Thunder and Webs C129 [Gold]

Project Lifeline has officially begun at the Donovick household. And Ripley attempts to see the good in Personality Matrixes, not to ignore wounds... but to heal them.

Chapter 129: Lifeline

February 19th

3:44 PM

Ripley

“What do you mean you’re not going back to being Dreadwire?” Alice whined as I cut some vegetables.

“I can’t. I talked to Diana, and we came to an agreement.” I sighed, but smiled. Honestly, all things considered, I felt good about our talk. “Dreadwire’s a little… problematic at the moment. And with everything going on in this city, I don’t think I’d be of much help.”

“Well, there are other ways we can help!” Starlight chimed from a drone, showing Alice how to fillet a chicken. But… dammit, were groceries always this expensive? Further regulation to ensure all our food was kept clean of The Revenant meant a lot was taken off the shelves, and it was a shame because SynTec meat was always too chewy in my opinion. “Me and my dad are going to design some super-secret tech to land in just the right hands to make sure everything works out for her.”

“Oh, yeah, like what?” Alice looked genuinely interested.

“Well for starters, we’re building her a body-double. Then there’s also new versions of the vaccine they have — Soul Killer’s gonna try making themselves more resistant — oh, maybe some detection tech?”

“And how’re you going to distribute everything?” Alice asked with scrutiny.

“You know The Iron Devil?” I teased.

She shook her head. “No.”

“Uh, he was this really popular merc back in the day, kinda… like… really big?” Almost everyone got to know about the Iron Devil eventually. “Wow, you’re really young.”

“Hey, I’m old enough to take care of myself.” She said with angst.

“Hey, enjoy it while you can.” I chuckled. “How many people get to enjoy lunch cooked by Dreadwire?”

“I thought you said you weren’t Dreadwire.” A tongue stuck out at me.

“Not for the foreseeable future.” I rolled my eyes. “Look, one day, the Swarm will come knocking, and then they’ll get to see an All-New, All-Different Dreadwire busting some MAL’s asses down. A… rehabilitated Dreadwire.”

“But we need you now!” Alice said as she sliced an onion. “Besides, I’m worried this all-different part will ruin your charm! There’s a reason Dreadwire’s really popular!”

“Because I… am Gold and can beat up a Muramasa Prince?” I asked.

“No. The suit’s hot.” She shrugged nonchalantly. “All black and gold? Those long talons? Just the right blend of military gear? Total lady boner.”

This was the part where I reminded myself that Alice was… too unfortunately grown up for her age, and I saw it as her eyes dilated and the algorithm in her mind kept her on track.

“You know what?” I took up our cut vegetables and tossed them in the pan, wanting to cheer her up. “You’re right. I definitely should change, but there are some parts of my aesthetic that… just work. How about it, want to design my next suit?”

“Wait, seriously?!” She gripped the knife tighter.

“Yeah, you made that tattoo yourself, you got talent.” I looked down below her sleeve. “Besides, you are my publicist, aren’t you?”

“Oh, you’ve just unleashed hell upon yourself! Oooh, so many ideas! Let’s see! Uh, want something to show you’ve redeemed yourself? Then we could add some white-” She flinched back as her excitement distracted her, the knife in her grip slipping to scrap down her steel fingertips and cut into the skin of her palm. “Ah, fuck!”

I approached the wound as she gritted her teeth in pain, it wasn’t a deep cut but she was bleeding quite a bit. I thought about reaching for a Med-spray, when a curious thought grew in my head. Vessels interlaced in my shardware and connected to the arteries in my body to draw black blood, Neolymph, into my fingertips. I let a drop fall onto her wound.

A thought from me led to the black liquid pulsing as it sank into her wound and stretched to seal the cut tight, only a faint black scar left on her palm. She stared at it quizzically. “When could you do that?”

“Recently, I guess.” I shrugged. I hadn’t given myself a full dose of the Nul-Serum, wanting to test out my new mutational abilities a little bit more. I’d compensated by setting my Personality Editor at 20%, and so far everything seemed stable. I didn’t have a mental breakdown and Psyche wasn’t updating thus far.

I still didn’t trust myself to put it all the way down at 0%, but I was… getting there.

One step at a time.

I kept watch on the black scar, determining Soul Graft as the main mutation that suddenly… left me feeling a strange connection to Alice. I could feel her awe, her wonder at what else I could do, her frustration that I wasn’t doing enough. Her hope that she could be half of what I was.

