasted for three months, and it wasn't until the last week that people realised that they were fighting Mastered victims, resulting in Messiah getting a Kill Order and then being killed in short order. His victims had been freed, but many had been haunted by the memories now rattling around in their heads, or the actions they had committed while under Messiah's control. More than a few committed suicide before anyone could stop them, while others just disappeared, only to reappear years later with their minds still a mess of conflicting memories. Some had even reappeared with next to no memory of what had happened to them, but with enough skills and muscle memory to make a SpecOps soldier green with envy.
It worked for me, especially since it helped to cover for the skills, muscle memory and reactions that had been imprinted into me, if they were ever exposed. Even if the stipulation to see a Therapist was a bit annoying.
After that, it didn't take long to get the rest rolling. Some money slipped to my landlord had him cheerfully backdating my presence in his building with no questions asked, while a quick trip to the local Post Office let me rent out a PO Box for the year. From there, I'd headed for the local Human Services office to get the ball rolling on my new identity. A few hours later, I had been able to walk out of the building with a wide range of IDs and documents, having registered under the name of Nathan Smith, biological fifteen years of age and legally emancipated, along with being registered as a sophomore at Winslow Academy. That last part wasn't something I was sure about, since I'd been in university before finding myself in the Worm-verse, but decided to go with it for now. Worst come to worst, I could always drop out and go for a GED. However, I'd hold off on that until I was sure, since being at Winslow gave me a chance to meet Taylor Hebert and get her measure. Still, there was another month before the schools were due to go back for the next academic year, so there was time for me to change my mind. With that done, my last two destinations for the day were to the local bank and city hall, to setup a bank account for myself, and get the needed business license to start up a small business.
As a result, I'd started my first week in Brockton Bay with nothing beyond the clothes on my back, but I'd started my second week with a roof over my head, a place to sleep, documents to show I existed, a source of income, and a good foundation for my techbase to grow from. Now, at the end of my second week, I had grown that even further, with my business booming thanks to the uptick in tourists looking to see capes, but finding my little shop along the way. My bank account was slowly filling with more income and I had even managed to put together a website that people could order some of my clockworks through. The wind-up music boxes, I'd found, were especially popular thanks to the sheer number of different ones I offered, each playing a different song. A big part of it was, I knew, the sheer novelty of it, but if that made me money, then I was happy to keep doing it.
Waking up had never really been a problem for me. On the contrary, I tended to wake up too early, but that little habit had proven to be useful more often than not. However, thanks to the skill set imprints I now had in me, my wake up time had become a lot more predictable as I woke up every morning, regardless of how late at night I'd fallen asleep at, at half past four in the morning. It was exacting, in that I'd wake up at that exact time, without fail, and I'd feel fully rested and ready to go.
Still, it didn't stop me from having a nice cup of Coffee to help get me going in the morning.
Taking a seat at my table, I glanced over to the fridge in the Kitchenette, my eyes tracing over the calendar held to it by a fridge magnet as they honed in on a particular spot that I knew was today: Saturday, 24th of July. It was outlined in red felt-tip pen, the word 'markets' written next to it and underlined several times, as if to illustrate just how important that one word was. Not that it wasn't true. Today was very important, for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that the minimum time limit for my Cthulhutech specialty would time out in a few hours, and I'd be able to roll the dice for a new specialty in short order. Not to mention, the Lord Street Market was due to open for the weekend, along with half a dozen other flea markets that I'd discovered in my time in Brockton Bay, scattered across the city. They were places you could buy just about anything if you knew where to look, and people would rarely look twice about it.
That didn't stop me from being as paranoid as possible, knowing that one fuck-up could easily have all three major gangs in the city, along with the PRT, after me in various attempts to 'recruit' me. For that reason, I tended to take multiple trips to the markets on a given day, each time altering my appearance enough to make me look like someone else. Fake glasses, hair dyes, fake spots and freckles, coloured contact lenses, different clothes, altering my walking style and the way I held myself, and altering my way of speaking all worked to help reduce the chance of being recognized. Paranoid, perhaps, but I didn't want to be just another statistic that the PRT and Protectorate could point at, proclaiming that I was yet one more reason why young Parahumans should sign on with them. For that reason, I'd practiced the transition into each persona until I could slip into them at the drop of a hat. Admittedly, I might have been taking my paranoia a step too far, but it was something I was willing to accept if it prevented me from being turned into a Tinker-slave chained to a workshop and forced to pump out any number of devices on command.
