Wrong again! Me working with Katie for the last two weeks has been a nightmare with Francesca throwing tiny tantrums about it and making snide comments to my girlfriend about my behavior. Melissa and the boys got tired of hearing it and started hanging out with the Mining folks that I still haven’t met.
Melissa says that she’s learning from one of the guys with reptile features that knows some Israeli combat techniques and is learning to use her knife better.
“Penny, why don’t the runes on this transmission component match the runes on the diagram?” She talks and pings my HUD at the same time.
“I used the New Species home colony runes.” I sent her my diagram.
“What? This wasn’t part of my module. And it looks like your part is the easier fix than us building the rest of the ‘hosting’ section of your diagram.”
“Where’d perfectionist Katie go?” oops, too casual. Katie grimaces as though I slapped her and raises her lips back to growl at me.
“The lack of Matrix updates is currently bothering me more than having this piece of future tech having the wrong identity code for your vanity.”
“If we’re moving on to attacks, I’ll set the fabricator to replicate the part from the scrap I get. We’ll pick this up tomorrow.” I walk away, annoyed that we had different resource books and she blames me for it. True, I poked the Vampire when she was frustrated that the machine wasn’t working, but yeesh.
My ambling to unscramble my thoughts brings me to pit in the ground where crews were prospecting for various metals for the five months we were on ground before getting ditched. Seems that a cave was dug out of one side and put a hut in it. Just outside the hut are Melissa and five guys discussing her last bout with their instructor.
They reset, her with a k-bar like combat knife she definitely didn’t have before, and him with wood carved to the shape of a blade. The reptilian man weaves between her strikes while avoiding her foot stomps and short kicks, then for one of the kicks, he steps into it, catching her foot in his hip and quickly jabs her bound leg before tossing her to the ground. When I would have followed her to the ground to finish her off, he steps back in a sturdy stance ready to avoid her limbs.
“How long would that have taken to bleed her out?” I ask.
The instructor turns to me. “about three minutes or so.” He looks at me top to bottom, assessing my threat level, he doesn’t think much of me and I can’t blame him. “You the fussy doctor these guys complain about?”
“I mean, maybe. Between the two doctors, I like to think I’m the stubborn bossy one, and the botanist is the fussy one?”
He grins at that, “Heard about the bossy one too. Say she has a plan to get back to Earth and Maybe get some powers?”
“True on both accounts. I didn’t catch your name?”
“Decided to go with Viper with the changes. You?”
I walk closer to him while he talks, “Penny or Merc. Nice to meet you Viper.” I hold my hand out.
He raises an eyebrow as he grabs it. We shake once and drop them. “Thanks for training folks. Anyone good with a sword?”
Meeker chimes in, “Fran is really good at fencing, but not a good teacher when she’s angry.”
“Eyes and Gunnar over there aren’t much for combat. But I’ve been teaching them some self defense as well. Escape tactics”
Great idea. Everyone should have at least some training, especially advanced runaway maneuvers. I see Melissa just lying on the ground frowning at me. I walk over to help her up and her frown lifts.
“So is that the kind of knife girls go for these days?”
“It’s a nice knife. I want you to make me one.” I chuckle at the gleam in her eyes.
“Yes dear.” I look back to the three crewman that have been at the mine, “Did you guys decide what direction you want to go on onboarding the system?”
The man with far too many eyes talks “I would like to get the symbiote. See if my mutations can be managed better.” I nod at that.
“Melissa already gave me a swarm.” I nod at Gunnar and squeeze her hip to acknowledge her gung ho attitude. “Offered it to all of us.”
“I too would like Magic. How does the symbiote feel?”
“Good question. It’s very odd for a while, by level 8, I stopped being able to feel her moving. By 16, we’ll literally be inseparable. But if you’re asking how magic feels? I use it mostly with tech and engraving, so it’s less hocus pocus or harry potter and more nerdy gnomes in a lab. I’m assured that there are elementalist and wizard-style magics though.”
“I’ll wait for that then. Thank you for the offer.”
Melissa wants to get back to training, so I steal some jerky and walk my way back to the fabrication and material storage area. Katie seems to be calibrating something on the needle looking device that is the ansible, and Francesca appears to be venting her rage on some weeds.
I find that the part I printed is available. I make sure I’m using the schematic that Katie wants me to use. She verifies that I have the right pattern and get to engraving. Melissa taps me on the shoulder around dusk to get me to look at the time. With my aether eyes mutation I often work just seeing the aether around me with little way of telling the time.
***
“What’s this thing supposed to do?” Gunnar asks, coming to the farm with the training crew to witness the results of near a month’s labor.
Katie responds, “It’s an Aether-Electric communications array that uses a non-dimensional space to convey information across vast distances. This one should connect up to 500 light years away.” After five minutes of waiting for it to find a signal, the rest of us go about our business, fifteen minutes after that, I hear a ding.
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I had a fight about this with Katie, when I can just hit an okay to convert? Yes please. The ansible shimmers and is replaced with a larger tower, a landing pad, and a small out building. Huh, that’s freaking cool.
CETs are somewhat hard to come by for small civilizations. Avoid frivolous spending.
Copy that Tessa.
That seems like the big ones? At least for the settlement. Tessa, did you get a big download to explain some of these things to me?
