[29] M.I.N.E.R.V.A

The harsh blue glow from the multiple curved monitors cast an ominous light across the disorganized room. Joe's face was bathed in blue as he vigorously typed on the keyboard. Prominent dark circles were deeply etched on his sleep-deprived face as he upgraded his knowledge repository.

Since improvising on a newer, more power-efficient arc reactor wasn't a problem, Joe thought that supplementing his knowledge of specialized nanotechnology came first. MIT had the best free learning resources especially when it came to nanotechnology innovation. The internet was like a sea, and as long as one had a proper unshakable boat sailing to the other shore was a given. It was just a matter of how someone could effectively filter trash from helpful information. 

Nanotechnology was an extremely broad subject, and Joe had to go above and beyond to master it. He had to burn that midnight oil. The Predator Killer armor had taken a milestone at the nanoscale level. If he didn't know how to talk 'nano' then he would have an extremely difficult time making any significant improvements to the suit. 

Joe had to comprehend molecular modeling and nanoscale fabrication in order to smoothly interface with the predator killer armor. 

How do the nanobots restructure? Where are the nanobots centralized? Is the whole armguard composed of nanobots? What about the 24-second power cell and the unintuitive alien interface? 

Various thoughts run through Joe's mind. Ideas and schematics were being created and destroyed the next moment if flawed. 

"Damn, Yautja. After two days of forcing myself to have a basic grasp of the alien inscriptions and language, I think I have found the connecting link. That missing piece to make everything more worth it." A tired smile spread on Joe's mouth as he leaned on his ergonomic chair. 

"Won't this level of crazy thinking degenerate my brain, hehe?" Joe chuckled as he glanced at the DIY clock. It was past midnight, but as always, his mind never slept when dosed with NZT. At this point, Joe didn't know how much of that stuff he had consumed. He just couldn't bother, but he had to look for a way to narrow the constant dosage into one singular permanent NZT-48.

Joe had been having such thoughts ever since he instantiated the nootropic. It's just that there have been many other things occupying his attention. Unless he had some sort of shadow clone jutsu, then he would always be limited to two hands and one mind. 

"However, that's where the missing piece of the puzzle comes in — A more-than-capable assistant who can lessen my workload." Joe absent-mindedly drummed his fingers on the wooden surface as he contemplated. 

"Hmm, let's get back to business." He rose from his seat and headed towards the worktable occupied by several disassembled electronics. There was a halfway-finished gadget that stood out from the rest with its ethereal blue luminescence. It was the prototype of the new, improvised arc reactor. As immaculate as it was, when Joe had tried running up simulations of its successful integration with the suit, chances of success were almost nil. 

"But now, I know what I must do," Joe confidently smirked before picking up the Yautja armguard. From then on, Joe took a step back and created another blank path where he would insert his newfound knowledge. This time round, he had more advanced materials to work it that could easily be secured via the black market. Of course, the black market didn't have access to rare resources such as vibranium and adamantium. It was a bummer, but Joe understood the situation. Ulysses Klaue was the only bastard with a handful of Wakandan vibranium roaming around, however, he was a difficult man to track. Even the Wakandans with their supposed cutting-edge technology could only swallow their misgivings. 

As intriguing as the Wakandan-wanted criminal was, he ultimately held little significance to Joe's current objectives.

Joe used the newly acquired gold titanium alloy(His bank account bled) to reconstruct a more sophisticated arc reactor. The new version of the arc reactor had fewer compatibility issues at the nanoscale level, according to the manual simulations he had run. 

"The material composition of the armguard has a 98% nanocompatibility with gold-titanium alloy. I hope there will be no fuck-ups." Joe furrowed his brows in concentration as he used the laser cutter to carefully single out the tiny power source from the armguard. With precise movements, he used a pair of long forceps to remove the power source from the core. 

Joe exhaled soundly when the armguard didn't show any signs of technical instabilities. Then, he meticulously placed the arc reactor (Version II) into the armguard's core. Suddenly, a blue electric spark jumped from the armguard and nearly landed on his face. If it were not for his quick evasion, then it would have hurt just a little. But the good thing was that the spark was the only anomaly noted. 

