by Pal, J
“Why aren’t you in bed?” I asked, still unsure whether I wanted his help or not.
“We’ve gotten into the habit of sleeping in shifts,” he answered. “It’ll take some time before I can let my guard down and sleep throughout the night. When I heard you in the hallway, my body went on high alert. You looked pretty upset, so I followed.”
A little more than a fortnight had passed since I’d met David. He’d come across as a little boy back then. Now, talking to him, it felt like I was dealing with a grown man. He and Caitlin must have suffered when their friends had betrayed them. Then leaving a reasonably safe sector for our current one had most likely hastened him towards maturity.
David’s artistic skills proved excellent. I’d never pursued it as a hobby and only drew to accompany my stories. The sketches employed the help of rulers and grids and always resembled schematics. David employed a more freehand approach and was just as good. He first drew a hand, wrist, and forearm. Then we added the mechanical elements to it. The end product would need some bulk if I wanted to add things to it. A bionic arm alone would be great, but that wasn’t good enough for the apocalypse. I needed to make the most of it.
We got carried away at first, adding power and strength enhancements. The idea of an arm with super durability and piston action sounded great in theory. Then I had to remind myself that I wasn’t a melee fighter. This had happened in the first place because I’d gotten overconfident and been too close to a boss. The Sonic Shotgun was originally a close-range weapon I’d designed for security. Relying on it as a primary weapon had been a mistake.
Before we knew it, dawn was upon us. David and I dove deep into theorycrafting, coming up with several different ideas for what my new arm could do. We still couldn’t decide whether to focus on offense, defense, or utility. In the end, we narrowed it down to three separate models, one to serve each purpose. We were about to refine them further, but Caitlin showed up looking for her missing brother, so we decided to leave it there. I scanned the blueprints using my goggles before following them down for breakfast.
We all helped with breakfast. Well, I tried to help but ended up getting in everybody’s way. None of them shooed me away or complained—instead, they were all patient with me as I awkwardly used my left arm for tasks it wasn’t used to executing. Once done, we all sat down together. Everyone but Kitty and I looked better than the day before. Had she not slept much either?
“We’ve come to a decision,” Caitlin announced partway through the meal. “You seem like good people and your Hub Core provides security we’re unlikely to find anywhere else. We want to join you but have a few…”
“Caveats.” Jay finished her sentence when she trailed off looking for the correct word. “How determined are you to earn the right to join the elves? To join them, procreate with them or whatever.”
Kitty and I shared concerned looks. Liam had come down as well for the company, and his fidgety spider-leg-hands went still. Had we made a mistake? Was it in our best interests to lie? No. We needed to decide now whether to stick together or part ways. Lying would only complicate things in the future.
“Not at all,” I answered. It was probably a risky move, and I hadn’t discussed this with Kitty, but I decided to pull the trigger anyway. “Liam has no sexual urges until we find a way to get him an organic body—and that’s if he still wants one. I’m getting everything I need physically and emotionally from Kitty. We have no plans of entangling ourselves in any way with the Alvans.”
Jay audibly sighed his relief. “Caitlin and David have some degree of telepathic resistance.” The siblings grinned at us as Jay spoke. “We discussed it with the System Assistant when upgrading, but it turns out a small percentage of humanity, about one in a hundred thousand, have more evolved brains than the rest. This manifests in the form of eidetic memory, perfect pitch, minor precognition, or many others. Minor telepathic resistance tends to accompany such gifts often. Whatever force compels people to blindly trust in the Alvans and refute any claims against them doesn’t affect these two. I imagine it’s the same with you?”
“Nah, mate,” Liam said. “These two survived because of tinfoil, and I had to die and end up in this form before I saw the truth. What about you, Jay? What makes you special?”
