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Max woke with his nerves on fire. He couldn’t scream. He couldn’t move or even sense his body, but at least he was awake. He had been dreaming…of nanobot battles. Considering what he saw and learned, Max was convinced that his system’s fight to modify the uplift virus had leaked into his consciousness stream.
As the pain slowly died down, he recollected the many scenes that had played out while he was dreaming. The uplift virus looked natural, but at its core it had hidden nanosystems. His body's defenses had dissected individual viruses many, many times. Opening them up and snipping out first the internal copy that it used for replication and then the newly identified module to detect human DNA and disassemble it.
Max had witnessed the beginning of the battle. Initially, his body’s defenses had grappled with the alien machines and wrestled them into a stalemate. To destroy the virus, Mal had informed him, the system would need to disengage. When the virus was released, it had gone after Max’s nervous system.
The pain he had felt had reached a crescendo, following his nerves until it found his brain. The virus had found its target and began making modifications. The virus was distracted, and his defenses pounced and dug into the machines.
Those are dendrites, I think. The virus created whole extra layers of dendrites on top of what was there already. Max thought.
He had glimpses of Mal orchestrating the nano battle. After what seemed like days, his quiet observations snapped as the modification storm within his head subsided. He could think again. He pinged his system…nothing. He was still a passive observer, but at least he was conscious.
He floated amidst the random visualizations, representing his system's cognitive interface operations. The representation of Mal flitted about making changes and connections. It must have been working, as something changed. Max’s hearing snapped on. He could hear his friends talking, but it was hard to focus on the words.
Mal stopped in front of a familiar structure, vibrating with internal processes. Max remembered it from long ago. Casa had shown him the kernel of foreign code that linked his neuromodule to the tesseract. Mal was reaching out to it but backed off muttering.
“Ph'legeth ya, Azathoth, hlirgh mnahn'gha f'hnar.” Mal grumbled, backing off.
She flew off into another section, where she began redrawing a huge map of system interconnects. She played with the setting, bridging several gaps. A blue screen popped into Max’s awareness.
[GAME LEVELING AUGMENTATION TRAINING SYSTEM Activated…]
[TRAINER: Vocalize “Query”- “subject” for help…]
[TRAINER: Vocalize “Status” for personal stat and skill profile…]
[TRAINER: Vocalize “Quests” for available training quests…]
Max sighed or tried to; he still wasn’t connected to his body. He was about to give the mental command for Status when another notice rolled in.
[Updates recognized during system reinitialization…]
[Intelligence +20, Intelligence: 85*, * baseline adjustment recalibrated]
[Recalibrated Energy: 1,038 / 1,352]
[Recycling +1, Recycling reached level 2]
[ANDD +2, ANDD reached level 3: Continue to advance this skill to protect your system from harmful nanobot intrusion.]
Max did a double take seeing his intelligence baseline adjustment. He had investigated the details of his uplift operation. It was achieved with the intensive use of an additional neocortex module.
The virus was different, adding dendrites to my brain, not just emulating intelligence. Max thought. It changed me, the real me, not adding extra processing capability with the augmentation system. I don’t feel any smarter, though.
Max didn’t know how to test himself. He issued the command for his status.
[Name: Max E. Mitchell Level: Adept 16 (10,050/11,000 XP)]
[Body Design Model: Custom – Canis Familiarus Uplift Free Stats: 0]
[Strength: 100 Agility: 66 Endurance: 100 Vitality: 100 Energy: 1038/1352]
[Perception: 45 Intelligence: 85 Will: 53 Regen: 306/min]
[Body Skills – Claws/Vorpal:10/1 Strike/Disable: 10/2 Speed/Reflex: 10/7]
[Body Skills - Stamina/Tireless: 10/7 Balance: 9 Gymnast: 10 Leap: 10]
[Body Skills – Stun: 7 Shock: 4 EMP Blast: 3 Oxygen/Recycle: 10/2]
[Body Skills - Hulk: 3 Skin: 10 Armor: 5 Unbreakable: 10 Transform: 4]
[Body Skills – Painless:10 Healing/Regeneration: 10/10 Ballistics: 4 Gland: 10]
[Resist Skills – Shock: 10 Sonic: 9 Light: 9 Heat: 4 Cold: 3]
[Resist Skills - Poison: 10 ANDD: 3 EMP: 10 Neural Scaffold: 10]
[Sense Skills – Scent: 10 ExaVision: 7 EM Fields: 7 EchoLocate: 2]
[Mind Skills – AI Assist/Companion: 10/5 Identify/Analyze: 10/7 Backup:1]
[Mind Skills - OverLayer/WorldMap: 10/1 Language: 3 Dream Learn: 9]
[Mind Skills - DigiSense: 10 Access/Hack/Intrusion: 10/8/1 Privacy: 5 Memory: 9]
[Mind Skills - Pattern/Decode: 10/1 FastCog/PreCog: 10/2 Telekinesis: 1]
[Mind Skills - Empath/Poker-face 10/1 Multitask: 1 Pilot:1 Bastion: 8]
[Mind Skills – Swarm: 1 PowerCore: 1 Backup: 1]
[Mind Skills - Daemon: 4 (Musashi, Sherlock, Tesla, Captain Cypher)]
[Mind Skills - SkillZ: 4 Input: Swim, NanoCraft, Brachiation, pending]
[Mind Skills - SkillZ: Output: Katana 1.0, Kempo 0.90, Kunai: 0.05]
Max saw all the new skills. He simmered on the sheet. He understood that the training required a challenge to advance but getting gains for trauma and torture seemed…wrong. Max was impatient. He reached out mentally.
