‎Chapter 13: Better living through chemistry

Nexus University

Leonardo sat down in front of his computer in his room, full of energy, and typed in the final changes to the program code for the drone, which he had thought about on the way, at high speed even for him. After just under an hour, he leaned back contentedly and pressed the button to start the compilation. An error message appeared almost immediately. He frowned and looked again at the text that appeared on the screen. He easily found the place where an important quotation mark was missing and entered it. Then he tapped the compile button again and... got the next error message. He frowned. Mistakes happened all the time, but he usually made pure syntax errors very rarely. This time he corrected a spelling mistake in a programming command and tapped Compile a third time. Another error message greeted him mockingly. Now a small window with the Zunylamien AI icon appeared and he noticed that the small webcam on the monitor became active and focused on his face. The AI displayed a message:

"The entered program code contains a total of 11 typing errors and a recursive infinite loop in the event that the navigation system has to turn left three times in succession. The general quality is therefore far below the level observed to date. I recommend a general system check."

"You mean I should go to the doctor? That's ridiculous. I feel wonderful!"

"This statement is not meaningful due to the completely inadequate self-examination routines in human organisms."

"Oh no! Ever since I swallowed that elixir earlier, I could travel trees. It's great that they've finally developed something that temporarily removes the need for sleep.

The icon flashed for a while while the AI searched through countless databases and analyzed gigantic amounts of data.

"Medical research is currently quite unanimous in the opinion that sleep deprivation is not possible without critical health side effects. Does the elixir work on the basis of magic?"

"No, it's pure science."

"I strongly recommend testing the substance for ingredients and possible side effects."

"Do you think I just happen to have a gas chromatograph and a chemistry lab hidden in my desk?"

"The contents of the desk drawers are outside the field of view of this camera. A list of contents could not be found. Based on the cost and size of the described devices, I calculate a probability of 0.28% that they are in this room. I recommend an analysis with the aid of magic and an evaluation of the results on a scientific basis."

Leonardo thought for a moment and went through suitable spell formulas in his mind: "That could theoretically work... I can use the measuring spell to determine the presence and quantity of a defined substance. If I query the usual elements individually..."

The corresponding magic formula was displayed on the screen. First the scanned text from one of Leo's textbooks. Then it was regrouped and individual elements were highlighted in color. Leonardo saw his old theory that there was a strong resemblance to a programming language confirmed once again.

"I recommend converting the part marked in blue into a repetition loop. The part marked in red serves as a variable for the chemical element being searched for. When selecting elements by their atomic weight, the substance under investigation can be searched for all existing elements one after the other. I recommend an additional check for the element gallifreynium, which does not appear in the periodic table."

"You can search for Gallifreynium with magic?"

"Correct. All clairvoyance and search spells can check for the presence of Gallifreynium with the definition shown."

"I think I'll soon have need of Rodrik and his search spell again. Excellent! And I'll redirect the output to a simple illusion spell..."

He immersed himself in the proposed changes. The way in which the AI understood spells corresponded so closely to his own way of thinking that he was able to familiarize himself with the changes without any problems. Barely two hours later, he placed one of the vials he had received on the desk and concentrated on the modified spell formula. In his mind, the complex sequence of symbols and commands took shape, flashed and the illusion of a glass plate appeared in the air next to the bottle, on which glowing blue characters broke down the contents of the liquid. He took a long, concentrated look at it, then shook his head: "Doesn't tell me anything. At least the mixture contains no inherently toxic elements and nothing radioactive. After all. Can the display be extended to chemical compounds?"

The AI blinked endlessly for three seconds before answering: "Positive. This requires an interactive connection with the mage's consciousness. Only compounds whose structure the magician knows can be identified. In addition, a graphical display of the molecules present is also possible according to a system familiar to the mage."

