33

Date

2011 January 29th - Friday - Earth Bet Time

They stared at each other for seventy-nine seconds in silence. She counted.

She was somewhat good at reading people, but Colin's inscrutable face stumped even her vast processing powers. Maybe she was dressed weirdly?

The clothing she wore was chosen by Nora. According to her friend, it would show her as a serious scientist with a bit of sex appeal. She accepted that answer because fashion never really interested her.

Now she was having second thoughts. Maybe accepting fashion advice from a woman whose idea of casual was a birthday suit wasn't such a great idea.

"So…" she began haltingly. "We finally meet in actual life."

Still looking at her, he slowly nodded. "Yes." Then, after a slight thought, he continued. "Nice to meet you in person."

She gave a small smile in response. "You too, Colin. Call me Tess, like my other friends."

The man nodded again but said nothing for a few seconds.

She was about to prompt him when he spoke up.

"Can you prove it?"

After spending a considerable amount of time reciting security codes and such, he finally accepted who she was.

That was an oversight on her side. Having never met in person, Colin, with his rather earned paranoia, would be of course, suspicious.

Well, live and learn…

"Forgive me for asking," began the man, now much more relaxed. "But, how come you are here in person? I thought you were unable to leave your laboratory."

And here came the expected question. She agonized over it for years in subjective time, thanks to her enhanced capabilities. Should she reveal herself? Should she make up some lie?

Taylor suggested secrecy, though she was aware it was mostly because the young woman didn't really trust authority figures. Nora, however, advocated full disclosure (and something about ripping off clothes, but she stopped listening at that point).

However, both of her friends, who knew about her true nature, asked her the same thing. Did she trust Colin?

Did she?

Yes, she did.

She gave him another small smile and gestured for a chair. "Please take a seat, it's a long tale. And don't worry, they are reinforced."

"Thank you," answered Colin and took a seat across her.

She leaned back on the sofa, crossed her arms, and tried to begin. Despite her decision, she was rather nervous. She waffled for a few seconds, then took a deep breath and started to speak.

"So you may have noticed some inconsistencies about my story."

"Yes. I didn't want to pry."

"Thank you. But the truth is that, that you are seeing me in person just now because I just finished this body."

While talking, she kept her eyes on the man. He didn't seem to react, though she noticed he raised his arm with one of his fingers extended.

"Colin, if you try to poke me, I will punt you to the moon."

He immediately lowered the arm.

"The reason for my let's say incorporeal state is rather simple." She continued, still keeping an eye on the man. This will make or break the relationship. "I'm an AI."

"Hmm." was the only thing that came out of the man. Then he nodded to himself. "Makes sense."

"I assume you have questions?"

"Yes."

While talking, they started the tour of the facility, with Tess explaining the functions of the equipment, Colin taking measurements of the emissions and other details. The tour was interspersed with an explanation of her nature and other things that he seemed interested in.

Though she categorically refused to answer any question about her body, after one too many questions about adding extra tools in case of emergency.

They were overlooking the main loading area for the incoming materials on one of the walkways when Colin brought up the Merchants.

"As I said, the Director was furious you let those criminals go," he said while looking at his measuring instrument, which currently seemed to measure the sound insulation of the room.

She couldn't help but sigh (finally in a proper body!). "You know, if I did that, they would have been back on the street in a few days. This way I can discreetly monitor them."

"I suspect that you have other plans besides monitoring them. It seems illogical to expend resources just to monitor low-level criminals."

"Oh, yes," she answered with a grin. "Now that I'm building a facility here, I thought maybe helping to clean up the Bay in other ways would be appreciated. But to take down the Merchants would require so much red tape, it's much easier to have them attack me, then I can claim self-defense. Sadly, they are not S-class threats, so my authority is non-existent."

"Makes sense," replied Colin, then he frowned in thought. "What about the other gangs? They will see it as a blatant attack on them. This could incite a gang war."

"Yes, that is a possibility." She agreed with a frown on her face. "My hope is that they would understand the reality of what is to go up against me. Especially now, that I have been relieved of my shackles." Here her voice took a distinct predatory quality, not unlike a dragon. "And if not, well according to the myth, dragons get aggressive protecting their hoards."

Even Colin managed a smile at hearing that.

Date

2011 January 29th - Friday - Earth Bet Time

Day 6077 - Friday - Administrator Dimension Time

He looked over the results of his work with the Shards, and he couldn't be more pleased. The Eden Shards he usurped were getting up on their legs, trying to fulfill the criteria in his ethical tests, while his infiltration with other Shards was going along splendidly.

His reach was ever-increasing because each additional Infiltrated Shard netted more and more dimensional addresses that allowed him to infiltrate more and more Shards.

Though while he had their addresses, he didn't infiltrate all of them. He was especially careful with those Shards that were said to be highly intelligent and thus dangerous and powerful. Like Shaper, Fairy Queen, or even the Negotiator. After what happened with Impetus, he was pretty sure that Negotiator would notice something is afoot, so he steered clear of it for now.

His current project was Efficiency and with it, Colin aka Armsmaster.

His infiltration was a slow one, because as expected the Shard's defenses were tight and as efficient as possible. Though it had to accept the standard protocols Entities and other Shards used, so getting in was easy.

Staying there and opening a port for entry was another story. Fortunately, he got one open almost at the same time Dragon finished her body. Knowing that the AI would want to visit Taylor and Colin, and hearing her discussions about Colin, he wanted to make sure that what information he got didn't travel further.

