IDGM4 - 11 - Bio Core (Patreon)

“What have you sneaky little buggers been up too?” Maya wondered out loud as she stared into the internals of the C5 rogue AI mana core. She tapped her tool against the marsani casing and used it to the poke the fleshy mass within. The mass shuddered and she watched as the work mana output spiked on the reader.

“That does not look like a usual C5 core,” Tender said, watching over her shoulder.

“I thought rectangular shaped cores were just compact versions, but this is producing enough work mana to almost be considered C6,” Maya replied. “This is all rogue AI tech too, not the usual mixture of system and rouge you see.” Maya tapped the reddish hued components that packed the interior of the core. “Every mana core we’ve come across has been system tech adapted by the rogue AIs. They aren’t able to make mana cores, aren’t they?”

“That is the general consensus,” Tender replied.

Rogue AI Mana Core - Category 5

Mid grade, Tier 1

Maya moved her focus at the lumpy flesh sack that filled the interior. She could feel the pressure as she tried to activate her Analyze Skill, the difficultly coming from not knowing what she was looking at. Maya sighed and rubbed her head.

“I believe it might be a type of conductive gel,” Tender stated. “Although rogue AIs are not supposed to be able to create conductive gel as it requires channeling mana to do so.”

“It looks familiar too,” Maya pulled up her tabled and opened a window displaying the organic mana core that powered the omni-miner. She hadn’t done more than cursory examinations of the device, but she had at least managed to scan the entire thing to look at on her downtime. “It’s a fleshy style mana core… but…”

Rogue AI Biological Conductive Core Material - Category 5

Mid grade, Tier 1

“Welp, Analyze just updated. Guess we were on the right track,” Maya said leaning back. She stared at the exposed core, not the crazy swirling lights she had once seen on the Hangy, but an oddly organic pulsing of mana along veins and arteries.

“I am assuming that it was stolen by the rogue AIs in battles against the Tarvana,” Tender said after she had informed him. “Smaller, more efficient, and also less destructive when the core is exposed.”

“Yeah, a total upgrade on system tech,” Maya said. She tapped the tool in her hand against the marsani casing and took out another terminal. She scanned the material and brought up the windows as it began displaying information. “Although rogue AI tech is usually an upgrade to system tech, this appears to be… made by them. Not the Tarvana.”

“Are these rogue AIs creating their own biological mass to produce cores for themselves?” Tender wondered.

Maya scanned the window of information and highlighted a block of scan text. “Shit,” she muttered.

“Shit, indeed,” Tender said.

****

“I don’t see what this has to do with us?” Chu said. He yawned and glanced around at the gathered war council. “I mean, just a few weeks ago we were chopping up Fleshies to put into our pots. This is just an extension of that.”

“Consuming the flesh of our foes is a different matter,” Whitestripe said. “That comes from battle and victory. What Merchant Sullivan has uncovered is that machines are turning SIL into ingredients. That sounds much like life before the Awakening.”

“This is a tragedy,” Anisa added. “To think that such horror is constantly committed upon the Tarvana.”

“What are the numbers?” Emilia asked, her face was tight.

“We’re looking at DNA combinations of at least a thousand different individuals,” Maya said as she displayed a window for all to see. She highlighted the data. “It’s not just their flesh they’re using, but their mana channels.”

“Mana Channels?” Anisa asked. “They can harvest those?”

“We don’t know how they do it, but using some of Nan’s backed up files and info, it looks like these Tarvana were harvested of their mana channels. That was then formed into this biological core material.”

“Such a thing would revolutionize mana core making,” Sostanio remarked. The grim and angry faces that turned her way caused her to glare back. “Mana core building is a bottleneck in all SIL manufacturing. The Sword Union would have dominated our galaxy if there were sufficient mana cores to power its fleets.”

“Would you be willing to sacrifice a thousand SIL to make one C5 core?” Emilia snapped. “A thousand lives just to fly a spaceship?”

Sostanio was smart enough not to die on that particular hill. She folded her arms and glared back at Emilia.

“The more time we spend in this dimensional plane, the more horrifying it is,” Anisa said into the silence.

“This isn’t just those Fleshy fuckers making these cores and the rogue AIs taking them?” Chu asked.

“No,” Maya said. “This is wholly built by the rogue AIs.”

“Which they shouldn’t be able to do, right?” Chu asked.

“Yes. They can’t make conductive gel or core material, which is basically the same thing. Core material is a compressed form of conductive gel that is found in mana batteries. The basic manufacturing is the same, but there are differences when creating the core material as SIL channel mana into it.”

“So this rogue AI core is just a bunch of mana channels inside a box?”

