A Bio-Weapon’s Rhapsody

What happened next was quite... Ale would say that it got her by surprise, but it really didn't.

The first thing she noticed was that there was a warm feeling coming from her forehead, or well, the phantom of a warm feeling. More as if someone had put a heated stone there, and the effect was now fading away.

The second thing she noticed was that the blaring red alarms had put everyone on guard.

"Edwards? What is happening?" [Elder] asked as he pulled out his tablet out again and turned his eyes towards it.

Ale could not-

[Downloading environmental data...]

[Downloading firewall data...]

[Starting handshake protocol...]

[Uploading certificates...]

[Uploading needed data to host.]

All of this happened in less than the fraction of a second, Ale was reeling from the exchange, and almost missed the answer from Vulcanus.

"[There is a wave of... Hostile Mana coming our way.]" Vulcanus said as his hand started to open up and slowly modify itself. "[Help me with this Hermes, I'll require your assistance and expertise in the creation of a very specific isolation type barrier.]"

"You know my focus was on exosuits for speed, you can't just-" [Elder] answered shaking his head, but still raising his hands towards Vulcanus. Both of his hands being covered in the same type of exosuit that he had used before, only this time instead of fingers he had tons of tools.

"[I'll kickstart a twitch, both for me and you. That would give us about enough inspiration for this, the basis of the blueprint is ready and we only need to expand the effect around Rhapsody.]" Vulcanus turned his attention towards [Elder], "[... I'll understand if you don't want to follow suit, you should not follow suit on this old man.]"

"... It's the job of us old folks to protect the younglings." [Elder] said turning to Ale, "How much time do we have?"

"[Not enough, we are using the internal defense system to slow the wave, but most from the looks of it...]" Vulcanus' face flickered for a second, the change was not obvious unless you knew what to look for, but Ale noticed it, that was no longer Vulcanus but [Vulcanus.exe], "[... Approximate time remaining, 57 seconds. Kickstarting forced Tinker Spark in 3...2...]"

Ale noticed [Elder]'s visage shift from the jovial one to a more serious one, and perhaps... just a little of a glare there, but that was not the main issue at hand. She had noticed another thing too, the implication that this was dangerous.

Or Vulcanus would have not suggested [Elder] to step away, and more importantly. [Vulcanus.exe] would have not shoved his human half away for it. Meaning, this put them at some kind of risk.

That is to say...

"Stop!" Ale turned and raised her hand at Vulcanus, her arm was devoid of any kind of armor, she wasn't wearing her Arm-mament either.

Really, there was no reason why Vulcanus or Vulcanus.exe would stop at this, she was, after all, for all who were seeing, just a teenager. And yet, she somehow knew it would work, even if she didn't take into consideration the identity that [Vulcanus.exe] thought she was holding.

"[Stopping artificial Tinkerer Spark trigger...]" And sure enough Vulcanus.exe did stop, "[Why are you preventing us from saving you... Ale Saintsworths, currently affiliated with our organization under the disguise of Rhapsody?]"

"What will happen if you follow through with whatever you wanted to do?" Ale asked as a countdown materialized on her point of view, so she moved it to the side where it didn't prevent her from seeing anything important, "Compress the information as much as possible and elaborate as fast as possible, don't mind the format you use."

Ale noticed a brightness in Vulcanus.exe's eyes, and sure enough, half a second after she said that.

[Received data dump...]

[Patching to Information Core...]

[Analyzing...]

[Running diagnosis...]

[Data integrity has been deemed safe.]

[Uploading.]

Ale closed her eyes for a second and after seeing the size of the information, she accelerated her awareness once again. This time it felt... different than what she was used to.

Instead of materializing on theri shared mindscape, she landed on her bedroom, the one she had left behind in Aquila. Unlike how their usual mindscape was the apartment they had in Ohio.

And unlike said apartment, when she opened the door to the outside of the apartment, there was a void.

"Totally normal, yup... Nothing ominous at all here..." Ale said, grabbing a pen from her desk and throwing it into the void, the pen disappeared soon enough and rematerialized on her desk as if nothing, "...Let's not test it ourselves, shall we?"

Ale then turned to her desktop pc, assuming the data would be there.

"The Data is ready for your perusal, Master." And... atop her bed, a small yellow round bird said, it was her mascot for the streams she did, a deformed version of the Saintsworths golden eagle, a caricature, a way to mock the overlords and part of the reason why she was popular and attracted the kind of people that liked to shittalk about Alexanders Saintsworths, the evil CEO.

"...The hell are you?" Ale asked, "Another gift from the old asshole? Or the thing that the younger asshole gave Alexa?"

Ale hadn't seen this one before, so it had to be something new.

