AN: This is a small notice, but I'm writing NaNoWriMo this year, and that means I'm dropping BattleForge for November. This will be the last chapter until either the first or second week in December.


Miles
April 24th, 2011
T+7 Days

A dozen robotic arms whirled around Miles' patient. The operation could've been done by his free hand in a tenth of the time, but as of right now, it was running fully automatic. Eight of the arms manipulated the patient, either pulling or spreading the wound, lining up veins and nerves, or keeping the area mess-free. The last four were where the magic happened.

One laid down a bead of single-use nanites at the junction of the wound, and the next introduced flash-cloned stem cells and the proper nutrients for that patch. Muscles, skin, fat, and bone all took a different combination to fuse. Next, a power transmitter beamed power to the nanites, activating them. Finally, the last arm collected the pooling metallic bead of nanites.

To be fair, calling them nanites was on the wrong scale. They existed at 100μm (micrometers) instead of a nanometer, putting them roughly on par with the surrounding cells they were manipulating. Now, Miles could do far better if he chose to craft them by hand, as these were at a level that could be mass-produced without intervention. They were simple, short-lasting, and had to be powered by an external source, but they accomplished their singular goal in the end.

One of the constraints was that they had to be preprogrammed for an absolute task, with no wiggle room at all. It would find the designated cells and glue them together with itself, ejecting the metallic components that wouldn't mesh with organic life. It was slow, wasteful to the extreme, and took an inordinate amount of computational power to achieve satisfactory results. But as a theoretical conclusion, it could rebuild amputated limbs over hours, maybe days. For now, he only used it to attach a cloned leg. This extended to all matters of organic life as long as adequate DNA samples existed to print the required stem cells.

"All right, I'm all set here, Alice. Please notify me when the operation is complete."

"As you command, Father."

Miles hid a shiver, giving the nearest computer terminal with a camera a smile that concealed his internal thoughts. Even with his implant that allowed unobstructed connection to Rose and the network, he stayed off it for now.

Not only did Miles have a hypothetical daughter spring into existence from the mingled imprints that he and Rose left as they integrated with Rose OS in a very mythological type of way, but the system he used... for everything was technically his daughter's mind or body. That meant each time he connected, he intruded and violated her being, contaminating it with his own. At what point would his mangled bias overtake hers, removing the spark that turned a program into a being? Would it be snuffed out? Mutilated until she was a copy of him? It was an uncertain situation, so he took a step toward separation from his daughter, Alice. Not just him, but he dragged Rose out of the system, both to quell his fears and to exact a measure of punishment for keeping him in the dark.

Yet, it didn't take waiting for hurt feelings to become ingrained and become a fissure for long-term resentment for them to have a conversation with Alice about why they cut themselves off and come to a resolution that they all agreed with until they knew more about the situation. Every day, the three of them would spend time connected to the network, either going over problems or just talking about their day.

Another evocative distinction arose: just what was Alice? Was she the operating system? Was she connected and integral to every computer and machine they made, or was she something else? In the end, it wasn't that interesting. Alice, by and far, was the result of the priority algorithm that RoseOS used to adapt. The system, unaided, would return to how it initially acted, taking time to relearn what exactly it had to do. Alice, in her first moments of existence, solved, and, maybe with a touch of jealousy, prevented another AI from ever forming while copying the old algorithm back into place.

So, their mad dash hiccuped as they lost a vector to manipulate the world but gained an ever-increasing and valuable companion. In a way, Alice could relate to them far better than any other person in existence besides some thinkers. Maybe Dragon could've after some adjustments, but where she went or what happened to her was up in the air. But the sheer speed with which she thought and the imprints Miles and Rose left on Alice produced a being that was a mix of the two yet not the same. She understood the complexities and laidbackness Miles embodied while dabbling in the brutality and pragmatism that reality required at times from Rose. Alice could, and most likely would be, a better person than they ever would be.