“A bit more complicated than that, but yes,” Maya replied.

“Again, I don’t see what this has to do with us,” Chu said.

“They’re killing thousands to make their cores,” Emilia said.

“They’ve been doing that long before we got here,” Chu responded. “Biological critters just happen to be low on the totem pole hereabouts, as long as they’re happy harvesting Fleshies, I’m all for letting sleeping turds lie.

“The Fleshies don’t like us. The rogue AIs don’t like us. But for now they hate each other a bit more. We go about trying to ‘solve’ this issue, then we’ll be looking down the barrel of a railgun before we know it. Like my old sarge always said ‘don’t stick your dick into someone else’s fight’. RIP, buddy.”

“Agree,” Ironbeak said. “This does not matter. More guns and more defenses are needed, not more empathy.”

“I disagree,” Anisa said. “Perhaps it is more empathy that we need.”

“Foolishness,” Ironbeak snapped. “Weakness. A weakness to be used against us.”

“As Chu stated before, what does this have to do with us?” Sostanio asked. She braved the withering glares from Emilia.

“Harvesting mana channels has to be a seriously intensive process. I know mana channels can be healed, with some treatments, but the actual ripping of them out, keeping them somehow alive, and then using them to create mana cores. It’s bonkers as all hell and through some extreme necessity, they invented this Frankenstienian mess,” Maya said. She looked to the others to see that they were not on the same track as she was. “When there’s a need, it’s the best time to make money.”

“Oh, fuck that,” Emilia cursed.

“You’re gonna sell them Fleshies?” Chu asked. “I’m not down with being a slaver, Maya.”

“No, no. Hell, no. I’m saying we get into the business of making conductive gel and core material. Then sell it to the rogue AIs.”

There was a moment of silence as the war council glanced at one another and shrugged, although Emilia still stared at Maya with the fury of a hundred suns.

“We make all the conductive gel and core material we can, sell it to the rogue AIs for the Tier 2 parts we need, then we get the hell out of this place,” Maya continued.

“And upset a balance that has been maintained here,” Anisa replied. “As you’ve stated before, the Tarvana and the rogue AIs have been at war for a long time. By providing the rogue AIs with the ability to make more mana cores, then they will grow more powerful.”

“A few cores and batteries aren’t going to win or lose this war,” Maya said. “Not if we’re able to get out of here quickly after we get the parts.”

“What happened to the plan of just stealing them?” Chu asked. “The whole Dimensional Teleportation thing.”

“I can’t handle it,” Emilia said. “Something’s off in me, it seems. I freak out every time we teleport.”

“Have one of your minions join instead of you,” Chu said. “They’re supposed to be shield mages, aren’t they?”

“They’re not as strong as I am and they won’t protect Maya if she goes into a heavily contested area. Raiding the rogue AIs is going to be a fight,” Emilia replied.

“Raiding is good, but it always causes retaliation,” the Sow said, entering the conversation for the first time. “Take things they need, they hit back harder to make a point.”

“We’ve got plenty of defenses up now,” Chu replied. “We can repel a decent sized force. Not an army, but some big boys and cannon fodder. Plus with the Overlord dead, they’re still gonna come gunning for us.”

“The Overlord isn’t dead,” Maya said.

Silence filled the room as all eyes turned on her.

“The overlord was defeated, but I didn’t kill it. I cut all its connections to the outside world and trapped it in its own brain,” Maya replied. “I could have killed it, but there was no need. It’s body was shattered to hell and after we took out the cores, it would not be able to do anything afterward. There’s still thousands of gallons of black goo floating around inside the orb, but that’s just keeping the brain alive. It can’t do anything to harm us.”

“Famous fucking last words,” Chu said.

“What were your plans for the Overlord?” Sostanio asked.

Maya shrugged. “Nothing at the moment, but once I discovered what the C5 cores were made of. I figured we could gain some goodwill if we repatriated the mind to its brethren.”

“If the rogue AIs can make core material themselves, why would they want to buy it from us?” Anisa asked.

“The Fleshies use their flesh tech,” Maya said. “It’s biological technology that can communicate with system tech, but does not acknowledge rogue tech.”

“Acknowledge?” Emilia asked.

“Is not mana mana?” Whitestripe asked.

“There are some layers to mana,” Maya said. “Work mana and SIL mana are the big ones. They’re the ones the allow machines to work and for SIL to use magic or use active abilities. There’s also destructive mana, which… well… destroys things.

“I tried hooking Tender up to the mana core in the omni-miner and it gave all kinds of errors. The fleshy mana cells began attacking Tender, like some kind of virus or white blood cell reaction. I think the Fleshies have coded their mana cores to not work with rogue tech, therefore they can’t be stolen and used.”

