Disclaimer
Tenchi and all associated characters are the property of AIC and Pioneer LDC. I don't own any rights to them. Any other characters are property of their respective copyright holders, not me.
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A Scientist's Tale
Chapter 3
Processing
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I spent the next three days verifying the data that my two assistants had gathered. Not that I didn't trust them, but well… I didn't trust them. No, really. I was sure that their research was good but they might have slipped something into the matrix that I didn't want. Using their data I instructed the mainframe to build me a 3d model of our potential result. It was most informative, she really did look like her mother. If her mother chose to be an adult that is. I adjusted the parameters so that she would be 'born' at the apparent age of sixteen and asked for a list of potential 'powers' based on the current data. Then I let the computer do its job for a while and called Yakage over. Kagato followed him, curious as to what I wanted.
I pointed to a spot on my monitor. "You were in charge of physical characteristics. What's this?"
He hemmed and hawed a bit then turned several shades of red before answering. "I just thought they'd look good. You can remove them if you want, Professor."
I looked him straight in the eye, amused by his discomfiture. "I just might. Whatever gave you the idea that I'd want my prototype to have fangs? She's supposed to be able to blend in with the general population."
Yakage turned bright red this time. "I don't know; they just seemed to fit. I think they makes her look kinda sexy, in a scary kind of way."
"Pervert," muttered Kagato with a half smile.
Yakage turned and gave him a dirty look. He was about to say something when I broke in. "Ok, I like it. But what say we make them just a wee bit smaller? Don't you really think one-inch canines would look a little odd?" I made a minor adjustment to the dental parameters. "Let's say about this size?" Yakage nodded agreement. I patted him on the back before continuing. "I like what you did with the energy output. A sword eh? From you it figures. Wasn't your thesis on energy swords?"
"Yes Professor," the young Juraian answered my question. "Specifically on the ability to form a blade using Jurai power. I think it's possible for the Lighthawk shields of the treeships to form such a weapon, but it's only a theory. Besides, how would they wield it?"
"I dunno," I answered. "I haven't given it much thought." Untrue; I'd read his paper and found his theories had a solid foundation. I also found that his research paralleled some of my own work on the power gems. Interesting. I'd have to look into the coincidence further some day, maybe with Yakage's help. Given the chance, this lad would go far. The computer finished it's crunching and displayed the results of my query. Out of the corner of my eye I watched the expressions on the faces of my two assistants as I read the list. I allowed my eyebrows to rise and fall as each item fell under my scrutiny. I stopped at one particular line. "Kagato, explain this please." He came up and peered over my shoulder.
"Oh, that. I thought a translator function might be useful. I was able to include it without sacrificing any of the other abilities."
"Does it work both ways?" I asked. I already knew the answer from the DNA sequence but I wanted to see if he knew.
"No," he said. It's only one way. Making it both ways would mean giving something else up. But given the obvious IQ potential, one way should be plenty. The subject should pick up new languages like iron filings to a magnet."
"Ok," I agreed. "It can stay, along with the fangs. I see you've also included enhanced senses; she'll almost be able to 'see' sounds and 'hear' colors. Very nice work." It was too. I'd never expected them to go beyond the constraints I'd conservatively set. I was pleased to see them both taking some initiative in the project, even though Kagato's inclusions far outdistanced Yakage's. For now anyway.
I continued on down the list of attributes. "Lessee. Molecular phasing, check. Limited flight ability, check. Teleportation, the specs didn't call for it but… check. Telekinesis, I see you enhanced it a bit, check. Telepathy, ah, enhanced again, check. Ability to use focused energy and plasma, check. I also see you've made allowances for the extra strength by making the skeletal structure denser. Good idea. And regeneration too. Wonderful." It would be interesting to see how she'd use these abilities and the possible combinations that she might come up with. Once again I was amazed at the initiative they'd taken in programming these sequences. Although she wouldn't be impossible to kill, she'd be very difficult. About the only ways that I could see were total disintegration or cutting her head off, any other body part she'd be able to grow back. "There can be only one," I mumbled, low enough so they didn't hear me. If we succeeded there would never be another like her.
I took a few minutes and finished reviewing the list, although I'd already seen enough. I wanted them to sweat a bit. I turned back to them, seeing the anxious look on both their faces. "Ok boys, let's set it up. Get those genes spliced and that DNA mixed. Let's get this baby grown." I was feeling rather anxious myself now. I clapped my hands. "I mean right now gentlemen. Get to it!" They scooted off to start working on the final preparations.