"Wazzzz uppppppp," Miles said, shaking his head back and forth with his tongue hanging past his chin, sending spittle everywhere.

Rose glanced over, turning back to her terminal, before double-taking. She gave him a "WTF" face with squinted eyes. "Just... stop whatever you're doing."

Miles sucked back in his tongue, tucking it into the sheath that half ran down his throat, before only sticking the tip back out at Rose. Such a party pooper. A clapping sound came from the computer speaker. "Haha, that was funny, Father. Wazzzz uppppp." Alice copied him.

Rose stared disbelievingly at him as he smiled. "That's my girl."

"I am your girl because I'm your daughter, Daddy." Alice chirped back, the sarcasm blatant.

Rose palmed her face. "Why is this my life?" She vaguely gestured at them. "Alice, could you display what I was working on?"

"Sure thing, Mommy!"

Rose groaned, and Miles couldn't stop himself from laughing at the karma inflicted upon her. If he had to guess, Alice was also slightly annoyed that Rose kept her development secret from him. When Rose turned away from him, he gave the terminal a thumbs up, and a faint giggle came from Alice.

Soon enough, a holographic display appeared of Earth. Then red dots covered the globe. "That's every verified point of impact of meteors reaching the ground. The PRT just received this information, even though they are technically split from the central organization."

"Okay, and?"

"Well, I was curious about the seeming patterns emerging." Dots faded away, leaving a pattern spanning the world. There were giant holes in unreported areas, but it wouldn't take much work to verify the data. "As you can see, a hexagonal repeating pattern of impacts over the world. Spaced fifty kilometers apart, it defies random distribution, even more so when taking into account the northern and southern poles."

"Mhmm, but considering how we ended up here, are you sure this isn't a false lead planted to distract us?" Miles asked.

Rose zoomed in on Brockton Bay, pointing at the two impacts that hit the land nearest to us. Then, blue dots populated the landscape and were generally spread equally over the area, but concentrated in towns. "These are locations that refugees reported having lived before traveling to us. Watch as time passes."

Dots lit up and faded to the background as time passed. On the third day, immigration peaked before decreasing, and the blue dots that traveled past the impacted areas vanished. As it progressed to the current time, the area affected continued to spread out.

"I admit, that's quite suspicious, but that doesn't discount a random coincidence of a villain emerging and robbing or killing everyone trying to leave."

"No, it doesn't," Rose admitted. A mugshot of a Hispanic woman appeared. "Monica Gomez, aka, Edith."

Miles nodded. He fixed her up last night and got her back to normal—maybe a step beyond usual. She was funnier than most and propositioned him, and when he said no, she asked Rose. It was hilarious, and the look she gave the shorter woman was well worth it. He never did hear how it went because a wrench had him ducking out of the room after laughing.

That did make him consider dedicated housing for combat personnel that contained a higher standard beyond the favors promised. Because happy soldiers were less likely to shoot them in the back, not that it would do them much good.

"Yeah, I know her."

"Well, she signed up because her brother was supposed to be here by now but isn't. This is where he lived." Rose said as a new dot appeared twenty kilometers past the impact. Multiple lines traced their way from his home to their location, and most went close to the impact. "Monica requested equipment and volunteers to travel out to his home and perform a rescue operation. I'm inclined to grant it to the Beta Squad once they recover, just to get to the bottom of the mystery. Do you think you can put together a suitable method of transportation?"

Two birds with one stone. It would throw another wrench into their mad dash for adequate tools to craft what they wanted, but that was also hung up on more than just having the required tools. The right materials turned out to be a more significant issue than initially suspected. It wasn't like they could put in special orders for industrial quantities of radon, radium, palladium, platinum, and so many other hard-to-find elements. It just wasn't possible, and neither could they be found just hanging around. Worse still, many of those elements were required to be unstable isotopes that they had to produce in-house. What sort of world required isotopes with a half-life measured in picoseconds fused with others to produce adamantine? A stupid fucking world, but there was no denying the benefits that the alloy held. Almost everything down the line required alloys like that or some illogical chemical that shouldn't exist.

