39

Date

2011 January 31st- Monday - Earth Bet Time

Day 6080 - Monday - Administrator Dimension Time

That was a lot to unpack. The first communication contained everything that Fragile One thought about the situation and a request with helping Victoria. The second communication, however, only contained a few things.

A note that the Fragile One identified as a female.

A love for humans.

A love for Victoria.

And a desperate cry for help.

Apparently, it, or more like she, didn't have any goals aside from helping Victoria achieving whatever she wanted to achieve and to learn more about the humans. It seemed somehow the Shard's drive to collect more information mutated during the unorthodox budding process and turned into a fascination with humans.

He could work with that.

He sent over all the data he had of humans, and their behavior and society then started to put together a restriction system for her.

While working on it, he received a reply from the Fragile One.

[ThAAAnK YooOOu]

That would take some time to get used to it.

He instructed her to work on the data about humans and continued her upgrade.

He also took time to connect the consciousness of the Shards he took over together in a small Network for them to communicate through.

He set up communication protocols, with defenses against the very same infiltration methods he used on the original Network and more. He even tasked Abacus with coming up with new ideas.

The Shard seemed to be happy now that they could talk with other Shards, without watching how much energy they wasted on it.

Predictably, Bombie and Efficiency ignored everything, and the Fragile One was bombarding everybody with questions.

He already received several requests for censure from Efficiency, because answering them was lowering its efficiency.

He also went through the Shards of the Wards.

The simplest one was Aegis. He simply took over it, upgraded, and copied the Shard's knowledge of the human body and biological manipulation. It wasn't really the best at it, sadly. Apparently, the Shard was a bud of a bud of a bud of the Shaper.

But until he could take over the Shaper, it would do.

He immediately set his simulator to integrate the knowledge into Taylor's enhancement, with the goal of giving her a nice, proper regeneration power.

He also disseminated the knowledge to the other Shards to help them better understand their hosts.

Fragile One was enthusiastically thankful for the knowledge and immediately started to plan how to create a regeneration power for Victoria.

He didn't stop her, because he wanted to see what she would come up with.

As a final action, he added rather robust error checking algorithms to the Shard, to make sure Aegis, or the Shard didn't accidentally alter something necessary for living. He also gave the Shard data about human emotions and behavior in relation to body modification, so it could be aware of its effects on the host.

Kid Win was also a straightforward case.

When he told Dragon about his specialty, the AI immediately contacted Armsmaster with an 'idea' for a test that would find the boy's specialty.

Since then, according to Dragon, and what he saw through the kid's Shard, he was over the moon. Sadly, his invention rate didn't increase due to the regulations limiting what he could create.

And the Shard for some reason was forcing plans for modular weapons on him.

He promptly told the Shard where it could put its attitude, and took over the administration of the entire Shard while putting the consciousness of the Shard through an exhaustive education about humans.

He did his usual upgrading, then added several plans he worked on, and queued up several plans that the Shard had in its database for the boy to build.

He also added a biological manipulation module to the Shard that he would slowly use to counteract the biological effects of dyscalculia.

Sadly, he couldn't provide an instant cure, due to security reasons, but he set it up so it would work over a month. That would still be fast, but at least he might not notice it. After all, dyscalculia can be overcome with time, and from what he remembered Kid Win spent a lot of time studying, hoping to counteract the effects of the disorder.

He provided a design for a modular drone system that would help the boy build and do miscellaneous tasks. Another design for a modular armor system, some great energy generators, a few shields, and a medi-gel adapter copied (and altered a little) from Efficiency.

Hopefully, that would occupy the young parahuman for a while and give him the needed strength increase.

The next one was Clockblocker. His power to freeze objects could be rather overpowered if used correctly.

He went through the database and couldn't help but be disappointed.

The power was nothing more than quantum locking things in relation to a reference point.

He could already do that, though he appreciated the extra data he got about the ability. It allowed him to refine his ability, making Taylor's much safer in the future.

He even began research into how to break such protections.

Currently, it was easier to disrupt the Shard than break something locked with this power.

Fortunately, the Shard itself was rather easygoing compared to the others (once again proving that either host and Shard influenced each other or they sought hosts with similar personalities).

As soon as he gave it a rundown on the situation, it just metaphorically shrugged its shoulder and proceeded to request permission to alter the power it gave Clockblocker. Apparently, the initial configuration was proving less than useful.

He gave it permission to start researching options (with a big heaping of data from other Shards) but as with the others, he didn't allow any implementation for now.

There was a plan taking shape in his mind about that, but he was still refining it. If it could succeed, it would once again change Brockton Bay.

?

While this was all going on, he made sure to keep an eye on the Fragile One. He didn't want her to get the wrong picture about the humans. So he kept quizzing her about the data he provided.

Thankfully, she seemed to enjoy having someone finally paying attention to her.

Vista and her Shard were a treasure trove of new information.

The Shard itself was a rather old Shard, tasked with researching spatial manipulation. And it was very good at it, according to the logs.

Sadly, with the age came arrogance, and it refused to submit to him, even after separating the consciousness and explaining the situation.

So for now he locked it away, making sure it couldn't get out with some educational material. Maybe some time in the corner would change its mind?

He went through the data collected by the elder Shard and copied everything for his own database for research, hoping to make use of it.

He also went through the restriction Vista was under while using her power.

He remembered that her biggest complaint was that her power was Manton limited and couldn't affect even lower life forms.

Apparently, that was so because biological life forms suffered from adverse effects after being under the effect of the power. Brains don't enjoy being stretched for miles. Who knew?

So the Shard long ago decided to give up on affecting biologicals and instead designated them as a bubble of space that the host couldn't affect.

He had some ideas for circumventing that, but for now, he left it alone.