"I am what you are currently referring to as Main Core." The round bird said bowing... how the hell was a round bird doing that? Ale had no idea, "I took this form and set up this fake interface to allow you to peruse the data in a more hospitable and safe environment, is it up to your tastes Master?"

"...First, drop the Master thing. It feels weird," Ale said shuddering, "Second... I was kind of sure that you were a male identity before, why are you now a bird?"

"I have no before Master..." The bird said tilting its head sideways, "My identity as Main Core was decided when you called for me using that denomination, I had no sense of self, memories or anything before that point in time."

...Did Main Core lobotomize itself again? Only this time it somehow survived? Great.

"I'll sue dearest older brother later for it." Ale said sighing, "Try to not antagonize Core too much, and... sorry about you turning into a round bird."

"As you say, what name, denomination or form should I use to refer to you?" The yellow birdie asked.

Ale... smirked at herself while thinking, she could decide something mature and normal... or she could let her darker more carefree side decide.

"Mistress will do for now," Ale said nodding, "Where is Alexa by the way? I don't sense her."

"We are currently isolated from the external network you were connected, the link is being monitored and a connection is being negotiated." Main Core said raising a wing, from there a window materialized with a constant stream of data and connection attempts from both sides, "Some allowances are being made to grant a stable two-way connection, but some time may be needed before it is achieved."

Ale... wasn't too sure about what to think about this. There was no reason to explain why this was happening, perhaps it was because what the old asshole had done to pull her out...

And whatever that weird gift had given her.

"Try to not bother too much Alexa while redoing the connection." Ale said turning towards the desktop computer, "How much time do I have before it becomes too obvious what we are doing?"

"At the current accelerated perception of time, half an hour." Main Core pulled another window, on this one you could see the exterior world, and sure enough it was frozen in time. "We will prioritize reconnecting and giving as many allowances as possible. So long they don't put you at risk Mistress."

"That's all I ask," Ale said dismissively, there was no way Alexa would put her at any kind of risk, so this was probably Main Core being a drama queen... drama king... A drama... "The hell are you? Male? Female?"

"Whichever you need." Main Core answered with... humour? Was this yellow bird being cheeky with her?

"... A girl it is," Ale nodded, she did not like the idea of a cheeky male, she did not see the appeal to those femboys that everyone liked to jump like dogs in heat. So she would rather have a girl being cheeky, like herself, even if it was annoying. "Do tell if you decide to be otherwise."

"I'll do so if the change is required Mistress." The yellow bird said before disappearing in a puff of yellow feathers.

As if the thing had exploded.

"...Cheeky bird." Ale said shaking her head and focusing on the data in front of her, "So...this is what the madman wanted to do?"

As soon as Ale started to read she started to feel as the data flowed into her head, it was not as abrupt as how they had been doing it before, it was closer to a slow trickle of information coming into her head.

Compared to how they usually uploaded data into their brain, it was slower and less efficient, but, unlike before this allowed Ale to understand things more clearly and in a more orderly manner.

"So... triggering an artificial tinker twitch... or Spark I guess, would change them this much?" Ale said as she reread the last bit.

The data specified that a Tinkerer-type Core User depended on these Sparks, special moments in which their brain wanted to do something and stimulated their Core Power to switch the Core in that direction.

Usually this meant that a normal average Tinkerer Core would have the desire to create something, and their Core Power would shift towards that. Like how [Elder] had started as a normal exosuit tinkerer core, but slowly wanted more speed, so their core Power focused in that direction.

He could still make exosuits and everything that could be fit into those, but his power was more speed-focused. Which was why Ale's original body armor was that sleek and with a focus on being aerodynamic.

Unlike how her current one was a more combat focus model, since that one was one she had made.

"But... doing something like this, would clash with the original Core Power." Ale said reading the next part of the document.

It was possible to generate a fake Tinkerer Spark, either by hypnotism or by infusing Mana with said pre-programmed idea into it. That could cause instability and result in a Bad Trigger towards the original Core.

Either crippling their advancement or making it impossible to do what they could do before.

Since a Tinkerer Core only facilitated the creation of technology or things that one couldn't do, it was even more dangerous for them. Since while they could still do maintenance and create a few of the things that dind't require exotic technology.

They would be unable to create new things, and for a Tinkerer Core, which usually were the researcher and development kind of people... This was as bad as it could be.

But... "Does that mean that Vulcanus is a tinkerer core?" Ale had suspected that, but had no confirmation. He was, after all, a full-body machine. There was not many things that he could be.

"Impossible to know with current data available." Main Core answered as it materialized once again, this time on her desk, besides the monitor, "The link has been reestablished, you may commune with the entity known as Alexa."