“[Mal? Are you there? What’s going on?]” Max asked.
There was a brief pause, a moment where his system skipped then seemed to settle. Mal's presence re-emerged within his mind's eye, her avatar looked ragged and concerned.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“[Max, good! You’re finally awake. I think you’re out of the woods now. I was worried when the virus went up your spinal canal. I was so worried. I worked as fast as I could, but it…made modifications. You're in a recovery phase now. Your physical body is offline while we integrate the upgrades and purify your system from the remnants of the virus.]” Mal said slowly.
“[How long until I can move?]” Max asked, still feeling afraid and claustrophobic.
“[I’m working as fast as I can, Max. Your entire neural map was changed. Your brainstem is intact, but until your augments are re-mapped, it's programmed to keep your body in lockdown until it's finished. I’ve been supervising you to make sure your progress isn’t lost. I need to watch it though; it almost erased your [SkillZ] database. Will you be good if I leave you to finish?]” Mal said.
“[Yes, thank you, Mal. I’m…adjusting. Please hurry. I’ll try to be patient.]” Max said.
Mal’s avatar winked out. If Max concentrated hard, he could track her progress. She was relinking his sensorium systems. He reached out again, trying to summon his daemons.
“[Sherlock? Musashi? New guys? Anyone home? …. Fuck.”] Max asked. His system was silent. Max picked through his status, looking for changes.
Hmmm, the WorldMap skill is supposed to aggregate my sensor information. If Mal is fixing the sensor connections, then maybe I can track her progress that way. Max thought as he toggled it on.
Max was happy to get out of his “head” as he took in his surroundings. The view was incomplete. The [WorldMap] function showed only his EM sense and Thermal vision so far. He couldn’t turn his head, but his map showed his immediate surroundings as a third-person overview. Some of the games he had played with Bo earlier this year had similar mechanics. It took some getting used to, but he was able to shift his viewpoint around just by willing it.
He was in a very large room. He could see his own body's heat pattern. If the color scheme was still correct, then he was running a fever of 104 degrees Fahrenheit.
Shit, is that because of the virus? He thought.
He saw another heat source right next to him and two more that flashed across the room and out of his “sight”. The room was awash with small motes of EM activity. The nearby walls were solid barriers, bouncing the EM fields back into the room.
He focused on the small cluster of EM sources. Utility fog! The room was dense with foglets. A cluster condensed with his attention. He focused and managed to squeeze the fog with enough attention. The system pinged back.
[Telekinesis +1, Telekinesis reaches level 2]
Max would have grinned if he could. He reviewed the tools at his disposal. His swarm skill and the academy’s mote gift could help! He tried to access them but couldn’t find them.
Oh, that’s right. I stored everything in the Tesseract. Max thought. He switched his target and activated the tesseract to open its portal a minuscule amount and his collection of nano-motes appeared on his access menu. He accessed them and ordered all one hundred of them out of the pocket space. The motes, the scouts, the scanners, and the power banks, all dispersed into the large room and Max’s view of the room improved dramatically.
The motes fed his [WorldMap] skill, and the scanner motes had filled in all the visual details. He viewed himself from above. He appeared to be asleep, with none of the damage he had when he had fallen from Tyler’s attacks. Leah meditated, right next to him, and within reach. Judging by her concerned expression, she wasn’t meditating very deeply or well.
Max directed the swarm to spread further, and the details of the room grew and grew…and Max could see…everything.
The room was enormous. Where he lay were mats and chairs, nearby were some tables and a row of matter compilers on the wall. Beyond him, the room expanded to stadium size. On the left, was a replica of the Novice obstacle course. On the right, the Adept course stood even larger. In between the two, was a large double door, with a huge plaque above it.
Mystery Labyrinth - dedicated to finding the limits of all challengers and rewarding them.
Max saw Xavier attempting the Adept course again. The kid had improved a lot. Charlie was cheering him on below as he made it past the Fire Chamber. He entered the Puzzle Maze where it was harder to see what was going on.
Max directed the nearest of his scanner motes to enter the maze. He soon found Xavier at a door with a coded access panel. Near the door was a huge mural built of sliding tiles that was thoroughly scrambled, making the mural impossible to understand. The rules of the Puzzle Maze were clear, a clue was usually present that needed to be solved. The Thark cosplayer was working the puzzle fast, but a timer on the door was counting down even faster.
