Chapter Six: Spiritual Healing
"Heero, something's wrong." Duo's worried voice startled Heero. "Whenever I try to contact Meike, all I get is a picture of landscape rushing by and silence." Heero frowned, and flipped the visual switch to Meike's Gundam.
"She's good." Heero said a bit begrudgingly. "She already learned how to fly the Gundam, which is an amazing feat, and now she's rerouting visual connections and blotting out sound. But there's one thing she doesn't know about." Heero reached up and flipped a small, unnoticeable switch. Meike's face appeared on his screen, but from a different angle.
"She's… crying." Heero said, surprised. "But why?" Duo looked away.
"I think I know." The American pilot said, looking at her picture thoughtfully. Then he reached out and cut Heero's connection. The other pilot disappeared from Heero's screen with an indignant cut-off grunt. Duo peered closer to the picture. Meike had stopped crying, and was watching something on her own screen. Duo leaned closer. She was watching… she was watching him!
Duo brought his hand up and waved at her. Meike grinned and waved back. Then she jumped.
"How is he seeing me?" she cried in her own Gundam, watching the other boy grin mischievously at her. Her eyes softened as she saw his smile. Maybe he's not mad, she thought, and quickly restored her Gundam's original connections.
"What's up, Meike?" Duo asked jovially when her face appeared once more on his regular connection.
"I'm going to be exploring Heavymetal Butterfly's abilities. You guys can't be bothering me, okay?" she told him, and Duo nodded and gave her a small salute.
"Sure thing. But if I can ask just one question…?" Duo paused, and Meike nodded for him to go on. "Why were you crying?" Meike abruptly flushed.
"I – well, that is – you see…I wasn't crying." She finished lamely, and Duo's violet eyes twinkled merrily.
"That's what I thought," he said knowingly, and his face fled her visual screen, leaving her red-faced and blushing.
"Well." She said, clearing her throat just a bit. "Let's say we get started on updating you equipment, shall we, Heavymetal?" Her hands flew over the control keyboard, occasionally flitting upward to the console above her head or the panels at her side. "Microchips…" she muttered out loud. " You've sure got a lot of them." Lists of names began scrolling down a side window on her screen, and Meike pursed her lips as she sought out a single name.
"Aha!" she exclaimed as she picked out one labeled 'Display'. "Holographic… 3D… rotating… 100,000x magnification… this is definitely what I want." Meike activated the chip and was confronted with a blinking message that read, 'State Pointer Control.'
"Fingerprint." Meike said, and a smaller box appeared beside the first one. She pressed her pointer finger against the screen and a brief tingly feeling told her it was being scanned. Seconds later, a rotating, holographic miniature Gundam constructed itself out of thin air in front of her eyes. Meike rubbed her hands delightedly.
"Next microchip." Meike isolated the Voice Recognition chip and reactivated it. A bright voice immediately spilled out from a hidden speaker.
"Hello, Trowa!" it said, and Meike frowned.
"I thought I told you this before. I'm not Trowa, I'm Meike." She said, but the voice didn't respond. "Hello?"
"Information stored." The voice said after a long period of silence.
"Well, voice recognition is working. I have a command." Meike said, and paused.
"State command." The voice said woodenly.
"I want you to locate the Artificial Intelligence, Stored Response, and Advanced Command Recognition microchips. Activate the last two and upgrade the first to its maximum capability." Meike directed, frowning in thought. "I think that's it."
Yet another long silence passed, and then the stored voice said, "This will take approximately fifteen minutes and twenty-seven seconds. Proceed?"
"Yes." The German teenager said and leaned back in her chair, staring at her miniature Gundam holo. She closed her eyes briefly and thought, I'll just relax until Heavymetal's done.
~
Fifteen minutes later Meike was startled out of her light sleep by the Gundams voice.
"Chips upgraded and activated." It stated.
"How long did it take again?" Meike asked sleepily.
"Fifteen minutes and thirteen seconds. Earlier than anticipated." The voice replied instantly. Meike grinned.
"It was worth it," she said, then clapped her hands. "What voice code are you?"
"Katherine Bloom, sister to the late Trowa Barton, former pilot."
