================================
Chapter 301: The Gift
================================
A mysterious package that came from nowhere.
Rex quickly removed the tapes with the knife; he split and cut, until he saw what was inside the box.
“What is this?”
If it could be described with one word, it was an octagonal-shaped crumpled paper. Blue metal, if it was a proper color in the color wheel, as soft as a silk cloth but the texture and feel was nothing short that of a normal piece of pad paper.
Rex unfolded the blue metallic-feel paper and saw a smaller, more normal, piece of crumpled paper.
“What the heck?”
He set aside the bluish metallic paper and unfolded the crumpled paper and saw there, not an item but a message:
[Son, to use this piece of NanoPaper is just like how you design an Invention back in Terroa. This is a device on its own and has a 500 Yottabytes worth of processing power. You can only design how it will externally look like once so be careful of your design. I suggest that you design it as a device that is away from visibility.
Only when you have designed its external appearance will you be able to have access on its console. To start designing, speak the password written on the surface of the NanoPaper. You will know its capabilities when you finish designing.
Rex, son, I’m sorry if I can’t be of much help to you when you fight against the people that’s oppressing our family. But please remember that even though I am against violence, I am not against a violent self-defense.
They have hurt us, hurt you, and hurt Baron.
Save him first….
….then deal with revenge later.]
“What is…”
The message was simple, it says only a few sets of paragraphs of fatherly message and advice.
But what made Rex very surprised isn’t the message but the letters.
“What language is this? Why… how can I read this language?!”
Visually, he could see the argots of characters that he was seeing for the first time printed on the paper by black ink. It was clear that it was printed using a 21st century laser printing technique and even the paper itself was a vintage pad paper that you can buy anywhere…….. in the 21st century.
It looked like ancient hieroglyphics in one glance but the strokes and dents were akin to the change in syllables and forms that was commonly seen on Haponese and Tsaenese alphabets.
There were also circular, rectangular, and linear letters that looked like derivative forms of Koryan, Hebrawic, and Silamic languages.
Clearly, it looked like a language he’d normally knew but on second glance, it can’t be translated into any other language that’s in existence in this planet. Meaning, it was something else.
And yet he could read it without a problem.
He grabbed his head and tried to control his rate of breathing. The splitting headache was gone but he still grabbed his head as if he was afraid that it was going to split any minute.
Rex looked at the piece of paper and then to the NanoPaper, and then he closed his eyes as he inhaled a deep breath.
“Haaaaahhh….”
When he exhaled, Rex grabbed the octagonal NanoPaper and then saw the password there. It was also written on the same unknown language he could somehow read.
He hesitated when he opened his mouth and then pulled up a panel window to record his voice.
Then he opened his mouth and said, “Cortana, wake up. I need you”, the NanoPaper made little sizzling sounds made a flawlessly flat surface.
In the middle of the octagon shape, a button was hovering, seeming to be waiting for his prompt.
Rex didn’t waste time and pressed his index on the hovering button where, in but an instant, a hair-thin-like needle pierced through his finger.
“Aw!”
He quickly retracted his finger and watched as the NanoPaper crumpled into a miniature metallic blue mountain, with its mountain top having an opening where a small figure of a woman climbed up.
The woman, three inches tall, was like a fairy.
No.
It is a fairy… in every sense of the word… without its wings and its playful smile, from the standards.
She was beautiful with a vivid face of an adult woman on her mid-twenties. Her entire body was colored bluish-green, including her clothes that looked like she just graduated from the academy.
“Is that a Pilot Uniform?” Rex couldn’t help voicing his thoughts.
The woman looked up to him, expression dull.
It was as if she doesn’t have a soul on her own despite her perfect pretty face and exquisite make.
She was clearly just a holographic rendering but the way she stood on top of that mini-mountain, an adding in the contrast of the bathroom floor to her ‘home’, she was an oddity.
[Please set your design.]
A pallid and lifeless womanly voice rung on his ears as the woman’s lips moved. She was talking directly to his mind and not to any speaker.
“Wow. What a feature!” it was more than clear to any surround sound technologies and techniques.
It was telepathy!
“Design, how?”
When Rex asked, the woman pointed up and a panel window appeared on Rex’s vision. On his vision was a familiar control panel.
It was the panel that you will see when he was designing his own Invention!
[Please set your design.]
The dull and monotone voice echoed in his mind again. Rex realized that the woman’s flat voice was only audible to him since he can’t see any movement in the graph on the recorder when the woman was speaking.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Rex looked at the note with his father’s message and kept in mind the instructions and advice he told him.
