FML-M8 received the call to action. Several exciting terms excited the inputs in his judiciary module, breaking and entry, property damage, assault and battery, self-defense, utopian technology use violations, and more. He used the UPHQ’s rail launcher once again to fire himself towards the westernmost reaches of Utopia, 8070 Forest Street, property resident includes Casa de Mitchell
[At last], it thought, [something better than searching for that cat Sadie again. That diabolical beast seems to escape and get lost every other week.]
FML-M8 landed at the gated perimeter of the Mitchell property and took in the scene of destruction. The roof of the building had exploded outwards covering the property with debris, mostly smart matter, although his scans indicated their circuits were completely ruined. The mostly intact house had its large bay window broken open to the yard and a large multi-armed man stood in the center of the exposed room looking down. FML-M8 deployed his stunner, taser, laser, and vorpal extensions while releasing a cloud of powered motes.
“Citizen. Please, make no sudden moves. I am responding to a disturbance call and need to assess the situation. Are you the occupant of the house?” FML-M8 boomed, as he cautiously hovered closer, all his sensors scanned the area, and his powered motes spread out quickly. His scans revealed another pair of individuals on the ground. One appeared restrained and the other was in medical distress. There was an active AI neural core on the floor, plugged into the house. Many smart matter motes were actively shifting throughout the structure. A large hole in the central room’s floor was evident.
“Yes, Officer. Thank you for coming. This is my house and I called in the request for assistance. These two men were in the process of ransacking my house when I interrupted them in the act. My son is still missing.” Bill responded.
FML-M8 sensors picked up what little biological signals were available from the man who claimed to be the house’s occupant. It made it extremely hard to interpret his truthfulness. Database review matched his aug signatures to the property owner, Bill Mitchell, Ph.D. The man was a scientist and entrepreneur multiple times over, his file was deep and had redactions covering significant sections of it. Another person of interest!
The other two aug signatures were not on file, although the uninjured one on the ground was a match to an earlier report from this house concerning a suspicious person. The Neural core was not projecting a wireless beacon, his working assumption was that this was Casa
“Professor Mitchell, please stand down your aug systems. I can take it from here.”
Bill hesitated to comply, wondering how capable FML-M8 would be if he released Simms from his domination. Before he could respond, a police override command took his weapons offline and asserted control over his drone and mote swarm.
Both Patton and Musashi were distraught by the deputy’s power move as they were forcibly shunted back to Bill’s sensorium. Bill reassured them that with the deep modifications he had done to his aug systems, he could subvert the police override at any time. Virgil agreed that compliance would be the correct action for the moment.
The police deputy withdrew Bill’s motes from Simms but had assumed complete control over Simms’s full aug system forcing him to stand and cuff himself with a provided band of smart matter. The drone quickly floated to the prone form of Volker and stabbed a needle probe into his neck.
“Please remain calm, this man requires emergency aid. I am administering a carotid injection of nanobots to control his cerebral hemorrhaging. It appears he has not invested in sufficient medical augmentations to handle extreme trauma. An ambulance is already on the way. Please be patient.” Another of the deputy's arms stabbed out into a partially repaired smart matter conduit node. The house's repair activities froze while he further assessed the scene.
While FML-M8 started a high-speed review by co opting the house's sensor nets, he noted the deep hole going through the main room and deep into the Earth. His review of the house files showed it went deeper than his estimate. He opened an access line to Casa and began discussing the incident with her. He used one of his favorite openers from Columbo.
“Good morning subAI Casa. Your name is becoming quite a regular addition to my police logs. It’s funny you know, most houses in this particular neighborhood don't have boreholes that go several miles deep……”
FML-M8 accessed and questioned Casa, Bill, and Simms separately to get the details of the events. It also managed to snag a video of the event from the house AI before the EMP punched its lights out, so to speak. Shortly the ambulance arrived and so did Sheriff Durham. The deputy quickly extricated himself from the interview process.
Casa shared a video of a lab at the base of the borehole. It showed the dog-like young man diving into the elevator and the platform launching upwards. FML-M8 now understood why the house had no roof. He sent the video to the Sheriff with a quick private message.
“[I will commence a search for the missing citizen, Max. Judging by the energetic collision, I hope to find at least a portion of a body]”.
He began the search for the missing Max. After some debate, he allowed Casa to assist with her fleet of mock bees, mock hornets, and drones. If FML-M8 had eyebrows, they would have been raised. Person of interest indeed.
