11

I felt somewhat out of sorts as I walked across the grassy commons of Royal University, the buildings lining the area on either side a mix of old university architecture and modern trappings. My discomfort might have had do with the fact that this was the first time I had left the Mountain and gone to a city in weeks. Or that I was also completely by myself for the first time in weeks.

Also, pants! I was wearing pants for the first time in weeks too. I mean, I was also wearing a light, hooded windbreaker along with sneakers and gloves too, but the pants get a special mention because I hadn't realized how much I missed having pockets until I slid them on. In any case, the clothes helped me be a bit more inconspicuous than usual, as while my meeting with Doctor Serling Roquette wasn't exactly a secret, I also didn't want to draw too much attention or cause a scene. I still got a few odd glances, as I was a very large man dressed to almost completely cover himself in the middle of summer, but I was still less noticeable than a grey semi-robot man.

I adjusted my sunglasses as I stopped and came to a fountain, trying to get my bearings and figure out which way it was to the Nano-engineering building. It didn't take long, as I quickly spotted the sole building in sight that didn't even try to look like it had been made at the turn of the last century. A large building of steel and glass built in a sort of rhombus shape, it seemed to be half structure/ half art piece. I hefted the backpack over my shoulder and made my way there, though as I walked I continued to turn over what had happened two days ago over in my mind.

Batman's debrief on the Santa Prisca mission wasn't quite the dressing down that I expected. To be sure, he was not entirely pleased with how things went, but he admitted that given the interference of Kobra and Bane's response, the team handled the situation as best they could. He still pointed out many minor flaws in our actions, but was overall positive. (Plus, Kobra's involvement actually helped when we called the League in, because the UN gives the League carte blanche when dealing with organizations that have been declared a threat to international stability).

He did have a few pointed words with me when he pulled me to the side though, mostly about how I suddenly went from 'support and observe' to 'taking down five gunmen and a world renowned mercenary'. When I explained to him how that ended up happening he… well, to be honest Batman has perfected the blank stare, it was hard to tell just what he thought about it. He listened to me tell him how I thought I was partially responsible for the death of that one cultist, but he didn't condemn me or remove me from the team. All he said was: "You did a good job. Until you're cleared for active service, never do it again."

I'm not sure how I felt about that.

I was snapped out of my thoughts when I realized that I was standing in front of a reinforced door with an intercom next to it, having already walked into the building and down into its lower levels. Good lord, that habit of mine is even worse now, I thought as I shook my head. I always had a habit of spacing out when I walked places, though it would sometimes result in me arriving and not remembering the trip at all. In any case, I checked the number over the door to match it with the lab that Mr. Kord had told me about before I reached out and pressed a button on the intercom. "Uh, Hello? Doctor Roquette?"

There was a moment's pause before the speaker crackled to life in response. "Yes, what is it?" came the terse reply.

"Ted Kord contacted you a few days ago about a Justice League matter that required your expertise." I said.

A sigh. "Right, that was today. Alright, come in."

The door buzzed and I let myself in. The large lab looked every bit a scientist's domain, with rows of tables carrying a number of high tech machines like microscopes, computers, fabricators, mechanical actuators, boxes with blinky lights on them that probably cost more than my old yearly salary, the works. And at the far end of the room there was a blonde woman in a lab coat with her back to me, hunched over a high tech microscope. Before I could say anything, she spoke as she started to turn from the bench. "I swear, this better not be another one of Kord's ploys to try to get me to work for him, because for the last time I-"

She cut herself off as she finished turning. The Nanotechnology expert was a surprisingly young and fairly attractive woman, with a pleasantly shaped face and glasses covering her blue eyes. And said eyes widened as she got a clear look at me pulling back my hood. "Uh, hi." I said awkwardly as I pulled off my sunglasses. "I have no idea what's going on between you and Mr. Kord, but I am really here on League business."

"N-nothing's going- I just-" She stuttered a little as she stared at me, and I felt suddenly uncomfortable. I had known that some people would be taken aback by my appearance, but this was the first time I had actually had it happen to me. Maybe if I could have at least given myself human like eyes rather than solid grey ones it would have helped a little, but…

The doctor seemed to get over her surprise and noticed my discomfort, and her expression turned sheepish. "Sorry. Kord has tried to hire me for his company a number of times, and I figured this was another attempt. I wasn't expecting a real superhero to show up in civies, though I'm afraid I'm not familiar with you."

"I'm not-" I started to say automatically before I remembered, no, I actually kinda was a superhero now. That's going to take some getting used to, I thought as I stepped forward. "My name is Machina, I'm an associate League member. Thank you for seeing me." I said as I extended my hand.

She took it. "Well, from the way Kord was describing it, this would result in a serious advancement in my research." She said as she let go. Then there was a long pause as she looked at me expectantly. "So? Where's the sample?"