“Something not easily visible as to not attract the attention of anyone…. so what about a tattoo?”
Every other day, the twins will visit and conduct a few tests on him and this required them to attach nodes and flat sensors on his skin.
He thought of having it as a tattoo but he wasn’t sure where to put it. And besides, his dad said to have it as a device and not a tattoo.
“A bracelet then? No. It’s too conspicuous. What about a necklace? No, still too obvious. So what about an anklet? It might break…. shit… I can’t even consider having a watch… then what?”
As he thought about it, he looked at the woman looking up and waiting for him then asked, what are the options you can suggest to me?
The woman flipped her hand and a list of designs popped out on his designing panel.
“Oh, a tattoo is actually available?” Rex felt very surprised by this. A tattoo is easier to hide than a gadget or an accessory that can occupy space.
He selected the tattoo and a list of areas where he can apply the tattoo also became a suggestion.
“So that’s why it asked me to set a design. I am practically just choosing a design. Hm? Wait. This is…”
He scrolled down on the list of shapes and then ended up on a particular deign on a particular place…
“So this is possible as well?”
He stood up and looked at the mirror, lifting his hair and showing his forehead.
“There was a feature of a visible and invisible tattoo… I think it’s obvious what I’d choose from the two.”
As he decided on what design he’d choose, he selected the area of where the tattoo will be put and then set the features of how the tattoo will be before finishing it up with how it will look like.
[Are you sure?]
The woman asked and Rex gave an answer.
“Yes.”
[Is that your final answer?]
“Yep.”
[Then please wait for a while. This will hurt.]
“Wait, what?! You didn’t tell me that —waaaaaa!!!”
Not even giving him a chance to complete his word of complaint, Rex felt the metallic blue colored NanoPaper jump from the floor towards his foot.
It felt like a cold liquid but it was hot and felt like a scalding metal.
That cool blue color was a trick. It was a trap!
As soon as the NanoPaper touched his skin, it then liquefied and crawled upwards from his leg into his knee in under a second; then it reached his waist and stomach at the next second; then to his chest at the next… until finally, it reached his neck, then at the back of his left ear, and then to his forehead where it stayed there and formed a shape of an eye.
The eye was vertical –a tenshinhan eye! But it was not a creepy material eye that could make any girl scream in disgust. It was golden in color, like the eye in Yoogyow’s pyramid necklace.
It all happened in five seconds but to Rex, it was a pain that crept over his skin from his leg to his neck and to his head.
He cried in pain as he collapsed on the floor with a heavy thud, holding his head and screaming. It was a combination of headache and the pain of being tattooed. For someone who has never had any experience of being tattooed, to suddenly feel the stinging pain of a hundred needles that’s working together at the same time, as well as the agonizing feeling of something that’s embedding itself on his brain directly…. was a pain that can’t be described merely by words.
In short, he felt like his head was being split by Hulk……. manually.
Rex could feel something liquid literally holding his brain from the inside. Like a hand that grabbed his brain from within.
It was spreading from his forehead to the back of his head. Although it all happened in less than 10 seconds after the first touch, it was still the most physically painful ten seconds of his entire life.
The pain gradually subsided and what was left is the feeling of a permanent helmet that covered the entirety of his head.
Rex had locked the door to the room and locked the door of the bathroom. Even Manang Fe could hear his scream; she wouldn’t be able to enter the room because of the locks.
He stood up, staggering, exhausted, dizzy, still in pain. His eyes unfocused and his body felt like it was boiling. He tidied the things into the faucet and then he removed his clothes, going straight to the showers with still his pants.
Rex took a cold shower.
After a few minutes, he felt slightly refreshed. He went to the mirror on top of the faucet and looked at his reflection, only to see…… nothing.
“Hehehe…” he laughed, albeit his heavy eyelids, touching his forehead and slapping his face to stay awake. “NanoTech…. such a miracle…”
He murmured and then went out of the bathroom and changed clothes.
Still a bit groggy, he laid there on the bed and then called up, “Cortana, wake up. I need you.”
A sound of booting up sequence resounded on his mind and he saw an interface that made him shocked and surprised all at the same time.
“Whoa…..!!”
It was a combination of a player window and that of a pilot’s dynamic display. There were labels and active scans happening on his vision and there is even a bodily status display in a corner.
When he focused his vision on that part, the status window zoomed in on the body status part and he saw there the labels and sings indicating his active body status.
Even when he closed his eyes the status display was still there.