“My power,” he answered. “For the first day or two, I was convinced it was all the truth. Whatever they did to my brain didn’t affect my love for animals though, so I picked a power that would let me help them. It was the dogs that helped me see the light. I can converse with them somewhat, and they kept telling me about massive metal towers reaching for the sky. Maya told me she saw the elves land on the street and plant nests in the woods. I’ve always trusted dogs more than people, and I suppose something snapped inside me along the way.”
“Would you still stick by us if we told you two have evidence against the Alvans being frauds?” I asked. “What if we were making enemies of them and preparing to mount an assault against one of these metal tower? Are you willing to risk yourselves staying here?”
“As long as it’s nothing too insane,” Caitlin said.
“Well, it’s downright mad.” My words managed to get a chuckle out of Kitty. She put an arm around me and planted a kiss on my cheek. Liam laughed too when he connected the statement to the System-assigned alias. The others didn’t get the joke and looked at us with confusion. “As soon as the base is secure and we’re geared up, we intend to bring down one of the pylons. It stands where this sector meets our old one and the forest. I suspect that without it, the Alvan limiter and mind hack will fail. We can free everyone.”
The trio took a moment to share glances and whisper to one another. Then Caitlin fished three McGuffins out of her pocket and placed it on the table. “The Metalsmith would’ve asked us for a McGuffin each to join her refuge. Consider this a sign of goodwill.”
“That won’t be necessary,” I said, throwing up my hands—hand.
“Take them,” she insisted. “I want a C-rank Farm, and these are all the McGuffins you’ll need for it.”
Even though I wanted to, I couldn’t say no.
Chapter Seventeen
Fullmetal
Kitty, David, and Caitlin went out to gather the necessary materials to finish the Farm Floor while Jay and I followed Liam up to the fifth floor. The 3D printer had completed its build during the night, and we all wanted to see the creation. Liam wanted to show off his newest project, and I now had a spare McGuffin to power up his recon drone. The enhanced stealth and scouting abilities would prove vital in and out of battle.
We took the elevator up, since my joints ached from the lack of sleep. The Nurturing Field alleviated discomfort when inside but did nothing for sleep or mental strain. I didn’t have much hope for such a device or base upgrade. The chances of it relying on telepathy were high, so the null field would most likely render it useless.
The fifth floor was brighter than usual. I trusted Liam and, after some thought, had given him full autonomy over the level. He had changed its layout, removing several walls. The center of the floor was now a large singular room punctuated by several pillars with the elevator shaft slightly off center. The 3D printer now sat in the middle of the largest clear space, its light acting as one of the few illumination sources.
The new machine sat on a set of six wheels, extending from the floor almost to the ceiling. We had limited its height and width so it would fit in the elevator if we ever needed to move it. LED lights of several different colors blinked all over the machine, and the biometal glands sat in a tank at the top.
When Liam scuttled over, the machine’s glass front slid open and the light coming from its interior almost blinded me. I lifted my goggles off my face, rubbing at my eyes and trying to adjust.
“Would you be better off upgrading those things?” Liam asked. “Make them transparent so we can see your eyes or turn them into lenses.”
“Why? I rather like it that enemies can’t see where I’m looking during a
fight.”
“Add a feature that lets them transition between transparent and opaque then. That blinded you much too easily. It’s going to get you hurt even further.”
“You’re not wrong—”
“What is that?” Jay asked, ignoring our conversation. Instead, he stood focused on the biometal frame Liam had created. It had a shiny chrome finish, reflecting all of the 3D printer’s internal lights and dazzling in the darkness.
“It’s for Matt,” Liam said.
Intrigued, I stepped closer. Due to the multitude of colors shining off the surface, I had trouble identifying it for a moment, but then I understood what it was. “Is that a skeletal arm?”
“I scanned your damaged limb and then your intact one. This is a working prototype constructed using the data. I don’t know whether you can use it for whatever you’re planning, and the joints will need a lubricant—”
“If you still had a body, I’d hug you right now.” Liam didn’t complain about the interruption. Instead, a smiling emoticon appeared on his dome. “Thanks, mate.”