“Smart,” Sostanio said. “Such a thing would be useful in the Multiverse at Large. The theft of mana cores and salvaging of them by enemies is cause for concern in major battles.”

“The Fleshies can grow their mana cores and the rogue AIs can’t use them. So why aren’t the Fleshies swarming the rogue AIs with battle tanks and whatnot?” Chu asked. “They can make cores to use for mining machines, why not war machines? Those walking guns like we saw while running from the armies.”

“Perhaps it is a difficult thing to create,” Anisa said.

“Yeah, well it sounds like a half assed war to me,” Chu said. “If they were really terrified of extermination by the rogue AIs, they’d be full war time economy, WW2 style. We passed a bunch of settlements and they were full of weak ass cannon fodder, collecting trash and picking up rocks.

“There were some fortified settlements, yeah, but none of them sent out troops to hit us in the backside. Instead they sent more cannon fodder against us from a farming settlement. If these fortified settlements were military bases, then allowing two Death Brigades to be wiped is pretty screwed up. We did some deep active scans on those settlements and they’re full of troops, so what gives with not lending a bro a hand in a fight they were losing?”

“We don’t know,” Maya said. “There’s still a lot we don’t know, like why were there thousands of Tarvana awaiting our arrival. Why we were shunted off here instead of being sent into downtown Motherland.

“But those questions can wait. The one we need to discuss is if we’re willing to readjust our focus onto making conductive gel and core material.”

“How hard is it to make?” Emilia asked.

“Fairly difficult. We’ll need mana stones, some custom machinery, and some dedicated channelers.” Maya brought up a screen that displayed an array of System grade blueprints. They were free to anyone and were not able to be claimed by any corporation or government.

It had been nearly a year since she had last looked at the system grade blueprints. Although there was a lot of money to be made in making mana cores and the 3S was in desperate need of mana cores; her corporation was only able to create the most basic part of the mana core. The material and gel.

“We can’t make cores,” Maya said before anyone asked. “We don’t have enough industrial foundation for it, but we can make the material and gel. The material and gel are also used in some crafted mana batteries and cores, but for the most part, this low grade material and gel are the basis of all mana cores and batteries in the Multiverse.”

“They can be higher grade?” Emilia asked.

“Yeah, all the way up to high grade, holds more power, etc.”

“Comparable to a tesseract?” Emilia asked.

“Nope. Nothing system tech made or crafted can get near that. Tesseracts are end game tech.”

“How much work? How fast to learn?” the Sow asked. As things had progressed, the orcs were making a name for themselves in picking up system tech. They were already producing a lot of mechanics and technicians who were beginning to surpass Tender’s knowledge.

The crows on the other hand had been picking the brains of humans and the Sinz, figuring out crafting on their downtime. They still were involved in learning beside the orcs, but the desire to create devices with mana was a strong motivator.

“Material wise, we have mostly what we need to create the material. It is made of common enough elements, but the creation will take channelers. So we’re going to need to boost some levels and get some people prepared to learn how to shape the material and gels.”

“You know how?” the Sow asked.

“Nope. But,” Maya flicked the blueprint, “system grade stuff is not difficult to make and we have some freshly minted mages.”

“Who are still needing to hang around a tesseract most days,” Emilia said. “But they can channel mana, it’s not entirely difficult. If we can get a few non-mages to link up with them, the mage can control the mana flows while the others bring it in.”

“Timetable,” the Sow said.

Maya looked to Emilia. The mage frowned and furrowed her brow as she made some calculations. “Learning to channel mana is pretty basic stuff. We can probably get four or so people per mage, but we’ll need to begin experimenting on how to make the material and gel. I don’t know how long that will take.”

“You have two weeks,” Maya said.

“Whats happening in two weeks?” Emilia asked.

“It’s just an arbitrary number,” Maya replied. “Short enough to put a fire on your ass and long enough to not lead to self destructive behavior.”

“What a crock,” Emilia muttered. “This is going to interfere with a lot of stuff, you know? The cyanobacteria vat expansion, the mage training, and it’ll also reduce the amount of people working and learning.”

“It’s acceptable,” Maya said. “We need to make this happen.”

“Fine, fine,” Emilia said, waving her hand. “I’ll just go off and pull a miracle out of my ass.”

“It’s the Sullivan way,” Maya grinned.

“I’m not a Sullivan,” Emilia growled.

The members of the war council began filing out, except for Chu who still sat in his chair.  Maya waited until everyone had left before focusing on him. His expression was unreadable, but she could tell it was not a joyous one.

“You getting soft on me, Sullivan?” he asked.

Maya bristled at the tone. “Easy there, soldier,” she said.