"Uhrm." Meike frowned. "What other codes do you have?"
"I have the voice codes of my present voice, the synthetic Gundam voice, Trowa Barton's yours, and Relena Peacecraft." Heavymetal replied.
"Try the synthetic voice," Meike decided.
"Complete." A different voice spilled from the speakers, and Meike's face lit up. This voice was softer and deeper, with an unidentifiable accent meant to soothe the pilot's jangled nerves during combat.
"Perfect!" Meike cried. "Now let's get started on the holo. Isolate the Missile Identification area." The hologram in front of her began to grow at n alarming rate, twisting around and centering on a part in the back of the Gundams leg.
"Missile Identification is located in the back part of Heavymetal Butterfly's left leg. Placed here so as to avoid combat damage, the MI identifies missiles as either friend or foe, then assigns each one a threat value. A foe missile heading towards your Gundam is therefore assigned a much larger threat value than a foe missile heading for a fellow pilot. Even friendly missiles intended for the enemy are assigned such values, because there is always the remote chance of drive failure, identifications malfunction, and sheer coincidence." The Gundams matter-of-fact voice rolled over Meike as she stared intently at the piece of machinery in front of her.
"Magnify," she murmured, pointing at a specific area. A red dot hovered before her finger and moved when her hand moved. The area expanded as Heavymetal continued.
"Acting in coordination with MI is Gravitics. Gravitics determines the speed – or gravities – of any given missile in space. MI uses this information to determine threat values."
"Mm-hmm," Meike murmured. "Heavymetal, pause a moment and give me specs on this one chip." The red dot at her finger danced along a small crack in the armor. "How deep is this fracture?"
"Deep enough to cause minimal damage to the chip. As a result, the chip is not functioning to full capacity." Heavymetal replied.
"I thought as much. Find the Repairs folder." Meike said absently, still staring at the fracture. "What's available to repair this crack?"
"Normally a pilot will disable his or her Gundam for a short period of time and manually remove the chip, either replacing it or repairing it."
"Any other options?" Meike asked.
"Small probe-robots, know to the technologically fluent as probots, are available for emergency repairs for such events as fatal injuries during combat or unavailability to reach a repair base. However, the probots are relatively short-lived, and I carry them only in limited numbers." Heavymetal said, a small note of reprieve hidden in her voice.
"How limited?" The German pilot asked.
"A maximum of thirty." The voice responded.
Meike groaned. "You like to torment me, Heavymetal? We'll stock up once we reach another base. I intend to use these for repairing the chip and any other upgrades and repairs I might need. I intend to use them regularly." She sat lost in thought for a moment and began to speak again. "And then I'll need to get my hands on some other materials that I could use for some ideas I've been having. Let me run them by you and see how well they'll adapt."
Meike sat back once more and let her mind imagination run wild, testing ideas and theories, and time slipped away as she and her new Gundam began to find out just how well they worked together.
~end Chapter Six~
A/N: Well, I told you I'd have more up, didn't I? Sorry it's been taking so long. The evil Band is taking up my time. For those of you out there in a high school marching band, I commiserate with you. Plus, I'm an officer, so I have responsibilities, and bleeeeeeeeehhhhhh. Don't let my whining fool you though, I'm a band nerd at heart.
I also know I getting off track. I want to claim the genius for inventing probots. They're MINE, you hear me? Mine, mine, mine! One of my favorite words as a child. But more to the point, I thought them up, I own them, all your probots belong to me. If you ever wanna use them in a story of your own, (yeah right!) just email me and ask me. I'll just make you credit me at the end of the chapter you used 'em in.
I'd also like to nod my head towards the Honor Harrington series by David Weber. Gravitics was his idea, I think, all I did was manipulate it to my own liking. Missile Identification is also a play on his work. So don't sue me or anything, kay? I don't have any money. Alas.
Other than that, this Chapter is good to go and I hope you enjoyed it. This is the most work I've done on any project, ever. Even school projects. Says things about my priorities, but eh, who needs to do homework? I certainly do. I should start doing it more often. Well, ja ne till next time, minna-san.
~Melody-chan