Chapter 25: Livewire

On the concept of Warp Materials. private findings by NeoCore researcher, Dr Hamza Sayeed; PhD in Warp Chemistry and Warp Physics.

It has been contentious among the scientific community as to whether the atoms within Warped Elements should be classified using the periodic table or not. The introduction of various Grades and even Tendencies into the particles can alter known elements and compounds into extremely varied materials with unique properties. More commonly known as Warped Materials. Or even as Aetheriums, to some scholars.

To produce Warp Materials is no easy feat. It requires an exact understanding of a pre-existing chemical formula, then requires a specific grade of Warp Energy and Tendency associated with the needed Warp Material to be used with a molecular fabricator. More commonly, they are harvested directly from the bodily remains of the MALswarm. Once a Warp Material has been created in sufficient quantities, it has the ability to ‘infect’ any mixture containing its original non-warped formula. As such, each Warp Material is patented, their formulas kept hidden from competing corporations.

Warp Materials tend to combine existing qualities of known materials, for example water’s ability to fill a vessel can be combined with metal to provide an almost mercury-like substance that can store vast quantities of electricity. Mazhyr has come to coin this substance as Surgesilver. Syntec owns the patent to Holo-wire, which is actually an electromagnetically-controllable gas that absorbs specific frequencies of light and converts it into kinetic energy. Imperium holds control over Yttrium Steel, a form of wood grown on gene-modified trees that can absorb the element Yttrium and produce a complex alloy on their bark serving as one of the most widely used materials in Shardware. Haithama’s hold over the ultra-lightweight yet durable Wildfiber possesses the qualities of carbon-fiber while also maintaining the ability to produce an electric current under high temperatures.

As of today, there are 187 known and unique Warp Materials, and many more Warped Elements can be formed under the right conditions. These are often used as the mechanism in Esper’s and Mutant’s control over the forces of nature. Warped oxygen tends to be extremely flammable and is common in Pyro-type Espers, while some Mutants can warp parts of their body such as their blood into becoming as hard as iron through an alteration of their platelets and coagulation cascade.

The question arises then, how can we as the scientific community study and constrain such variable substances under the norms of the rules we established pre-swarm? Although scientific evidence exists for a degree of order within the nature of Warp Energy, there is as much proof of the contrary. Only time will tell whether we can truly quantify these quote-un-quote ‘mystical’ properties of thought-based energy.

11:12 AM

June 10th

Ripley

If I was stressed carrying around 100k worth of Shardware just five days ago, I was on the edge of crumbling to my knees wearing the removable parts of the Endoskeleton and holding the Optics plus those three trinkets in my jacket. As for the EnSkel itself, that locker room had been secure enough my entire life so I figured it would be best to leave that hunk of weight there for now.

But on my body was perhaps the most troublesome object… the Livewire, a fucking, never-seen-before, Warp Material?! My mind had already run an obstacle course just trying to understand how my grandfather had managed a military-grade EnSkel, but to create a Warp Material required two things.

Luck, and the smarts to understand that luck. Sure, you could tinker with chemicals all year long, inserting millions of Shardyne worth of Warp Energy in there and you might never even know you came across a Warp Material until you played with it a bit. Even then to determine exactly what formed it required you to tinker with every single variable; what Grade did you use, what was the temperature, concentration? PH, atmospheric makeup, light intensity, catalysts, did flakes of your skin get on it, were you looking at it, how were the stars aligned?

I wished I was joking. It’s known that Leapstone, a Warp Material that was incredibly bouncy, for some reason only formed on leap-years. And… god, Livewire? That could refer to so many things, but I’d promised my mother I’d show her what I came across first first before experimenting.

“Ripley, cmon, pretty please, will you just let us look at it?” Twilight egged me on for the hundredth time since I’d left.

“We’re almost there.” I cautiously muttered, I didn’t even want to say the word out loud for fear that anyone could suspect something.

“With your luck.” She pouted. “We’re going to get attacked again, those skimpy arms make for a nice chew-bone.”

“Hey I’m working out now!”