“It’s the least I can do,” he said. “You brought me back from almost dead and gave me a new body. Thanks to you, I feel better now than I ever have before. But I’m not sure whether I want to go back to being... human.”
He went silent, and for a moment I didn’t know what to say. “That was way too emotional for you, buddy.”
“Let it all out, lads.” Jay laughed. “I’m going to give the two of you some privacy. If you need me, I’ll be in the Menagerie.”
“Take these with you,” I said, taking the boneplating, bone-growth accelerator, and bone compressor out of my goggles’ storage. They were a tad heavy for him, so he let Maya out of the canine habitat and used her help to carry them into the elevator. “Fin will know what to do with them.”
“So have you thought of what you’d like to do for the prosthetic?” Liam asked once we were alone.
“I’m not sure yet.” I sent him the schematics for my three ideas through our technopathic link. “I can’t decide which to get.”
“Do you really need to choose? If I were in your position, I’d make something using biometal with abilities like Morpheus’s. You know, a device that can shift and adapt to fulfil your current needs. Then give it the ability to assimilate your other devices temporarily.”
“That does sound awesome, but anything involving assimilation will be a touch too complicated,” I replied. “I’ve thought about it, and I can’t fathom how to include it in a blueprint. Kitty can do it due to the golem core’s upgrading powers. I reckon it will require parts from a creature that already has assimilation-related abilities. You’ve given me a pretty sick idea, though.”
“What is it?” He asked.
“I’d rather show than tell. It’ll be better for the viewers. They’ve gotten enough tell with the new folks telling us about their powers. So let’s give them a nice surprise.”
After giving Liam the specifications for the chassis, I went around the building collecting my devices. Yes! All but the Grappling Belt were ready for upgrades. Engrossed in the prospects of making a new device, I hadn’t thought about upgrading any of my current ones. Initially, I’d been leaning towards incorporating the Stick n’ Save Gloop Shooter into the prosthetic. However, a part of me had been hesitant.
Learning to aim my weapons with the left arm would consume time we didn’t have. The right arm would have to continue working as the offense while the left would serve better for defensive and utility tools. So I pulled up the schematics for the offensive arm under the database log in my display, removed the biometal gun parts I had designed for it, and made the relevant changes. Next, I pulled up my Creation interface to study the relevant materials.
Biometal Attack Arm
Charge Launcher Mk II
biometal arm skeletal frame
biometal arm chassis
biometal gland
plasma absorber
plasma charger
sci-fi manga/anime
McGuffin x2
Charge Launcher Mk II has sufficiently grown to facilitate two new upgrades. The planned changes will consume the stored energy.
The schematic demanded one more McGuffin than I had been willing to spare. When I read the material list out to Liam, he laughed.
“If you’re planning what I think you are, are you surprised?” he asked.
“I’m serious, mate, this could be a gamechanger, and if it’s going to be my arm, I don’t want to compromise,” I told him. “Where the hell do we find manga or anime around here?”
“Have you thought about where we are? This is a post-grad engineering department: home of nerds. The Hub piled up all the books on the first floor, didn’t it? Let’s have a dig around there. If we don’t find any there, we can try the surrounding buildings. Rich kids are bound to have tons of disks or little libraries lying around.”
Liam sent out the Recon Drone to explore the surrounding houses. Meanwhile, I checked the ground floor. I didn’t find any disks—to be fair, with streaming and digital storage, why would anyone bring disks to their place of work? Digging through the books, we found several valuable volumes. My eyes lit up when I found the works of Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein. They were the foundation for the Void Cannon—the first weapon I had looked up after upgrading my power interface. It was tempting, but I needed to stay focused.
I found what I needed buried under a pile of porn magazines. Somehow our civilization’s advancements in digital storage had done little to halt their publication. I didn’t complain, of course. They found a home piled in a corner hidden behind a pile of garbage magazines no one would want to touch. The real prize was a copy of “One-Punch Man.” It was in German, and the contents made little sense to me—three years had passed since the compulsory German lessons in high school. I barely remembered any of it.
