Chapter 56: Beware the Dogs
7:38 AM
July 29th
Ripley
Diana was sitting on the couch, inspecting her gun by the time I got up. Was it safe to sleep a few feet away from a cop, literally only with a thin piece of fabric covering us…? Probably not. Thing is, while I couldn’t completely trust her, I believed that the two of us did have an understanding of one another now.
“I think I might have another lead.” She calmly said, as she disassembled a part of the weapon and put it back together.
“Oh.” I quickly swept my hair in place, trying to appear somewhat nice as I carefully pried Twilight’s leg off my belly… there was quite a large difference between how Mirage and Twilight slept. I whispered, but not too quietly since if there was one thing I learned while vacuuming Mirage’s place, it was that she was a heavy sleeper. “Um, go ahead and tell me.”
“Remember how I said I was homeless?” She had a different look in her eyes today, it was both more focused yet distant than it was yesterday. “Well, when I thought back to what Mr. Skeleton said about who the Dogwhistler whistles to, I remembered something odd last night about my days in the street.”
“I’m following.” I tried to ease the groginess in my head, cursing that Psyche hadn’t given me something to wake up quicker after all this time… though if I’m right that falls more under Sustain’s domain.
“Well, it was pretty easy to see that some of the homeless formed groups. Many became Scrappers, while others formed their own coalitions to protect one another… but there were a strange few who I remembered seem to always be alone. They passed from group to group, but they all had dog-tag tattoos… and whenever someone caught sight of a guy marked with one, they usually stayed clear.”
“Dog-tag tattoos… like the military kind?” Now that she mentioned it, some of the homeless bums I’d seen scattered through the city did have a marking like that.
“Yeah.” She raised her eyes to meet mine. “Apparently, the guys who wore them used to be old military veterans on the city guard for the Fourth Swarm and Civil War, during that time… a lot of high-grade BUGs were given out. Then retrieved once their duty was over, replaced with an Iron. Many of them have Warp poisoning like your mother but, looking back, I find it odd. They never seemed to do any of the usual homeless activities, rather they just… existed. Almost mindlessly.”
“Dogwhistler has an information network… you think these guys are her people?” It was a reach, but what other leads did we have?
“I don’t know. I’m just pointing it out, not like I can read their minds.” A bitterness coughed up in her.
“Yeah.” I said dumbly… “Wait, what if I said I had a way?”
“A way to what?”
“Read minds?”
She blinked at me, it seemed that what I said had broken her out of whatever deep trance she’d been in. “Do you have some weird Network Function or something?”
“Not really.” I didn’t know how to explain in words that circumvented the direct topic. “I can read the memories off someone’s BUG, see flashes into their deaths normally… but I think I could go deeper. Don’t tell anyone about this, by the way.”
“That’s… a weird fucking ability.” She rested her chin on the flat barrel of the gun, irking me. “Let’s use it. My lips are sealed.”
“Use it? You want me to kill one of them? I- I could try reading them when they’re alive, it hasn’t worked yet, but I’m better now.” Had she already fallen this far into bad cop territory?
She shook her head. “No, but assuming they work for her, Dogwhistler probably wants them to kill whoever snoops around her business. If you can get information out of them alive, do it… besides they could just be unfortunate war veterans. Better to play it safe.”
“I got it.” I thought it over, feasibly… it wouldn’t be the most dangerous thing to do. How dangerous could one homeless person be?
“Does anyone else know about that ability of yours?” She asked, eying the sleeping Mirage/Twilight behind me.
“Just the guy that helped me figure it out, said it would be funnier to surprise everyone later when they really need something that uses my power.” That much was true, Diamante really enjoyed those little pranks of important information.
“Good, just… be careful with all of this.” She stood up, studying the room with a careful resignation. “I’ll be going now, I feel better, and I want to make things right. I think I have an idea of what to do myself, and now… we’re going to get payback.”
“One step at a time.” I nodded.
She walked towards the door, her sight falling on me one last time. “Thank you, Ripley. Take care… and I really am sorry about everything you’ve gone through. You deserve better.”
“So do you.” I smiled at her.
She smiled back, closing her eyes as the door opened and she walked through. When it closed, that light sound sent a shockwave of emotion through me… there was a heaviness in every word she said, a profound sadness drenched in them. Alongside some sort of clarity. As she left, I switched the Analyze Function mimicked in my head off, feeling like a clog had just been plucked out of my ears.