It probably also helped that I was quite happily avoiding a lot of stereotypical Tinker behaviours by buying materials and parts from Flea Markets, Garage Sales, Salvation Army stores, and anywhere else that people bought and sold vast amounts of random crap. I'd actually checked, and found that most Tinkers slotted into one of three categories of behaviours that had long since been identified. The first category were basically like cockroaches, scavenging for anything they could find in dumpsters, junkyards, scrap yards and other locations like that. The second were those that tried to steal materials from the warehouses that stored them, or right out of the factory. And the last were those stupid and/or desperate enough to try to buy the stuff they needed from suppliers, in bulk. Keep in mind, most of the ones that followed these kinds of behaviours, especially the last two, didn't last long before they were 'recruited' into one group or another, while the first category had a more even spread.
Still, I found the lack of any Tinker just buying their materials from a Flea Market for cash-in-hand to be rather strange, but I wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth if it meant sliding below everyone's notice until I decided to move more openly. It wouldn't stop me being carefully paranoid about things, but the lack of receipts and the use of cash payments would definitely make it difficult for anyone to try tracking me based on what I bought. Not to mention, that some of the buying and selling habits of the people who came to these places would have probably made even the most demented Tinker look impossibly sane, by comparison. And, by that same metric, my own purchases were fairly tame, since I had yet to draw even a single raised eyebrow from other buyers or sellers in those markets, even when I left with a trolley filled with materials that ranged from circuit boards and spare parts, to sewing kits, a dozen crystal geodes and individual crystals during one of my trips under a single persona.
It was with that thought that I finished draining the rest of my Coffee, putting the empty cup down as I headed back into the depths of my apartment to get showered and changed. Even with dawn just under an hour away, there was still plenty of things on my to-do list that I wanted done before the minimum time elapsed on my current specialty. Chief among those tasks was to ensure everything I knew was properly backed up to my chosen Optronic hard drive, since there were a great many things that Cthulhutech offered that may come in useful further down the line. At least, assuming I found a way to deal with the various insanity-inducing hazards that came with it, since things like Para-Psychic techniques, Eldritch Magics and Arcanotechnology were simply too useful to ignore, even with the risks involved.
Dawn had long since come when I finally reached my lair, being yanked up from the street and being launched into the building by the entry system I'd installed, hidden in one of the many abandoned buildings that cluttered the Docks. Back when Brockton Bay had been a thriving port city, it had been a store house for spare parts, tools and materials that could be used elsewhere, to make anything needed to keep the boats, ships and trains running as required. Even run down and abandoned as it had been when I had first found it, it was still possible to see the remains of a Steel racks, having collapsed due to rust damage as wooden shelves lay scattered around, rotted from exposure to the elements. Time had taken its toll on the place, reducing equipment to rusted ruins just as much as the environment had, with decently sized holes having been worn into the rooftop after a dozen slates had been broken loose. It was only thanks to the heavy stonework that made up the building's bones, and the thick Steel support beams held up the roof, rusted in places, but still going strong.
However, despite all that, it still had everything I had wanted in a lair. It was in a remote part of the Docks that saw little in the way of activity, with thick walls and no easy way to access the two-story building that wasn't bricked over or blocked by another building. Along with that, the place had been filled with materials that I could recycle and reuse for my projects as I slowly smuggled my equipment into the former store house in the dead of night. Once that had happened, I'd begun renovating the entire place, using VI-controlled Omni-Drones to create internal structural bracings out of Omni-gel before using them to cut the rust out of the supports of the building, replacing it with fresh materials. Anything rotting or rusted had been thrown into my Omni-Foundry to be broken down for more raw materials as the roof was patched up by a small horde of more VI-controlled Drones.
A camouflaged access point was built into the second story of the building, disguised as a still-intact window and configured to create a Mass Effect tunnel that would yank me in at high speed before rapidly closing, arresting my own acceleration in the process and preventing me from going Splat! against a wall. Originally, it would have only opened if I entered the correct five hundred and twelve character passcode using a Laser-link from my Omni-tool, generated from a synced mutator program that ran on both my Omni-tool and the internal computer of my lair. However, since then, I'd improved the security of my lair significantly, especially after getting access to Cthulhutech.
