5 Chapter 5: Renovations & Educations

It has been 3 hours since Karla fell asleep, and 3 hours until she wished for me to wake here for training. Something I had no intention of doing, she needed this rest badly.

Over the course of this time I have been running my priority diagnostics and one thing Is very apparent. I need an engineer. Most un-operational functions were due to failing hardware, something I have no means of fixing myself. On the positive side, I found a vital document, my schematic, a 3d representation of myself. With that I now knew how I was supposed to function with it and I learnt quite a lot about myself.

That plasma cannon I blew up? That was an upgraded design based on the Gipsy Danger. It was capable of levelling terrain in one shot… It seems I was also supposed to have some form of plasma armour feature, something I can't seem to find any Subsystem controls for it nor any records of it thus far; Was it in the panelling I tore off? Unlikely, I had no electronic connections to it. I was built for war, war like the jaegers before me wouldn't stand a chance in.

Turning my attention away from my weaponry system, I looked at the more core functions of my system. I had many pressing questions about it after all and almost all of them were answered.. With more questions. For example, the power cores I have been using are seemingly auxiliary in nature, not designed to be used for normal operation. I was, how do I explain this.. Explosively unaware? Of this fact a feeling of surprise or shock I assumed. I immediately started a search again for my main power systems. But nothing, had I the wrong schematic? I didn't believe so as the design closely matched what I currently knew of myself in structure. This led to only one other possibility. Data corruption. A matter I had neglected thus far thinking it had been limited to only records rather than entire systems even then was It really possible for my entire main power system controller to just vanish? Why would auxiliary power be unafflicted wouldn't that be a part of the main power function? Perhaps it was simply locked off from me due to damage?

Seeing that like usual, spending time thinking about this was pointless, I returned my attention back to the schematic, I hoped it would have answers to this question. Which I did, it was a generator of sorts, one that theoretically could power a large city or 8 based on the details the schematic provided which was.. Extreme even for a jaeger. But what it ran on was many times more interesting.

It ran on Kaiju Blood, also known as Kaiju blue. An extremely toxic Phosphorescence substance. Capable of killing all forms of life on earth upon contact or intake, contaminating anywhere it lands. The stuff was highly volatile as well, becoming a deadly mist not long after contact with air and my power system apparently made use of this.

I stored KB (kaiju Blood) as it is called here, in pressurised tank like batteries, which were then pumped in small quantities to a chamber where it is converted into a mist via vacuum, likely to lower consumption and raise efficiency. From here the mist is redirected to veins of sorts that take in external radiation of all kinds including light and UV. This 'activates' the blood which has a unique property to convert these into a usable wavelength. Which is absorbed by electrode rods. After it finishes expelling radiation, it becomes inactive and mist is re-pressurised back into blood returning to the tank.

Basically I was a nearly 100% efficient solar sponge that also worked on all radiation forms. It also meant… I had blood like a living creature albeit not nearly as vital.

Naturally, I checked to see if I could find any such tank, and I did, alongside the rest of the system, I hadn't before as well, I didn't know what specifically to look for, my body was the size of a building after all. The tank was empty, not a drop of the blue stuff it needed. No damage to the tank was seen, but the valve at the bottom was open. I suspected it would have contaminated a 500 mile radius around me from the liquid form alone, If above water, even further from the mist. Using this in the future would be a risk of death for any life around me, not to mention sourcing this blood wasn't exactly an easy feat even with so many corpses around.

"Hmm, jam please.." ah sleep talk, a form of Parasomnia. At the very least she doesn't seem afflicted by any night terrors. I do not like the idea of her being homeless. It would seem I have failed in avoiding attachment to this child. I doubt I could abandon her even if it was the optimal choice to take, even thinking of such a course of action was unpleasant. At first she was a means to repair until I found a way to maintain myself, and I am unsure how it or when such an objective changed.

It's thoughts like this that remind me I'm not human, but not entirely machine either, I feel, I believe, I hope.. Yet these emotions feel as alien as the unindexed archive and body I reside in, if not more. I get surprised at everything I do and see, and feel perplexed by the analysis I instinctively put into it. Yet it's seamless, these emotions, these rationales, they stem from 'me' in sync with my systems, overlapping so much there's no clear line.

That was enough self discovery for one day, I had work to do. Namely DIY courses to find or construct. If only I could connect to the internet, this would be easy, though I fear feeling all that information flowing through my head. Plus the internet in my head? Can you imagine a virus 200 years ahead of my servers that probably don't have functioning antivirus capabilities.. No thanks.

I just needed to teach her the basics. Focus on woodworking and basic wiring safety, I would hate to fry her alive.

I began designing the course, keeping motivation in mind, she seemed tenacious enough. But something told me she would avoid actual education. I'll just use pilot training as a reward, I need to delay the completion of that until I can figure out how to move without arousing suspicion anyway.