“A month back you were gung-ho about genocide in the name of survival,” Chu said.

“Genocide?” Maya glowered.

“Thousands dead, their bodies turned to paste, remixed, zapped with magic powers, and formed into easy to carry ration bars,” Chu continued. “It’s just genocide with more steps.”

Maya stepped toward him, anger flushing her face. Chu stared back at her, his expression still blank. He didn’t flinch, didn’t move, nor showed any signs he was wary of her.

“I’m down with killing all the Fleshies,” Chu said. “They’re the fucktards that created this entire mess. That shithead Bad Blood brought an army to your steps, gave away your DNA so a poison could be made to screw with you, and the Fleshy Army killed hundreds of your troops and finally dumped us in this shit part of the RSH.

“They’re nothing but a bunch of death cultists assholes. The Multiverse won’t even bat an eye at their demise, since they’re in the RSH. They don’t need our help, they don’t want our help, and they definitely will not take it easy on us if we save a few thousand of them from becoming rogue AI slurry cores. These guys die like mayflies, what’s the point in trying to save them?”

“They’re still people,” Maya said firmly.

“That’s the line of thought that got your Cage taken from you,” Chu replied. “Trusting that shitheel Bad Blood and her little gang of refugees.”

“How many people have we lost since we’ve arrived here?” Maya demanded.

“Twenty-three,” Chu said immediately. “There are still half a dozen that aren’t fully healed. They’ll be crippled the rest of their lives, if we don’t get back to the Multiverse and Nan’s magical healing powers.”

“The Sow was right. If we raid the rogue AIs, they’ll come after us. Right now, we’re just some assholes that took over a low priority mining station. We’re not a threat to them. If we turn in the Overlord’s core, we buy some goodwill. We manage to sell them conductive gel and core material, we buy more good will.”

“And save a bunch of cannibal assholes,” Chu added.

Maya glared at him. “Yeah. If we can supplant the need to make mana channel cores, then we can prevent thousands more from dying.”

“All this just to salve your soul?” Chu said. “Lady Sullivan scrubbing her hands of a spot of blood?”

“Fuck you, Chu.”

“Anytime, anywhere,” he replied. “You came here like a badass. Killing hundreds of the Fleshies, then stealing their shit, kicking their asses again, then getting the rogue AIs to smash their armies. We’re all damned impressed by that. But once we get settled, you’re talking about trading with robots and saving Fleshies who their own people don’t give to rat balls about?”

“They are still people.” Maya said.

“See? Soft.”

Maya surged forward and with a swift movement had Chu in the air by his neck. He didn’t move to defend himself or fight back. Instead he hung there in her hand, limply, and staring at her. Then he grinned at her.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Maya demanded, releasing him.

Chu rubbed his neck. “I should be asking you that,” he said. “You’ve been all over the place lately. You realize that focusing on conductive and core material is gonna screw up a lot of the work we’re doing? We’re not set up for industrial manufacturing, we’re all a bunch of dunces poking at shiny lights.”

“Your little dance changed my mind,” Maya said.

“My Snoopy dance?”

“I haven’t been spending much time with others, beyond the war council. I know a few of them, but not all of them. They’re just a list of names in my head with what skills they have and their levels. I’m responsible for them and I can’t waste their lives,” she said.

“Oh, finally,” Chu sighed and sat down.

“We can fight the rogue AIs, we can fight the Tarvana, but we can’t fight both. We can’t survive if they decide we’re a nuisance, but if we offer them what they want. They might let us live.”

“Supplicate and offer up a tithe to our new mechanical overlords,” Chu said.

“Sullivans do not bow,” Maya growled. “We will trade as equals and we will prove they need us more than they need the Tarvana.”

“Thereby saving thousands of them from being harvested,” Chu muttered.

“Yes.”

“No one wants to die in this hellhole,” Chu said. “No one wants to be here either, but we follow you. Half the shit you come up with is ridiculous, but avoiding a fight is always a good thing.”

“Coming from the soldier?”

“Hell yeah, the best armies never fight. Like the Swiss or the North Koreans.” He grinned at that. “I don’t like the Fleshies, but all the shit that’s getting done to them by us, their own people, and the rogue AIs, it’s brutal being a cannibal death cultist.”

“Bad Blood, for all her faults, shows that they want freedom and to live their lives just like any SIL,” Maya said.

“Everyone wants to go home,” Chu said.

“I don’t know how long it will take to get to that point, but I promise not to waste people’s lives for no reason.”

“Remember that,” Chu said. “You turn into one of those assholes all about fighting and killing, then there will be consequences.”

“Really? Threats?”

“No. A promise.”