To his surprise, the deputy quickly found a largely unharmed Max unconscious, in a small creek bed, about 2.4 miles from Casa De Michell abutting the park for the Grand Oaks. Casa arrived almost immediately while the deputy roused the man. Max woke up slowly and then startled awake as the smelling salts that FML-M8 had presented assaulted his delicate nose.
“To Blave!”, he shouted, fully waking up. Casa understood the reference but was almost as confused as the deputy. She tried to open an access channel for Max to collaborate on what to tell the police, but his augs were still offline.
“Max, thank goodness you’re ok. You managed to escape from the home invaders. The house records are very spotty from their attack. The basement video shows you getting away from them but not what happened after. Did the elevator get damaged?”, Casa said, hoping her coaching would stop Max from revealing any extra details about the tesseract. Her bees were swarming the area, looking for any sign of the tesseract anchor while she called Bill with the good news about Max. The deputy pushed forward in front of Max.
“Easy citizen. You must have injuries.” FML-M8 offered one of its four arms. He would interrogate the witness under the guise of compassionate concern. Physical contact was recommended from his training module. Max, still woozy, grabbed the “hand”, but when he tried to pull himself up, he crushed the metal hand in his grip.
“Sorry. sorry. Sorry!”, Max exclaimed, “I think the elevator crash may have advanced my augs too quickly.” FML-M8 quickly scanned Max, seeing no broken bones or signs of internal bleeding.
Before the deputy could start his questioning, Bill crash-landed, dropping down to one knee and digging a small impact crater. He rushed over to Max, checking him over and hugging him. FML-M8 didn't need to consult the protocols to know that his opportunity for isolated questioning had firmly closed.
The family returned to the house, FML-M8 had taken Simms away and the ambulance had already left with Volker. Sheriff Durham was getting ready to leave.
“I’m sorry your family has experienced this violation. My office will post an active accounting of the incident and share the details with you. If you have any questions, please post them in the file. Only my office can see feedback unless we update more information in the shared file. You can now enable your house ship's repair capabilities again. I think we have all the information we need. I don't want to inconvenience you any further.”
“Thank you, Sheriff. I appreciate it.”, Bill said. “I’m sorry this occurred too. It seems these men were after me specifically, looking to steal my research.”
“That does seem the most likely case. Unfortunately, Simms's admission to you will not be usable in court as he was not informed of his rights. He has since invoked a legal daemon and is staying silent now. The other intruder was identified as Lars Volker. He is still in a coma despite as complete a restoration as possible.”, she gave a sour look thinking of the paperwork to follow.
“We will continue digging. I will be sure to have the deputy patrols nearby to keep a sensor on the neighborhood, although it appears you are quite capable of securing your property. I hope you have a better day, once we leave.” Durham said getting into a large black autopod.
Bill was awash in conflicting emotions. Relief. Anger. Fear. Love. Regret. Excitement. Impatience. Max was ok. Casa was ok. The boy was chatting with Casa as if the home invasion was just another training challenge. Bill recognized his post-battle jitters and paranoia. He needed to be calm and just be here.
Max was fine. Casa was fine. The house was being repaired. He couldn’t reach out to Elsa, Bo, and Mira. Not yet. He needed time. With a deep breath, he settled into the restored smart chairs in the still-reforming living room.
The bay window and floor covering the borehole were fixed. Accessing the house, he could “see” smart matter flowing out of the repaired house matter compiler and his much smaller detached gut compiler. The process had sped up significantly as the fried polymorphic matter was being recycled as feedstock for new fabrication. The cosmetics were already looking pristine. The deeper systems were at about 40% repaired and the connection to the deeper NetherLab was still in process.
“I’m sorry Max. I shouldn’t have left you alone. This is all my fault. We should pack up and get you back up to the moon where it's safer.” Bill started. Before Bill could go much further, Casa interrupted.
“Bill, I feel like I let you down. You left me in charge of the house with a mission to protect it and Max. I should have done better. I saw those two men earlier and did report it, but I didn’t anticipate a fully powered assault. The tesseract may have been destroyed and I was supposed to be watching it. Although, when the tesseract first activated, I was surprised you didn't come right back.”
Bill’s face was again full of conflicting emotions as he absorbed the last sentence. He counted to ten and slowly said. “I didn’t get any messages from you while I was investigating. This is very bad. We need to prep the ship as soon as possible. We need more distance to be safe.”