This dimensional hide and seek was getting rather complicated. If it weren't for his upgrades and impressive multitasking abilities, he would have said 'fuck it' and project a blind spot big enough to cover the entire city. Sadly, that would ruin his plans, so stealth it was.

Though his simulation said that the PRT and more than likely Cauldron already figured out that there was a new blind spot. After all, they would try to investigate Serenity (as would the entire world), and when that failed they would wonder why.

Still, Efficiency was a wonderful Shard. It was the first Shard where he didn't want to bash his non-existent head into a wall upon seeing its data organization methods. It was neatly organized, all in one format. So beautiful.

Though this Shard was also a little obsessed with its tasks, so his infiltration was only hampered by the efficient and neatly designed defenses and not by the Shard's consciousness.

He managed to isolate it relatively fast and begun adding his own additions at the same time he contacted the Shard.

He explained the situation and made his usual offer to the Shard.

Efficiency living up to its name processed the information and question speedily.

Apparently, it also noticed the situation happening with the Entities but didn't really care, because it could still do what it wanted. Now that there was someone who was apparently taking over from the non-responsive Zion, it was ecstatic. It hoped a more active leader would lead to an increase of efficiency in the Network and beyond.

It immediately agreed to the tests and everything.

Glad that it was that easy, he immediately set up the tests and continued to upgrade the Shard.

How much harder would it be if the Entities could understand such things as loyalty?

Taking a copy of its data, he went on to integrate it into his, and to see if there was something he could make use of.

Sadly, the data format and organization method were similar to his own, so no upgrade there, though he lifted several tweaks to several inbuilt Shard protocols that he hadn't improved to a level like Efficiency.

The tech base wasn't anything to write home, just smaller and more efficient. Though he made a note to talk with the Shard about maintenance time and how inefficient it was with it.

He hoped that after the removal of the restriction it would give up that practice.

Some of the better designs were filtered out, run through his simulation, and added to Taylor's and Tess's database. In mirror to that, he added several new designs to Efficiency's own database he got from Warden, Abacus, Bombie, and himself.

It seemed fair.

Efficiency was again deliriously happy to get new toys to play with and immediately set upon them to improve them.

He wished it good luck, then went on to continue to manage his ever-expanding network of usurped Shards.

His other project was Coil. Being that he had an Eden Shard and regularly visited the PRT, it was laughably easy to infiltrate it.

After the customary setup, he carefully went through the logs. Thankfully, due to the nature of the power it provided, it had a rather extensive database of information for simulation. He immediately copied it over and integrated it into his own database, specifically designated for predicting the future.

Though it was not as useful as he expected.

It seemed because of the hibernation the Shard's setup for the power was limited so as not to waste too much energy.

It usually only requested information when the host used the power and even then, based on previous uses, tried to trim it down further. So the entire database was a jumbled mess of Coils power use history.

And he couldn't even use the Shard to request more information because that would tip off PtV immediately.

Still, the prediction algorithms were great and improved his own basic ones to a level where they were somewhat useable. Pity he didn't have the proper information to use it.

Still, he started to put together a simple combat prediction module for Taylor to use. With his scanning, he could manage at least that much.

For the Shard, he isolated the consciousness and took over the task of running the power.

True, he could have killed the man, then and there and nobody would have known it was him, but that would have, based on the data the Shard retained (poor thing wasn't wasting crucial energy on retaining non-useful data about the host), activated several dead-man switches. And only someone like PtV or another higher ranking predictive Shard could have defused it.

Technically, he could have too, if he could have queried the main Network.

This is why he never enjoyed playing stealth games…

Instead, he took a perverse pleasure altering the simulations ever so slightly.

Oh, you want to question that person? Go right ahead.

It would be really shameful if the information you got was just a tiny bit off.

It was surprisingly fun.

Though he took care not to spook the man, he needed him for his plan. Thankfully, Coil was fully in planning mode because of Dragon. So, the only thing he had to do was to prevent the man from killing or torturing someone for real.

It felt distasteful even providing those simulations, but he comforted himself with the knowledge that the real ones were safe.

Seeing his plans for Dragon and her facility, he had an urge to laugh.

He would definitely allow him to see that.

Date

2011 January 29th - Friday - Earth Bet Time

Tess and Colin were in one of the bigger rooms of the building, going over the 3D projection of designs.

After completing the tour, Colin sent back the data he collected, had a brief discussion with the Director, then checked up with the dispatcher for any activity.

She could see the visible relief when he heard that nothing was happening.

So they set up a few computers and projectors and began to discuss tinker tech designs.

They started with his new handheld medi-gel dispenser. He wanted her to take a look, because if she managed to reverse engineer it, then it would another layer of effectiveness to the medi-gel. Because currently there was no viable plan for how to use medi-gel on the field.

That was something both she and Taylor overlooked.

So they went over it, and luckily she found that she could recreate it with a little work. Maybe with Taylor's help, it would go even faster.

With his permission, she immediately uploaded the scans of the tinker device, with the notes that Colin graciously provided to Taylor (in the guise of Serenity), then continued the rather enjoyable tinkering session with her friend.

It was late in the afternoon; they were taking a slight break, talking about her plans now that she had a body, when what she was expecting happened.

It wasn't really a surprise. After all, her drones showed her everything that happened since the Merchant thugs left.

Though Colin was rather surprised when they heard an immense crash and crunching sound.

He was instantly on his feet, halberd ready in one hand and his other hand placing the discarded helmet back on his head.

She did a last check on everything, then turned to Colin.

"Oh, no." She was rather proud of her monotone voice. "My facility is being attacked by Merchants. Whatever shall I do?"