“Yeah but like, until you start gymming out there’s no way you’re ever going to impress me. Midnight might though, she has a thing for guys like you.”

“Guys like me?”

“Yeah, men who are too weak to look her in the eye. The kind who she can gobble right up.” She skipped ahead of me with a teasing glint in her violet eyes, it was becoming easier than ever to hold the Avatar in my sight for hours on end now, a mix of my Neuroframe’s upgrade and the progressing Convergence between me and my Implant.

I decided to indulge in her teasing. “Maybe I should meet her then, you and Daylight aren’t so bad.”

“Yeah but like…” She tapped her lip as though to think of a specific phrase. “Midnight is just different, she holds our darkest parts.”

“That I got from the name.” I’d just stepped into the twelfth-floor entrance of my mega-building and quickly navigated my way through the miniature town on this floor with a quick tram-stop and elevator ride.

In another ten minutes, I was knocking on my door. The door swung open, and… my mother wasn’t alone.

Hoaqin had opened the door, his eyes wide like he’d just gazed upon a corpse. In seconds, his big arms wrapped around my body and held me tight and slowly… slowly I moved my arms around his.

“I fucking missed you man.” I didn’t know how long I wanted to say those words, until they broke out of me like a shattering dam.

“Ripper, you- you fucking stink man… missed you too.” He chuckled before squeezing me in even tighter. “It’s been a fucking week man, I- I thought you were dead.”

“Might as well have been.” I kicked him, letting him feel my mechanical leg to which he openly gaped… to the sight of what I quickly realized were in fact, two mechanical legs since I had outfitted the Endo-Skelton’s outer segments on them.

Before he could get the wrong idea, I lifted my pant-cuff to show the steel wiring and plating below my left knee. “Just one, the uh… the others are just some old junk my grandfather left. Same as my claw.”

“Uh, oh yeah.” He still stared at my metal leg. “Your mother mentioned something about you collecting your inheritance a bit early. Anything interesting?”

“Just this shit. Not like he had a Silver Implant hidden there, would have used that a looong time ago.” I only half-joked as I eyed my mother through the door, she sat on the couch giving a guilty stare to the floor.

I knew it. There had to have been a Silver Implant at some point to complete the set, the question was then what had happened to it?

“Shit man.” Haoqin rubbed the back of his head. “Feels like it’s been years, so much has happened man. Sorry I never called after the first few days, in my defense… I was… you know, my uncle and- everything just got so complicated.”

I brushed it off with a snarky comment of my own. “In my defense I was recovering from an amputated leg.”

“True true, just… Do you know what happened there? To the club after we all left? To S-////?” His face twisted into an uncharacteristically serious expression, I’d only seen it happen before when his grandfather died.

My Neuroframe buzzed within my mind. “I don’t know, man. I took a pretty bad hit and fell with that grenade, everything after was a blur.”

“Shit just… I haven’t been able to contact her.”

Please stop talking about her.

I nodded, walking through the door with a light push aside that I could tell left him a bit stunned, but my sudden lightheadedness drew me onto the couch beside my mother.

“Is the smell really that bad?”

My mother gave a light snort, squeezing her nose. “You smell like a corpse as much as you look like one.”

“In that case I must be the perfect image of Cinderella.”

“The fuck’s a Cinderella?” Hoaqin chortled.

“Old World movie… think it also used to be a book? I just know she’s pretty or something.” I laughed, doing anything to stop thinking about that day.

Blood. Steel. Heads… Heads will roll.

I stared at the ceiling, my eyes hazed. “Reminds me, Hoaqin. I have something for you, took it from that day before everything went to shit.”

I pried into my pockets where I’d always kept that beacon of comfort. The first Implant I’d ever seen, Hoaqin’s Bronze BUG. His eyes practically could have popped out of his skull. “Uh-wait, what do you mean- uh, that’s mine?”

“Was in Shaun’s table when the Lieutenant smashed it apart, found it with the grenades.” I held it gingerly in my hands, staring at the reflection of the Bronze metal. “Take good care of it.”