The first lesson will be focused on redesigning the available space into a habitable place for her. That means, food storage, water storage, a place to expel waste, a place to sleep and a place for leisure as while physical health is important, her mental health will need care as well. Of this list I was most concerned about food & water, I didn't like the idea of her having to make frequent trips for supplies. It was an opportunity for someone to follow and discover me as such I either need some sort of food production, or long term storage. Since she is a child, the latter is probably the more feasible route to take, among this scrap there must be at least a compressor of sorts, likely one too powerful in fact. With that I can have Karla piece together a freezer of sorts the main constraint would be insulation to prevent heat seeping in. The resultant heat from the radiator would probably help solve the next issue.. Which had an easy solution this whole time. Why did I never consider salvaging a normal heater or the equivalent?

It seems having the processing power of a building sized supercomputer doesn't make you smart after all. They do say a computer is the dumbest thing there is until it's taught what to do, yeah see I've just not been taught common sense yet so really I'm a genius discovering all of this on my own. Moving on.

For the next few hours I designed a series of lessons, designed around the likely forms of scrap she could salvage nearby. Such as weaponry and building debris, though I preferred she stay away from those as the buildings are rather fragile. Jaeger scrap would be sufficient, I did briefly wonder if this was cannibalism, but decided it was more like transplanting instead. Regardless, I was all done now. Lesson 1 would be on safety precautions followed by instructions for the construction of a freezing and cooling unit.

I heard Karla begin to wake, rubbing her dreary eyes. I guess a long sleep wasn't possible for now, likely her ruined circadian rhythm. It would likely take some weeks to fully repair.

"Hmm Omni? Has it been 6 hours?" hmm just short of 6 hours actually but I doubt pressing her to sleep any further would be fruitful.

"Just shy, but that will have to suffice, I doubt you'll be able to get back to sleep anyway" she nodded her head in affirmation.

"So.. simulator?" She is insatiable. I hope that I desire carriers over to engineering lessons as well else this will prove.. Challenging.

"Pilot training is suspended for the moment. In light of recent developments, it has been determined that priorities lie In quality of life improvement. As such lessons on engineering and survival will now be required to unlock a training session" dangle a carrot by a stick and the work shall be done.

"WHAT? ENGINEERING?!? WHY IN BLUE BLAZES DO I NEED TO LEARN THAT???" As expected she is less than thrilled by the prospect of having to study. How to better encourage her… ah I know.

"You wish to be a pilot, correct? A Solo drifter at that. Such a job entails maintenance, balanced sustenance and ingenuity. Example, scenario 28. A tier 3 Kaiju has damaged my Auxiliary power distribution unit as such you have 15 minutes to destroy the target. Your course of action thus far has been to corner the kaiju and redirect all remaining power to the Plasma cannon. Not a bad plan of action. But there is a better option, with the correct skillset, a temporary fix can restore full operation and allow for less self-destructive means of dealing with the threat" I could see the cogs in her mind turning, she may not have much innate talent when it comes to battles, but her mind is definitely built for strategy. She would excel as a commander.

"That makes sense I guess.. But I hate maaaath that's Nathen's thing." Nathen? This was the first time she had mentioned another person's name, and one without fear or hate in her body language. A friend perhaps? Family? I was also confused by her distaste for engineering, had she not told me of her frequent rewiring habits prior?

"Nathen?" I asked keeping the questions short for a more open-ended answer, you can tell a lot about a person based on their perception of vague questions, do they seek context or do they answer it based on their own assumptions.

"Yeah, Oh he's my older brother, the 'genius' of the family. He's always tinkering with something or the other" Odd, her words suggest a dislike yet her tone indicates care and affection. I wonder why? Human emotion is rather complex.

"I see, and your family?" she took on a sombre expression. A sore topic I suspect, I could back off but this information is imperative to assessing her situation. I'll simply keep quiet & let her speak when she is ready. It's a manipulation method used to get the required information whilst making her feel like it is her choice regardless of their feelings on the subject. Silence is often more powerful than words, I must not make such a thing a habit as her expression was distraught, likely a sign of a traumatic or abusive past. I hate how.. Apathetic yet sorry I feel for her, especially since it's my first time feeling this.. Tear in reasoning.

"Well um.. my mother died when we were 6, she was smart, a PhD in mechanoid mechanics. Something my brother inherited I guess. Mom always would tell me that I too was smart.. Just in a different way.. Another way of saying dumb.." she went silent for a moment allowing me time to analyse what she had said so far in more depth. For one I agreed with her mother, Karla was smart. Smarter than most in fact, the only reason she had such A high fail rate in the simulations was due to poor piloting skills. Her strategies were flawless, like a chess player already planning the final move on their first.