Max growled a bit and barked a quick reply. “I don’t think the tesseract is destroyed. Casita is still there. We need to find her. I promised her that we would make it out together. I think…I think that I remember being there… when the elevator crashed through the roof. I think she must still be alive and in the Tesseract.”
Bill and Casa were stunned and quiet as Max continued.
“I have to finish this. I’m not a quitter. If Casita and the Tesseract anchor are here, I will find it.” Max growled. He noticed his Kitsugi urn smashed yet again in the corner of the room. He kicked it aside, refusing to feel bad about it.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“I have friends here and we are training well together. Going to the moon, I lose all that. I need this!” Max shouted, slapping the table. The side of the table splintered and the leg supporting it exploded in splinters.
“Sorry! I didn’t mean to do that.” Max looked sheepish. “But it kinda proves my point. My augs are unbalanced. If I ever want to use them effectively, I need to finish the training.”
Bill looked darkly for a moment but was holding his tongue. Max guessed his entire cadre of daemons were all talking at once, but with the house’s projectors still mid-repair, they were not audible to him without a direct connection. Bill brought his hands up and scrubbed his face.
“Okay”, he sighed. “No decisions tonight. We will all debate a plan tomorrow, but now I need to let you in on what my team discovered. The tesseract is more dangerous than I thought. With the house in disrepair, Casa, do you think you could host us all in your core for a secure virtual meeting?”
Soon Bill and Sherlock were showing the details of their trek and both Max and Casa had begun to understand Bill’s fear and to share it.
They spent hours in the virtual space, piecing together the clues and analyzing the story from both sides. Bill soon learned that the tesseract had been activated due to a hidden piece of code in Max’s uplift modules. Between that and Casa’s blocked attempts to contact him, he was convinced the hacker was indeed monitoring them and seemed to know a lot about the dimensional technology. Max, being unaware of the hacker threat, had a lot of questions.
“Why would the hacker help build the Tesseract and then keep its activation codes hidden in me?” Max asked.
Both Bill and Casa looked at each other.
“No idea,” Bill admitted,” nor any concept as to why he would block your discovery from me. It feels like he is laying out breadcrumbs for us. If he’s tracking me, then he must know what I found out about the MIT event. Between those records and our evidence of his interference, he must know we are aware of his actions.”
“It seems like this hacker may be linking a lot of things together. Do you think he may have been involved in the MIT team?”, Casa asked.
“I don’t know. I have help now searching for him. Maybe we will know more soon.” Bill said cautiously.
Bill and Casa quickly reviewed the combined data from MIT and what the NetherLab collected from the tesseract. The fundamentals were similar, but the tesseract seemed keyed to a different set of dimensions than MITs. Bill hypothesized that the shadow gravity observations may be tied to the MIT configuration. Active or unfurled dimensions would require less energy to activate. He guessed that the enormous activation energy for the tesseract was doing more than just forming a spatial bridge but also expanding the unfurled dimensions.
Despite the dangers of the technology and the lurking adversary, Bill was getting excited. Two pathways into different dimensions! Although the Shadowverse seemed to have some monstrous inhabitants. Bill saw potential in both.
Perhaps creating a portal to the shadow verse in low to no gravity areas, where no shadow matter was present would be better for investigating further. The Tesseract subspace technology could be used in many ways. If it could be leveraged for mass reduction it could change the calculus of long-distance space travel. If the energy used to create the pocket could be recaptured, it could become the absolute densest energy storage battery. If they could navigate these rough waters, this would benefit everyone.
“But what about Casita? I swear I remember talking to her after the crash landing. We need to find her!”, Max reminded them insistently. Bill looked grim but determined.
“I searched the whole area where we found you Max, there was no sign of the Tesseract anchor. It’s not broadcasting its access signal any longer. That’s a very bad sign. We can keep looking over a wider area, but ….” Bill trailed off to wanting to say that he suspected that they would never find it.
Casa was also unwilling to give up. “I will send my flock of drones out into a wide sweep pattern to look for a weak signal. If it’s out there, I will find it. Oh! And I'll send out the Pi drones. Maybe the anchor's focus is diffuse again, if so, they can pinpoint it.”
Bill smiled. Casa had come a long way since she was created. Her intuition and creativity were a match for any human. In his eyes, she took the best features of humans and AI both. “If Casita and the tesseract are out there, you two will find it, just please be careful.”