I blinked. "Wait, how much did Mr. Kord tell you?"

"Just that a member of the League had some nanotech they wanted analyzed. Said that it was very active."

I had to stop myself from rolling my eyes. I don't know if Kord didn't tell her the whole story because he wanted to keep things as confidential as possible or because he found it more amusing to have her find out in person. Given what I knew about him, it was probably both. "Well, the thing is…" I said as I pulled of my gloves, raising my hand in front of me as I willed my hand to split into a mass of tendrils. "I am the sample. My entire body is made out of nanites."

Doctor Roquette's jaw dropped open as she watched my hand morph through several different configurations before it settled back into a human limb. "That-! You-! But how-?!" She looked up at me. "I have so many questions."

"You and me both." I said with a sigh. "I barely understand how these damn things work. That's why I've come to you."

I'm not sure how much Roquette was paying attention to what I was saying as she took my hand and started examining it closely. "You feel completely solid, how are you maintaining cohesion, what software architecture are you using, who made you-" She stopped and looked back up at me as she finally seemed to register what I had said. "Wait, what do you mean you don't understand how they work?"

"I mean, I don't understand how they work. I'm just some guy who got eaten by these things and somehow ended up in control of them."

"Wait, you're human?!" She pulled back in shock. "Your nanites are so advanced that they can digitize human consciousness?! How?! I've spent years developing the theory and technology for direct data removal, and someone else has already figured out how to do it to people?!"

I sighed. "I'm going with post-human. And you might want to sit down while I explain." As she did, I then gave an abbreviated version of what happened to me a few weeks prior. My abduction, my transformation, and what I had done thus far with what I had become. Needless to say, she was practically vibrating on the spot by the time I wound down.

"Alien nanotechnology?" she said incredulously. "This is huge. If it really is as advanced as it seems to be, studying it could advance my research by decades!"

"And help me understand how my body works." I said pointedly.

"Oh, uh, that too." She said with a wave of her hand. "That said, we might run into some problems if your nanites are made out of materials not available on Earth."

"I can't speak for their structure, but thankfully my nanites are made up of normal stuff found of the periodic table. Scans show that I'm primarily made up of iron, silicon, carbon, and hydrogen. The rarest element I'm composed of is iridium." Thankfully the amount was absolutely minuscule compared the rest of my mass, but I still needed it. The League had managed to get me a small amount, but I would still have to be careful not to lose what I had. I had just recently managed to assimilate a copy of the molecular forge on the Psion ship, but it wouldn't help me in this case.

Speaking of which, I had finally gotten an inventory of equipment from the damn ship, plus a few smaller items. Most of it wasn't much more useful than the tricorder or laser rifle I had already consumed, but one thing of particular note was a personal force field generator. The thing wasn't really optimized for combat as I couldn't move or shoot through it while it was on, but I would have to work on that later. The molecular forge had been built into the ship, and I had to convince John Stewart to make me a functioning copy using his ring (I owe him a favor now, by the way).

Roquette blinked. "Scans?

I nodded as I slid my backpack off. "From a Green Lantern ring, no less, so it should give you plenty of information." I reached in and pulled out a laptop, turning it on as I placed it in front of her. "I've been told that you and this lab have Level One Meta-Affairs clearance, so-"

"Yes, yes, look only, no downloading onto other devices." The scientist said dismissively and she focused her attention on the laptop Ted Kord had given me.

Turned out there was actually a procedure when it came to introducing new people to potentially sensitive information pertaining to the League. Recognizing that there would be times that the Justice League would need to pull on certain individuals or organizations, the UN had established a security clearance system which cleared people to know sensitive information. Level One meant they could analyze information and technology that the League uses, and Level Two meant that they could store and actively work on materials and data directly tied to the League (This is what STAR labs and Kord Tech have). Level Three applies to associate League members like myself and the team.

The woman settled into silence as she rapidly scrolled through the information, only soft murmurs coming from her as she focused. I found a chair and settled down into it, letting the woman think. As time passed I glanced around the room and tried to guess what each machine did. I wasn't confident about a lot of them, but I was certain about the nanoforges and had a rough idea how they worked. I had been spending most of my free time studying the technology of this world and how it worked, and not having to sleep did have its advantages in that respect.

"What is a Bleed portal?" I blinked as I turned my attention back to the scientist, who was giving me a confused look. "It says here that your nanites get their power from Bleed portals, but it can't even fathom what that means."

"Oh, the Bleed is what we call the space between dimensions. Physics are in constant flux there, and generators can exploit this by picking the laws they want and more or less create free energy. It's also where I store my extra mass." I wasn't completely clear on the mechanics of it, but apparently the nanites could store themselves in the Bleed; connected to my main body, but inactive. I couldn't store anything larger than nanites or molecules (portals were too small), and I could only store about as much mass again as my armored humanoid form (for some arbitrary reason I had yet to figure out).

