When his first shift ended, with Poisseux taking over the watch, it felt weird to be leaving the bridge unoccupied; but then again, Poisseux could control everything digitally, and the only ‘body’ she was using was still in the bay… likely fine-tuning her new fighter as it had been ever since he’d seen it.
Kyle pinged the network for a moment, and found that the crew were gathered in the server room… and shrugged, deciding to go check out just what was going on.
It wasn’t a particularly long walk; like the bridge itself, the server room, containing Poisseux’s ‘brain’, was in the most protected part of the ship… but he wasn’t certain why they would be there… until he arrived to find them all standing around the grow tank.
When he entered, Elise was holding up a tablet, looking back and forth between it and the tank… and Kyle smiled as he stepped in. She shook her head. “....How the hell is this possible, Kyle?”
He looked down into the tank.
There was a certain minimum amount of the organic computer you’d need to have it regenerate into a new one. But that amount was less than half. Which meant he could keep splitting and making new ones, over and over, so long as he had electricity and more of the solution.
The tank looked like an aquarium; and currently had six of the half-CPUs slowly growing to full inside; the weird pink-grey objects looking like a fleshy mass of orange nerves and veins rather than any actual technology.
“What, exactly, is the question? I thought we went over the stuff I got from that Empire ship? Organic heat-resistant hull, organic computers… the weapons weren’t organic, but they were based on principles from the Dragons. Really made alot of why Empire ships are so different clear.”
She sighed, brushing some of that long curly red hair out of her face. “Look. Its not of earth origin, no. But… its meat. Just… a living meat processor. Resistant to heat and cold, and somehow more efficient for its size than any other computer I’ve ever seen. You weren’t kidding about the servers in here!”
Kyle checked the solution levels. There was a specific blend of raw materials they needed to keep growing, and it should be keeping it stocked automatically… and of course they were. It would be time to split them again in another day or two.
“Actually, apparently the Dubs have something better. Like… much better. Not on the commercial market, though. Replacing the Harbinger’s computer core with this stuff would be a downgrade, which I found crazy.”
She slowly shook her head. “...You’ve got a colony fabricator below us. It can make all sorts of tools and equipment if you feed it raw materials. But its biggest limitation… is that it’s level of control is good for wiring, but not for the tiny level of precision you need to make a CPU. If you redesigned it to use this stuff, you could make damn near anything with just what you have on board.”
Kyle nodded. “Of course. I used to have all sorts of spares around, and I still do, but I was thinking Star Trek style; I want this ship to be able to handle damn near anything I find out there, or make what I want to handle it. If I got stranded in the middle of nowhere, then we could make another, bigger, fabricator, and eventually whatever the hell we wanted.”
He glanced down into the tank. “I came up with designs for scout probes using this stuff that need less power and make less heat, and that’s actually what the buoys we’ll be deploying have in them. Though… it does mean their shelf-life is lower. Without more of the maintenance fluid added the organic bits will start to die off eventually, so…. Definitely a pros and cons situation.”
“...Huh.” She rested her hand on the tank. The others were actually getting settled in… Thor had already wired himself directly to the core.
“...Yeah, that’s a pretty serious downside. Most of them could run for a century with just electricity. Too bad you can’t get the gear to make normal CPUs out here.”
Kyle shrugged. “We could. But its bulky. If we got stranded, it would take right at a month and a half to make a CPU-production machine, and a year to make a whole other fabricator…. Assuming nothing broke.”
Elise chuckled. “Well. Are you going to join us? We were going to make our own private sim; a custom little village we could all live in together. I’m going mansion, and Thor is of course going weird barbarian encampment with a bunch of scantily clad NPC men and women.”
“..Actually, sure. Not going to use the hook-ups in your quarters?”
“Nah. It somehow feels better to have our bodies all close together.”
Kyle nodded… and looked at his friends. Currently looking dead, or asleep, just wired into the CPU core, sitting in chairs nearby.
“...I’ll use the one in my quarters. I get cramps if I spend too much time sitting like that without moving, so I’d best use my bed.”
“Oh! Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. All of us should do that, really. Its still weird to get used to the body still existing when I’m not quite in it. Mind if I tag along? Haven’t even seen your bed yet, much less been in it.”
Kyle blinked. The connection in the Captain’s quarters could handle way more than it needed for one person. But… was she implying…
She seemed to sense his hesitation, and smiled. “Yes, it can mean that, but it doesn’t have to. Come on, is Thor that much prettier than me?”
“No, no. Just too used to being alone. Come on down.”
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
He started heading towards his room… only for Elise to clutch his left hand as they went. “So. Your left hand doesn’t need the frame, but the rest of you still does, right?”
“Well, yes. Since I broke the bones on that side, they actually replaced most of them. I’m… half afraid my mom kept them as a memento.”
She nodded… and as they stepped into his room, she smirked. “Guess we should probably restrain the right side them. For your safety and all.” She paused… and looked at what appeared like nothing more than a human-sized combat mecha standing beside his door.
“...What exactly is that?”
Whatever she’d been thinking, she immediately stepped up to examine it. He’d repainted it in dark green, just like the Sapper’s old hull, using some leftover paint from the Diexi; and proceeded to modify the hell out of it as well.