Now, the entry code made use of characters taken from all five Occult Languages in CT, along with a mixture of ME alien languages, and had been lengthened to two thousand and forty-eight characters, with a salted value added to double that length even further. A sensor grid had been emplaced around my lair, using a mixture of ME and CT designs, extending out for at least two kilometres in every direction, that would ensure that no one got within line of sight of the entry point while it was in use, never mind approaching my lair unnoticed, cameras included. Hidden weapon emplacements were built under retractable covers, both inside and outside, and I'd used a Drone work force to embed armored plates into the walls and roof of the building itself overnight.
It probably wouldn't stop someone like, say, Alexandria, or some of her friends, but it would slow down, or kill, just about anyone else stupid enough to try attacking me in the middle of my lair. At the very least, it was miles better than nothing, so I'd take what I could get.
As such, I actually felt rather proud of what I'd been able to build as I walked down the flight of stairs from the lair access point, which had once been an office, to the main floor of the building where most of my equipment was. Workbenches and computer terminals clustered around server-like Optronic nodes in one corner with several tool benches moving out from there, a collection of chairs sitting in the middle of it working as my own office-like space. Another corner was dominated by the various washing machine-sized Omni-Foundries and Nanofactories that lined the wall, each connected by thick cables bound to the floor to the main Cascaded D-Engines, looking like segmented cylinders that pulsed with a faint green light, were stacked on the opposite side of the room. Backup Cascaded D-Engines were tucked away in several places, out of sight and armored against a crippling strike. Finally, in the last corner of the room, was my expanded Eezo production setup, formed from five, two-metre wide Synchrotrons stacked on top of one another, each linked to a storage vessel and each powered by an independent Cascaded D-Engine.
Reaching the ground level, my eyes glanced around before focusing on the office space I'd setup in the far corner of the chamber as I watched Drones floating around the chamber above me, carrying packages around before dropping them off on a desk near the my office. A quick glanced showed that they were all ready to be delivered, stamps already applied with names, dates, addresses and postcodes written on them in neat, clear script. The entire process was one I'd long since automated, only requiring me to post the various packages, after I'd connected a VI to my website and set it to automatically package the needed item, if it was in stock. If it wasn't, then one of my production devices would restock that particular item after a week, give or take a few days, to make it seem like I'd managed to make more.
Moving passed the growing pile of packages, I reached my Office space as my foot hooked on the base of an office chair and dragged it over, letting me fall into it as I pressed my hand against the cool, glassy surface of the desk. For a moment, nothing happened, and then the surface of the desk came alive as icons flickered across its surface before holographic constructs appeared above it, bracketing my hand as I watched text scroll over multiple holo-screens as the security system came online. A plane of light passed under my hand, sweeping across the bracketed area before sweeping it once more in the opposite direction. On the second sweep, I felt a sharp pain at the base of my thumb, knowing that a needle had just pierced my skin for a blood sample before applying a touch of Medi-gel a moment later. With that done, a beam of light shot out from the surface of the desk, sweeping over my head and upper torso as a new holographic screen appeared directly in front of me.
"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn." I spoke clearly, watching as the sound wave jolted with my words for a moment before that screen flashed yellow, floating in mid-air for three seconds before flashing green. I smiled as a new screen appeared, covered in alien hieroglyphs that crawled across the new screen, a request and a question that I was reasonably sure only I could read.
"Had to be me. Someone else might have gotten it wrong." I stated simply, the words sounding ironic to my own ears even as they came out of my mouth, but the humor appealed to me, in a way. Once more, the screen flashed yellow, hanging there for all of three seconds before flashing green, disappearing a moment later as I breathed a small sigh of relief at not being locked out, incapacitated or killed by my own security system. Those pauses being part of it, gaps where the microphones remained active and listened for voices, words or sounds that weren't registered for my lab space, filtering out anything that was. If an intruder even managed to get this far, if they said even a single word that wasn't requested during the login process, assuming they got that far, the security system would trigger and they'd be a smoking corpse before they could even begin to react. A bit fail-deadly, but one couldn't be too careful with all those Masters and Strangers running around, even with the fact that my system had already checked my DNA, Blood-work, Fingerprints, Retina, Heartbeat, voice and speech pattern to ensure that it really was me, or one of my main personas.