Roquette boggled as me for a moment and opened her mouth to say something, but after a moment she just shook her head and went back to studying the screen. There was a sort of nervous excitement to her posture as she scanned through the files, and the way she bit her lip as she got to a new section… Err, maybe she was a little too interested in her work.

Finally, she leaned back and let out a breath. "Wow. This is… I never considered emulating biological functionality quite like that. I studied robotics because I found biology too messy, but this is like making cells cybernetic, and then wiring them together with one of the most elegant neural networks I've ever seen. And that's just the bits I can understand." She looked towards me. "So… what exactly did you say you need help with?"

"I have two specific problems I was hoping you could help me solve. The first is that, while I can copy any hardware I consume, I can't do the same with software."

"What?" The doctor said in confusion. "But, that doesn't make any sense. Nanites that advanced shouldn't have any problems assimilating pure data, least of all from comparatively simple systems like ours. I mean, you're obviously storing your different 'configurations' somehow." She paused before she said. "Wait a minute, didn't you also say that you can, how did you put it, 'destructively interface' with machines too?"

"Yeah, if I partially consume something in just the right way, it seems to work." I said before I sighed. "But I don't… download information directly, it just seems to get parsed into a physical senses and I experience it. And subsequent attempts on the same hardware haven't been getting any easier."

Rouquette's brow furrowed as she cupped her chin in thought. "That definitely means that your nanites can absorb digital information. But, it sounds like their genetically creating a temporary virtual machine every time? Why would anyone build them to do that rather than just learn? Hell, my own nanites are able to strip data from systems, and could probably run programs if I gave them the correct configurations to reassemble into."

I perked up at that. "Wait, seriously? That sounds like exactly the sort of thing I need. If I assimilated some of those-"

Before I could finish she shot me a withering look. "Do you have a spare $500,000 you could give to the University to pay for another batch? Because that was the grant given to me to start my research and make about 100 grams worth."

"Well, I probably only need a little-"

"Even if I were inclined to hand over some of it to you, those nanites are University property. You'll have to convince them, not me." I deflated a little at this, and she sighed as her tone softened. "I'm sorry, it's just… this is my life's work here. I get a little testy about people taking it away from me." She paused. "What was the other problem?"

"The other issue…" I hesitated a bit before I continued. "I've lost a lot of physical sensation since I got this body. I've managed to get sight and sound working even better than before, but smell and taste are gone. Touch is… finicky. I can feel pain when parts of me get damaged, and I have a muted sense of pressure, like when you're wearing thick gloves. Nothing I have consumed thus far has helped."

I started to pace as that small constant frustration starts to leak out of me. "I… I'm starting to worry I'm going to forget what things are supposed to feel like before I get this fixed. If I get this fixed." I let out a short bitter laugh. "You know what's funny? I don't actually have to breathe. It's purely psychosomatic. It's also one of the few things that helps calm me down when I start freaking out about all the other little bits of humanity I've lost." I could ignore breathing if I had to, but it made me… uncomfortable.

Roquette frowned. "I can see how that would be upsetting, but… Well, the scans are nice, but I'm going to need to poke at your 'software' personally before I can give you any solutions."

"I can help with that too, a little bit." I said I reached into my backpack and pulled out some kind of dongle attachment for the laptop, one end looking like a four pronged tuning fork. "Mr. Kord said he installed some claytronics-grade debugging software into the laptop-"

The woman cut me off with a snort. "Of course the man just assumes that all you need is a laptop rather than specialized equipment." She said, but she still took the connector away from me. She gave it a once over before she grunted. "Multiphase signal modulator. I guess it will do for a first pass." She plugged one end into the laptop and held the other end out to me before she hesitated. "So, how are you…?"

I pushed my hand straight into the prongs, my 'flesh' parting and molding around it. She blinked at that before turning back to the computer. "You must be all the rage at parties." She remarked dryly.

"Oh, I leave them screaming." I replied.

It was difficult for me to describe what followed next over the course of a half hour, mostly because it mostly felt like nothing at all. The doctor told me that she was sending various kinds of signals into my body to see what came out, but while I felt some tingling that was about it. Most of the time Roquette was muttering under her breath, frequently angry as her tests kept producing null results. I couldn't really understand the data or oscillating lines flowing across the screen, but I was getting the impression that my nanites didn't want to talk. Towards the end I was about to ask something-

I suddenly sat up straight, the tingling sensation transforming into something else entirely. "What the hell was that?"

"Yes!" Roquette yelled as she stared at the screen. "Tell me what you felt!"

I hesitated as I tried to parse the sensation. "It... felt like someone was knocking on the door to my brain." The woman pressed a button on the laptop and I twitched. "Yep, definitely knocking."