Gradually, he noticed that his vision was being blocked by the overcrowding of the displayed items and as soon as he thought about it, he also heard Cortana’s monotonic voice rung in his mind.
[Would you like to have a tour of the features of The Warden Console?]
“Warden Console?”
[Is that a yes?]
“Yes.”
[The Warden Console is a specific firewall system that is integrated and designed to conduct active scans and defend the system, as well as adapt to anything The Warden needs or wants, or dictated to have the system do. The main features of this compact version are adapted to Rex Kingsley and were designed to serve as a personalized console that centered on the abilities of The Warden.]
“Wait, what is The Warden?”
[The Warden is a security program designed to be impenetrable, autonomous, and adapting. It can only be accessed and controlled by the one who had initiated The Warden Protocol.]
“And…. who initiated the Protocol?”
[It is you, sir. The Warden Console is locked to your DNA Signature. Only you can have full and unhindered authority over all functionalities of The Warden Console.]
“I see.”
Rex fell into a silence as he digested the things he just heard from Cortana.
If another person would see him, it would seem that he was talking to himself. Good thing he was sane enough to lock the door earlier.
One thing leads to another, everything around him is happening so fast that he was struggling to adapt to it.
In fact, what he needed right now wasn’t an anti-virus program. What he needed is an organizer.
[Would you like me to create a memory and tasks organizer for you, sir?]
Rex blinked, “Are you reading my mind?”
[Yes sir. I am designed to read and interpret your neural activity and translate your mental state into positive-action required inputs, before suggesting items to better serve your needs.]
“…”
[Yes sir, I can read your dreams. I can see your neural activities and interpret them as input signals to adjust my programming to better serve your needs.]
“….”
[Yes I can. If it will make your heightened neural activities adjust better, I can edit my appearance to look like someone from Hollywood and enable sensory rendering to make you feel good. Would you like to proceed?]
“N-No, please, God, no…… a-at least not now.”
Rex’s face was beet red.
The more he talked to this Warden Console AI, the more he was discovering what an incredible machine the NanoPaper has been.
He could only wonder what Eosin Bozkovich had done and if it was him who delivered this item to him earlier.
Recalling that, he also thought of his father and the message he sent him, written in a language he was yet to know.
Lying on the bed, Rex had just taken shower but he was already sweating profusely. He glanced at the AC system and saw that it was running.
Meaning, he was really feeling the waving shock.
He closed his eyes and heaved a long sigh then murmured with a little grudge: “This is scary. Can’t you not read my mind?”
[I’m sorry, sir. For some reason, my main program is centered in reading your neural activity and I am unable to change this part of my protocol. What I can do is minimize the frequency of suggestions and verbal inputs, and change my core suggestive responses into prompts you can choose from.]
Rex remembered the graphical representation of his neural levels in the panel he accidentally saw when he was cleaning the NLD Cabinet.
“I think that’s a better option. Only warn me if I am diverting from my normal neural activity levels. Do you have a function that lets you scan anything?]
[Yes, sir, I do. All other functions are available for your usage, sir. Would you like to go on a tutorial practice?]
A talking and thinking task organizer with a lot of other functions…
Rex could feel the love his father had with this gift and with it, his tears couldn’t help forming in his eyes.
“Before that, if you’re going to be my organizer, then I want you as an active third-party entity that maintains your core functionality but only give the prompts and suggestions as a third person. Can you do that?”
[You are inferring that I become a watcher, Sir? I can do that but it is not part of my programming algorithms. Would you like to add that to my basic reaction pallet?]
“Yes please.”
[Pallet added…… a Personality Algorithm is now required to proceed with this action. Would you like to set a Personality Algorithm for me, sir?]
Rex opens his eyes and seemed to have thought of something.
“You mean I can adjust your personality myself?”
[Yes sir…… would you like me to create a list of options for you to better do it?]
Rex paused and then sat up and nodded, “I think it’s better to take me to your tutorial now.”
[Initiating Tutorial Program…..]
At that moment…
BEEP!!
[Sir, there is an interactive video file saved for you in my database. The main Tutorial Program cannot execute unless you see this video. Would you like me to play it?]
“Yes please.”
As soon as Rex gave the prompt, his world began to change and he was transported into a white room, giving him the impression that it was the same room as the Genesis Chamber that he had, vaguely, remember in his memories.
If there is one thing that’s different in this place is that there was only his father, Neth, standing in front of him with a warm smile.
“Hello son.”
“Dad!”
.
.
================================
A light at the end of the dark road…
The Warden Console steps out of the cage!!!
================================