He approached me as though I would have snapped his fingers off, then as I held it out to him he took a few solid seconds flicking his gaze between me and the Implant before carefully plucking it from my tentative hold. “Who are you and what have you done with Ripley? The old one would have stolen an Implant off my dead body, even if it was a SIM.”

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“Things change when you stare death in the face, Hoaqin.” I returned my gaze to the ceiling. “It’s yours, I could never take it.”

“Not even selling it man? I mean… I wouldn’t have known and your moth- you guys could’ve seriously used it!”

My focus sat on him now, the way he anxiously held the thing with both hands as though he was scared a single fly could ruin it was kind of… kind of pathetic. It was only Bronze.

But a month ago, I’d have ripped my own heart out for it.

Fucking hell, what kind of friend was I? I leaned forward, resting a more solidly grief-stricken face that came too naturally to me. “Look man, I just- I’ve been through alot in the past week. Been through so much damn pain that I don’t ever want to relive for a second, I couldn’t have you hating me too. That would’ve pushed me over the edge.”

A rain of genuine sorrow drew down his face. “O-oh, sorry amigo… I get it, I really do. Things with Shaun haven’t gone well any easier, he’s recouping but at this point we’re barely even a third of what we were two weeks ago. They’re feasting on us like dogs man, Muramasa and Crimson Soul. Not even Vultures are this bad.”

“I- uh… are you guys still operating?” I bit my lip, was there an opportunity for me here?

“I mean, Shaun’s not the type of guy to stop. My uncle just pushes through hard times, says it makes you stronger, he’s more sad about losing his rifle than the club. That bitch Diana really did a number on us.”

Hearing her name almost pulled me out of the state I was in, somehow it had slipped my mind that Diana might be the most wanted woman alive for them. I nodded along. “She really did.”

An awkward silence impregnated the air between us, causing us both to stir for a moment in our own thoughts. Thankfully, my mother interjected on my behalf. “Hoaqin… it’s been a pleasure having you over, thank you so much for coming so quickly. But there is something I urgently need to discuss with my foolish son… I’ll be inviting you for dinner soon. So please take care.”

“Of course, Mama Don, I get you, it’s no worry. I bet he’s had your head in circles over the last few days.” He politely nodded, before a more stern gaze shadowed me. “I’ll uh, be seeing you around Ripper. Take care, man.”

“Take care.” I raised my hand.

He walked to the doorframe, before pausing and giving me a lookover once more. Then I knew something was odd, he had called me by my actual name rather than some nickname. “Ripley. Nothing weird happened that day, right? To you?”

“Besides a MAL crushing my leg?” I chuckled, and he returned one baked in worry and anxiety at me. Then he nodded again, closing the door on his way out.

Relief burrowed through me, my attention all on my mother now. “Why’d you-“

“Invite him over, Ripley?” She held my hands, both steel and flesh. “I didn’t invite him over, he came over worried about you… and me. I know we said we’d keep it a secret but… he was your best friend for the last five years. I’m a bad liar, you know that.”

“Yeah, yeah I know but-“

“I’m just saying that… I know you wouldn’t abandon Hoaqin like that.” She didn’t stare at me accusingly, instead it was worry swimming across her expression. “And the way you lied so eloquently? Is the Psyche is messing with your head? How far has it gotten along?”

I felt a stinging peer into me. “It… may have reconfigured.”

“You have a protocol?” Her grip tightened, the balance between her curiosity and need to parent faltering towards one side. “What is it?”

“It’s called a Preservation Ma- Preservation Protocol. Keeps my mind focused on staying alive and focused, basically never lets me give up. Only reason I worked out that chest if I’m being honest.”

She opened her mouth to ask more about it, but I didn’t want to lie anymore so I instead sprinkled some other interesting tidbits in there. “I also got the Energized and Technician Features, it seems the Implant took after the Claw after all! I’ll probably get Database next!”

“What?” She pulled closer, a light of curiosity shining through her. “That- that’s, no Implant has ever done that, ever!”