“Alright, I think we all have plenty to think about. I know it's still early in the day, but we should take a break. If I read the house video correctly, neither of us biologicals has had more than a couple hours of sleep in the last 2 days.” Bill ruffled Max’s hair.
“Ada, can you give Max some one-time pad codes? We can’t talk about the hacker outside of a secured network, Max. Let’s get him set and then call it a night.”
As the boys went to their rooms Casa got to work. She fragmented into 5 and they discussed and prioritized the needs. The council of Casa quickly categorized and sorted her tasks. Casa1 was assigned with restoring the house ship and preemptively preparing for takeoff. She knew Bill and expected him to isolate himself to try and take any hacker or espionage attention away from Max. He was also likely eager to recreate the tesseract. She would also step up the operation shell game - to enable a swift replacement structure of Casa de Mitchell II to take its place. She took control of the house matter compiler and started churning out limited-life nano-assemblers. This technology was by decree forbidden in Utopia, but property allowances were broad if nothing left the premises.
Casa2 was given the job to get the NetherLab fully back online with a very extended borehole connection to the house. She swiftly built an assembler packet and had an available drone grab it and drop it down the borehole. The NetherLab had its matter compiler, once she got reconnected to it she could start it producing some industrial strength sump pumps, ducts, and foglets. She had to patch the geothermal generators and pump all the water back into service. It would be hot as an oven down there until the generators started cycling the heat. The service pack contained a contractor daemon named Handy v28 to co-opt the compiler with a preset list of restoration tasks without supervision. The compiler had the extra processor room and the Handy program had very good reviews.
Casa2 set up a rotating torus of foglets to roll down the borehole. She set the gut nanofactory to churn out assemblers that dropped down into the torus. The EMP-damaged region only went down a few hundred feet. This distribution method should seed the tunnel with a well-distributed population of nano-assemblers to accelerate the repair.
Casa3 was tasked with finding the Tesseract and Casita. She had promised herself they would merge again. If Casita was still alive, she would find her. She set all the insect drones on rotation to explore the area where Max was found. Their energy storage wasn’t great. They had about 2 hrs. worth of flight time, but their flight speed was only about 5 miles per hour, with transit time their search time would be limited to about an hour. She broke the insect drones into three groups so she could rotate them through the search, traveling, or recharging. She knew this wouldn’t work long term as the search perimeter got bigger.
Casa4 worked on the long-term search plans. She couldn’t launch the larger pi drones until nighttime as they were strictly against town ordinances. She had some of her mother drones that she would send out at night as well to act as batteries for the insect drones tomorrow, extending their flight times. She would need to work on a solar-powered insect drone design later. Maybe once the design was done, she could see if Prime Archivist would let her access the library MakerSpace matter compiler.
Casa5 had another critical task. Upgrading herself and her house to prevent this type of attack from happening again. First and foremost, the bay window would be pure diamondoid. Construction mods for that were already underway. She was still concerned about a guest or package EMP. She set her smart paper wall liners with a Faraday cage layer. Casa5 flexed and cracked her digital fingers and settled into the NANOCRAFT environment server. She pulled numerous mech bot designs from the Makerspace index. Next time she would stay connected and be able to fight back! She got to work modifying a design to pilot from her core. A custom mech body! She would never let her family down again.
“Damn, my Max pupper. That was some badass strategery you did there. Those mercs were slow as shit, but you pulled a possum and shot aight out of there.” Bo’s virtual projection was effusive. Max preened at the attention but couldn't help but notice that Bo’s projection was missing his left arm.
Seeing Max’s attention, Bo waved him off with his solo arm. “No worries, Max. Tis but a scratch! I had a slight issue with a Raptor and a medpac. I’m not allowed to regrow it as part of the rules of the game. Not an issue though, I still got this.” The entire family looked skeptical but resigned. Elsa’s avatar turned to Max.
“Max, you did well. Thank God you got away from those men. That was so very smart of you.” Elsa said.
“That was a total boss move, Max. Did that elevator from hell, like, permanently compress your spine? Get over here and stand next to me. You were taller by an inch last week, let's check again.” Mira’s avatar jumped up and down.
“I suspect everyone forgot what the E in your full name stands for. Maximum Effort Mitchell.”, Bill joked.