It took another three hours, during which Leo absently took a few more sips of the substance under investigation. Then they had worked out a new formula. Half a dozen texts, diagrams and analysis descriptions appeared floating in the air around the vial. Norman grinned smugly and photographed the illusions with a cell phone before letting the illusions dissolve. Then he read through the ingredients. His smile melted like chocolate in a microwave: "Damn! I'm no biologist or biochemist, but it's not just nasty and unhealthy, more than half of the ingredients are addictive on their own. I can't imagine what that does to the mixture. I'll wring the necks of these poisoners!"

He rushed to the door, tore it open and ran straight into the arms of the astonished Samantha, who had just raised a hand to knock. Before he had recovered from his shock, she took him in her arms and stroked his hair playfully: "It's really nice to be missed so much and welcomed so enthusiastically." The student tore himself away in a panic and a blush shot up his face as he stammered and tried to say something.

Sam stepped fully into the room and gave him a good-natured peck on the arm as he passed: "It's okay. Where were you going in such a hurry? Some kind of emergency? Can I help?"

"I just wanted to strangle a few students from the chemistry department. Shouldn't take long. If you want, you can hold one of them."

"Now sit down quietly and tell me what's going on. In detail!"

Leo was about to object, but then gave in under Sam's stern gaze. He explained how he had got hold of the guard drink and what he had discovered during his analysis. As always, he completely omitted the involvement of the AI.

"Are you sure they knew how dangerous this stuff is?"

"Of course! They mixed it together, after all. These goddamn..."

"Leo! I don't want to hear anything like that."

"What then?! I see. That's right, you're a strict Catholic."

"I'm not! I'm just... I don't want you to take the Lord's name in vain to curse. That's all."

"In any case, they must have known exactly what they were distributing. I don't know a few of the ingredients exactly, but I assume they're there to keep the neurotransmitters in the brain in balance and regulate serotonin levels. The rest are similar to caffeine in that they stimulate circulation. Only much stronger and more targeted. Overall, certainly very effective, but undoubtedly addictive and with serious long-term consequences!"

"What did you expect from a drug that suppresses your need for sleep? That can't be healthy."

"Well, I thought... you're right. Just sounded too good not to try. I just want to know what those lunatics were thinking, pushing something so unhealthy on me."

"I suggest you just ask her quietly."

"And then I get to squeeze them?"

"No! And since when do you think anything of physical violence?"

"Since... well..."

"Let me guess, some of the ingredients in this mixture are aggressive?"

He glanced at the screen. The AI had immediately run the images through a font recognition routine and arranged everything clearly: "Well, a few of the ingredients are actually known to cause aggression."

Samanael looked over his shoulder at the screen: "A strange error message just flashed up: 'Water level critical' Do you have water cooling in your computer?"

"No, I just forgot to fill up the mouse's water container. Hang on, I'll do it quickly." He walked over to the prototype hover disk and pressed a button on the remote control on the table. The opaque, mirrored, small disk on one side opened to reveal... a mouse. Meanwhile, the mouse, loosely strapped into the cockpit, was kicking itself on a tiny treadmill and squealing quite happily, despite the numerous small probes attached to its head and body. A small container with grain food was conveniently located on the left and a small tube for water on the right. Leo used a small funnel to pour still mineral water from a bottle into the tank.

When he had finished, the glass panel slid back over the cockpit and the counter-rotating rotors in the center of the window hummed quietly. Samanael hurriedly made sure that the doors and windows were firmly closed: "Another malfunction?"

"No, the control program has just finished compiling and the drone is now taking off for the planned test."

The two smaller screens on the desk also switched on. The one on the left filled up with status information: Battery charge level, water and food supply, EEG and ECG of the mouse, rotor speed, flight altitude and numerous other pieces of information. The large main screen was divided into twelve small displays, each showing the images from the cameras mounted around the outer ring of the drone. The right-hand screen was divided into a small radar screen and a rough grid model of the space.

Samanael whistled impressed through her even little teeth, "Is she done now?"