“Also I have a Warp Material in my jacket.”

“…Excuse me, what?!”

…

Yeah, so after the excitement and paranoia of having a material that could be worth anywhere from millions to potentially… billions aired out for a few moments — and my mother forced me to take a shower — we set about actually understanding what Livewire was.

By the time I got out of the cramped bathroom, there was a whole setup of wires and spare Neuroframe Processors on the table hooked up to the Silver Datacube, which was thankfully not encrypted by a Datashield.

“Gene-locked to something it calls the F-gene, works with me.” She touched something visible in her lenses.

I hooked up my own frame, feeling a coolness swim over me as data flooded over my mind.

Gene-lock verifying… Presence of the F-gene identified.

Access granted.

* Shardware Engrams…

* Feature Link Engrams…

* Livewire…

There were instructions on how to make Shardware on this? Even Feature Links?

Shardware Engrams:

* Endoskeleton Blueprint: Now this bad boy’s probably my finest work ever, Isa! I trust you to take good care of it!

* Shard-Op’ Claw Blueprint: Unfortunately for you, this ain’t tellin’ ya’ how to get an Iron to hold three Feature Links. That’s a secret only I’m keeping, best believe I’ll let you know it one day. For now, enjoy these Claws, should have everything you need in there.

* Civilian Shardware Files: Here you’ll find a list of everything I used to make the Enskel, though I’m sure your pretty brain already figured it out!

It wasn’t a whole lot, but it was enough to make modifying both my Claws and the Endoskeleton a whole lot easier.

Feature Link Engrams:

* Procedure Repetition [Database]: This bitch took years to figure out, it’s based on something an old friend of mine uses. I’ll introduce you to her once I’m back.

* Breakdown [Technician]: First Feature Link I ever managed to make! Got it while breaking down old vehicles while we were moving to Cali, heaters are needed to brave the cold of the MALterritory between here and home.

* Warp Strands [Energized]: This Link was probably the most difficult to make, emulating a Tendency is painful but I think it works as a good training wheel for when you’ll unlock yours.

Those would make putting new Feature Links into Shardware significantly easier, the left Claw I’d taken was blank but if I got my hand on a BUG with either of the associated Features for those links — I could melt it’s Warpcode down to fit over the scaffolding the Engram would create.

Finally, I took sight and mentally flexed over the Livewire option.

Livewire:

* An experimental Warp Material I came across during my years as a Nomad. I can’t claim the credit for creating it, only finding it. I dedicated years of myself to studying it and still don’t know all it’s quirks.

* Over several decades of testing, I can confirm it has a chemical composition similar to human hair and an alloy of tungsten, titanium and lead in compositions I have listed in further detail below. I have successfully fabricated at least fifty grams of the material using this formula using a Silver Shard-bit. But I suspect it’s true formula needs Gold.

* It appears to have almost super-conductive properties, and can even transmit Warpcode when used in Shardware. At Silver Grade, it shows a tensile strength similar to steel with a high elasticity, although I suspect that funneling higher Grade Aether into it will further increase both characteristics. It is also malleable to the flow of Aether, shaping in accordance. For this purpose, I have installed the Warp Strands Engram on the Datacube. When the flow of Aether ceases, it returns back into the shape it was last set as.

Okay, okay, hold on a fucking second. There was a lot to process as streams of calculations and molecular diagrams crammed into the screen in front of me, but if I was getting this right…

“A nearly super-conductive material as strong as steel under Silver conditions, that constitutes as a memory-shape alloy when Warp Energy flows through it — and it can transmit Warpcode?” I questioned it all, this might be more puzzling than even the MAL?

I had already been pushed so far into realm of absurdity that I couldn’t even say ‘what the fuck’ anymore, but seeing Twilight’s mouth completely agape might have made it worth it.

“You’re reading this, right, Ripley?” My mother spoke, tears flooding her eyes as she gripped hair with her one arm. “What on Earth? How- he’s made one-hundred-and-forty-two models of it’s possible composition had it been a physical substance. Modeling it after elements that don’t exist and… noble gasses?”