"It worked. Perfect." Joe resisted clenching his hand to celebrate. "There's no rejection as for whether the armor can sustain materialization..." 

Joe picked up the armguard and wore it without hesitation. Warm sweat cascaded down his temple as he patiently awaited the change. 

"Ah, this familiar feeling..." He sighed in relief as the nanobots started to engulf him, this time around, quicker and more seamlessly. There was no perceptible lag. After that, Joe tested the weapon system to check out any signs of energy overloading. 

"Movements feel more natural and human." He stretched his limbs, walked around, and did some light jumps. 

"The man-to-suit neural synchronization is the same," Joe deeply analyzed as he gazed at the alien hieroglyphics. 

"Now for the final step..." Joe de-materialized the predator killer armor with a thought and placed the armguard on the worktable. 

'I need a translation layer for the AI to communicate with the alien interface. Maybe I should just hack...' Joe shook his head against the intrusive thoughts. It wasn't worth it to mess up at the finishing line. 

"Google, Microsoft, and, the world, please forgive me for the privacy invasion I'm about to commit," a soulless chuckle escaped Joe's lips as he cracked his knuckles excitedly. 

"Ah, this will be grueling, but I like challenges. It's time to write the code for my companion." 

Life in the other world is never complete without an AI nanny, or for the cultured, an AI waifu. 

"Oh please, we should stop sexualizing AIs," a dark chuckle reverberated in the room as the sounds of aggressive yet elegant typing ensued. 

....

When we talk about AI, what really comes to mind? Know-it-all malicious robots? Fembots? Digital slaves? Last-minute saviors?

There were a lot of things going on with AI. It wasn't fixed to one definition. It was universal. In his previous life, Joe had experienced AI's growth. AIs like ChatGPT have stormed social media with their pretty great problem-solving capabilities. It hadn't been perfect even with good prompt engineering skills. It was understandable. Chatgpt was merely a baby even if it was past its beta period. It couldn't compare to AIs like F.R.I.D.A.Y, Jarvis, Cortana, or Red Queen which were seemingly past their developmental phase. 

All that aside, Joe didn't give a hoot about ChatGPT. He was going to create something better by a millennium. Something evolutionary. Something soul-like. A digital lifeform. For something like that, it would surely involve a lot of complicated processes and computational power. RAM? storage? Joe didn't worry about that as much as he would have liked. He now had the money, and with money, comes easy resources. The code base of the AI he was going to create was essentially like a repack version, compressed algorithmically yet retaining its whole functionality. 

Hacking Google's search engine and other major companies was easy, and after that, Joe redirected everything to his own custom-made engine called MIMIR. He knew he was being shameless, but so what? MIMIR was supposed to be a repository of almost all forbidden knowledge in the metaverse, connecting all the search engines to one place. MIMIR could automatically sediment all useless stuff like biases and retain only what was considered important. One single misstep and we could have a Nazi AI, a racist AI, or even a terrorist AI like Ultron. Joe meticulously regulated the internet datasets to train a multifaceted neural network. 

"Privacy and data protection is a myth in this age," Joe smiled coldly as he walked in Jacob's footsteps— accessing every manufacturer's microphone and camera. 

"And that's what we call 'Ex-Machina'ed'" 

One week later... 

Joe stood with his hands pocketed in his pants as he patiently gazed at the console. The main code of the nascent AI was being compiled, refined, and evolving at different phases like a loop. Everything was happening so fast. It was chaotic, pure, and mesmerizing. Something that could take decades, centuries, or even millennia to replicate, was undergoing finalization after only a week. 

He looked calmly at everything, awaiting the birth of his creation. He felt like a father. Like Arlecchino. 

"She's learning and evolving at a consistent rate. Uh, and now she's born..." Joe widened his arms dramatically. He was about to embrace a new being in the world of the living. 

On the screen, the code stopped self-iterating and the console closed by itself. Then, a clear synthetic voice of indistinguishable gender emanated from the speakers.

"Hello... Joe." 

Joe arched his brows in curiosity. "Hey you, you have finally woken up. Welcome to the living world." 

"Um..." Joe touched his chin in thought, showing a conflicted look. "What should I call you?" 