The doctor grinned and started typing away. "My dear Machina, I believe I've just isolated your consciousness emulation."

"Really? That's amazing! What else can you do?"

At that her face fell. "With this rig, almost nothing." She said, gesturing to the laptop as she sat down in a chair next to her. "It's far too simple to properly analyze nanotech as advanced as what you're made off, especially when it's actively refusing data input like it is. Quite frankly you're lucky that I'm a genius in my field, or we would have learned nothing."

I titled my head. "Actively refusing? Just what did you learn?"

The doctor let out a sigh as she leaned forward and looked at me. "You have to understand, you're asking me to give my option on what amounts to an alien software black box wrapped inside tech so advances that it makes me feel like Charles Babbage looking at a modern computer. At this point I can't be certain about anything, not without studying your body much, much more."

"I get that, but any insight you can give…"

She looked off to the side before she nodded. "All right. As for why you can't absorb software, I'm pretty sure it's because your nanites don't understand how to deal with your consciousness."

"What? What do you mean by that?"

"My theory is that something went wrong when the nanites consumed you, that in spite of how advanced they are, they were never intended to digitize a mind. When the consciousness emulation started, it took over whatever the thing's OS was, but some function in the natites programming realized that something was wrong and locked its data absorption functions down to prevent the problem from getting worse. To put it in layman's terms, the nanites suffered a crash when they ate you, so now you've rebooted in safe mode."

I was silent for a moment as I let this sink in, but then I realized something was off. "But, if I was in 'safe' mode, wouldn't my mind not be able to take in or do anything new? Aside from me learning and remembering things as normal, I've also learned how to control new and extra limbs. Hell, I'm adapted to having my visual spectrum widened in both directions almost constantly now. Shouldn't that be impossible?"

"Not if it was running a very good emulation of a human brain." She remarked. "The brain can be extremely flexible and adaptive under the right conditions. People can learn to use artificial limbs with functions they never biologically had, learn things at an astounding pace if pressured, and not to mention whatever mental functions develop to help control metahuman abilities."

"So, why can't I just 'adapt' a way to directly interface with software and data?"

"Probably because in that case the brain has no starting point. Limbs and senses it can understand, it can extrapolate off of. Pure data though, there's no analog. There's a reason why direct neural interfaces are still so complicated and awkward."

"Huh. So, if I can somehow convince my 'OS' that everything is normal-"

"That might not be a good idea." She cut me off. "If I'm right then your current state is what's keeping you in control of your nanites. Resetting it might cede that control back. And even if you only activate your ability to absorb data, it's possible you'll accidently overwrite parts of your mind." She paused before she let out a shrug. "Or not. Like I said, this is all guess work."

"Ah." I said, my mouth twisting a bit. "So, what do you recommend I do?"

"Until I've studied this enough to understand what I'm looking at, I would advise that you keep doing what you're doing. If what you're saying is true, your emulation has clearly grown and adapted in response to all of the technology and experiences you've exposed yourself to, so more will likely help." She glanced at the laptop. "Like I said, I can't give you any of my work, but if you do have an in with Kord maybe you could have him build you a purely hardware based 'internet protocol', just to get you started."

I stood up straighter at that, surprised I hadn't thought of the idea myself. Then again, while it was possible to make a device that replaced code with arrangements of transistors and logic gates, doing so was an incredibly inflexible and inefficient endeavor. But for me, it might just be the start I needed to adapt my emulation to parsing raw information. "Thank you. And… what about my 'touch' problems?"

She face fell. "I'm not a cyberneticist, let alone one who understand interactions with digitized human consciousness. It could be that your body is calibrated for your greater durability and requires much more powerful sensations to actually feel things. There may be advanced prosthetics that will fix your issue if you can absorb them, but I don't know of any."

I let out a sigh, but I gave her a smile. "Well, in any case, thank you. You've already helped me a great deal. Though I do hope this means you'll be helping me engineer some solutions in the future?"

"Oh absolutely!" She said, a manic smile spreading across her face as she looked me up and down in a way that felt mildly uncomfortable. "A chance to study hyper advanced alien nanotechnology? This could change the entire course of mankind's technological development! And I'll be at the front of it! With a proper lab and some time I could-" she cut herself off abruptly, and the smile faded from her face. "Wait, I'll need a Level Two clearance lab to study you. Which means I'll have to use…" she growled and griped her head. "God damn it, Kord! You knew didn't you?! Argh!"

I tried to keep a straight face as the woman in front of me railed at being forced to work in her nemesis's facilities (really need to find out the story there some day), though it was difficult. After all, the meeting had turned out better than I had hoped, and I was looking forward to what the doctor would find out in the future.

Two days later I learned that Serling Roquette had gone missing.