“Just when you think it stops…” My hand reached for the vial in front of me. “I’m opening it, this can’t be real. Has to be some long made-up joke from Skeleton.”

Mist poured as I twisted the lock on the vial, an odd orange light examining me from within. Carefully, I tilted the vial as a solid cube of vibrant orange, around two inches on all sides, shook out onto the table in front of me.

The candescent glow overtook the table, casting an evening glow into the entire room despite the white lights all around us. I might have even been shaking if it wasn’t for the Matrices within me keeping my thoughts as light as a feather. I poked the cube, sending a single strand of thread-like Warp energy into the material.

It exploded into a catastrophic mess of yarn that dragged into every inch of the room, some of it went into my mouth. And as soon as I retracted the strand out of shock, the effect was equally catastrophic as it pulled back all the threads in a snap, crunching our coffee table and nearly cutting both of us in half if I didn’t panic a megaton of Warp Energy back into the material again, until it unraveled so quickly that it seemed to engulf us in a cotton-like web.

“Ripley- Ripley! Whatever you did, control it! I’m pretty sure I just got whiplashed by it!” My mother screamed but a fit of laughter fell through. “Did you see that!”

“Pretty sure I did!” It was everywhere, like those annoying confetti you had to spend hours vacuuming after someone decided to use them on you for a party. “I’ll um… try to imagine a shape.”

I dove into my claw, hoping it’s Procedure Repetition would have some sign of working with this material before, but nothing came to me. So instead, I focused on the arm itself, imaging the threads slowly unwinding into it like a yarn ball spiraled against a string. My Warp Energy followed through expertly to my imagination, twisting slowly to pull the threads around my arm.

My mom yelled. “Ah wait! Some of it’s in my hair!”

A lot of untangling later, and after a bit of too much exertion from my mind siphoning into the material, it wrapped around my forearm like a tightly wound bracelet of glowing cloth. “Okay, okay… we got it under control, nowwww how do I get it off?”

I fixated my Warp Energy with a push from my other hand, the wearable claw splashing out a golden rain that sank deep into the cloth, as though heating it to melt.

It did just that, slipping downwards before I froze it, wondering. The shining orange metal creeped upwards like sentient goo, its volume stretched much further than I’d expected a two-inch wide cube could be. I’d need to do some more experimenting later, but for now…

Across the divots and slits in my arm’s mechanical shell, the liquid metal slipped through like water through a ravine before I fastened my control around the outskirts of my arm. Like a thin membrane skimming right under it’s metallic carapace, then I waited for a second… “Uh… how do I set a new shape? What if it turns into a cube while it’s in my arm?”

“Give me a second.” My mom scanned so fast, I thought she might as well have had a Database feature. “…in order to set a new original shape, you must establish the Warp Energy to spread equally across the structure’s lattice before slowly draining it back towards you over the course of a minute… in the usage of Shardware, draw it into the tech before settling it with your Implant.”

So slow and steady, I had to accustom the Livewire to this shape… easier said than done. This was draining me much faster than the coffin had, that was a small sip of my energy whereas now it was a thirsty camel slurping my being right into it’s hump. A part of me had to fight against the hunger it held, then also appease it whenever I felt an uncomfortable tightness take hold of my arm.

But slowly, threads loosened, and metallic plates dislodged give more space for the Livewire to settle within my arm. It was hardly done with finesse, my arm felt sluggish with some tougher plates stiffening my joints, but I could clear that up in time. It almost felt like too much was in my arm.

Then I remembered something, and a whole avalanche of thoughts came rumbling one after the other. The Holo-Wire conundrum that Mr. Skeleton had set me out to solve… wasn’t this the solution? And by patent did he mean that he wanted to know how to make the Warp Material? Was this what he knew I would find?

This was all too connected to be a coincidence… I knew that, and I’d only grown more cautious of the black-market dealer now. Yet, I could hardly focus on that when I felt the thicker whirring of my arm…

“Mom… how would you feel about spending the next few days on some upgrades?”