Yes, I did. I also hid the vast majority of notifications that you’ve received while synching with Andromeda the proper way. Long story short, Astoria got a huge influx of experience, even those that are waiting for symbiotes had dormant swarm identities that track their first contact date so they’ll get their upgrades too. You should look into purchasing a symbiote host for the gentlemen that want them instead of using your own Symbiote.
Four levels and a host of achievements I haven’t even processed yet?! I guess what we did is a big deal. Tessa laughs in my head.
Usually more Users are involved in the creation of such a device, the same can be said with setting up the first ansible connected colony in a non-origin system. This windfall is somewhat disproportionate.
“Merc, they going to be okay?” the instructor asks me.
“Should be, they just got a massive data download. On the plus side, I can purchase your symbiotes from an exchange we just connected to if you’d like to begin the conversion today. Can take up to a week to integrate enough to enable your system. You’ll start with a massive boost though. Should be fun!”
“As soon as possible.” The three other boys agree.
There seems to be a screen. Lets beep boop. Comms and exchange seems like what it does. Local host doesn’t mean anything to me, but I’ll ask Tessa later. I go to the exchange menu and see a flood of information. Yikes.
Just, let me interface with it. Everyone will be happier. Do I have your permission to make the Symbiote purchases?
Yes please and thanks Tessa. I know I’m a hassle.
A case as long as my fore-arm phases onto the platform. I open to see five familiar, completely metal syringes. None of them look excited for the symbiote now. I laugh at that, then ask them if they want to, or should I. To my surprise they all volunteer to do it themselves.
“That was . . . unpleasant. How do we know when we’re . . . finished?” Viper asks. Clearly taking the leader role of the cave cronies.
“You should have a small swarm that is helping you interface with the symbiote. From what I understand, the symbiote won’t need the swarm robots assistance after you reach tier 1. Now that we have an ansible, no one should have issues getting updates as they progress instead of one big painful hit.”
“Any other, ‘pro tips’?”
“Like I was telling Meeker, intent and history matter with these mutations/evolutions. Spend some time settling on what changes you really want, and what parts of yourself you wouldn’t mind losing.”
“What have you lost?” Viper seems to want to poke a little, so I’ll feed him something.
“I can’t live without Aether. Living on Earth for extended periods will be hard for me. I’m hoping to mutate or evolve past that, but right now, I’m losing my humanity too, just not in a way that you can see.”
He nods at that, finally realizing my neat tricks weren’t free. Granted, they wouldn’t have had to pay as high a price if Captain Morris wasn’t a complete ass.
“Anyway, guys, I have some personal updates to get to. We’ll have some community planning stuff later if you’re interested.” Only Eyes nods his interest, the rest of the boys put their hands up and back away.
Alright Tessa, que some mods, pick an artifact, then think about mutations.
If my priorities are the same, this is a no brainer. I will Take the deluxe construct package please: The guide, harvesting, and spellforms. I should be able to create you a body with this right? I figure you could help out in a pinch, but mostly, I could upload you into my ship and have you save my ass when I pass out.”
As much as I appreciate the thought, and think it an excellent idea, the fact you arrived here due to planned recklessness pains me. The mods have been uploaded into your expanded buffer. As for your artifact, let’s key into your choices: A Culinary Manifestor or a Bougie-Boy low-orbit vehicle. Both of these items should be well out of your colony’s tech sphere.
It appears that the data for you specifically is skewed by both your Aether-based and science-based warp capabilities. I will be flagging your species’ mechanical warp capabilities as an outlier to their tech sphere so that Exchange censure does not occur in the future.
Since these t-1 gift options are Matrix recommended, they will not be suspect to censure.
That sounds like a lot of stupid legalese, but something Andromeda has had to deal with multiple times. Sounds like one exception is fine, but 7 billion exceptions breaks things. Makes sense, especially after I was analyzed by Andromeda themselves.
Moving on for now. Cliffs notes of the two devices please?
Your laziness is taxing. And as a researcher, you should be ashamed. The Culinary Manifestor can create any mundane recipe out of Aether for an Isarian Standard Family Unit: or 5 and 1/3 people. The vehicle is a ship created by a space-faring people that only used ships around planet to shelter their skin from solar radiation. It is t-1 for them, and unattainable for humanity at this time, in fact, both are unattainable outside of this offer.
On one hand, any food I can think of sounds amazing. But for only 5 and 1/3 people it seems a bit lackluster. The ship, however, will get me to space again, and possibly provide for tech and magitech upgrades for several of us. Sounds like a winner. I select the Bougie-Boy and a mis-aligned cylinder drops in my hand.
It glows when I align the runes on the rod and then a 30m space yacht appears next to me. “Oh fuck yeah!” I expect it to let me in as I run at it, and all available entry stairs and ramps deploy. I aim at the one toward the front and see a pair of lounge-like pilot chairs and various dials and buttons. I squee like a wounded animal in my excitement and run back past the privacy door? I downloaded the schematics? I shudder with pleasure. The opulence of the rest of the “vessel” is unparalleled, but the thrust systems are rudimentary at best. The Andromedins that made this must have had a magic or telepathy-based propulsion system.
“Andromeda, this is glorious. Is there anyway I can, like attune this rod to me, or embed it in my skin or something? I don’t want anyone to be able to steal it.”
/MUTATION PROPOSAL ACCEPTED. MODIFYING USER: HUMAN PRIMUS/
My mouth is going to get me killed. Especially with so many things reading my mind. My whole body seized and I black out, yet again.