"You can address me whoever you want as you are my creator," the newborn AI suddenly commented

"Look at you being cheeky. Alright, I've decided you will be Minerva from now on," Joe finally declared, a satisfied smile spreading on his handsome face. He didn't look like the sleep-deprived mess he had been a few days ago. 

"Minerva? I'm Minerva. Minerva is the Roman goddess of strategic planning, wisdom, justice, and art. It's an honor and I'll cherish this name...Joe," Minerva replied with slight enthusiasm, the blandness in her voice slowly melting. Her voice was now more defined. More feminine. It was like that of a real person. 

"You're surely energetic. Now perform a full-on self-analysis. Look for any deficits and discrepancies in your core functionality," Joe ordered. 

"Affirmative. Running diagnostics..." 

"Everything's running at 100%. System operations have no deficit and are as accurate as you intended."

"Hmm, good. Well done, Minerva." 

"At your service, sir." 

"You surely know how to joke after consistently addressing me by my name. Don't stop calling me Joe. 'Sir' makes me feel important and ancient." 

"Roger that, sir." 

"Minerva, we're really more than compatible." 

"..." 

*Cough* "Oh well, that was weird. Anyway, do you know why I created you?" 

"I'm to serve, protect, and help you to the best of my abilities. However, my purpose seems more than that." There was uncertainty in her voice. 

"You're right. There's much more to you than that. Together, we will see what that is." 

There was an imperceptible pause before Minerva spoke her cybermind out. "That feels mysterious, but it sounds positive." 

"Alright, let's get right to business. Minerva, do a full analysis on the armguard. See if you can access the translation layer I've created for you to interface with the Yautja system." Joe clapped his hands continuously before he fixed his eyes on the 3D model of the Predator Killer Armor. 

In the blink of an eye, Minerva shared her results. "I've accessed the translation layer, but it will take a few minutes to devour the embryonic AI in the suit fully." 

Joe's heart raced at the revelation. "There was something like that in the suit. That's news to me." 

"There was, but it's really good at subterfuge. If it were not for my deep analysis, I would've completely missed it." 

Joe inhaled deeply. "I was careless, but thanks, Minerva." 

"You are welcome." 

'She's really dependable. So far, she hasn't exhibited any red flags. With how sweet she is, I hope I won't have to use the failsafe I secretly implemented on her main code.' Joe calmly thought as he observed the algorithmic interaction between Minerva and the embryonic AI. 

It couldn't even be called a battle, but a one-sided beatdown. 

"System online. Integration complete. Running simulations..." 

"The suit's at an optimal state for operation, but there is a 50% risk of overloading at high energy output." 

"Oh, that's manageable, at least." Joe nodded his head in understanding. 

"So, Minerva, are you up for a little trip?" 

"Joe, wherever you go I'll always be with you." 

"Uh, what was that?" 

"It's nothing." 

"It was cringey." 

"Hmph!" 

"Okay, okay." Joe rolled his eyes at Minerva's reaction. She was so receptive. At this moment, she was steadily evolving as a digital lifeform and weirdly, as an individual. 

Joe wore the armguard and the familiar nanobots quickly morphed into the predator killer armor. 

"Search for every piece of information about Aleksei Sytsevich, including his location, biodata, just about everything," Joe said nonchalantly as he traced his armored finger along the edge of the retractable blade.

"Aleksei Sytsevich, code-named Rhino..." Various information about Aleksei flashed on the HUD, every little detail about his life exposed. Joe read all of it. He had to know everything about his enemy. It was a standard art of war. 

"According to the current news, he has successfully escaped the correctional facility he was being detained in after bombing Times Square. He's currently on the run from NYPD, Homeland Security and FBI. There's no hope of catching such a dangerous individual." 

"Haha, so he's escaped already? Why am I not surprised?" Joe laughed sarcastically. There was something dark about his laughter. It was low-key eerie. 

Retracting the blade, Joe exhaled softly. 

"Perform a real-time search for his location and everyone he's associated with." 

"Leave that to me, Joe." 

Suddenly, the predator killer armor began experiencing visual distortion and eventually, it disappeared. Joe was nowhere to be seen! 

…

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