“It shouldn’t scar.” I muttered, “It’s like a bandage, a couple days and new skin should replace it.”

“What is it?” She asked.

“I’ll tell you over lunch, if you promise not to cut yourself again.” I teased, getting back to cooking as I returned to frying some vegetables. “And make a good suit design.”

———

Elsa arrived for lunch and stared at Alice with an air of disbelief. “Ripley… are you sure about her?”

“Hey, I can hear you, you know!” Alice said between mouthfuls.

“Yeah, El, I’m sure.” I reached for her hand under the table, caressing it. “I know things are complicated right now, but… this, this is nice. This is normal. I have a way forward, and Alice is a part of that. And so are you.”

She flicked her gaze away, but I continued. “We have a lot to work towards, but I’m glad you’ve been here with me the entire time. You helped me a lot, and… I’m sorry if it sometimes feels like I’m…”

“Ripley, it’s okay.” She said, but a small smile lifted on her. “We’re stuck with eachother, through the worst or the best. We’ll handle it. Together.”

Starlight’s drone sat on her head. “And you’re including me, right?”

Elsa smiled, lifting her hand to pat the drone. “Yeah, Star. I am.”

“Great, then can we tell her about Project Lifeline, Dad?”

“Project Lifeline?” She asked.

“Just something me and Star discussed before we…” Fuck, I forgot to tell her. “Right, we talked with Diana.”

“You-” she began, before looking at Alice. Alice sipped some juice, seemingly enjoying the building drama between us both.

“Hey, it was okay, really. I think we both got some closure out of it.” I nudged her. “We were adults, worked on a compromise about what I should focus on and figured out the whole hybridized powerset we’re having.”

“Oh.” Elsa mouthed. “Nothing happened?”

“Nothing happened. I’m not going to go see her again unless she calls for me.” I confirmed. “I’ll tell you in more detail, later.”

She sighed. “Okay, what’s Project Lifeline?”

“It’s me!” Starlight chimed. “Dreadwire’s a big no-no… so… we’ll develop a ‘successor’ called Lifeline.”

“What?” Alice and Elsa said at the same time.

“Well, that’s part of it.” I interrupted. “Basically… it’s my idea of giving Starlight a physical body to work with other than a bunch of little drones. Instead I’ll design her a humanoid drone called ‘Lifeline’ for her to operate with as her own entity. She won’t be doing any criminal work, you know her, but we both know that… well… she’s more than just an Emulect. She’s plenty good as my apprentice, but I want her the chance to explore. And… it would give her a chance to work alongside her mother and Diana.”

“So she’d be… a side-kick to Silvereye?” Alice laughed.

“Well, more copy-cat-turned police-recruited mercenary — minus all the crime stuff. I’m a good Emulect!” Starlight said. “My Shardware will be completely non-lethal and support-based.”

“Are you sure about this, Rip?” Elsa asked.

“I know it’s a risky idea, but… well… consider it my way of a peace offering. Starlight is advanced, and Soul Killer adapts. With her on the front lines, she’d be able to improvise real-time modifications to the Soul Anchor to keep it a constant threat to Soul Killer. She’d vastly improve their teamwork as well through Synchronization, and it would give her a chance to work in some place other than a musty old lab.”

“I’m no DPS, the Support role works just fine for me!” Starlight said, showcasing a hologram of a few hypothetical designs for her body. Thanks to our work on Heart Seeker, we could even give her a human-like body that could at-an-instant shift into a work-ready form. Plus, we’d also thought of incorporating aspects from Diana’s Silvereye suit alongside my own Dreadwire tech to truly create a masterpiece.

“It’ll take a few months to build up.” I said, “but I think it’s pretty cool.”

“I… sure.” She shrugged. “I mean, if you think Diana will be cool with it?”

“Not at first,” I admitted, “but it’s not Dreadwire. So I’m technically not breaking any rules.”

“Always looking for loopholes.” Elsa sighed.

Soon as lunch was over, I turned to Alice. “Hey, Alice, just so you know… you’re not imprisoned here. Why don’t you and Starlight head out for a bit? Explore the building, there’s an okay mall up the elevator. Just stay careful and call me if you need anything.”

Alice looked surprised, but Starlight nodded ahead. “Some sisterly bonding time!”

“Sister?” Alice chuckled. “Oh, are you adopting me, Mr. Donovick?”