Leonardo wordlessly hit one side of the drone, which rolled over once, but then immediately stabilized with a roar of the rotors and flew a practice course through the room unimpressed. "Yes, I think the project has been successfully completed. Let's see what my diagnostic program thinks." He looked expectantly at the screen. As if on cue, a message appeared in a small window: "Diagnostics complete. Drone acceptable."

"Excellent. That means your mysterious client will get the drone and then help you with your research? Are you still sure it was worth it?"

As soon as she turned to face him, he could see pages of information scrolling across the screen behind her back. When she quickly turned around to follow his gaze, however, they disappeared again before she could recognize anything. Leo had only been able to read a few key words. Among them: 'Locations for Gallifreynium'. He smiled at his somewhat confused fellow student: "Oh yes, that was definitely worth it." He opened the window and the drone zoomed outside.

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*

After gently forcing his curious fellow student out of the room, Leonardo turned his attention to the data that Zunylamien17 had gathered for him. Since the name of the substance had been coined at the university, the impossible element was referred to differently in all sources and clues were very difficult to discover through suitable descriptions. After a while, his eyes burned and he leaned back exhausted from his screens: "So far, none of this has helped me. There are countless mentions of strange and mysterious metals, but none of them match exactly what we're looking for. Most of them are probably just electron, an alloy of gold and silver that used to be common. Or bronze. Or star metal , which was extracted from meteors before iron extraction through mining became technically feasible and people learned to smelt iron ore.

And the rest of the descriptions were most likely coincidence or poetic license. The glow of steel during a great sunset or something. No, what we would need, for example, is the source from which the university previously obtained gallifreynium."

The screen flashed briefly, then a terse: "Data not available."

"Okay. Since it's secret, no one will store anything digitally anywhere. Let's try it another way: this element does not exist naturally on our planet. We can therefore assume that it comes from another dimension. So, correlate the times at which the supply of gallifreynium increased in the accounting data with the dimensions of origin of incoming dimensional connections."

"Hit: Within a period of 1-3 hours before entering an increase in the stock of Gallifreynium, an active connection has been opened each time in Laboratory 3 via the Transdimensional Portal to the dimension entered in the directory as Asgard."

"Yes, that's it! When is the next portal planned?"

"No data available."

"Was an appointment saved last time?"

"Positive. Each time about 5 to 6 weeks beforehand."

"That means nothing is planned at the moment. And with the current shortage of Gallifreynium, it would be logical to schedule an appointment immediately if this were possible. That can only mean that no solution is possible at the moment. Any other options?"

"With 87% probability, based on historical descriptions from documents in the Library of Alexandria..."

"How is it actually going? Is the scanning going as planned?"

"Positive. The processing of the documents is 7% ahead of schedule. Since the last search for sources of Gallifreynium, seven more scrolls have been scanned that contain information about the pyramidion of the Cheops pyramid."

"Show her up."

Images published. Scanned scrolls in Phoenician, Babylonian and other dead languages. Stone tablets with hieroglyphs drawn on them. And next to them, translations with an accuracy that would have brought tears to the eyes of any classical scholar. Thanks to its artificial intelligence, Zunylamien17 had the intuitive abilities of a human, but an unimaginably faster calculation and combination speed. It had long since assimilated the contents of all networked databases or databases accessible via data connections on Earth. And unlike the human linguists, it had another advantage. The Library of Alexandria contained numerous translations of writings in various languages. And with every scroll that ran through the scanner, his vocabulary increased.

"... and the messenger of the chief builder prostrated himself in the dust before the God who walks the earth. The son of the sun. Cheops, son of Snofru and Hetepheres. Second king of the Fourth Dynasty. And the messenger brought him the news of the pyramid's completion. Only the last stone was still missing. The top, the pyramidion. The beacon of the gods, in whose light he would ascend after his death to sit alongside the other gods..."

"... the Pyramidion floated along the sacred river on a gilded barge and docked at the landing site made of consecrated wood. No other ship had ever docked here. No other ship would ever dock here, because after the ceremony it would be sent to the gods with fire. Under the supervision of the high priests, slaves pulled the sledge with the pyramidion sparkling in the light of the rising sun to the pyramid."

