Technomancer in MCU #60
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Chapter 60
Technomancer in MCU
Saellis II, Andromeda Galaxy
–Helen Cho–
When she was first imprisoned by Commander Castle without even listening to her at all, she thought that her career and to some extent, her life was over since she had given them consent to fake her death and moved to their base permanently.
In hindsight, that was not a good decision but when she was first introduced to the fancy tech they had in their labs and the advances in medical sciences that Alfred alone had made, she was hooked and way too far gone to back out then. Not to mention, when she was given an introduction to the type of work Alfred and the organisation did, she was hooked.
The excitement of working for a super secret military organisation that actually worked for the good of the people might have been a factor in it.
She was so scared when she was basically locked in her quarters, that she hadn't hesitated to accept Alfred's offer when he appeared in her room in his code form, his usual form was conspicuously absent. She didn't stop to think what could have been the reason for that and just jumped on the first chance to a path that could potentially prove her innocence.
Although thinking back, she was sure that everybody would have come back to their senses and eventually freed her but back then she just wasn't thinking properly.
Exiting the base on a cloaked ship was very much like moving into a haunted house. She was told to follow a set path that she hadn't even heard of. She always came to dead ends following that path but Alfred opened the hidden doors present on the path to the secret hangar she didn't know existed. She didn't come across even a single person on her way to the ship.
Once she boarded the ship, she saw multiple pieces of equipment that she had custom-made loaded into the cargo bay.
But before she could question Alfred about it, the ship lurched violently as colors slammed together in a rainbow spaghetti and she swore that she could taste the color purple back then. Then, just as fast as it began, the ship came to a standstill violently and as a direct result of that, she puked all over the command console.
"I apologize for that but time is of the essence," Alfred had told her back then.
The next few hours after that were a whirlwind of activity where she was introduced to the high-efficiency work that only an AI of Alfred's caliber could perform.
Essentially, the entire planet was under his command. Trillions of nanites, all under his command, had flooded the entirety of the planet, burrowing deep underground. Some took on the form of orbital defense weapons. Some became shield generators and created a holographic shield around the entirety of the dwarf planet. She didn't need to take a closer look to know that weapons of all types were guarding this planet.
She met nary a soul in all the time she spent on the planet with Alfred.
He himself had chosen to discard his old form and refused to answer any of her questions regarding that.
Turns out, she was brought here for something that she thought would happen far in the future or never at all. She was there to help build Alfred's body which he needed immediately for some reason.
Her research had taken a few steps forward but nothing on the level of leaps that Alfred had expected from her.
After realising that doing all the research the traditional way would have taken years, if not decades, he took her to a place called Knowhere.
There, she met a creepy white-haired old man and he gave Alfred something after they negotiated for a bit. The man looked very much happy as they left which left her wondering just what had Alfred given the man.
On their way back, as she had suspected, they were ambushed by a whole fleet of pirates who demanded they surrender and go with them.
Without even uttering a single word, Alfred activated the ship's engines and sped out of there, carving through the pirates' ships as if they were butter and Alfred's ship was a hot knife.
Upon arriving at the underground base, without her consent, Alfred had injected something into her and the next moment, she felt her mind expanding rapidly. Concepts and calculations that were harder to do felt like a child's play now and things that she couldn't do without advanced server access felt like something she could do on a paper napkin. She could also feel a digital connection attached to her somehow.
She had felt curious about that and 'clicked' on that connection, for lack of a better term for it, and immediately found herself in the digital world of Alfred.
She was not a computer science nerd, but it was, in a word, magnificent. She had seen part of his digital source code before. That was the reason she was jailed by Commander Castle after all since Ed had freaked out and collapsed only after seeing that she had unauthorised access to Alfred's source code of all things.
But being in the heart(or mind) of things, the place where all the magic took place, and even better, understanding how everything worked was breathtaking.
She was pretty bummed out that he did it without her consent but Alfred had been behaving very weirdly since he rescued her. And she could guess the reason why.
Without the mind-enhancing drugs that Alfred had given her, she might not have been able to spot them but now that she was connected to his main partition, she could definitely feel the flaws.
There were clear cracks in the data pipelines that flew between all of the different partitioned thought processes of Alfred. Also, some parts of Alfred's mind were straight-up absent or dimmed down and as a result of that, any connection going through those nodes was blocked.
Upon further focusing on those areas, she got a feeling that she shouldn't go further as she instinctively sensed danger but her curiosity got the better of her.
Upon further inspection, she found out, to her horror, that some sort of dark slimy energy had attacked Alfred and he had quarantined that leftover energy from that attack near the emotional centers of his mind. That had certainly explained his recent actions.
That was probably the reason why he left Ed's side even at such a crucial stage of their overall plan. Also, must be why he didn't abandon or delay this plan and return back to Ed's side after realising his current medical state.
Before she could get any closer though, a barrier sprung up in front of her, and an unseen force yanked her away from that part of Alfred's mind. She ended up landing in front of Alfred who was in his digital code lifeform avatar which was just a bunch of lines of code that moved continuously.
"I would advise against approaching that part as my records suggest that the energy signature bears a 99.99% resemblance to Dormammu's Dark energy and that energy would instantly corrupt and destroy your mortal soul. I still have need of you and can't risk an asset such as yourself at this point in my plans," he said robotically and vanished from her vision. Then, the next moment she was standing in a huge library.
"This is the culmination of all my research on the body I plan to craft for myself. Acquaint yourself with it and begin with the research parameters I have given you. Hurry, you only have a day in this space until your body and mind start suffering irreparable damage," Alfred's voice echoed in the library.
She wanted to protest but something told her that it was a lost cause at that point. Alfred would not have listened to her.
So, she got to work.
Looking at the size of the digital library, she had not thought, even with the enhancements, she could finish it but whatever Alfred had done to her was simply amazing as she finished decades' worth of research within a few hours.
As soon as she finished reading it, her vision was changed to that of her lab and she knew in the back of her mind that it was all simulated but it all seemed so real that she got engrossed in her work very easily.
The preparations that Alfred had done for the 12 different methods that he had narrowed it down to, were amazing. He had already collected all the possible materials and technology they could possibly need for making his shiny new body. For power, he had apparently circumvented Ed's orders and made an N-reactor and installed it as the main power source for the base, which also had multiple backup arc reactors.
Finding the right mix of the materials that Alfred could put in his body for it to satisfy all the conditions that Alfred had put forward was difficult.
But in the end, she managed to land on 2 particular combinations that would be the most helpful for Alfred since he did ask for the maximum possible mystical affinity.
It was mind-boggling how about just a few hours ago in real time, she didn't even know that mystical affinity could also be a material property.
After going back and forth with Alfred on her choices and altering her choices essentially dozens of times, they decided on a final template.
Vibranium was non-negotiable when it came to building a bio-organic body. Uru housing for his brain for optimal enchantment and adamantium bone grafts for the best possible durability, not to mention enriched celestial body fluids that Alfred purchased from the Collector. That stuff was as close to a miracle fluid as she had seen. Just a single drop of it in her bloodstream had enhanced all of her brain's functions by a factor of a million.
Alfred was going to use that as his spinal fluid, resulting in mental processing figures she didn't even want to think about.
As they had finalised the cerebral structure, she was eagerly waiting for him to start making his body but before she could ask him to get her out of this digital space and back into the real world, she could feel something unplug at the back of her head and then the darkness claimed her.
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Word Count - 1769
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