That... was a weird way to refer to Alexa. Usually, both Main Core and Core referred to Alexa as the host and then to her in a more impersonal way, not that Ale had seen an issue with that before.

But it obviously meant that perhaps there had been more changes than she had thought from the exchange with the old asshole.

"Main Core..." Ale said, turning on her chair towards the yellow bird, "What changes have occurred within me after whatever the old man did?"

"Unconclusive." Main Core answered, "I became aware roughly 5 minutes ago. Before that, I have no data available from my own existence. It is possible to access some of the digitalized memories within you MIstress. But you need to accelerate the conversion of your memories into a format accessible to me first."

...Wasn't that already accessible?

"Our memories are accessible," Ale said, pinging back to her own memories and... sure enough, not all were available, or well, she could remember all, but if she wanted to access them as they usually did, only the memories that Main Core said stood out.

Her other memories were only stored inside her Brain for some weird-ass reason.

"The heck?" Ale said, confused, the process to digitalize everything was not that hard, she had done it before a few times, and it was something that could be done in a flash, "... That old asshole still bothering even after we left... Main Core, here, peruse these first and then continue with the back up and organization of everything else. Ping Alexa if you have some issues with the back-ups."

"Noted." Main Core answered and after blinking its beady eyes once it continued answering her question, "From the memory data... There is no evidence that subject Gramps(Alexander Saintsworths) did anything to host besides what host already knows."

"You are missing an S there," Ale said cheeky like Main Core had done before, "But you changed after that encounter, and during it I couldn't access you or anything... No, I could. But I had to change the way I did it."

Ale remembered how she managed to materialize her armor and arm-mament, those felt solid. But the old asshole had said that was a metaphysical place, so nothing was truly physical there. And yet...

"Subject referred or implied to be a version of the man inside the memory file." Main Core pointed out bringing a recording of the memory of the Alexanders of that alternate reality, "This subject introduced itself and presented itself by the name of Alexander Saintsworths. Even if the subject became the alleged Calamity Dragon. He never ever called himself by the same moniker as host's family member. Alexanders Saintsworths."

"... I know you haven't downloaded all our memoires," Ale said, shaking her head, "But Alexanders is the kind of man that would do these kinds of annoying jokes, besides. Alexa is the sister, not me."

"Host was recognized as part of the family and is shown on the family registry." Main Core pulled out another document, or well, a few, in one of those Ale featured with her age and was shown as sister to Alexa and Alexanders, "This was pulled from the public registry."

"...Aren't we in stopped time?" Ale asked as she read the two documents, "How are you...?"

"We are under accelerated perception, not stopped time. The local AI can speed up their perception of time more than we can and provided the information. Also, full memory download has finished. We will organize and proceed with setting up new firewalls in place after what host experimented in the metaphysical space so it doesn't happen again." Main Core... was more efficient than she remembered, not that she was going to complain, "We are about to go past the point where subject designation Elder will notice host's behaviour as strange."

"Ah right, well... I read what I wanted I guess... So any suggestion?" Ale asked as she stood up and stretched, not that she needed to do it, this was her mindscape after all, "How should we proceed?"

"According to the data provided by the local AI and the readings on the Mana wave coming, host will be fine. The Mana is tied towards a homunculi-type entity and is designed to disintegrate said body with extreme prejudice as it flares all nerve endings." Main Core showed a new graph with data on the mana signature and its properties, "As such, host is under no danger. Since yours is not an artificial body."

"...But it is?" Ale said confused, she knew her body the best after all.

"This is the data of the target body of the mana wave." Main Core pulled a screen with a scan of what Ale's body had been during the event, it looked... oddly similar to the scans she had gotten in Aquila, "And this is host's body."

At the side stood another copy of Ale's body, they looked exactly the same.

"The body on the left reacts in pre set up ways and as thus, the hostile mana will cause this effect." Main Core showed how the Mana would react as the body turned into ash, "While host's body will react as thus after the mana is infused in her."

The second body however, started purifying the Mana and... didn't react after all.

"Oh... you could have said that you and the nanites will deal with it," Ale sighed in relief, "Man I really missed how cheeky you were sometimes."

And with a shake of her head, Ale willed herself out of the mindscape, that made her answer to this issue simple enough, she would just tank it. She wasn't sure how Alexanders or the old asshole had solved the issue, not really.

But since it wasn't an issue to her, she could take her time in Ohio then. Wonder what would happen with the marble then? Alexanders had said that it would only work three times at best and it would stop working in two weeks.

The old asshole had not said a single thing about it, but well, if it would stop working in two weeks then all she needed to do was remind Alexa to check in two weeks... or well, do it herself in two weeks, no way in hell Alexa would remember to do that.

Either way, she would pop back to real time and deal with this first. Everything else would come later.