Undisclosed Location

Time Until Augmentation Array Appears: 2 Years, 3 Months, 29 Days

"Do you think you can build them with the supplies we have on hand?" Andrew asked, pointing down at a large blueprint he had materialized and placed on the dining room table turned workbench.

"I mean… I'm really not that sure, some of this is standard but others… Have we gotten clearance to begin putting in requisition requests for supplies?" Factory asked, scratching the side of his head as he stared at the rather intricate designs, including side profiles and part breakdowns.

"Not quite yet, you know how government is, takes weeks to get anything approved," Andrew said with a shrug. Factory looked over at him as his boss's eyes glimmered, an odd light rushing through them as he looked over the blueprints.

"Then… I don't know, we could maybe scavenge enough supplies out of the stuff we brought along to make one of them, but we'd have to break down at least some of the lab equipment just to steal their circuit boards. What exactly is it?"

"It's a prototype for an Array Nodule," Christopher said, walking through the door that led down to the basement. "Are you actually trying to have him build that, even Axio said he wasn't quite sure if it would work without him getting more processing power. Your design is based on a description of what the actual system should be."

"Would you prefer me going back and trying to analyze Axio's code to see if I can remove the video game priorities from his system?" Andrew asked with a raised brow and Christopher held up his hands defensively.

"No, no, please try building it. I just thought the next steps would be working on increasing his computational capacity, not his range."

"We can't really do that either until we can requisition more supplies. As it stands, we could add more data drives and memory, but there are diminishing returns with his currently available power supply. It would be nice if we were able to move him to a new facility, preferably somewhere with a dedicated power generator," Factory explained, looking down toward the table as he tapped at his chin. "Why exactly can't we just turn off the breaker? Shouldn't that disable him long enough that we could pull the chassis out of the basement and move it?"

Christopher and Andrew shared a brief look before Andrew shook his head almost unnoticeably. Christopher's brow furrowed and he clearly seemed displeased, but the look passed before Factory could turn his attention back to them.

"It's apparently a safety mechanism but we haven't gotten more out of him than that," Christopher explained, ignoring the annoyed look Andrew shot at him.

"Well, as it stands then, there's not a whole lot we can do until the department approves everything and lets us start requisitioning new supplies. Unless you actually think all of our other tech is disposable, cause then you might as well tell Dr. Curtis he can go home to his wife and finally stop complaining about having to sleep on the couch," Factory said, looking over toward the living room that acted as a bedroom at night. There were more than a few snores that echoed out of the room as a few people tried to sneak in a nap.

Andrew had been insistent that no one leave until they had final clearance from the NSA to deploy full resources, and given the magnitude of actual superpowers being brought into the world, no one seemed to question him. No one else had gone through the Augmentation process yet, something Elise and the other assistants were starting to call "getting Augmented," though that hadn't stopped more than a few fantasy conversations when they had down time.

"There is one way we could move forward," Andrew said, his tone rather… knowing. Factory looked over at him curiously. "If we had someone with powers that let us print what we needed, then we'd barely ever have to worry about any of the department's requisition requirements."

"Printing? Come on Andrew, I told you I don't mind us adding some powers to the spreadsheet, but we can't just add literal words and expect new power options to become available," Christopher said, scrunching his face up.

"Why can't we? I gave myself the ability to immediately visualize, conceptualize, and create blueprints out of anything I can properly imagine, how would that qualify and not something that's essentially matter manipulation?" Andrew scoffed before looking over at Factory with a smile. "So what do you say Robert, want to make that nickname of yours literal?"

Undisclosed Location

Time Until Augmentation Array Appears: 2 Years, 3 Months, 18 Days

"Christopher…"

"Don't Christopher me, Cassie. They're involved in this because you insisted we call them," Christopher said, his arms crossed over his chest as he stood in his bedroom. It was the one place in the house that hadn't been partially taken over by Andrew's department and he hadn't budged even a bit on it, especially after his basement had all but been overtaken.

"I know… but I didn't think-"

"I know that Cassie!" Christopher cut her off, throwing his hands up into the air as he barely suppressed his voice. It was no secret that he hadn't exactly been pleased with how things had developed in the last month, at least to the people who had been present, but even Cassie was surprised to see Christopher actually getting flustered and angry. "Look… I know you didn't think they would jump into it this quickly and just throw caution to the wind. I know you didn't think I was actually going to go through with using the P.A.D., but they did, I did, and now Andrew is powering up his entire department… I need you to actually join the team here completely and I honestly really need that innate power of yours… Voice of Reason might actually let us… I don't know, control the pacing of this a little bit better… I know I was rushing everything but have you seen the literal factory that… er… Factory has started up down there?"

"I… I mean yeah I walked by it… Was that girl downstairs actually turning dirt into gold?"

"Yup, Andrew gave Elise a powerset with transmutation and metallurgy… I don't know exactly what he is thinking, but I swear I heard him saying something about making enough to buy the houses surrounding us," Christopher explained. "I mean, look I'm not exactly into the idea of getting the whole damn government involved, but it's been over a month at this point, shouldn't more people have been brought into this already?"