"Alright then…" I muttered to myself as the main screens blazed into life, hovering over the desk as they angled towards me as a compartment to my right opened, letting me pull out a pair of, what looked like, wrap-around headphones before slipping them on. "Let's see where things stand…"
Within seconds of putting the head phones on, I saw a configuration window pop-up in the corner of my vision for a second before I focused back on the main screens, eyes scanning over folders, files and various other things that I'd assembled since arriving in Brockton Bay. Fingers traced over the obsidian surface of my desk, causing the perspective to shift as windows were shuffled around before I came to the first on that caught my attention, namely, my project list. Scrolling down, I saw the names of the different projects I'd been working on, past and present, with a few more labeled as being things to review at a future date, probably after I'd had time to get a more compatible specialty. Currently, I only had three projects that were still classed as ongoing for various reasons: Project Hephaestus, which was an attempt to merge ME Omni-fabrication technologies with CT Nanofactories; Project Athena, which was an ongoing study to compare and contrast ME Virtual Intelligences with CT Limited Artificial Intelligences; And Project Chronos, which investigated exactly how stable Eezo actually was, as a substance, and how it might interact with other forms of matter and energy via complex simulations.
"Thank god…" I muttered aloud, looking at the latest status report for Project Chronos that the combined task force of VIs and LAIs had produced within their servers. The report itself was pretty dense on technical details, but a summary was included in the first page of the workings, which outlined their findings, which could basically be summed up as 'thus far, Eezo is stable enough that a block of it could be used to hammer nails into a wall.' Even with that particular project still far from finished, that knowledge filled me with a sense of relief as a knot I hadn't even noticed came undone in my gut.
Say what you will about Arcanotechnology, but even with the dangers of non-Euclidean mathematics involved, the stuff allowed for an understanding of the physical universe that was really top notch. A fact that made the dozen, or so, N-Dimensional Computer Cores, all linked to my lab servers for these kinds of projects, worth their weight in Platinum and Rare Earths Elements, thanks to their capability to run the non-Euclidean mathematics without the risk of driving someone, namely me, insane in the process.
Closing that report, I skimmed over the latest status reports from my other projects, smiling all the while as my mood improved even further as I read more. From the look of it, Project Hephaestus was basically finished, with the final iteration of the combined Omni-Foundry/Nanofactory being complete and just waiting for assembly. Figures and statistics lined the pages of data, showing how the design had been improved on from the previous iteration through a continuous series of Evolutionary Algorithms and simulations, managed by swarms of LAIs and VIs. The list of materials that were required to build one of these devices did dampen my mood slightly, since it would dig into my current material stocks, but the pros were seriously outweighing the cons, especially if the figures were correct on the potential difference in production speed and efficiency. For that reason, I only hesitated for a second before shooting the blueprints off towards my various fabrication machines, bringing my Omni-Foundries and Nanofactories to life and filling the chamber with a background hum of active machinery.
With that done, I flicked over to Project Athena as I read through the first status report. The project itself was actually one done more out of curiosity, than anything else, having processing power available and figuring it was better to have them doing something than just sitting idle. It had very few practical benefits, but the knowledge of how the two different Intelligences stacked up against one another would have been useful further down the road. Admittedly, the project was still ongoing, but the current trends were already producing a pattern that was easy enough to follow. Basically, VIs were cheaper and easier to make, but were hyper-focused on doing a single task, or a small number of connected tasks with no capability to adjust their methods once they'd been fully programmed. The only way they'd get better was if they were updated with an improved method, or replaced with an upgraded VI entirely. LAIs, on the other hand, were a relatively more difficult to make, but were more generalized, more robust against errors, and could adjust themselves to better handle unexpected inputs that would crash a VI. Something that wasn't all that surprising, since there was a lot of shit in CT that would cause a purely logic-driven VI to crash and burn in a heartbeat. Still, both had strengths and weaknesses, so it was useful to know what they were.
Closing the status reports for Project Athena, I looked over the titles of a few other projects, both those planned for the future and those that had already been completed, contemplating whether or not to start a new one now that Project Hephaestus was finished. However, before I could come to a decision, a new message window appeared in my field of view, a green tick dominating the small window as my eyes traced over the text written underneath it. 'Calibration Sequence Complete. Ready for Neural Interface Commencement' were the words on it, causing me to smile as I flicked at the holo-windows floating in front of me, dismissing them as a finger swiped at the obsidian surface in front of me. In under half a second, a new holo-window had appeared in front of me, showcasing two separate tabs as I clicked on the one titled 'CT.' Once open, I began scrolling down, mentally comparing what was in front of me with the information floating around inside my brain.
"Let's see… Arcanotechnology Basics… Non-Euclidean mathematics… Known Blueprints… CT Science… Eldritch Magic… Multi-Dimensional Mechanics… Para-Psychic Manifestations… Nanofactory Construction…" I muttered aloud as I read a few of the titles for some of the folders, knowing that if it was present, then it was already complete and could be used for further study. Moving further down I felt a frown form on my lips as I mentally compared what was on my storage media to what was in my head, noting that a few subjects were missing.