"My father.. He didn't like me or my brother much, but at least with my brother he could brag to his friends. One day.. He came home weird. Smelled like pee and burnt plastic, I know because sometimes Nathen's science projects would blow up and the plastic smell would be so gross" I smile returned to her face in a chuckle before she continued. I do not like where I think this may be heading.

"He smashed things and shouted, I can't remember much, except screams, blood and running in tears.. Nathen and I ran away but a stray dog started chasing us and we got split up. He led the dogs away from me, after that I ended up in an orphanage. They told me my father fled the country… I hated it there.. Whenever I asked about my brother they'd change the subject! But they knew something I'm telling you! Not to mention kids disappeared there and not by adoption. I started messing with the electronics hoping maybe he'd come back to fix it like he always would" that explained the previous rewiring Tuesday story, but created different questions. 1. Would she even be slightly capable of these lessons? And 2. How long has it been since her separation? Most importantly what happened to the missing kids? I'll park that question away for now.

Analysing what she had just told me, it was clear her father was abusive, I do wonder whose blood it is she witnessed and more importantly what happened to her brother. She said he was older, so at least 11 years old unless a twin, but I suspect even older. His skill set would be a valuable asset to our living arrangement, but locating him would prove difficult.

"Any idea where he went?" I asked her bluntly, she was emotionally distressed and while I felt bad for it, it was the best time to delve into questions she'd likely avoid later on. I didn't like this.. I felt the empathy telling me to stop letting her be, but at the same time I couldn't deny the fact of efficiency for the sake of our continued survival. Another painful reminder that I am neither human nor fully machine.

"I- I don't know. It's been years now.. He could be anywhere" she isn't wrong with such a long time period he could be anywhere by now.. If alive at all, besides it is not like I can simply get up and look around. Nor can I expect Karla to, it'd be a goose chase.

No, I need to be smart about this. From her story Nathen seems vastly protective of Karla and assuming this is still her home city it's not impossible to assume he'd have remained as well. A low probability is better than none. Taking that assumption to be true, it'd firstly mean that despite being in the same city they haven't met in all these years.

I can feel my processor usage flare to near 100% draining my cores faster than anything had in my few weeks of living as I begin running Billions of logic probability matrices. All trying to isolate the most feasible reasons they'd have not met whilst in such proximity.

"Karla, can I ask how long ago you left the Orphanage? Did your brother have friends? What part of the city did you live in?" It seemed my onslaught of questions had broken her out of her seeming depressive state answering automatically.

"Err oh umm a year give or take, he had a girl he liked, but other than that kept to himself.. And err downtown Salton?" So this city is called Salton, My archives had a few entries on it. It was a decommissioned military jaeger residential outpost, and it seems in the last 200 years it had been converted into a bustling city. That did explain this exclusion zone.

Using the new information I further constrained my calculations from billions to millions, all in an attempt to derive various probable locations to look for him. It was likely that her brother either fled to this crush of his, was captured, or left/died. Based on the fact the orphanage changed the subject whenever he was brought up alongside its shady dealing and the lack of any funeral. It's more probable that he was captured, and by someone involved with the orphanage or perhaps a stranger, Karla's situation with the Scrappers was evidence that children's safety was not a universal concept here.

"What is the name and location of this orphanage Karla?" her curiosity had completely wiped out any reluctance, I could see the spark of hope in her eyes and it made my system surge in that way I had grown to love.

"Salton Orphanage, erm it's also in downtown! Can.. Can you find him?!? Can you find my brother???" I had hoped she would not conclude my intentions until I had a suitable amount of logical evidence to support a safe investigation. Now in the potential result of failure her determination will be severely reduced and her feelings hurt.

"That remains to be seen, I cannot make you any promises as this deduction is purely based on logical probability and feasibility" my disclaimer did nothing to quell her expectation.

"But you do have a deduction right? You have an idea of where he is right?" I do, but this is speculatory and investigation will be dangerous.

"Based on the provided information, there's a minor chance that your brother has been captured. Likely by someone within the Orphanage itself based on the disappearance of kids. As such if you were to conduct an investigation your best chance of finding anything of value would be that orphanage and the slums of downtown should there be one. But, I must advise against any action for now as it will only serve to endanger you, myself and your brother in the possibility he is there" As I feared she had only heard what she wanted to hear. This is not good, she will get herself captured, killed or get me discovered. Why could I not keep my speakers off?

"Karla, I must ask you to carefully consider this, we've no concrete evidence, no safe leads and you cannot possibly investigate on your own" I could see thinking hard.. I don't need to run any probability calculator to know she is not going to leave this to rest. No chance.

"What if you joined me?" What could she mean by that? She wasn't asking to solo drift me through a jam packed city that is still on high alert for me?

"Just hear me. I could put you in a phone" What?

"Explain" This could go very bad for me.