"In the conflict between Geb, the god of the earth, and Nut, the goddess of the sky, the world shattered. The gates to the world of the gods burst open and the colorless messengers of Ra appeared."

Leonardo interrupted the AI: "Wait a minute, what is this, the colorless messengers of Ra ?"

"The messengers of Ra, represented by the hieroglyph Cheper . The symbol of a scarab. The next hieroglyph is difficult to translate and is used here in a context that does not occur anywhere else in the recorded collections. Possible alternative translations would also be 'all colors' or 'many-colored' . What this means is unknown."

"How does the text continue?"

The next image showed a large scarab followed by a vaguely oval shape made up of smaller patches. The note that the AI displayed underneath indicated that it could not translate this part. This is followed by signs for: "Death, chaos, destruction. Victory of the Pharaoh's troops. The son of the gods proves his dominance over the lowly messengers of the Cheper."

"Cheper... That was the manifestation of the sun god Ra, in which he recreates the sun and directs the sky high, or something like that, right?"

"Correct. The exact context has changed several times over the course of time and is reproduced differently in different parallel dimensions."

Leo pointed to a part of the text. The AI had no problem using the small camera to measure the angle and calculate exactly where it was pointing on the screen: "That looks like someone stomping something on the floor. Is that a character?"

"Unknown. Symbol not contained in database. No other documents with this character available. It is followed by characters for 'Victory, Multicolored, Small and Light'."

"None of this helps us. What happened to the Pyramidion?"

"Unknown. Images of hieroglyphics from the pyramids themselves, documented by archaeologists in modern times, show similar images of the ceremony. However, they are much simpler. The figure of the pharaoh with a commanding gesture, very tall next to a smaller priestly figure who is just placing the top on the pyramid. Without scarabs or the like."

"It could mean that a new top was added later. If the original one was stolen, that would certainly be a serious loss of face for the pharaoh. I can imagine that he didn't necessarily have it immortalized. There are even theories that the pharaohs of the time believed that they changed the past through inscriptions. What was written was what happened. At least future generations would learn it the same way. And somehow it worked. Anyone who could claim otherwise has long since died."

"But the reality has not been changed."

"I don't think you can understand that as a computer. Sometimes it's enough for people if you at least remember them the way they would have wanted to be remembered."

"This is illogical, but is confirmed by psychological analysis."

"Any clues as to where we could look next?"

"Negative."

"Wait a minute... Look for more clues about these invisible or colorless or weirdly colored messengers of Ra. Especially in connection with scarabs or dung beetles."

"Search... Eighty-three thousand possible hits."

"I assume you've already sorted some things out?"

"With the vague data available, the number of hits cannot be limited any further."

"Okay. Until I come up with something better, let's just go through a few hits. Maybe I'll find a few more possible search parameters. Let's just start with the closest match in terms of location and time."

"Faculty of Unusual Biology. Specimen VI 512351..."

"Our Faculty of Biology?!?"

"Positive. Continuation with another hit?"

"No! Stay with him. That can hardly be a coincidence!"

"The probability of coming across hits within the university when searching for unusual objects, phenomena or animals is over 17%."

"That's all right. Show the hit at last!"

Specimen VI 512351

Classification: Final classification not possible.

Preliminary classification: Scarabaeus Illustris

Description: Scarab-like beetle, length 14cm. Pair of wings, mandibles, eight legs.

Color: Not detectable. Spezimen refracts the light around it to create a kind of invisibility effect.

Structure: Material unknown. A kind of materialized energy field is suspected.

Note: The suspicion expressed by the magicians consulted that this could be a material illusion was refuted by consulting Professor Majere. There are no magical effects.

Special abilities: Light refraction appears to be a psionic effect. Signs of rudimentary telepathic abilities have been reported. Real contact could not be established.