Through the nanites, I felt an almost childish hope stream from her teasing words, and it made me feel guilty as I shook my head. “I’m only nine years older than you. Instead, you can be Starlight’s aunt, I guess. Just don’t get into trouble, or… too much trouble, I guess.”

Starlight settled the drone onto the table, the pink glow fading from it as she connected to Alice. I could feel a sensation through the nanites on her wounded palm, a seperate port of sensation that lent me an awareness of the changes to Alice’s mind with Starlight now inhabiting it.

Even as they left, I continued to feel Alice even though she was away. I was sure if I truly pressed the link, maybe even used Consciousness Link, then I could possibly deepen the connection. But every second, one fact eroded my thoughts.

Alice was still using a Personality Matrix at its maximum output.

Alone with Elsa, I spoke now that I’d gotten Starlight and Alice out of the room. “I’ve been thinking… I want to make a new Implant Module. An upgrade to Warpweaver.”

“A new Module?” Elsa said, resting on the couch with me.

“You know how I made Hypermind based on The R0N1N’s OverMind Unique Feature?” I began, “I… want to make one using yours. A module based on… Dreamweaving.”

“Ripley…” she quieted, “my Feature rewrites memories, why do you…?”

“It’s not because I don’t trust you.” I said first. “It’s because… well, Heart Seeker needs a mind, and I know you’re working on that, but then there’s also this Project Virtue thing SynTec is working on. And, Cecil, I have that corporate guy currently on meds in the Clinic, but his mind is breaking down. Alongside some of the homeless guys you… then there’s Alice, whose on a Personality Editor and also… myself.”

I tried to digest all that I was saying to get to the point.

“I don’t think… Personality Editors are inherently evil. Starlight is technically built with mine, and even you told me as much in the past. I’m removing mine, a hundred percent, but the one thing we lack is regulation. Or maybe the lack of it — is what I’m trying to say. There’s only so much parameters and coding can do with the irrationality of the human mind. But with wounds like this, the kind that dig deep… the Crimson Heart’s method worked. And… well… your Unique Feature sounds like the closest thing to it.”

She looked thoughtful and hesitant, I expected her to reject me, but she didn’t. “Okay, I trust you, Ripley. I love you.”

“I love you too.” I said, and she exposed the back of her nape to me. “Do you have the Implant ready?”

“Yeah,” I confirmed, reaching into my workbench where I pulled out the one Silver BUG that remained to me. “If there’s anything I want to guide me, it would be this Implant. Even if for just a moment, it was my mother’s.”

———

9:48 PM

Despite… everything bad going on, my skills and personal achievements had severely bloomed during this time. Rot fed life, after all. I was seeing things in a way I couldn’t quite understand before, the links between Warpcode and the mind, the way molecules could interact governed by laws that were warped, the genetic complexity to manufacture proteins which would let your will influence others. Everything was so complex, diverse, yet inextricably linked.

Connected.

I was touched by three Shards of The Source, but there was one more in my grasp now. Connection. It rested within an Implant housed in my Mimicset, and it proved difficult to weave into place, but despite it all, I managed. I replaced the Integration and Accomodation Features on it with Psyche and Dataweaving. And together, with the Unique Feature Technopath, I’d developed a Module that was far greater than anything I’d ever previously designed.

Module selected: Codex [3S: Dataweaving; Psyche; Technopath]

My mind stretched, briefly overtaken as the present and past began to swim over one another, but I wasn’t snatched by the currents. I merely drifted through for just a second, letting myself submerge in memories that would guide me. My mother’s voice spoke through my head with crystal clarity.

“One step at a time.”

“You’re my hero.”

“I love you. Ripper.”

Opening my gaze, I saw Cecil shuddering under ‘stesia, the wires of his Frame and spine exposed as I prepared to fix what SynTec had done to him. His memory was effectively split into two separate identities: one man who worked, and another who lived.

I’d always wondered why my dad never had interesting stories to tell from work. He just left, and came back home, happy as he always had been. How many of his memories were hidden away? Corporate secrets that he was never allowed to think about?

I would never know. And I was fine with that.

The Arachnodyne expanded on my back as wires hooked my mind to Cecil’s, and Daylight beamed in between us both. “Wow, you’ve never much taken an interest in weaving Warpcode unless it had to do with Implants!”

“I… didn’t want to.” I explained, “ever since I got the Personality Editor in working order, and put my mom through hell, working with Warpcode was something I didn’t want to do unless it was necessary. But this is necessary, and I need you for it. To guide me.”

“I always will.” She smiled.

Daylight Protocol activated.

