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“I said lay back down, Max!” Leah yelled; her hands were covered with his blood. He fell back with a groan and she resumed probing into his exposed wound.
“God damn it. Can you turn down your regeneration? I almost had the shrapnel piece that time before it tunneled deeper.” She complained.
Max struggled to hold back a scream. Sonny’s grenade had exploded in his face and he had been peppered with shrapnel. Unfortunately, the shards were smart. They were burrowing deeper and disrupting his augmentations randomly. His pain resistance was offline, but his healing was still active. Max was trying to hold several conversations at once as his daemon House was haranguing him inside his head.
“Sorry, Leah. My advisor, Dr. House says that’s a no-go. Several shards are inside my liver and lungs. My healing is barely keeping me from shock right now. Wait. His scans are updating…he thinks he can operate and get them but he wants the puppet. Damn it. Xavier, can I borrow yours? I…ah…drove my copy into a claymore at the ACME base as a distraction.” Max said, groaning.
Max's request caused a stir among the group. Xavier glanced at Leah, who nodded in agreement. "Alright, Max. You need to focus on staying conscious. Let's get the puppet ready," Xavier said, moving swiftly, retrieving the original from his large backpack.
Leah backed off while Xavier transferred his puppet to Max. Dr. House was given piloting rights quickly to the toy. Despite no change in the little robot’s appearance, his presence was apparent as he quickly crossed over to Max with his character’s trademark stiff limping gait.
As House quickly got to work, finding and extricating, the burrowing smart shards, Max tried to distract himself from the pain. Charlie had returned to their small camp and spoke.
“Alright. Those MVP guys were good. A lot of our sensors were shut down and traps were disabled. I reset and reactivated everything, but we need something better. They could just do it again.”
“Stay still, Max!” House chided. “It’s bad enough the shards are evading me. You can’t keep flinching! If you can move, then you can help. Take these forceps and pinch of this aug relay in your leg.” Max sat up and helped the tiny bot. Using his split mind multitasking he set one thought stream to start a Cultivation meditation to boost his energy to keep up his healing.
“I’m trying! The shards are disrupting some of my skills, including Painless.” Max growled. Max heard a quick exchange between his daemons and Miyamoto spoke up.
“[Max, Mal says your multitasking is still online…at least for the moment. We think it best if you can split your thought processes. Pick one to control your body and set it to meditating. This is like the way Painless works but with more steps.]”
Max clenched his teeth as his right leg felt like it was on fire. The team looked on with varying degrees of concern. Normally their augmentations could handle injuries and made for speedy recoveries. A weapon that could disable someone this badly was a game changer.
Max sighed as he partitioned his thought streams, at least a portion of his thoughts no longer distracted by the pain. His biological mind took on the pain management and settled into a deep meditation with Miyamoto’s help. His alter ego, electronic consciousnesses split up to double-check his systems, commune with his daemons, and talk to his team via a virtual projection.
As Max’s form calmed under House’s care and a virtual Max appeared in their OverLayer, the team finally relaxed. Xavier bit his lip, no easy feat with his Thark tusks. Charlie noticed and prompted him.
“Spit it out, kid. You need to hit the latrine or something?”
“Haha, no. I mean, maybe in a bit, but not now. Um, I managed to tag my opponent, that fast sword guy, with a tracker. Assuming he’s with his group, he’s stopped moving. I might have their base located.” Xavier said.
Max caught the signal Xavier shared and with his faster electronic copy integrated it into the team’s shared WorldMap. The battlefield bloomed across the group's awareness. All bases except the Luna AI one were displayed and tags representing several enemy players were painted in as well.
“[Nicely done, Xavier. Quick thinking! This is great. Look here, the DAIE team is hitting ACME right now. I think we might have a moment since the Luna AI mech chased the MVPs away. Did anyone happen to get a tag on those AIs?]” Max asked.
As expected, everyone shook their heads. With the unexpected double attack, everyone was either knocked out or too busy surviving. Max’s FastCog skill was engaged as his other selves pulled down all the sensor data from the fight. His virtual avatar frowned. The MVP would have trounced his team if the AI expatriates from Luna hadn’t chosen that moment to interrupt.
Max was confused as the end of the fight played out. The AI Leroy Jenkins had given their flags back and mentioned Mira. He replayed all his conversations with Mira, she never mentioned any AI friends. Perhaps he was a new acquaintance?