“Homeless… hmm.” I decided against leaving Mirage to herself right now, instead I opened up some of my old schematics while looking through the BUGs I’d gathered. Yesterday was proof that it was more economical to… scavenge these BUGs rather than buy them. It was a random draw, but in terms of developing my Features it was much more efficient.
If I needed a specific BUG, then buying would be better.
Picking up the Bronze BUG, I submerged it in a bath of Golden glow as I pieced up its inner workings. It took me the better part of ten minutes, much longer to the mere seconds I was taking with Irons now.
Warpcode scanned…
Grade: Bronze V
Development: Tier II (Modification)
Feature: Energized V.2.10; Overclock V.2.18
Previous Adapters: Keagan Thorn (9y6m)
It was the oldest of any BUG I’d ever seen, chunky and vast compared to the Iron’s I’d been consuming. At Tier II, Keagan was considered one of the enforcers of Metal Heavens… I believe they were called the Clerics. Then it went to Priests, Bishops and finally the Archbishop.
Okay, first things first… I tried to mimic my very first Bronze.
My brain felt weird, like it was being stretched into goo as numbers and images flashed through my head. No wonder Diamante didn’t let me consume a Bronze BUG, it felt like sucking sludge through a straw. The fault probably lied within my own Neuroframe’s limited processing capacity, so I slowed it down.
It took ages, almost half an hour just for the Energized Feature to be deconstructed and mimicked.
Energized V.2.10
Update Summary:
* Increased flow towards electrical converters with improved efficiency and output.
* Significant improvement towards Energy Output in Combat Shardware at the Bronze Grade.
* More Efficient circuitry of Internal Organ Shardware.
* V.1.00 Protocol Electrical Siphon: Increases ability for the Adapter to absorb electricity to power their own Shardware with the capabilities of doing so.
* V.2.00 Protocol Stabilized Conductivity: Focuses Warp Energy across Shardware, allowing a greater control of material conductivity.
Then a whopping forty-five minutes for the Overclock Function, it was a good thing I fell asleep during the movie. Some sappy thing about vampires falling in love.
Overclock V.2.12
* Greatly enhanced mobility of Shardware at the expense of Warp Energy
* Slightly reduced self-inflicted damage when exerting the Function.
* Enhanced Output towards Visual Shardware to improve reaction and tracking of movement.
* V.1.00 Protocol Swift Body: For a limited amount of time, the Adapter can greatly enhance the speed of a limb, or even their entire body.
* V.2.00 Protocol Electrical Redirection: The Adapter may use electrical energy alongside Warp Energy within Shardware to improve its overall functionality.
And that… was why there was a big jump between the cost of an Iron and a Bronze, particularly one with a deadly combo like this. Metal Heavens were Shardware freaks, while they might look crazy under their chromed heads, most were engineering nerds who dabbled in Shard Operating. This man probably planned his entire setup from the beginning, taking painstaking operations to implant various generators into his body so that he had an immediate source of electricity.
The question then, was whether I wanted to absorb the BUG or keep it around for mimicking? Truthfully, I wanted both, I couldn’t mimic Energized since I already had it, but the Overclock Function was right under my alley. So… could I do both?
Absorb one half, but leave the other? There was only one way to find out. There wasn’t a way for me to actually feel out which part was located where in the BUG, so I had to just pray that my Data Consumption Protocol would handle that.
As for the Energized Function itself… I decided against focusing it’s code anywhere right now. I didn’t know if doubling down on the criteria of selectively choosing to absorb one half and then selectively directing it into a specific place was a smart choice, I’d be fine just receiving my general Updates.
Thoughts placed firmly, I put in my choice to absorb the BUG while praying that the inner repetition of ‘only Energized, only Energized’ worked in my favor.
Images flashed, a young woman gripping my chains as lightning tore through her body. She burned and regenerated anew with each second that passed, every moment believing her death was near. Then she gazed up, for a split second, her body stopped taking damage. Her finger tips flared up, cast in a bright light of silver-blue, a fray of pure energy struck my heart — an electrical pump — and it exploded. My life slipped away…
Adapter… is selectively absorbing the Warpcode of the Energized Function…
Absorbing Warpcode… General Updates processing.
Data Mimicry V.1.00 has updated to V.1.05
Effects:-
* Increased precision of Memory reading during absorption or reading of Warpcode
* Greater instinctual recall of usage of mimicked Features
* Features may be read in advance to allow immediate switching
* Bandwith restrictions due to Neuroframe incompatibility is slightly reduced
* Increased reading speed for Warpcode of Bronze Grade
Technician V.1.08 has updated to V.1.12
Effects:
* Increased deconstruction of Shardware into it’s basic components
* Increased precision with minute adjustments to Shardware.