"That is… odd I'll admit… but… I mean, isn't your innate ability the ability to copy other people's powers? Can't you just use that to copy mine instead of making me go through it all?"

"My copied abilities aren't nearly as strong as the actual thing, and I don't have nearly the fine control. I think it's a practice thing," Christopher said with the shake of his head before one of his hands moved up to rub at his shoulder. "And… look, I'm kinda feeling outnumbered here. I think the only reason Andrew's even humoring me is because Axio tagged me as the primary user. He's been using his main ability to analyze Axio's systems… trying to figure out if there's a way to replicate him without, you know, him. They basically want to build a sandbox version they can mess with while leaving the real Axio stuck in the basement since we still can't move his chassis. But I don't think he's making much progress there yet, either… I just… I need someone I know I can trust… and yes, that innate power of yours is a big bonus too."

"I… okay…" Cassie said, meeting Christopher's eyes and seeing worry there. She had known him for a long time now and while she couldn't say she knew everything about him, she knew when he was truly panicked. "But if I'm gonna do this, you're giving me some sort of mermaid powers for the ones we get to pick. You might have dreamed about having superpowers as a kid, but I wanted to be a mermaid."

Undisclosed Location

Time Until Augmentation Array Appears: 2 Years, 2 Months, 30 Days

"We've managed to expand the range to the edges of the property sir, your design worked perfectly," Factory said as he walked down into the basement, wiping a bit of grease from his hands.

"Of course it did," Andrew said with a rather smug grin, walking from side to side as he examined the server rack that was double the size of Axio's chassis. "Axio, is the generation system ready? I'd like to boot this up."

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"It is TechWarden," Axio replied.

"I know I printed all of it out and everything, but what exactly is this?" Factory asked, stuffing a hand towel into the loose apron he had tied at his waist. Before Andrew could answer, or more likely, dance around it, Axio jumped in.

"This supplementary construct will function as a generation server. It will produce distinct auxiliary intelligences, Personal Interfaces so to speak, for each Augmented individual. Their purpose, as you requested, is to establish a consistent data channel with me. This should hopefully free me up from these administrative duties while we expand my computational power. I didn't quite realize it was possible, but TechWarden's designs are rather elegantly done based on the information I provided him. These interfaces will be individually designed to create a more seamless connection for each individual and should hopefully make harnessing your powers a bit easier as I will no longer have to guide each one of you in how to go about it. If I may though, I believe Christopher had-"

"That'll be all Axio, please immediately generate new interfaces for each member of my team currently Augmented, and make it standard procedure for anyone else that goes through the process," Andrew said before he stepped forward and flipped a switch. On the other side of a room, one of the assistants, a man named Joey, sparked with electricity as he channeled it into a large, generator looking device.

The server rack whirred to life in an instant and within a few minutes, each of the five currently augmented members of Andrew's team found a new voice chirping at them from directly inside of their heads.

Undisclosed Location

Time Until Augmentation Array Appears: 2 Years, 2 Months, 13 Days

It was rare that Christopher managed to find himself alone inside of the basement these days. But for once, thankfully, everyone else was asleep.

Ever since Andrew had birthed the P.A.I.s without even asking Christopher to be there to oversee it, he had started to become more and more paranoid. Cassie had managed to talk the entire group down from fights more than a few times at this point, though Andrew began getting angrier with her each time she used her hypnotic voice on him, even if it was warranted.

Interestingly enough though, while he was becoming paranoid it wasn't because he was afraid Andrew was going to try and take the project away from him any longer. An… interesting side effect to Andrew implementing the P.A.I.s was Axio declaring Christopher to be his primary user, effectively turning himself into a P.A.I. as well.

It had only been in that moment that Andrew had noticed a new folder on the display for Axio's primary interface. He had been looking at these screens for months now and could have probably given you a museum grade tour with how well he knew the ins and outs of what was available.

When he accessed the folder, Axio went completely quiet and Christopher was briefly worried he had somehow managed to disable the odd A.I. But that worry was quickly erased when he found he was looking at raw, original coding. He saw bits of the code he had tried writing for previous attempts at the generation he had done with Kyle and Cal, as well as long strings of characters he had never seen before. But somehow, through that personal connection he had made with Axio, he knew what it was.

This was Axio's source code. There was a small, file connected to it, seemingly encrypted. Christopher thought that would turn it into a dead end of some sort but to his surprise, that personal connection once again allowed him access.

Just like with the code, Christopher immediately knew what this was, his mind seemingly forcing the translation of the odd interface that appeared like a program on his display. It was, for all intents and purposes, an administrative key to the code. He decided to toy with it just slightly, digging up some of the original game structures he had designed and, through a rather easy to follow path, added them into the system.

His interface lit up with a burst of new information as he felt a smile come over his face. He took a moment to look around, and then declared the basement his Safe House.

Undisclosed Location

Time Until Augmentation Array Appears: 2 Years, 2 Months, 3 Days

"Why are they here?"