“[Xavier, Leroy mentioned my sister? Why did he give up the flags? This game is a free-for-all. Alliances aren’t backed by the system in the final scoring.]”
“Well, well, well. This could be an big opportunity for us. If those AIs are going to act neutral towards us, I’ll take it. Genghis is telling me we would be fools to allow them to recover after our poor showing and I agree. We need to saddle up and take them. Right now! They had two players out and are probably very tired and battered from getting chased by those mechs. A snatch and grab while they're still in disarray is exactly what we need.” Charlie said with enthusiasm.
Max looked down on his body, still riddled with shrapnel as House methodologically operated. His mind played out strategies and game theory until he understood exactly what Charlie was about to say. He played out multiple theoretical conversations out in his head using his fast cog skills.
It was clear that Leah would not want to leave Max alone and would oppose leaving Max behind defenseless. Max determined that he needed to counter those concerns before she became entrenched in your position. Xavier would be hesitant to assume the aggressor role. Max found with multiple conversation simulations that he needed to downplay his concerns and help him focus on positive outcomes. His crush on Leah and respect for the older Charlie could be used if needed. Max grinned, his own pack mentality was also very human in the form of peer pressure.
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Charlie would become impatient and fractious as time was lost. In Max’s fast simulations, Charlie made arguments that stoke the division instead of aligning the Team. Max ran multiple dialog trees and scenarios in his head to motivate the team and quickly spoke up before the argument could bloom.
“[Charlie’s right! We must move quickly or we won’t be able to capitalize on our opponents condition. I’m going to have to sit this one out. I’m may not be able to fight well until House fixes me up. Fortunately, with our competition’s current positioning, it’s unlikely I’ll get any visitors. In my current state, I can still fix and maybe even upgrade our defense while you all take this opportunity.]”
“[Luck only works if you recognize an opportunity and have the guts to take your shot! I think you all need to load up and hit them. Hard and fast! Xavier, you did awesome on defense. Both Charlie and I are impressed at your growth. I bet you’ll be even better attacking! Leah, I’ll be fine. House tells me I’ll be up and mobile before you even hit the base.]” Max said.
The puppet looked up, but Max quickly sent a private message to him. [Yes, House. I lied. Everyone lies. This is what they need to hear. Please, just keep working.] The puppet twitched but resumed working.
Charlie rocked back, expecting to need to verbally spar against everyone to convey the need for speed. The team found Max's logic sound and the brewing argument died with a couple reassurances. Max suppressed a grin; his team would fight much better without the emotional distractions.
They quickly geared up, anticipation swirling in the air as they mapped their attack strategy. Max summoned a portal and used the mass of utility fog inside to float out some fresh clips for Leah.
House's steady hands worked tirelessly as the puppet turned Max’s body to hunt for the burrowing shards. Max’s logic dictated that his role now was to support from the sidelines. With some token last-minute advice, Max ushered the team off towards the enemy base, adrenaline fueling their determination.
As the team prepared to strike, Max's mind raced with calculations and contingencies. He split off one thought stream to follow their progress. He reviewed his mental capacity with some incredulity. He had his primary managing the pain and cultivating while his augmented copies were monitoring his systems, assisting House with his own surgery, tracking his team, monitoring the base sensors and opposition trackers, and four more collaborating on reviewing the last attack. His augmentation skill was only weakly assisting. Most of the mental work was being accomplished on his own. His mind had continued to evolve with the pressure to win and the uplift virus still active deep in his nervous system.
Using lessons learned from his successful attack against ACME and the MVP team's assault, Max began a review of all the base’s weaknesses.
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Max rolled onto the cloud bed as the House puppet continued to track down the smart shrapnel. He could feel his body augmentations cutting in and out as the disruptive shards burrowed. Thankfully, Max’s mental skills seemed unaffected as he focused on improving the makeshift base’s defenses.
“[Look at the replay here, Tesla. The MVP scout, Ben, instantly saw the tangle mines Leah had placed. What spectrum is he using?]” Max sent it across to his daemon team. Surprisingly, it was Mal who answered.
“[Max, I don’t think he’s picking and choosing. Your Gestalt ability blends all your senses and skills, focusing on discrepancies and changes. You’re still in the early stages with that skill, so it's not using all of your skills to blend the data yet.]” Max considered this while helping Dr. House isolate another shard.