“I’ve got something that should work!” I exclaimed through the comms link.
“I’ll call Recon back,” he said. “Come back up. The chassis is ready.”
He didn’t need to tell me twice. I ran back up the stairs, excited for my prosthetic. Liam handed me the chassis and frame, and I was surprised by their weight.
“Holy shit, they’re light.”
“Of course. That’s what makes biometal as good as it is: weight, flexibility, and its magnetic abilities. It lacks hardness, but we can work around that by adjusting the density.”
“Is that what you’ve done with the frame?”
Liam sent me an image of the cross-section, and I was surprised by the internal intricacy. The outer shell was thick, but each individual piece had a hollow center with little metal supports running through them. Liam wasn’t a civil engineer, but his Mega Brain must have been working overtime.
“I’m impressed, mate,” I said before starting the Creation. It consumed a little more than half my energy, and the pool grew by twenty percent. It was tempting to pour extra energy into the process to speed it up, but I resisted the urge. “Now that that’s sorted, let’s upgrade your Recon Drone. I’ve got parts for thermal imaging, sonar, and stealth. Is there anything else you want?”
“Mostly aerial mobility and speed as a secondary,” he answered.
Liam had collected a range of fans and motors. I picked the smallest and powerful of the lot for mobility and another plasma charger to assist with propulsion. The Upgrade used another McGuffin and consumed almost all of my energy, leaving my muscles weak. It would be a while before the two processes completed, recovering a part of my energy bar. I’d have to put up with the tiredness until then.
10 McGuffin-fueled Creations or Upgrades until the next power upgrade.
Liam started up the 3D printer again to build his new drone. I offered my help, but he rejected it. With the 3D printer and the parts we had lying around, he could build his own drones. Liam would still need me for McGuffin-fueled upgrades, but he wanted to figure out how to do that too. Both Creations would take quite a
while—my arm would most likely require a lot more time than the drone, so I left Liam on his own.
I went down to the Menagerie to find Jay playing with the smallest platyhawk. I recognized it as the first hatchling from the clutch we’d found. Its eyes were deeper than that of its siblings, almost human. Jay would throw her, and she’d glide across the room before running back to him, chirping and yipping. I watched them, engrossed and amused.
Saying that Jay had a way with animals was an understatement. They gravitated towards him. If what they had said about there being people out there with some degree of telepathic abilities were true, I’d put my money on him being one of them. A part of me wanted to believe the limiter not working on them was an anomaly or lucky occurrence. However, one couldn’t be too sure in this new world.
The platyhawk looked up at Jay excitedly as he played, reading his expression. Jay being likeable was no secret. I was glad to have him on my side. Did I want to tell him about the reality show and Knurven? Perhaps not yet. We needed to give the newcomers time to settle in and ensure they weren’t lying to us.
“He’s good,” Fin said, walking over. “Platyhawks rarely take a shine to anyone, and he has one literally eating out of the palm of his hand.”
“The little guy seems smarter than the rest. Are you sure it’s not...different?”
“It’s a start. The specimen might be the runt of the litter, but she’s the smartest of the batch. The others will see her and the rest will follow.” A wingless platyhawk crawled over to Fin, and he pulled a cube of meat out of thin air and fed it. The creature looked up at him the same way the runt looked at Jay. “Before you know it, he’ll be one of us. Menageries perform better with a dedicated System-user watching over it.”
“It’s too soon for that,” I told him. “Why are the platyhawks growing slowly?”
“You should be asking why the ankylopus are growing as quick they are.” Fin’s grin sent shivers running up and down my spine. It came across more creepy than friendly. “Given their exposure to the Nurturing Field, the platyhawks are growing at the expected rate. Unfortunately, we can’t figure out why the modified specimen are progressing as they are or how they’ll end up. They don’t have biometal, but their bone-plating makes them perfect for ground defense.”