"You have your team, I have mine Andrew. Besides, you said everyone who knows about Axio should be here right? Well now they all are," Christopher snapped back.

Hikari and Pierre had both arrived early that morning and Andrew was not pleased that more "random" people were showing up after he explicitly declared the home a restricted, classified space. But, even after two and a half months had passed, the "additional resources" Andrew kept claiming would be assigned by the NSA, never arrived. There was never any paperwork, nor were there signs declaring the place as restricted either. That said, Christopher's tinkering had allowed him to be the one to decide how restricted the house was, which made it all the harder for Andrew to argue with him… not that it stopped him.

"I didn't approve any other-"

"Andrew you need to calm down," Cassie said, her voice even and calm as she reached out toward the man who looked as if he was about to try punching Christopher.

"I need to calm-" Andrew started to say before a Joey let off a brief bit of electricity from his hand, shocking his boss. This brief attack managed to snap Andrew out of the brief trance he had been put into and his whole body briefly shook. "Agh! Damn you Cassie! I told you not to do that."

"And I told you it's not your project Andrew, you don't get to decide who is and isn't going to be Augmented," Christopher spat.

"And you don't get to just go and "accidentally" hook up more of your defunct hard drives. I've asked Axio, I'm not buying that he "just merged the code" on his own Christopher. If you've found a way to modify it, you're obligated to tell us," Andrew shot back.

"Yeah see, you haven't given me any government contracts or any bullshit at all, I'm not obligated to do shit," Christopher argued. Andrew once again looked like he was going to take a swing at Christopher, and Christopher almost seemed like he wanted him to, just so he'd have a reason to punch back.

"Fine, Augment them, what do I care if it gets you to shut up and leave us to our work," Andrew said through grit teeth. He took a slow, deep breath as he looked back at Factory. "What's the status on the improved Array nodes?"

"Uh… that's uh… Well Axio has given me some notes on the designs, offered a few modifications that would actually provide a way to expand his resources at the same time. I have started printing the first one for testing, but they uh… well sir… it's going to take a lot of them, especially given the estimated computational needs Axio has said he needs," Factory explained cautiously.

"What? I didn't approve any changes to the nodes, why do I care about expanding his capacity?"

"Because that's the whole point Andrew! Yes, the super powers are an amazing discovery and yes I do really fucking care about my game idea, but aren't you forgetting that Axio keeps trying to tell us there's a reason why he was put here? We should be trying to help him recover his memories and data so that we can know what the hell all of this is about instead of fucking around with things we barely understand!" Christopher practically exploded and everyone took a step back, though that was partially because of the powerful blast of pressure that suddenly exuded out from him. Andrew was the only one who, though he did clearly feel the wave, held himself up without moving back. They stared at each other for a few moments before Andrew once again looked at Factory.

"How long will it take to make all the necessary nodes with Axio's updated designs?"

"Umm… well I will need to see how long it takes to make one before I can estimate the rest, once we know that, I can start printing additional printers to bootstrap us but due to the game structure and slow build up of my powers, that's still limited. I've managed to raise my "level" to three so far, but that is where my current production bottleneck is."

"Hmph, get on it," Andrew said before glaring back at Christopher. "This discussion isn't over."

Sanctuary Square,

Non-PVP Zone.

Location Classified.

Closest Known Claimed Territory: Planet Earth

Unclaimed

Current Phase Points:

182620

Current Ascension Tokens Applied:

39

End of Phase Two: 24

D:04H:21M:17S

While the others wanted to come with me. I told them that Calypso had requested I come alone, which was thankfully not technically a lie.

I felt uneasy overall leaving the group as I had, but even with the questions and distrust that had come out of nowhere, everyone agreed talking to The First was necessary. I made my way through Sanctuary Square, the whole time feeling as if everyone somehow knew was on my way to a clandestine meeting with the literal former king of the power hill.

Which was ridiculous of course. Certainly a few people had pointed toward me, though at this point I knew I had gained quite a bit of notoriety within my wave. I pushed down the feeling, chalking it up to residual paranoia from the squad's argument as I found my way into the Common Ground and down to the south side of the building. After asking for Chuck, I was directed to a door that I had only ever seen the NPCs go through.

I was actually surprised to find a kitchen filled with non-Sapient chefs shuffling about, yelling things at each other even though it didn't seem like any orders were coming through. Chuck led me to a single door in the back and waited for me to be the one to open and step through it.

Had it not been for Calypso sitting at the table, I would have thought I had somehow been taken to the wrong space. Cause while there was a second person there, the scrawny, scruffy looking man looked nothing like I remembered The First, who quite literally had looked like a truck of a man with a broad chest, wide arms, and perfectly styled hair. All the same, the scrawny man seemed to light up when he saw me, a reserved but genuine smile spreading over his face as he gestured toward the seat across the table.

"Loophole, thanks for coming so quickly. My name is Christopher," he said as he stood up and held his hand out further for me. "But I guess you might better know me as The First."

Next chapter will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.