V2 Chapter 9

It's been about a week since then, since my arrival at the Nexus...and honestly...not much had really happened. I had mainly spent most of my time in the Lounge with Iris and the others but I had also been putting quite a bit of time into sorting out my Sanctuary. 

Unfortunately I hadn't really learned all that much about the Nexus, its inhabitants or its internal workings during this time. Honestly the same thing could be said about my fellow newcomers as well, from what I've seen most of them don't really seem all that concerned about that right now. Although I am starting to think that our Mentors are trying to keep us in the dark for some reason or another, or they are simply just trying to give us time to accumulate to our environment instead of jamming us with tons upon tons of information right out of the gate. Thankfully however, from what I've observed it's more than likely the second option out of the two possibilities, however it's not like my paranoia and trauma is just going to disappear overnight.

Anyway, I was currently in my Sanctuary delivering something I had been looking into for a while now after browsing the various things I could buy from the System. Unfortunately all the things I could buy were completely unique to the System and the System alone, as such I was unable to buy anything from the many worlds that I know of. Fortunately though, Decker had so graciously informed me that I could always just buy that kind of stuff from other Alternatives if I so desired.

As I was lost in my thoughts however, a rather  familiar voice got my attention. "Hello Miss Carmen." 

"Hey Mel, how are you doing?" I asked once I noticed the cute little thing standing not far from where I currently was.

"Me and the other kids were all playing a game while taking a look around..." She said while gesturing towards a small group of children who were peering around a nearby corner at me. "Is that okay...?" She asked somewhat nervously.

"Sure it is, just promise me you won't wander off too far now." I mused, causing Mel as well as the other little ones to nod their head in agreement.

"We promise."

"Good." I smiled as they scampered off, my smile grew even more however when I noticed that Mel was no longer limping.

(Kids...they really are my weakness.) I chuckled as I began heading towards where a certain angry lady could be heard shouting in the distance.

As I moved through the slowly developing town I got a few cautious looks from those that were walking close by, all of which were keeping some distance from me. Apparently they still hadn't gotten used to my presence, a fact that I didn't, nor couldn't, really blame them for. Anyway, as I continued forward I eventually found what I was looking for, Ophelia was currently yelling at a group of three idiots that had somehow managed to earn her ire.

"Why the hell did I put you imbeciles in charge of this?" She growled, causing the "imbeciles" in question to gulp.

"W-we're sorry ma'am..."

Unfortunately for the three she wasn't done scolding them. "God damn it, if I find you all slacking off again I'll-" Thankfully however, I was there to give them a chance, a chance that they used to quickly slip away.

"Hey Ophelia." I mused, causing her to turn around and look at me with a somewhat annoyed expression.

"What the hell do you want?"

"Oh don't glare at me like that you big grump." I chuckled, making her roll her eyes at me. "And here I thought I would be nice by bringing you some surprise gifts that I managed to get my hands on."

"And where exactly did you get these "gifts" of yours from?" She asked with a suspicious look on her face.

"A store."

"What kind of store?"

"Let's just say that it's a virtual kind of store that allows people like me to buy rather interesting things and leave it at that." I shrugged, not really wanting to spread the next half an hour or so explaining it all to her.

"Whatever..."

To explain why she was yelling at those three, well, it was rather simple all things considered. Ophelia and her grandfather had somewhat taken charge of managing the newly created town and its newly arrived civilian population, a fact that Ophelia had apparently taken quite seriously. Of course Harper would occasionally lend a hand when she could as well but for the most part she and Roseanne were focusing on our surroundings, basically they were not only trying to find out what we're safe to eat but also they were working on mapping out the surrounding lands.

I offered to just tell them the information they needed without them having to spend time checking everything themselves but Ophelia adamantly disagreed, mostly because she didn't want everyone to be reliant on me for every little thing. Honestly I would have argued more on the topic but she kind of forced me to agree when she told me that people are already going to see me in an odd way, after all I literally created this entire place, any more weirdness from me and a cult might end up forming or something along those lines.

Anyway, those with military experience alone with any military grade Synthetics we had were put under the temporary command of Red, of course the human part of this little militia had all volunteered to join up. As for why I didn't put Connor or Ashley in charge, well, to put it simply Conner wasn't technically a marine even though he had gained some experience recently and as for Ashley...errm...I was nervous about giving her that kind of power. This was mostly because she was one of the lot that were currently trying to make a cult or religion to worship me, a fact that made me incredibly uncomfortable to say the least.