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Three weeks passed and the child, yes, I'll use the term child, was growing nicely, ahead of schedule. Already her apparent age was of about four years; I was going to have to slow down the growth process so that we didn't underrun our timetable. That called for her to be 'born' in about three months at an apparent age of sixteen; at the current rate she'd meet that in about six more weeks. Besides, slowing down the growth process gave me more time to feed information into her brain. Yes, I was programming her as we grew her. And the programs were ones that I'd developed myself. Yakage, Kagato and the Juraians, especially the Juraians, had no clue as to what I was giving her. Of course I couldn't hope to teach her everything in the next three months, nor could I hope that she could integrate and use what information I was giving her in that time. For all that she would look like an adult when she came out of the growth tube, she'd still have a young child's mentality. At least for a while.
I sat gnawing on a pencil (I wonder where that came from?) and watching her image on the monitoring screen for a long time. We'd have to move her soon, Clay was running into difficulty with his project and only last week Yakage had caught a couple of his assistants nosing around outside our lab. I'd learned that he was having trouble powering his creation, Combat Android # Zero he called it. How creative. Sigh. At least he had a name; all I had was a project reference number, R9656-A(P). Anyways, I'd found out that he was planning to use an antimatter reactor to power his project. I wonder where he got that idea? I confronted my two assistants and they both denied having anything to do with any of Clay's people. I didn't believe them, Clay had some really cute humanoid females working for him and knowing both of my assistants well…
I later found that he'd managed to hack into our outer level of files and found a reference to antimatter and an early set of our development parameters that I'd thought I'd deleted. My fault the whole time. I apologized to my assistants and bore the brunt of their displeasure for several days. But I lived with it and once they got over their huff we all shared a laugh when I told them about how I'd managed to infiltrate some of my emotion programming into his project's core OS files as payback. So anyway, in order to get away from Clay's people and their incessant attempts at spying, we going to have to move the project. And I believed I had just the place.
Several centuries ago the Academy had purchased an obsolete fleet of old capital ships from a government that needed some quick cash. Most had been broken up and their materials and systems reused by the Academy in other areas. But being one of the people that had brokered the deal, I knew that there was still one ship intact. Intact and functional. And I was the only one who knew where she was. Hey, you never know when one might need a giant, obsolete warship.
The Souja was almost fully automated (I'd been keeping her systems updated for years) and since there were only the three of us (soon to be four) there should be plenty of room aboard her for everything we needed to finish up. In the space of one week we managed to secretly transfer our entire project, all the equipment (including the active growth cylinder, no mean feat let me tell you) and all the data, to the Souja. Although the Souja was a retired warship and most of her weapons had been stripped out before the sale, I'd managed to scrape up enough guns to rearm her, defensively at least. She was no prize, but she would do for our needs.
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The project was progressing smoothly now but there was still one part missing, the long distance transport. Teleporting was ok for short distances, flight for slightly longer ones. Actually, flight was all the Juraians had asked for but I wanted to do better than that, I wanted my super soldier to be able to move across interstellar distances. But now you're thinking "Why? Won't the Juraians be transporting them on troop ships?" Well, yes, but… Stop and think of the possibilities. We have a super powerful being that's almost impossible to kill. Almost impossible, not totally impossible. Why use them as cannon fodder? What we have here is an ideal being for small-unit tactics, not large-scale assaults (now I'm not denying that she'd be effective there too...), or spying. After all, subtlety is my middle name. Hakubi "Subtlety" Washu, that's me. Besides, who said the Juraians were ever going to see the results of this project? So I set about designing a personal transport for my creation. It would have to be living, not mechanical and I already had a power source, the Mass. But it would also have to be concealable or easy to overlook. What to disguise it as… A rock? Nah, who wants to carry a rock around all day? An animal? Hmm, maybe I was on to something. But what kind of animal? It would have to be fairly small. No, not just an animal then, a pet. Something cute and cuddly. Yes, just the thing.