* Both Internal and External Shard Operating Shardware are more affected by the concentration effects of Psyche.
Energized V.1.09 has updated to V.1.11
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Effects:
* Increased routing of Warp Energy to Warp Material: Livewire.
* Protocol: Warp Sink now works better on the Adapter’s own Shardware
Psyche V.1.14 has updated to V.1.15
Effect: Adapter is now better able to process life-threatening situations
Excess Warpcode identified… redirect or store for later updates?
‘Store’ I mentally squeezed through the throbbing in my head, it felt like a miniature explosion had just occurred within my brain and it had been splattered along the walls of my skull. Okay, maybe Diamante was definitely right about me taking it easy with the Warpcode absorption…
…But I’d shot up straight to 29% Development. As the throbbing cleared, my whole body ached from the pure exertion of my muscles squeezing as hard as they could, giving me knots and cramps all over.
Still, I scarfed down my breath in excitement, I was now one update away in Psyche from developing a new Protocol for it.
Adjusting Statistics…
Integrity is now Iron VI
Energy is now Iron VI
Capacity is now Iron IX (Effective: Bronze II)
My body lightened at once, and I checked my new capacitance.
Capacity: Iron IX [Effective: Bronze II]
* Neuroframe: Iron V (Iron IV) [12.5%]
* Right Shard-Op Claw: Iron IX (Iron VIII) [25%]
* Left Shard-Op Claw: Iron VIII (Iron VII) [20%]
* Left Leg: Iron V (Iron IV) [12.5%]
* Right Leg: Iron V (Iron IV) [12.5%]
* Liver: Iron IV (Iron III) [10%]
* Lens: Iron 0 [1%]
Capacitance: 93.5%
Would I be… pushing my luck if I tried absorbing some of the Iron BUGs? Maybe, but if I focused them into a specific channel then maybe I wouldn’t feel any adverse side-effects? Putting it to use immediately rather than bloating up my reserves?
Yeah, I was being stupid but these Accomodation BUGs were a dime a dozen and for good reason. To almost any other Adapter it truly allowed them to push past their Capacitance, but since I switched through BUGs so often it wasn’t worth a momentary peace.
I chucked five of the six Accommodation BUGs into my body, focusing them into one stream of thought. To wield Bronze Shardware.
Absorbing Warpcode… Focused on Capacitance towards Bronze Grade Shardware.
Capacity is now Iron X…
Technician V.1.12 is now V.1.13
Effect: All Shard-Operating Shardware now has a reduction of 5% in Capacitance.
Capacity: Iron X [Effective: Bronze III]
* Neuroframe: Iron V (Iron IV) [10%]
* Right Shard-Op Claw: Iron IX (Iron VIII) [11.6%]
* Left Shard-Op Claw: Iron VIII (Iron VII) [9.2%]
* Left Leg: Iron V (Iron IV) [10%]
* Right Leg: Iron V (Iron IV) [10%]
* Liver: Iron IV (Iron III) [9.11%]
* Lens: Iron 0 [1%]
Capacitance: 60.9%
Oh yeah that’s what I’m talllking abuttt… what, whooose thoghts ar slooring? Not meeeiin.
U noooo wut, meiby wun moar BAUG!
Acshually fack it! Youus dem aaalll, on saiky. Gimme nyuuu prtoclo.
Day mellttt ein haundss, unddd day feeel guuud.
Absorbing Warpcode… Focused on Psyche Protocol
…
…
…
Forcing Compatibility.
Psyche V.1.15 has updated to V.2.00
Effect: Protocol: Thought Multiplier can now be used, allowing the Adapter to force a connection between multiple separate conscious ideations into a seamless, exponentially stronger mode of thinking.
———
12 Hours Later.
I woke up screaming. What the fuck just happened? One second I took some Accomodation BUGs, the next was a memory akin to melting jelly.
“Oh.” Mirage said, scowling. “You’re awake.”
“Uh… sorry?” I fucked up, I already knew that.
“You fucked up. Now you know what Warp Burns feel like… what the fuck were you thinking? You used up… fifteen BUGs! In one session! Including a Bronze!” I’d never seen her normal self scream, but it was terrifying.
