Tsaimath
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DLM Bk 3 Chapter 33
🕑 Added 2019-05-03 15:14:31 +0000 UTC
At the dorm-cluster, instead of heading back to the dorm, I went into my workshop. I had work to do. If I wanted to make a secure capsule, I first needed the material I had used for my armour. The ceramic-metal compound needed a couple of special tools to process, some I would have to make myself, others that were rare but standard. Once I had a list of tools, I sent off a message to Technica to ask which of the tools were available to me in her workshop. I would have to acquire or build the rest, before I could make the capsule. In addition, I wanted to recharge my batteries, I needed some more information on my average energy usage, so I would not run out of juice one day. That would be quite embarrassing.
However, to implant it, I wanted to have the microwave-transmitter network in place anyway, so I could use the nanites easier for the implantation and installation. In addition, I might replace the vertebrae that were currently made out of tightly linked nanites with purposefully shaped vertebrae out of that compound, with a thin layer of nanites acting as spinal disks.
Until dinner, Galatea and I made one transmitter after the other, each with a slightly different signal strength so that my flesh would have consistent coverage without radiating much outward. For example, the transmitters that would attach to my finger-bones were a lot smaller and weaker than the transmitters that would be placed at my ribs.
The only area of my body were there would be no transmitters was in my left arm, but that arm was mostly made out of nanites anyway and they could transmit energy and signals over their direct connection, taking away the need to transmit in the microwave-spectrum.
After dinner, I started to implant the finished transmitters, something that felt seriously weird. They were supposed to anchor to the bones and connect to the main-network via nanite-chains going along those bones, for now just chains to transmit energy and signals, maybe I would upgrade them later to increase the bones' hardness.
To implant them, I placed the large transmitter over the area and a swarm of nanites parted the flesh, gently pushing aside as much as necessary while forming a tiny tunnel out of my skin, essentially allowing me to drop the transmitter right inside. The nanites surrounded it, made sure that there was no contamination and drew it in. The whole process was fast and easy, only when the nanites burrowed out of my skin, it itched like mad. It did not really hurt, only an itching sensation that drove me insane.
When I finally got back to the dorm, it was a little awkward. Ru Shi was still weird with me, acting skittish as if I would suddenly start murdering everyone. Karen on the other hand felt it was totally rad, her words, that I was Powered. She had a million and one questions, mostly about other Powered who I had never met but somehow, she believed I would know something about them, as if there was some strange social network only for Powered where they spilled all their secrets. If there was, I had not been invited. But it seemed like an interesting idea, maybe I should set something like that up, alongside some sort of online-presence for the newly empowered, to give them some guidance that does not rely on them registering with their national agency. When she started to ask if I could introduce her to this hero or that villain, I fled into the bedroom, claiming exhaustion and a need to sleep.
Luckily, I had the room for myself, Tanisha was once again out, probably drinking herself into a stupor. I worried about her, I was not sure if she was able to manage her time adequately, to balance her time spent partying and the time she needed to study. I would be a little sorry if she had to drop out due to bad grades. Who knew what kind of roommate I would get afterwards?
On Monday morning, I was faced with a dilemma. Should I head to the gym or not. Normally, the answer would be a resounding yes, but now, I had a shiny left arm that was obviously so much more than a normal prosthesis. And when I worked out, there was no way to hide that, neither how much of my arm was metal or how well it moved. I ended up going, simply because it was an integral part of who I was. The looks were quite amusing, Ray was, once again, at the front desk when I got there and he almost fell out of his chair when I left the locker room, once again dressed in a sports-bra and exercise-shorts. Luckily, other than my arm, Galatea had repaired the cosmetic damage and fixed the internal damage to the point that I was feeling good.
“That’s not makeup or body paint, is it?” he asked, eyeing my arm suspiciously.
“No, it is not. Small problem in my workshop, you know how it goes.” I nonchalantly replied.
“That’s what it looks like after a small problem? Damn, I don’t want to know what happens if there is a big one!”
I just smiled at that and walked into the gym itself, changing my normal work-out a little, as there was no need to exercise my left arm, the nanites would not strengthen by exercise, just get some wear and tear. When I got to the heavy bags, that changed. I was not only training here to strengthen my body, it was also to keep in fighting shape. And from now on, I would fight with my new arm, if necessary. So, I was punching just as normal, only that I trained my coordination with Galatea at the same time, stiffening the nanites that made up the fist shortly before impact, creating an effect similar to brass knuckles.
After my training, while we were in the shower, Galatea told me she had to show me something. Curious, I asked her what, wondering how she had kept her activity from me. But I had focused on my training, so she apparently had been able to sneak something by me.
On her mental cue, I held my left arm away from me and suddenly, the nanites that made up the flesh of the hand flowed forward, reducing the hand almost to the solid metal parts I was using as bones, just a thin covering locking them in place. The rest of the nanites had formed a thin, double-edged blade sticking out from the metal-parts by about fifteen centimeters. She passed on the information about how sharp it was and, while it was not quite as sharp as the knives I had used previously, it had quite a few advantages.
“So, can you also do a screwdriver or a tin-can opener?” I joked, thinking of the old swiss army knives, still called that, even after their country had changed its name into Cantonia. In our shared mental space, Galatea laughed and changed the blade into a flat-head screwdriver, rapidly rotating like an electric drill. I was caught flat-footed and burst into laughter when she added, in the mental space, “There will be no tin-can opener, if we ever need one, you can use the blade-version.”
“Thank you, dear. I needed the laugh.” I told her in our mental space, while shaking my head in disbelief. She had become more expressive and alive since we shared that space.
During class-time, I once again wore my black glove but for the first time I realised just how much I had changed. Whenever there was a math-problem in one of the lectures, Galatea and I solved it before the lecturer had turned around after writing it on the board. Whenever there was a question about some random fact, Galatea had looked it up online before the lecturer had finished exhaling. I had, quite literally, a library with a highly efficient librarian stuck in my head. A librarian that was able to think abstractly and guide me to the right answers. My job in the future would be to ask new questions and join her in a search for answers. I would have to talk with Technica about this, it seemed slightly silly to waste time in math-classes with Galatea in my head.
So, instead of being bored out of my mind, I mainly focused on designing a personal defense weapon, fashioned after my railgun. I wanted something with as much punch as possible, without breaking my arm or knocking me over when I shot it. The design I came up with was similar to a sniper-rifle, allowing only for single-shots to give the recoil-absorbers time to reset. Technically, a much higher rate of fire was possible, but only while I was wearing armour. That would allow me to lock the springs that prevented the obscene recoil from breaking my shoulder, taking the force with my much harder armour.
The projectiles my new toy would fire had a smaller diameter compared to the railgun-slugs but were longer and I designed the rifle to accept a double magazine so I was able to load one with armour-piercing solid flechettes and the other with my version of hollow-point rounds, those that shattered into dozens of razor-sharp fragments when they hit anything harder than air.
Later, during lunch, Mina, Stephan, Alexander, Galina and a couple of others who I interacted with from time to time asked what was going on with my glove and why I had seemed mentally absent the whole morning. I pulled off my glove, showing them the silver arm and gave a very rough outline of what had happened to me, once again implying that I had a lab-accident. I was not covering the events up for Clark, I did not want people to know that he had beaten me, even if it had been an ambush. Maybe, I would tell people once I had taken my revenge. Just thinking of introducing him to rail-rifle I had designed during class-time brought a happy smile to my face.