Damn, look at him go. I couldn’t work this puzzle that fast. Having four arms is a real advantage. Max thought.
Xavier, despite his physical speed, seemed to be having difficulty. He kept undoing his work in unscrambling the puzzle. Max could see the answer forming as Xavier worked the tiles. He saw the pattern and extrapolated it, not needing to see the final picture. It was a code for the door. It would be 8-5-0-2. Damn, Xavier was running out of time. If only…Max tried his augmented Telephony function.
[Initiating connection with Xavier…]
Xavier fumbled the tiles, setting himself back again when the call came in. He hesitated then answered.
“[Max? You’re awake!?]” Xavier answered.
“[Hi Xavier. Kinda, but hey, you’re running out of time. The answer is 8-5-0-2. Quickly!]” Max yelled.
Xavier pounced on the access panel and got halfway through the code, but he mashed the wrong button. The timer ran out as he tried to reset the code. A trap door snapped open under him and Xavier screamed as he fell into a dark chute.
Max cringed. He knew that chute well. It would be delivering shocks to Xavier, all the way down and back to the entry point, to build up his resistance. Max was about to direct his attention to the other scanner motes on the outside of the maze when he felt and saw a powerful scan blanket his mote. The walls inside the maze had an EM signature that resolved into a pattern. His systems triggered a bunch of notices.
[Privacy +1, Privacy reaches level 6]
[Decode +1, Decode reaches level 2]
[Swarm +1, Swarm reaches level 2, available motes can double with access to a matter compiler to 200 units]
[WorldMap +1, WorldMap reaches level 2: usage of accessed scanners can now be automatically incorporated into sensorium.]
[Connections to new neural structure complete. Disabling safety spinal shunt.]
Max shuddered and his eyelids fluttered. He moaned as the feeling came back. The sensations momentarily overwhelmed him, and he struggled to sort his head out. He ramped up his [Multitasking] and [FastCog] skills to adjust faster.
He backed off his [WorldMap] view a bit. His [Decode] skill had shown him that there were many AI watchers in the walls of the maze and his privacy skill had reacted to their scrutiny. He got the distinct impression with his decoding skill that the AIs were not happy with him. He shunted his attention outside.
Xavier was screaming, “He’s awake! Max is awake!”
Charlie and Xavier ran back to where Max was. Leah's eyes popped open upon hearing the boy’s yells. She saw Max struggling to sit up. Max was disoriented. He focused on his body, turning off the [WorldMap] overlay.
His limbs felt strange after the extended period of inactivity, but he could move them. His augmentation’s advanced healing technology had done its job. As the group gathered around him, Max sat up, struggling a bit with his balance. Leah reached out, steadying him.
"Take it slow," she advised.
Max nodded, taking a deep breath. He looked at his friends as he slowly got to his feet with Leah’s help.
“Wow. Augmentation healing rocks. I’m a little unsteady, but…I feel strong…better than before.” Max said, experimentally flexing his shoulders and neck.
“Max! Thank God. You looked so bad when we first saw you…you looked almost dead. We argued the whole way about what happened. We should have called the police.” Leah said. Charlie reddened.
“You weren’t there, Leah! It looked bad, going both ways. Tyler’s dead, for God’s sake!” Charlie countered. Xavier looked like he was ready to cry as Charlie and Leah got more heated.
“Guys…. guys…Guys! Please, peace. I’m not sure what the best answer might be, but this is our only shot at the Labyrinth. Even if I have to take some heat for it later, I’m glad we all got here. I can't bear the thought of letting this opportunity slip away without giving it everything we've got," Max continued, a steely determination settling over his features. "We need to focus, work together, and tackle this challenge as a team."
Leah took a breath, her expression softening. "You're right, Max. I'm sorry. I just—I'm scared, you know?"
Charlie placed a gentle hand on Leah’s shoulder. "We all are, but we have each other. That's what counts. I kinda steamrolled everyone and made the decision to run. If anyone takes the heat for that decision, it’ll be me.”
They shared a moment of silent understanding before Max turned to Xavier, who was still blinking back tears. Max remembered that despite his monstrous Thark appearance, Xavier was exceptionally young to be doing the augmentation program, only thirteen compared to the average of sixteen of seventeen.
“Hey, Xavier. It’s all going to be ok. We got a rough start, but as long as we stick together, we got this. My dad said that with everything going on with the animal uprising, this might be the safest place for us. Let’s just do our best, ok? We’ll worry about everything else later...after we win.” Max said.
Xavier wiped his eyes and nodded; the determination clear on his face despite the streaks left by tears. "Yeah, let's win this thing," he said, his voice firming up.
As if upon queue, the large double doors opened. The Labyrinth was watching. Max shared a determined grin with his friends; together they marched into the Labyrinth.
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This is the end of “More than Human - Novice”, book 1 of the FutureTense series. Stay tuned! “More than Human - Adept” is on deck, with bigger stakes and more difficult challenges ahead.