Codex cursed as she lost the connection with that kid, Blueprint. Something about the way he was put together prohibited all but the most shallow scans and catching hints of his conversations with his team.

His background implied that he was a trust-fund baby, but unlike most of that type, he had a deep well of self-loathing, possibly assisted by what his ex did to him. Most trust fund babies were impossibly built up with concepts of artificial superiority and fake confidence in their own innate superiority, but he had flipped that on its head, somehow.

But Darpa and the HSA had managed to obtain a chunk of the armor he had lost during his duel, and those in the know had stated unequivocally that it was absolutely laced with information and manipulation technology on a microscopic scale. Real technology, not that banana-peel and nine-volt-battery Spock stuff that widgeteers produced. Sure, he was a high-ranked healer, but there were high-ranked healers and even biological rebuilders on the government payroll, even alphas that could temporarily unlock abilities in absolutely normal humans, albeit at a price.

But the tech was some next-level shit, which made this Jake guy an intense person of interest to those who had the power to decide such things, like her employer.

Many of the males that managed to unlock the alpha key were capable of producing next-level stuff, for a while, but unlike most, this blueprint guy appeared to be both capable of understanding what he created and reasonably stable, perhaps because of that lack of overwhelming self-confidence that many male alphas adopted as soon as they realized that they were, in fact, a superior form of humanity.

Of course, most true tinkers also wound up going unstable and either turning to a path that mandated their elimination or killing themselves in some spectacular fashion when they started to believe reality should adapt to their expectations rather than the other way around.

The Jury was a cute little group, convinced that it was their job to save the Earth by converting as many powerful alphas to their weird little religion as possible, but those in the know knew the truth… Earth was circling the drain, on its way out, and humanity’s only real hope of survival involved expansion, to other worlds, to other universes, places where Q-bomb contamination could be minimized or even eliminated altogether.

Codex may have been an alpha, but she knew damned good and well that the existence of alphas, beings that could potentially wipe out all of humanity with a single thought, was an existential threat of the highest order. Sure, some nutball villains and the occasional alien presence showed up trying to conquer or kill humanity, but most of them were absolute idiots who had weird, impossible, or grandiose plans that could be stomped on fairly easily, even by the similarly idiotic ‘superheroes’ who convinced themselves they were mankind’s only hope.

But that level of tech could unlock the secrets to colonizing the universe. Forget manifest destiny, expansion was a matter of survival, which was why she was so gapped about losing contact so frequently and having so much trouble penetrating anything but the surface layers of his thought processes.

Not that Codex believed that even with her mental power, she had the slightest chance of gaining his genius potential or even understanding the thought processes that created that sort of potential, but the people she represented needed hooks, ways of ensuring his loyalty, or at least his cooperation.

This was important enough that Codex herself would gleefully seduce the boy and convince him, either through behavior or by using her abilities, that she was his true love and lifemate, but apparently, his experiences had armored him against that sort of manipulation. He was definitely attracted to girls, but even with an entire dormitory full of girls that would be happy to trip him and wind up on the bottom, he just didn’t seem to be indulging himself, and something about his brain prevented her from digging in a deep suggestion that would draw him to her like a fly to honey.

Even those Jury idiots had managed to plant an agent among his ‘girls’, who had been wildly more successful than their plant, the Orwell girl, who had staged an almost perfect savior situation, and was already half in love with him herself. She had dropped the ball, badly, though, and convinced him that she was trying to manipulate him.

Well, for right now, she had her orders. He wasn’t sold on being the hero that humanity needs concept, not yet, but his shift to monster hunter had some potential for possible hooks into his personality. She glared at her desk in the Academy’s guidance department and started going through the difficult process of attaching a psychic tracker, yet again. Maybe she would find a better way to plant the trackers, at least. But for right now, her cover required that she get ready to teach a class.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Codex altered her appearance back to that of an attractive, slightly overweight grandmotherly type as she felt the tracker lightly click into place, and gathered her teaching materials. Time to get back to work.