“Mazhyr’s tits!” She continued. “You were bleeding everywhere! I thought Diana shot you! I was ready to- to-“
Her hands shook in front of her face, tears welling up… was she crying over me? Mirage?
“I’m sorry… but that doesn’t cut it.” I felt the dryness on my face, there were still patches of blood under my eyes, mouth and nose. “It was… an experience.”
“Ripley?” She turned to me. “Do you always need to nearly lose your life before you learn a lesson?”
“I’m sorry.” I repeated, guilt swallowing me up.
“You should be.” She retreated back to a wall, sinking against it as she hugged her knees. “I was… I was scared.”
“Scared?”
“That you weren’t going to wake up.” Mirage admitted, rubbing her eyes. “Daylight entered your head and stabilized you, but the next time you try something like that… you tell me.”
“Yeah, I got… greedy.”
“Honestly, you should have died from it.” She said outright, sending a jab into my heart, but then she stammered over herself to correct herself. “Not-not, not like that! I-I meant that fifteen BUGs at Tier I is like one of the biggest overdoses you could take, the fact that you felt fine after a Bronze and didn’t immediately puke was a sign your Integrity is really high thanks to it being multiplied by your Grade but… I watched the footage. The speed at which you absorbed it, it was instantaneous.”
“My BUG sort of… immediately applies the updates.” I explained.
“Immediately?” Mirage clarified. “No, even pending updates take time to properly digest the changes and… yeah, you do absorb 100% of the Warpcode so realistically you should take several times longer to process even an Iron. But I saw you absorb… so many, all at once.”
“Yeah, it-“ I reviewed the update I’d just gotten to Psyche. What? What the fuck? What did that mean?! “Uhhhh… any idea what a Thought Multiplier Protocol does?”
“A Thought Multiplier Protocol?” She raised her eyes, for a second I thought it meant she knew about it. “Never heard of it, what even brought it out?”
“I think at the moment of digesting them… my thoughts all merged together, like they were melting over another? And the BUG made a Protocol out of it?” I subconsciously stretched my focus on the Protocol, feeling a command waiting for me to assign.
“Seems like an active one, I think I need to input something.” It was a strange feeling, like I had a basket in my head to put my thoughts into… or some sort of mixing pot.
“So you… can combine your thoughts? Fuck it… think of me and… movies?”
“Uh, sure?” I shrugged, mentally assigning the ideas of ‘Mirage’ and ‘movies’ into that hotpot. Then my head blurred as all of a sudden, every single thought I’d ever had of Mirage merged over my memory of every movie I’d watched, thought about or envisioned.
In particular, the crossover between my memories of watching movies with Mirage brightened like a star to the point that I could feel myself able to imagine the virtual screens appeaing right over my eyes.
“Oh that’s weird.” Gasping, I turned to Mirage, who I could suddenly know… a lot more about. It wasn’t that I was seeing something new in her, rather I was piecing together old puzzles in my memories of her.
“You think Scar is hot?” I stammered out, as I recalled the slight rise in her body heat when he spoke. “You find his voice hot?”
“How the fuck did you-!” She choked, her cheeks flushing a slight pink that I recalled some other memories of. “What about it?”
Like when I cooked for her, did her dishes, folded her clothes, cleaned her house… did she-
“I feel like I’m being taken advantage of.” It dawned on me.
She seemed genuinely taken aback by that. “What do you mean?”
“You use me for manual labor… alot. Eh, I don’t mind it.” I shrugged it off, but that seemed to be the last straw before the two streams of thought separated once more, and while I still remembered the actualizations I’d come to, I simply couldn’t piece together those ideas on my own normal memories of them.
Shaking my head, I felt remarkably okay… but it did leave the back of my cranium feeling lighter than usual. The Warp Energy usage of that Protocol was intense. “So… that was weird.”
“You couldn’t have gotten something normal? Like an Empathy Nullifier?” Mirage gave wary looks at me, up and down. “Or something that doesn’t account for you becoming Sherlock Holmes all of a sudden.”
“I have no idea who that is.” I deadpanned, but the Thought Multiplier was a tool I really wanted to get the hang off. Wanting a better opinion, I sent over a screenshot of the Protocol description to Mirage. “But… It seems like I’m combining two thoughts to make it seem like they are the same one. Adding them in some way.”
“Not adding from the looks of it.” Mirage scanned the image. “Multiplying them. Like, if your knowledge of movies was a standard 5, and your knowledge of me was 3 in comparison, then the overall thinking of both under your multiplier would become 15?”