“[Alright. I’ll have to walk the perimeter using that skill more, once I’m regained some mobility. Tesla, do we have a drone you can use to manually scout until I can?]” Max asked.
“[Of course, sir. Mind you, the Tesseract has a good stock of extra supplies, drone copies, smart matter, utility fogs, and spare weaponry; but its energy levels are dropping faster than we have been able to replenish them.]" Tesla responded.
“[Neither these challenge levels nor the Casino zone has any convenient energy lines that we’ve been able to detect and tap. I suspect the AI may have altered their levels just to prevent it. The matter compiler inside is a very significant trump card, but it's very energy intensive.]” Max said. He took a deep breath, his mind jumping in ten directions at once. He picked out a memory of training in the NanoCraft game, some molecules could net energy upon disassembly rather than losing.
“[Alright, another objective. In addition to the drone to scout our defense, we need a couple to hunt further. We need hydrocarbons, ATP, hydrides…anything that we can pull energy from during disassembly. Charlie found a damaged laser rifle near the ACME camp. I should have collected it. I think the simulated ruins might have some hidden prizes if we dig.]”
“[Now how about how those guys disabled our sensor network? Any thoughts Captain?]” Max asked.
“[Oh Boy! That is quite the conundrum, my friend. We could rig the sensors to provide continuous feed and set a program to monitor interrupts, but that would be visible to EM senses. The tricks we’ve played with passive sensors might work, like fireflies popping off in the woods. Not invulnerable, but it would slow them down.]”
“[Max-san. I think you are perhaps falling prey to the glamor of these new-world tools. Sometimes simpler is better. We could add traps that don’t have electronics or power source.]” Miyamoto said softly.
“[Hah! Just cause your medieval skill set makes you uncomfortable with tech, doesn’t mean we should abandon it. Lasers trump swords, my good Samurai!]” Captain Cipher teased.
“[Gentlemen! You both make good points, but we can blend all these ideas. We just require more traps!]” Sherlock said with enthusiasm.
The Dr. House puppet clapped its tiny hands together. “[Well, that sucked. It looks like I got all the little bastards. If you're looking for extra ideas, you should try to disassemble these shards.]” He said, rattling the metal bits in the shallow tin can he had been using to collect them.
Max grinned as the ideas began to flow. He snapped open the Tesseract portal and utility foglets poured out. He collected the smart shrapnel and floated them into his captive MC to decompile and copy. Tesla moaned at the complex smart matter patterns that were revealed from the shrapnel.
“[Damnation! No incorporated assembly code. Brute-forcing copies, like we are doing, takes far more energy. If only we had a link to the outside, all the MakerIndex Freebies have embedded assembly code for optimized compiling. It saves both time and energy. Both of which are in short supply down here!]”
“[I’ll add it to the list. The business center has timed links to the outside…for way too much credit. Make a list. The credit is time-based, if I do buy some connect time we need to move fast.]” Max said. He felt another idea brewing. He relaxed into it with his split mind and saw more options.
“[Captain! Mal! Those new custom skills I’ve been getting from my dreams, the stuff I’ve been seeing that is bleeding through my connection to the Tesseract, can we copy those into our network and drones?]”
“[Hot damn! You’re a hoot and a half, Maxie. If your system can use them, then I can port the skill code into anything. Let’s do it!]”
[Daemon +1, Daemon reaches level 10, Skill cap award +100XP, Daemons can now be ported to devices without direct Access links. Warning porting is limited to 1 day. Ported copies with self-erase upon time limit and all memory will be lost from that fragment. Daemon slots: 5/10 open.]
[Telekinesis +1, Telekinesis reaches level 6]
[Cultivation +1, Cultivation reaches level 8
[SkillZ current training slot status: Augmentation Surgery – complete. Tradable skill selection: Climbing, Leadership, Gambling, Tech Scavenging, Project Planning.]
[SkillZ +1, SkillZ reaches level 8, automated search for training target starting…]
[Swarm +1, Swarm reached level 9, Swarm control quantity updated – pending free compiler duplication of copy restricted motes]
Max grinned and picked the new Tech Scavenging skill. He thought to himself, The system has pretty good timing. This is just what I need.
Max climbed to his feet, testing out his limbs as his wounds began to close with his full suite of body augmentation skills active again. He cracked his neck and his multiple thought streams assembled a detailed plan for improving the base. When his friends got back, they wouldn’t recognize the place.
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