Everything shone brighter as the weight on my mind seemed to lift. I could focus more clearly as the path before me illuminated, and Codex was how I walked. The core of the Module was the Unique Feature Technopath. Even though it never had any updates, the functionality of it was there and aligned to work alongside the Psyche and Dataweaving aspects installed. Then, I'd read Elsa's Dreamweaving Unique Feature... and used the framework of Starlight's Synchronization to complete the Module.

Module Summary:

• Allows the Adapter’s mind to merge with the mental state of others, allowing instantaneous grasping of intention.

• Improves the Adapter’s ability to read memories, with a slight capability of alteration.

• Allows the Adapter to better absorb data of another's life into their mind.

Cecil was a counter-intelligence specialist, he’d been designed by the SynTec to identify threats to their net worth, and so he had to know what dirty little secrets they had. He was an expert at weaving and sorting through data, and that was without any BUG. He was a Mutant, and what I was doing should be impossible to a Mutant.

For the first time, I saw the memories of a SIM Adapter.

Two sets of memories. Cecil was very different in his home and work life. One was a caring father who donated to charitable causes and volunteered at the Silver Heart Foundation. The other was a ruthless, cunning specialist ready to snuff out threats to the corporation that paid his salary.

Although… ruthless and cunning might have been the wrong terms. He was effective, and he cared about the work he was doing. To this version of him that was designed by SynTec, he was doing the right thing. So what led to him coming to me?

The answer was Project Virtue, and I saw it unravel as two threads of memories began to intertwine into a web of lies told by SynTec. He was one specialist put in charge of maintaining its secrecy, and it had to be secret, because they were working with Skeleton to design it. And it violated all laws of human rights.

Project Virtue was a way to fabricate minds.

It wasn’t as simple as creating an Artificial Intelligence, an Emulator of Intellect. No, they sought to fabricate a human mind in every sense of the word. Not through digitalization, but through psionic means by harvesting Soul Killer Nexi, digesting their findings of Personality Matrices and of course, Skeleton’s helpful input given his Soulbind Unique Feature — that which let him replicate his consciousness and install into drones.

The reason why you’d want human minds over AI? Implants. Emulects couldn’t interface with them, even Starlight could only interface with them through synching with an Adapter. There was some aspect unique to a mind born in a biological body that an Implant would react to — a soul of sorts.

Elsa was proof of that, she had overtaken an entirely new body to be reborn and could still use an Implant.

And once SynTec could design a mind however they wanted and replicate that process? What couldn’t they do?

Immortality was one. Keep a back-up of your mind, retrieve your BUG, and install it into a cloned body to be reborn.

Mass-production of soldiers with the perfect mindset and abilities was another. They would streamline the randomness of Feature Updates if every person thought the same and were exposed to the same scenarios. Perfect soldiers.

Replacing identities. Scalp one mind out, install a new one but ‘perfected’ per SynTec’s design. You wouldn’t even realize it, and if subtle enough, no one else would either. There would be no need for Cleavage anymore.

Hybridism… while I couldn’t see any trace of it mentioned in Cecil’s memories. SynTec was confirmed to be working on Hybrids, entities who didn’t need Implants to use Warp Energy. A cloned body filled with Mutations was possible, given the existence of Kaisel Clones, but what about a mind innately possessing Features? That, to my knowledge, didn’t exist, but it was another step. Once they had both Mutated and Warpcode Hybrids, what manner of being would they make?

A pure ‘human’ but with abilities identical to a MALignant.

The thought terrified me, but I had to discard it all as I turned my attention to the two separate streams of identities belonging to Cecil. I could purge one, or I could try merging them. I didn’t know which one was ethical, there was no true ‘Cecil’. It would be easy for me to say that his ‘corporate’ side was bad an erase it, but that man had taken the steps to blow the whistle and attempt an undo at the Cleavage of his identities.

But by merging them, would I be killing both? Could I even merge them?

It was ironic how similar my actions were to Project Virtue. Hell, the irony deepened considering my attempts to try giving Heart Seeker free will. But I had to do something, both versions of him were crashing into one another and disintegrating who he was… so I had the choice of deciding which side of his would stay.

“It’s easy!” Daylight said. “Just keep all the parts of him that are good!”

“It’s not that simple.” I muttered. But I had to make a choice.

I decided to go ahead with the difficult choice, not for him, but for me.

I’d merge his memories no matter how hard it was.

---

Next chapter is titled: The Art of Mind Manipulation.