Moving on though, as for those that were captured by Navara from the Perseus, well, I had surprisingly still been given them despite the fact that they were not actually a part of my hive mind for some reason. I ended up just leaving them in my storage dimension thing, at least until I could upgrade my Gift and get more slots for indoctrination.

Speaking of Navara, I had placed her, along with all of my and her children into that massive cave system I had created, that also included Alpha, Delta and Gamma as well of course. Thankfully there was enough room for them all, however they are still working on turning the whole place into a hive currently.

And while I'm at it, the Yautja had apparently set up camp in that large forest at the far corner of my Sanctuary. They apparently like the difficult and rough terrain there, however it seemed that they were beginning to get somewhat bored, after all there was nothing for them to really hunt at the moment, a fact that I'd probably need to find a solution for sooner or later.

Back to the presence anyway. (It seems like everyone here.) I thought as I glanced around at my little human council or whatever you wanted to call this, thankfully while I had been thinking Ophelia had called them all over through the use of the hive mind.

"What kind of mind blowing thing have you gotten for us this time my queen?" Conner, who had just arrived with Red, asked with a somewhat tired expression.

"Whatever it is, I'm sure that it will be absolutely fascinating!" Jonas said with a rather excited look plastered on his face.

"So then, are you all ready?" I asked after taking a second to clear my head.

"Yep."

"Indeed."

"Yes."

"Are you sure?" I asked again with a chuckle, a fact that seemed to annoy Ophelia a little.

"Just show us already."

"Fine, fine, ruin my fun why don't you."

Opening the System Shop I quickly found what I was looking for while ignoring the absolutely absurd prices on some of the Artifacts that I saw while scrolling through the thousands of item options. Actually, One of the main things that make Artifacts different from items and objects from other universes was rather simple, they couldn't be replicated, trying to take them apart and learn how they work so you can make copies is simply impossible. It's kind of like how the Orks in 40k can make all of these insane contraptions and weapons that are so law defying that even they don't really know how any of it works most of the time.

Anyway though, I quickly found the thing that I had wanted and bought three of them, and almost instantly multicolored particles began to manifest out of thin air and fused together into a vaguely rectangular shape before slowly solidifying. In the end they were all completely identical, in fact they were silver blue and white in colour and looked to be some kind of futuristic 3D printers that were around five meters high and seven meters long. 

"And here they are." I hummed as everyone present looked at the odd devices with varying degrees of interest.

(I just can't believe they were so cheap considering what they are capable of doing.) I thought before shaking my head. (Although, compared to having something like a Death Star or a god-like AI this isn't all that interesting.)

"What are they?" Someone asked while my thoughts were elsewhere.

"You can think of them kind of like 3D printers in a way." I explained getting everyone's attention. "So long as you have some kind of blueprint or pre-made template as well as the corresponding materials you can make pretty much anything you want, within reason of course."

"Are there any down sides?" Edward asked with a look of astonishment on his face.

"Well, they can not create anything bigger than their size will allow and they can't make anything with multiple parts." I hummed while rubbing my head. "For example, if you wanted to make a computer you'd have to make all the components of that computer separately and then combine them yourself."

"Could be useful with speeding up our construction efforts I guess." Harper, who was standing off to the side, muttered in thought causing Ashley to nod in agreement.

Unfortunately it wasn't Harper or Ashley who had gotten my attention currently. "My queen..."

"Miss Carmen..."

"Ermm...yes" I gulped as Connor and Jonas turned to me with sparkling eyes as a barrage of questions was sent my way.

"How does it take in materials?"

"Th-they should absorb them through the compartment on their sides, I think anyway."

"What are its inner mechanisms like?"

"No idea."

"Can it break apart materials into their component parts?"

"I honestly don't know, the information I have doesn't say anything about that so...maybe?"

"What abou-?" Thankfully they were both cut off when someone grabbed ahold of their shoulders.

"Save your questions for later..." Red muttered in a quiet yet stern voice.

"Thanks Red." I sighed causing him to nod as he pulled the two away from me a little.

With my personal space reestablished I cough to get everyone to refocus on the topic at hand. "Now then, instead of standing here shouting questions at me, why don't you just go and give it a try?" 

"A fair point!"

"We're on it." The two perked up as they ran off to grab whatever they could find to start testing with.

"I get Connor being interested but why is Jonas So excited? Wasn't he the "prefers to experiment on living things" type?" Ashley asked with a blank look.

Edward simply chuckled at that. "Just let them have their fun."

(This is gonna be a long day, isn't it...?)