"Ok, looks like the only things I'm missing are a few training schemes for some career paths, and the biological information for the Migou. That shouldn't take too long to fix…" I remarked as a gesture brought up a new holo-window right in front of me as I leaned back in my chair. Pressing the icon on the screen, I felt the headphone-like device on my head expanding outwards as thin straps of material spread to cover my skull. Immediately, I could feel something in the back of my head, the sensation of an itch as the device powered itself on, knowing that the sensation would last as I closed my eyes, focusing on what I wanted.
Repeated use, and a fair bit of practice, meant that I knew roughly what I was doing, opening my eyes only to check that it was working. A thought-command projected at my network caused the desired result, a new window opening to display an empty file ready to be filled with fresh data as I slowly started to work my way through the information in my skull. Thoughts were translated into a mixture of words, images and even animations as I focused on the information I wanted. Even with the rate at which my computers could operate, it was still a slow process, requiring me to feed the data into them as best I could. Not to mention, each time I finished a file, I'd have to go back and check it to make sure no errors or mistakes had been generated during the transcribing thanks to a stray thought. Admittedly, it happened less often than it used to, when I was just starting out, but it still happened every now and again, so it was best to make sure.
Still, even with only a few hours to make, most of those files would be utterly massive and comprehensive, divided into various sub-folders that would each contain information focused on specific aspects of the general topic.
Mind you, at the very least, it would give me something to do for the next few hours that was productive, so that was a plus.
"No, no chance. One-forty." I stated firmly, face set and not willing to budge on the price as I looked at the man on the opposite side of the table from me.
"Alright then, how about two-hundred, and I'll throw in a few of these old motherboards I've got here?" Said the stall-owner as he gestured towards a cardboard box over to one side that was jam-packed with the things. My eyes traced over it, peering through fake glasses as I turned my gaze back to him.
"Two hundred, and I get ten of those motherboards of my choice, along with the old PC." I offered, knowing that it was just over half of the circuit boards present in the box, and getting an immediate denial in the process as the stall-owner shook his head.
"No, five motherboards."
"Seven, and I'll agree to take three RAM cards and three CPUs for another fifty?" I countered, getting a look of interest from the stall-owner as he hummed absently.
"Seventy." He probed.
"Sixty." I countered.
"How about sixty-five and I'll throw in an extra graphics card?" The man offered, hedging his bets as I made a show about considering it before nodding. I saw a flicker of relief pass over the man's face as we shook on it, money changing hands a moment later as I started picking out the various pieces that I wanted, looking for the ones with the least damage and most intact components as I could find. Old, they may have been, but they were still useful to me, even if only as raw materials thanks to the trace amounts of Rare Earth Elements that had been used to make them. With that in mind, it barely took me five minutes to pick out the ones I wanted before packing them away into the large backpack I'd had slung over my shoulders. Putting the stuff away was a bit trickier, since the bag was already nearly full to the bursting point, but I managed to slide the motherboards in behind a collection of headphones and old Hard Drives. With that done, I bid the stall-owner a good day and walked off, slipping back into the crowds of the Lord Street Market with my bag back over my back, a computer tower under one arm, and a paper bag held in the hand of the same arm filled with coils of silver wire, gears, apples and a few random knick knacks.
Looking around, I smiled to myself as I took in the oceans of Humanity that spread through the street for as far as the eye could see. It had only been three hours since the place had opened, and it was already seething with crowds as the air filled with voices shouting, screaming, swearing and haggling with one another. Even just a few steps away from the stall I'd previously been at, cluttered with old computer parts and semi-broken electronics, I saw crowds of people pushing against one another to get a better look at what was on offer. Some, like the one I'd previously been at, only saw the rare bit of business as people looked to get rid of, what they saw as, junk, while others were flooded with prospective customers.
Still, for only three hours of searching, it had been a rather productive use of time as I made my way further down the street, idly keeping an eye open for anything of value as I continued onwards, compiling a mental list of stalls to visit after changing into a different persona. There was a stall in one corner of the Market that sold various different shards of crystal, another that sold a number of fossilized teeth and claws, a third that was currently selling a mixture of paints and semi-full tool kits, and a host of others I was hoping to visit before the day was out.