“That would be the Empire’s version of Light Power Armor. Absolute garbage compared to real power armor, but a huge advantage in a firefight. Its basically just an augment suit like the ones I normally wear with a bunch of armor strapped on… and some guns. Been adjusting it a bit.”
She stared at it… and then looked at him. “...Can I try it out?”
“Sure. I could even make you some; I’ve got the fabricator making parts for more combat drones right now, and some ion engines to attach to the buoys. I could actually make some for the whole team, but, well. We’re hopefully not going to see any in-person fighting on this trip.”
She gave a slow nod as she ran her hands over the thing. “....You might have turned me away from fantasy with this thing right here. I’ve watched over five thousand hours of the different Gundam series, and….”
She shook her head. “Okay. There’s time for that later. We should join the others. Lets get connected.”
***
When his implant connected to the ship’s core, he could immediately see a series of options to connect to. And of course…
A joint interface chat room named ‘Bjorn’s Beach’.
Kyle sighed… and opened it up. And moments later…
He was standing on warm, white sand, a beautiful ocean of clear blue-green water… and a fairly nice, antique-looking wooden beach-house.
He was also completely naked. He shook his head, rolling his eyes once again as he opened up the interface and slapped a normal street outfit on himself; slacks, a shirt, shoes, in black, white, and green.
Surveying the area, the only things he could see were the beach itself, the house, and a scattered forest… it seemed to be a private island, of sorts.
There was also a pair of doors… simple, wooden frames with the label ‘Combat Sim’ over one and ‘Sherry’s Palace’ over the other. He blinked. Were they…. Using Bjorn’s beach-house as a central hub for some reason?
He grimaced. He’d started getting a headache for some reason. It was difficult to…. Ahh.
Well, hell.
He focused for a moment… and dialed it down to x2.75. His implant had fully integrated over a year ago, and ever since that was the optimum for when he was doing engineering work.
The headache subsided. It was weird. His memories, his thoughts… it had taken years to reach that point, but they were now all computer hardware in his brain. But… some of the hormones and instincts were still physical. Meat.
As soon as he made the adjustment, the ‘Sherry’s Palace’ door opened; revealing Sherry herself, wearing a long, elegant, black and red dress, with Elise standing in the background wearing a normal white-grey skinsuit he’d seen her in before… both of them holding wine-glasses.
And… he also heard a voice calling out… as Thor stepped out onto the front porch of the beach-house wearing shorts and a hawaiian shirt. “Heyo! Barry’s in the combat sim chamber, so he won’t notice the time-skip dropping. Its dialed up to like 20x and is on its own.”
Sherry leaned out the door, glancing at Thor, then Kyle. “Come join us in here. The sand is awful on heels.”
Kyle glanced at him… and shrugged. “Sure, why not. Why is the beach the hub, anyway? Doesn’t it look weird, just having doors stuck in the sand?”
Thor was approaching from the house, so Kyle stepped through the door… onto the front porch of what appeared to be an enormous black structure all done up in glass, metal, and stone… he’d assumed ‘Palace’ would be something medieval-themed, but no… this looked like a piece of modern art with doors.
“The only existing spaces you had saved were the battle sim, a space you used for engineering work, and some private ones you didn’t give us access to. Thor and I both had one we used for parties. He loaded his first, so it ended up as the root. Don’t worry, though, we don’t have to keep it like this.”
Elise glanced at her, and nodded. “Yeah. We should get together and create a joint one. Our own little neighborhood. Most of us didn’t bother too much with that, we actually lived in a little village in-game attached to our guild. But… you never really went there. You just joined us for raids and other stuff to help out, rarely just hung out. The NPC copy of you was there, but it was never the same.”
Kyle looked at her for a moment. “...Well. For you guys, the game was your life. Still is most of it, when you’re there. For me, it was more like… a club I visit to hang out with some friends who are always there. I couldn’t eat there, sleep there, and I always knew it wasn’t real, that I was gonna disconnect and get back to studying and prepping.”
He gestured at the odd mansion. “This is all interesting-looking. And I can certainly imagine the way this appeals. We could do all sorts of fun things in spaces like this. But so long as any of us have real, physical, bodies, we’ll all know its fake. Its just… easier to forget that when you’re in there for a year straight.”
Elise looked at the mansion for a moment. “..I just want to spend time feeling the sun on my skin and the wind in my hair. Even if I know its fake, and not really my home.”
“Well I can certainly understand that. I haven’t been on a real beach, in a real atmosphere we could breathe, in years…. You know… I hope we find one on this trip. Wouldn’t that be fun? Find ourselves a beach on some alien world where no human has ever walked before?”
Sherry blinked. “That would be fun. Wonder what the odds are of that?”
“Pretty good, actually. Except, that most of the worlds out there with water and beaches, we’d need a breather to survive. But hey…. No need to hold your breath when swimming.”
“Well then. Not exactly a high priority. But on top of signs of weird aliens living in space, pirates, and colonies… we should keep an eye out for places that might have a beach.”
Kyle laughed. “Not a problem at all. If we find one, I’ll make sure we stop by before we head home. Hell. Maybe we can make a version of Thor's silly beach house for real."