“Hey, I know more about you than a 3.” I tried to defend.
“Ripley, no offense to… us.” She coughed. “How many hours have you spent watching movies of some sorts, Old World or modern, and how many have you spent with me?”
“Okay, but that’s like a 20 to 7.” The maths made sense.
“You lowered the ratio.” She pointed out. “Makes it equivalent to 10 to 3.5 or-“
“Yeah, okay I get it. This ability is weird… gonna have a rough time computing the numerical value of a thought.” How would I even begin workshopping a calculator for this? “But at the same time, it seems abstract. Like what if I multiplied two completely separate ideas, like chocolate and punching someone? Would I imagine punching chocolate? Or would my limited knowledge of chocolate improve my ability to punch someone?”
“Try it out?” She offered, and so I obliged. Reaching into the Protocol, I pushed two words in my head until they echoed and melted into one another.
Thought Multiplier: ‘Chocolate’ X ‘Punching someone’
To my surprise, it completely worked. All of a sudden my memories of all the chocolates I’d ever eaten or seen were superimposed with my memories of getting into brawls or seeing someone punch another person. A common occurance back in the Toxin Club… then I- oh, then I remembered.
Warm liquid, glistening under neon lights flowed atop the bodies of one of the dancers. Her mutation allowed her to heat up her skin, allowing the velvety mess of melted chocolate to fall on the paths of her curves, down her back and around her breasts. I also remembered one of the patrons trying to erm… get a taste.
That was where the punch came in.
“You do not want to know what I’m thinking of.” I covered my face, granted all of a sudden I felt like I was having a better idea of how to throw a punch. “Yeah… it does both of those.”
“You have a memory intertwining both chocolate… and punches?”
“Uhuh.” I nodded.
“Okay then.” She clapped. “One more. Something you’re proficient in and something you’re not. Shardware and charisma.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. “That’s a low blow, I’m plenty charismatic.”
“You have the personality of a wrench, why else do you think I use you for chores.” She snickered, and it got one out of me too. She was really opening out of her shell.
And so, once again, I threw two separate ideas into that box.
Thought Multiplier: ‘Shardware’ X ‘Charisma’
Yeah this one was odd, it was like I opened a vast library to every piece of mechanical knowledge I knew then tried to write a joke or pickup-line over every sentence in each book. The intricacies of my own Shardware opened up to me, particularly a lot of jokes about how my fingers could be used.
“Damn, you make my heart beat faster than a Haithama Showstopper with a twelve-inch gauze-pipe attached to its receiver.” I said full of confidence.
Mirage blinked. “I… I don’t know if I should feel flattered or disgusted?”
“It’s a joke about a mechanical heart beating faster because it’s seeing a large pipe.” I explained.
“Is that your way of saying you’re gay?” She nervously laughed. “We have Topaz for that.”
“Well… actually, I sort of play on both teams. Though it’s specific intricacies are lost in the explanation.” That was true.
“So it’s a smart-person joke? You’re saying I’m dumb?” She looked playfully offended at the insinuation.
“I think you’re just too beautiful to fall for it.” I smiled, before the passing realization of what I’d just said completely resonated with me. I rolled with it… thank you Psyche for the unfounded confidence.
She flushed a little at that, but rolled her eyes. “Ah… I get it, you’re calling me dumb bimbo.”
“What I’m saying is… I think Data isn’t the only thing you could weave off me.” I played along with a haughty smile that took every single cell in my face to maintain. Maybe I had a negative charisma and it fucked up the multiplication?
Shining violet eyes lit up at the sound of my speech, Twilight leaning in close with Mirage’s body. She enunciated each word precisely and clearly. “You. Are going. To do this. To her. As much. As you can.”
Then they dulled down, to reveal a woman whose cheeks brightened up to compensate. “…okay, I think we’ve established it can improve your… non-focused skills.”
“Oh you’re all that I can focus on right now.” Where was this audacity weeks ago while we were watching movies?
Then it sizzled out, the few moments of me being a savant in the way of words left only a hollow shame through my soul. “Shit… that was, sorry.”
“No.” She peeped, neck turning scarlet. “It’s… it’s fine. Really, I’m flattered.”
I stammered, a dull ache ringing from the back of my skull. “Well, either way, I don't know what else I could do with this Protocol right now. It’s pretty damn vague.”
“There is one more thing to try.” Her eyes lit up. “Combat.”