“Thanks, everyone. I appreciate it. But the tesseract is still missing, I need to get out there and help find it and Casa’s missing fragment, Casita.” Max said as he finished tying his shoes. One by one his family let him go with promises to Bill to have a virtual dinner again tonight. Bill patted Max on the shoulder.
“The house and lab are almost fully repaired. I’m going down to the NetherLab to check it over today. Tonight, we will have a family meeting about what we all need next. Okay?” Bill said.
“Ok, Dad! I hope I come back with good news. See you soon.” Max said as he shot out the door to the waiting Autopod. He accessed it immediately, so he could drive.
[Mind Skill: AI Assist +1, AI Assist reaches 9]
[Mind Skill: Access +1, Access reaches 7]
Max had issues going to sleep last night and had formulated a “Plan” for the day. He had queried his AI so many times he must have primed the AI assist to advance. He raced directly to the academy building, and he accessed the building to open the door. Max called out to the AI.
“[Tatemono, can I use the Novice course?]” Max asked as he made his way through the building.
“[Obstacle course done, Novices can come and play, Ready for their fun,]” Tatemono replied.
Max quickly exited the hall and raced over to the courtyard. Soon he stood once more up on the starting line for the Novice level obstacle course. He needed only 50 more XP for his next level and another 10 free stat points. As the warning bells chimed, Max dug into a start position with his claws piercing the platform surface.
At the start horn, Max shot forward, tagging the stepping platforms lightly, and hit the Log drop in a tackle, digging into it with a bear hug and claws. It launched down its line and when it hit the bottom, Max used its momentum to propel himself over the spinning beam. He barely touched down as he sailed over its 16-foot length.
He hit the springboard with a shallow bounce and grabbed low on the jump hang net and swung himself around leveraging his gymnast skill. With no warm-up, he powered into the warp wall jump. He easily grabbed at the ledge, he used his now prodigious strength to pull himself one-handed over the ledge and bound towards the rope climb. A bound and aggressive pull-up and he was at the top. He smashed the timer button.
[Novice obstacle course: 0.58s, +50 XP]
[Novice obstacle course complete]
[New Quest unlocked - Adept Obstacle Course: Push past the pain, conquer the course!]
[Max achieved level 8, + 10 free stat points awarded]
Max congratulated himself, and phase two of his plan was complete. Last night he had spent considerable time and energy, utilizing Dream Learning and Miyamoto to try and teach him Japanese. The effort hadn’t yet given him a quest like Immersive Idioma, but it had forced Max to flex his mental skills. He had leveled OverLayer, Dream Learning, Daemon, Fast Cog, and Memory. Mrs. Matheson had been right. When he talked to Miyamoto in his native language, his advice seemed to make so much more sense when spoken in the daemon’s native language. He quickly assigned all his points to his intelligence stats and summoned his status.
[Name: Max E. Mitchell Level: Novice 8 (3500/4000 XP)]
[Body Design Model: Custom – Canis Familiarus Uplift Free Stats: 10]
[Strength: 77 Agility: 20 Endurance: 19 Vitality: 21]
[Perception: 24 Intelligence: 17 Will: 18 Energy: 74/76 Regen: 39/min]
[Body Skill - Stamina: 8 Leaping: 7 Healing: 8 Strike: 6 Unbreakable: 3 Speed: 6]
[Body Skill – Gymnast: 6 Balance: 5 Claws: 2 Hulk: 1 Ballistics: 3 Sonic: 1 Gland: 1]
[Resist Skills – Poison: 1 Shock: 4 Stun: 4 Light: 4 EMP:1 Neural Scaffold: 4]
[Sense Skills – Scent: 9 DigiSense: 6 ExVision:2 EM Fields:1]
[Mind Skill – AI Assist: 9 Access: 7 Identify: 3 OverLayer: 6 Fast Cog: 6]
[Mind Skill - Pattern: 7 Dream Learn: 6 Daemon: 1 Memory: 3 Bastion:1]
This last push for quest completion had given Max the XP needed to quickly get his intelligence stat up. Now he could gain another daemon. Casa with her swarm and sensors was methodologically searching the lesser woods around the house for the tesseract. Max needed a different strategy. Last night he had perused the available daemons and found a perfect aid for his search.
The iconic Daniel Boone daemon was popular with hikers and hunters for his skill in hunting, tracking, trapping, wilderness survival, wood lore, and navigation. Max had been prepared to ask for the credit to purchase him, but the augmentation program had provided credits for up to 3 daemons. He was exactly what Max needed.
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