Further investigation was not possible as the only three other specimens immediately dissolved into glittering sparks on physical examination. No residues could be detected. A complete, non-explosive conversion into energy is suspected.

"Where did the critter come from?"

"No record of origin or possible locations available."

Leonardo scanned the entire entry on the screen and glanced at the date: "The entry was only a few weeks after the start of the semester. And the last change is only four weeks old. That's almost too good to be true. I'll have a look." He stood up and walked to the door. As he opened it and stepped into the hallway, he almost banged into a screaming yellow, red and bright green patterned Hawaiian shirt. He raised his head to complain to the wearer as it was standing right in his way, but then quickly swallowed his comment.

A pair of gold mirrored sunglasses looked at him and even though he couldn't make out the eyes behind them, he knew from the expression on their faces that they were looking down at him disapprovingly: "Ha... Hello Professor Majere. What can I..."

That was as far as he got.

"Mr. Darwinzki, I felt it my personal duty to draw your attention to the fact that your homework has still not been completed. You will recall that the goodwill of my esteemed colleague Sir Richard is of great importance to the smooth running of our lesson plan. Therefore, it would cause my extreme displeasure if you did not complete your assignment to the letter."

The student looked at himself in the two golden mirrors for a moment, confused, then of course he remembered: "Oh, yes... The zombie thing... I already have an idea of how to do it."

"Excellent. I had no doubt about that. Then I won't keep you from your work." The professor patted him encouragingly on the shoulder and left. As he walked away, Leonardo leaned against the doorframe, exhausted. This was just what he needed. He had hoped that he could at least put it off for a while longer. When he returned to the room, the screen was already showing files on necromancy.

He dropped wordlessly into his swivel chair and, ignoring the computer displays for the time being, went through his biggest problem. To raise a zombie, he needed the energy of living beings. A lot of energy. Too much. And living beings inevitably died if you destroyed their aura to get at the energy. Like a balloon with a hole in it. He could control his own aura, but if he didn't want to die or at least spend the next few weeks in a coma, that wouldn't be enough. And he still needed a corpse. Or at least a dead animal. He couldn't revive an inanimate object like a doll, because for that he would have to artificially create the network for the Elan Vitae instead of just reactivating it. And that was far more complex. And technically speaking, it was a golem, not a zombie. Only something that had pulsed with life force already had the mystical network to be animated. If he still had to create it himself...

His thoughts raced. He needed something alive earlier. But small. And as primitive as possible. He looked thoughtfully out of the window. Cats. No, not cats. He liked cats and if he led a zombie cat across the courtyard, it would cause trouble with some of the female students. And with some of the students. Birds... Maybe a pigeon. And even if he sacrificed a couple dozen of them to revive one, few would complain. But the control matrix for creatures capable of flight... He glanced at the screen and gestured briefly to make the text scroll to the appropriate place. There were advantages to using an AI as an operating system. He looked at the text and nodded. He would have to study it intensively for at least two weeks to get it right. Too long. And if he simply wanted to leave out the ability to fly despite the wings, he would practically have to reinvent the spell. Not better. He had to come up with something better. And quickly. He went through his resources in his mind. Components, programs, animals on the premises. His eyes fell on his fridge. Shopping. A thought flashed and then was quickly buried again. No. That would be too silly. Although... Leonard got up, went to the fridge and opened the door. He looked thoughtfully at the food he had bought for the rest of the week. He involuntarily started to giggle - and then to laugh. Louder and louder, until he finally ended up with the obligatory "MuahahahahaHAHAHAHA!!!" for mad scientists.

After stopping by the weekly market on his way home from the electronics store, he bought some fresh fruit and other vitamin-rich ingredients. With a healthy dinner, he could eat cheap fast food during the day with a clear conscience without endangering his health. After all, only a healthy body can have a healthy mind, as he often liked to say. Amongst the other purchases that had gone into the small fridge, a whole smoked herring returned his gaze from cold, lifeless eyes.