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There is a silicon-based creature on a planet far from Jurai that is moderately intelligent but not quite sentient. Now, you're saying "But Washu, there's any number of creatures like that. What makes this one so special?" I'll tell you. This creature is capable of enlarging itself over a thousand-fold when threatened. It's basically a peaceful being, a grazing animal (I don't care to describe just what it grazes on, nor do you care to know. Trust me.) Since it's silicon-based, by manipulating its genes I could turn it into a living computer and define its forms, both animal and when enlarged. And since silicon and carbon are so close together structure-wise, I could even give it a few of the same abilities that I gave my super-soldier. The difficult part would be combining the organic material from the Mass and the mineral stuff from the creature.
Now, what to make it look like? Cute and cuddly I'd said. A quick search for "cute and cuddly" with the addition of "mostly harmless" in the online Galactic Encyclopedia showed me two possibilities, both from Juraian colony world 0315 (I guess that's where the "mostly harmless" parameter kicked in); an animal known as a "bunny rabbit" and the other known as a "kitty cat". After just looking at their pictures and saying their names a few times I needed a shot of insulin. Goddess, where do they come up with these things? Well, either would do but why stop there; since I was recombining DNA anyway, why not cross them? Sure! Perfect! Who's going to pay attention to a beautiful girl with a cute little animal? Eh, probably a lot of males would, but officially she wouldn't rate a second glance.
Summoning my two assistants (who were just now realizing what they had gotten into when they asked for the jobs), I explained what I wanted. Kagato and Yakage gave each other a look that said they both thought I was nuts, then with deep sighs and slumped shoulders they turned and left, Yakage muttering something about "back to square one". I had no clue what he meant since we weren't dealing with geometric shapes yet (that would come a bit later when we designed the actual ship form) but Kagato obviously did because I heard him agree with his compatriot as the door closed behind them. Knowing that I could trust them to do all the preliminary work, I turned my attention back the tank monitors. I never grew tired of watching my beautiful little girl grow.
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To be continued
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Author's Notes
I want to thank Lizzy Hakubi for giving me an idea of how to get the Souja into this story. I was kind of stuck on that one. Thanks Melissa.
There's three intentional "Easter Eggs" in this chapter, two fairly obvious and the other less so. A virtual cookie to the person who finds all of them first.
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Review Responses
Dennisud – Do you really want to open that can-o-worms here? All right then, although his second ending was more to my personal taste, I actually liked the first one better. I'm probably one of the few who did.
Thundergod – I'm glad you didn't need to use the shredder although there are a few chapters of some of my stories that deserve it.
Wharpt – Actually, that was one of the best explanations I'd come up with myself. But Jurai power usually requires a Tree and neither Yakage nor Minagi have one. Omaha huh? I was through there once, back in '70 or '71. 'Course I was young (12 or 13) at the time. Still, it's funny you should pick a Bob Seger song since he's from Ann Arbor which is only a short distance (35 miles) north of here. I drive up there occasionally to Wizzywig Collectibles, the anime shop near U of M.
Smack54 – You're quite correct. Although Lucas did manage to tie the Death Star into Episode Two if you've seen the movie and caught that part. I like it when readers catch things I miss; it shows they're paying attention.
DiCyfer – Actually it's not that easy. There's an inconsistency in the series itself and one I hope to address in this fic. The gems can't be replicated yet Ryoko managed to do so, not once but twice. (The first replica self-destructed when Tenchi cut her hand off in "Ryoko Resurrected" and she used the second in "We Need Tenchi".)
Lizzy Hakubi – I know, that's because there was less than three hours between concept and finished chapter. I also know that a few of the words I used are probably beyond anything you've learned in your English classes. That wasn't intentional and it probably confused any number of native English-speakers too. As Mr. Nichols said, it's called 'technobabble' and even though it all sounds cool it doesn't really mean anything. Like in Star Trek: "We need to reconfigure the Main Deflector and bounce a subspace signal off that quasar to avoid the Romulan Sensor Net." You say "Eh, I don't know what they mean, but it sounds right to me" then forget about it and move on to the next scene.
Taxzombie – You squeezed in under the wire. I was ready to post this chapter when I read your review. Please don't feel obligated to review any of the previous stuff you missed. Although I enjoy reading people's thoughts of my work (good or bad), I don't live for them. (A little voice in my head's saying "Liar!") I'm always pleased to see a new comment but I don't ever tell myself that I need XX reviews before I go on. (Now the voice is saying, "Well, at least that part is true…")
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BobR
5/30/2002