"Probably gonna need a trolley, or something…" I muttered under my breath, thinking out loud as a quick walk took me out of the Market and on to one of the surrounding streets. The area was basically empty of all life, everyone having surged to the Market once it had opened, but that didn't stop imprinted instincts and habits from rearing up within me. My free hand rising to rub the back of my head helped to disguise my move to look over my shoulder, it also gave me the chance to look at the shop windows around me, using the reflections to check for other potential watchers as I kept moving. Eyes travelled to every shadow, every window, every street corner and alleyway, and scanned for any sign of someone trailing after me as paranoia, both imprinted and natural, told me not to drop my guard. I'd only do that once I was sure I was safe, and the only two places I was relatively confident that I was safe at, were my apartment and my workshop, with the latter being better than the former.
Despite the continued surges of paranoia, I found no one looking for me, watching me, or trailing after me. I didn't know if that should have made me more or less paranoid, especially with the various Thinkers in Earth Bet, never mind in Brockton Bay alone, but I'd take it as a semi-good sign for the moment as I reached the closest bus stop to the Market. Habit had me glance over at the bus timetable, even after practically memorizing it, but it kept me right as I glanced down at my watch to confirm the current time. Seven minutes, my mind automatically announced as I looked at the analogue display on my wrist, my bus would be arriving in seven minutes.
Leaning back against the shelter of the bus station, my mind spun cobwebs of plans and directions as it consulted mental maps of the city, creating a tangle of routes that I could take to get to one of my secure locations, preferably my workshop. The act of idle scheming helped to pass the time, even as my eyes continued to look around for any sign of surveillance.
However, such things quickly took a back seat as I felt an alarm ring in the back of my mind, the last seconds having ticked by in blissful silence before resounding like a foghorn at close range now that the timer had reached zero. At the same moment, I felt the switch being thrown as the mental impression of a trigger returned to me, a button that could be pressed, or a lever that could be pulled. It was all one in the same, and I knew the result even as I focused most of my attention on that mental construct provided by the power I had been 'gifted,' even as I kept an eye on the surrounding world out of habit.
For a moment, I hesitated, wondering whether or not I should leave it, use the remaining two weeks to try and make more use out of my CT specialty, before discarding that thought a second later. CT was not a forgiving place, and researching better Arcanotechnology was not something I wanted to do without a more effective safety net in place, one that I could use without needing to rely on outside assistance. That thought was enough to push through the hesitation, causing me to pull the trigger as I felt my CT specialty disappear from my mind, the knowledge provided slipping away like sand between my fingers, leaving only those things ingrained into me by my own efforts. The impression of something spinning filled my mind, reminding me of a Roulette tables, or one of those wheels of fortune you sometimes saw in game shows.
Slowly, I felt it lose speed as it moved over points of a wheel larger than I could comprehend, hanging within a void and surrounded by points of light that marked its entire circumference. A solid barrier transitioned downwards, into a blur of motion as I watched, betraying just how fast the needle had been moving as it slowed ever more. Between one thought and the next, I felt it slow down enough that I could see the needle moving within my mind's eye, ticking over one point of light and the next before it final came to a stop, pointing at a singular point. It was then, that the transition came to a close, as the cosmic wheel disappeared from my mindscape, replaced by surging knowledge that rushed to the forefront of my mind.
Chemical diagrams flowed through my mind, underlined with mathematical formula and data-processing algorithms, all twisted with an alien logic that seemed to both reject and accept the nature of reality as I knew it. DNA sequences and biological designs filtered through design chains for computer architecture that seemed about as alien as it could get, making it difficult to know if it was supposed to be grown in a lab, or built in a factory. Nanotech integration threaded through every level of technology now floating through my brain, illustrating how to perfectly merge the biological with the mechanical, until one was nearly impossible to distinguish from the other.
And above it all, I could see the designs for one thing, purposefully designed for a Human being; a single suit.
A Nanosuit.
Hearing the sound of a bus stopping, I looked up to see it drop to the curb, doors opening as a slight smile fixed itself on my lips as I paid for a ticket. Even then, the name of source of my new specialty circled through my brain like a tune stuck in my head, coming to the forefront of my mind, written in the same font as the source materials had done it.
Crysis, and it changed everything.
AN: Alright, so there you have my initial attempt at a Tinker of Fiction-style story, with a bit of a twist on it due to some slight changes in the mechanics, something I'd explain in either future chapters, if I go that far, or an information post. Still, hope you all liked it and, as always, feel free to give suggestions, feedback and comments as the story progresses.
Cheers!