However, he upgraded the sensing part of the power by using what he learned from all the other sensing powers he had access to.

The new power would allow young Vista to sense the 3D space around her around thirty feet in incredible detail and would increase the resolution of her sensing further out too.

It would also allow her to be able to move around blindly in the space around her.

He also added the ability to increase the size of any object with space in it and anchor it to it for some time. Unfortunately, it would technically be tinker tech, because the Shard had to expend effort to keep the anchored extended spaces in place.

He knew she was capable of doing this somewhat, but this change would allow her to have 'enlightenment' in relation to it and improve her technique. She was still young, so people wouldn't really be suspicious about it.

People underestimating her for once came really handy.

As a bonus, he would give her a dream that would 'inspire' her to open up a pocket space and anchor it to herself. When she does that, he would give her a pocket space similar to what Taylor had.

She deserved at least that much.

He would also use his Simulators to figure out a way for using the power offensively.

He wanted a pint-sized space warping lethal blonde, and by Great Scott, he would get one!

Just for his own peace of mind, he also finally looked up the dimensional address of Shadow Stalker's Shard.

Apparently, they shipped her off to a correction facility for a young woman in Texas, and she was not having a good time.

Plus, the Shard was being an asshole and was punishing her for failing by ramping up the conflict drive.

She was already on thin ice with the institute and was in a record-breaking number of fights with other inmates.

She was definitively not having a good time.

He quickly took over the Shard, suppressed the consciousness, and went over what the Shard did.

It seemed the Shard was 'born' in a cycle where the Entities were on a planet with a particularly aggressive species (the cycle time was remarkably short for some reason) and it really internalized that species' behavior.

The Shard knew humans were not that species (he also made sure to save every bit of data it collected about them) but still the way it handled its host was tainted by that behavior.

And failure was a great shame.

He set it so that the influence would wane in a short time, though not instantly because that would be suspicious to the people treating the young woman at the institute.

Sophia deserved at least a chance to be a better person.

He internalized everything that he collected from the Wards and began an intense research period. He was still hoping to get inspired by something and have a breakthrough in energy generation and matter manipulation.

It was getting a little frustrating that he still couldn't break that barrier.

While wallowing a little in the misery, he got a priority request from Fragile One.

Apparently, she wanted to practice talking to humans.

Well, as far as distractions go, it was a nice one.

He opened a virtual world and sent the basics of avatar creation to Fragile One. He wondered what she would create.

The virtual world was set to the usual green rolling hills that he used with Taylor, and he was in his usual slime avatar, eagerly hovering in the air.

It only took a few minutes for his guest to materialize. She started out as a ball of light that started to transform as soon as she appeared.

The ball of light started to grow, bulging and moving a little around.

The color changed from white to a see-through.

Over the next few seconds, the ball grew the size of a person and he could clearly see through it, yet the material looked really fragile.

As soon as the ball reached that height, the growth stopped, and it began to change shape.

The avatar continued to change by slimming down in the middle, and he could see parts of it separating.

After another few seconds, the avatar took its final shape as a young woman with a very familiar look made of a fragile crystalline glass-like material. He could even see a few cracks in it.

He watched as the stationary avatar began to move. At first only the fingers twitching, then the arm moving, with the head swiveling blindly.

He waited until she finished before calling out.

"Hello there!"

The avatar stopped moving, freezing as if embarrassed. The head mechanically turned towards him, and after a few seconds she spoke up.

[HeEeellloooOOoo]

She frowned and tried again.

[HeEellooOooo]

Not wanting to listen to her try figuring it out, he gave her a little help.

[DATA]

The Fragile One gave him a smile. Apparently, she got that already working, then tried again.

"HelLlooOooOoooo!" came the greeting from her.

"Much better!" he replied, then sent over some corrections.

"HELLO!" came the ultra-loud reply. If anybody would have heard it for real, their eardrums would have burst. She frowned and tried again. "Hello!"

"You got it!" he cheered, throwing up some confetti.

Fragile One cheered with him, throwing her hand up and jumping in place. "Yaaay! I did it!"

"You did!"

The glass avatar moved towards him, and it immediately reminded him of Victoria's behavior. It seemed the Fragile One modeled her behavior after her favorite person.

"So, should we practice?" he asked, while she just smiled.

"Yes! We should talk about life! We should talk about the Host! Who is your favorite Host? Mine is Vicky, but you can have other favorites! What do you think about flying? I love flying! I love when the Host flies! What do you think about the Host's power? Isn't it the best power? I noticed you gave me more power! Should I give the Host more power? Is more power better? Host already has the best power!"

He finally could sympathize with Efficiency.

Date

2011 January 31st - Monday - Earth Bet Time

He looked over the report about the situation and frowned. Unfortunately, his action of providing information to Mush about the other gang leaders didn't work out. Apparently, the man decided it was time for him to take charge. It wasn't ideal, but he could make it work.

Obviously, there was somebody new in the city. That's why Dragon moved here, and his power was on the fritz.

After some research, he figured out that the cape Serenity was the most likely culprit. The reports he had access to through his taps at the PRT told him she was a thinker blind spot so that could explain his failure.

It was not a good feeling, but at least he learned it through this event, losing nothing worthwhile.

For now, his next task should be to find Serenity and make use of her. And if not, then get her to move from the city or in the worst-case scenario eliminate her.

Of course, he had to be careful, as the world was paying a lot of attention to her, and one wrong move and he would become enemy number one.

Thankfully, he managed to get his hooks into Mush, and already owned Trainwreck and Chariot.

The breakout was impossible; the PRT moved Skidmark and Squealer too fast for the brain-addled Mush to act.

He could have used the Undersiders, but he was waiting on using them for something so high-profile.

He clicked to open a new file and started to plan for finding Serenity.