***

“You are sure?”

Princess Pixel nodded, “Yeah, Kate is going out of her way to specifically block his access to my alter ego, and trying to bait him into getting an attachment to her in a way that screams agent. Our girl knows she’s in last place compared to the rest of his team, but Matchmaker was right… barring getting him into a poly relationship, I think she’s an almost perfect match. But she isn’t an agent, and won’t try to twist him up to get him to commit to her. One of the hazards of working with real, ethical people.”

Kali sighed. “So we should just stand back and let nature take its course?”

Princess Pixel laughed, “Nature has nothing to do with it. Trust me, alright? I have a plan.”

“A plan?”

Pixel nodded, “Yep. You and I both know that the key to building his potential is to get him the information he needs. Oracle has mentioned that there might be an event soon that could get both you and him into the same place if handled correctly.”

“You want me to seduce him?”

Pixel laughed, “God no! You are totally not his type. But you DO have the information he needs, and he seems to become attached to mentor types. Look at how quickly he came to trust that irascible old bastard that almost everyone else seems to hate on sight. If I can get the two of you together, can you handle becoming a teacher and mentor? Between what you, Sabrina, and our girl can bring to bear, information-wise, we could easily be looking at this world’s first gold core and a possible solution to the rift break. Just… be yourself, and be genuine, and I bet his loyalty would grow naturally once he understands the truth.”

Kali sighed and nodded, flopping onto the spare chair in Pixel’s ‘den’. She’d been spending more and more time here. “Yeah, I think if you can arrange it, an honest meeting might work. You know he IS human though, so my techniques might not work to reinforce what he already knows.”

Pixel sighed and shook her head at the much larger woman. “You are as human as he is, even if you aren’t local. Yeah, he’s probably going to need some special techniques, but doesn’t everyone? We can cross that bridge at his first breakthrough when he needs it. But you know as well as I do that a gold core that can seal the rift is the only thing that will save our world, and with your progress sealed, he’s the best prospect we can find.”

“And what I do know is that Codex has shifted her focus from us to him. That’s both good and bad since it will let us maneuver more easily until they assign a new minder, and I have no idea who it will be, but there’s a limited pool of people that won’t get brain-burned trying to mess with an ID splitting cyber like me.”

Kali shook her head, “If this fails, then they will be the only hope, which means colonization and all the war and blood that will be spilled if they DO manage to find a habitable realm. Not to mention turning this into a failed realm, and all the nightmares that a central failed realm will bring. I almost wish that Earth were still a sealed realm… then it would be someone else’s problem.

Pixel pouted, “But then you never would have met me!”

Kali nodded, “Yes, and regular sleep would have been tragic. So what kind of time frame are we looking at?”

Princess Pixel smiled, “A few days. Please postpone your trip to Tianjin, and get ready for a fight. I can’t WAIT to get my hands on one of his armors.”

Kali checked over her swords carefully, “Right, but the folk are going to rage. They are convinced that they have a budding Husheng savior, and you know how they get when they are convinced that they are the elite children of destiny.”

***

Somewhere in the deeps, something stirred. Unlike the pathetic air creatures, the deeplings had a mind that was capable of holding dozens of affinities simultaneously without becoming overwhelmed.

Her senses reached out and confirmed. There was something out there with the potential to overturn everything she had been putting in place for the last century. A century wasn’t very long, but air-creatures had short lifespans. Earth was getting close to perfect, and soon it would become their stronghold for expansion into the multiverse.

With a slight wave of one sensitive tentacle, she called one of her surface slaves. They were not smart, but even the weaklings could be useful. She quickly instilled it with the desire to seek out a new, powerful food source, and gave it the aura it needed to force the lesser herds towards the same location. Even as weak as it was, it should be able to snuff out that potential before it started interfering with her domination.

With another thought, she sent the thing on its way before it drowned from basking in her magnificence.