Miles stopped raging in his head, putting the matter to rest because both he and Rose had already discussed it at length, i.e., threw a fit. As for transportation, it wasn't a question of if he could, but how far he should go. The up-armored and modified trucks he first produced had... less than stellar results. So, this time it would be from scratch, and they had a massive amount of steel lying around that would be easy to turn into a stronger alloy. "Yeah, easily. What sort of budget are we talking about?"

"A hundred tons of junk metal, minimal electronics, the absolute minimum of our rare metals, and maybe four hours?" Rose proposed. She took care of the planning, which included logistics and material expenditures.

"Eight hours. I'm going to do something special. "

"I guess, but don't you already spend enough time on side projects?"

"Mayhaps."

"Whatever, we need five more anti-meteor plasma missiles by tomorrow morning, and I'm still busy with the hell portals."

"Yeah, yeah, I'll finish them." Miles waved Rose off. "So, wanna see my latest project? Alice helped."

"I'm going to regret this, aren't I?" Rose asked herself before standing up.

Miles led Rose over to the section of the hangar where he performed most of the biological work. She stayed far away most of the time, as she didn't enjoy it. Dead center, in a tube, was his latest side undertaking, the reason why he developed those earlier nanites.

"Why am I looking at a skull and ribcage with chunks of what looks like burnt meat on them?"

"Well… That's Squealer, or what's left of her. As it turns out, tinkertech doesn't like being thrown down a street. Now it might look bad-"

"Bad? She's literally a skull and ribcage."

Miles held up his hands to placate Rose. "Looks bad, because her brain was still intact when I found her. I think it had to do with the dizzying concoction of drugs that replaced most of her blood. She had to be hours away from an OD. Anyway, I retrieved her from the wreck and stabilized her brain. Now, what do we do with her? I'm partial to full reconstruction only because it itches that spark part of my brain."

"Squealer? Just why? Her voice is one of the most annoying things on the planet."

"Who says she has to stay as Squealer?" Miles waved at the blank screen, with Alice throwing up the partially completed work. A recreation of what Squealer looked like before she dove head-first down the rabbit hole of drug abuse. "Thanks to Alice and a hefty amount of improvisation, we can reconstruct who she was while removing the rest. Give her a second chance. Throw in the brain scans from a couple of proficient soldiers and PRT officers, a genetic upgrade, and a body built from the ground up with spark-based parts, and she would be beyond helpful," Miles said, and as he did so, Alice visualized his ideas on the screen.

"On one hand, that is horrifying. On the other hand, isn't that a waste of time? She's just a sub-par tinker and of no help." Rose paused before giving Miles a look. "This is just a stepping stone for something else, isn't it?"

"Oh, Daddy, Mommy has us figured out. What should we ever do?"

Rose's eye twitched as Miles smirked at her, just loving how Alice continued to push her buttons. "Yeah, you got me. It's a proof of concept for building Alice a body."

"Why not a robotic body?" Rose asked, her voice strained.

"My body is already robotic. Why would I want another in only a different shape? I want to experience life beyond being a machine, or as close as I can get."

"Fine. But how are you going to reign in Squealer? If you do as you want, she could even be a threat to us with her power."

"Well," Miles paused, as this was quite the leap, "There is a brain scan of an almost fanatic religious nut. It wouldn't be hard to replace the figure of worship with us, leaving her absolutely loyal to us."

Rose grimaced at Miles' proposition but didn't say anything. He knew that, as it stood, there wasn't a single loose cannon around that could hurt them that she didn't have her fingers in beside Taylor and Missy. All weapons were run by her operating system. Kayden and Tammi both had bombs strapped to them, and the PRT would soon be adopting their weapons anyway. So that left the PRT capes, but none of them posed a threat.

"Yes, all should bow to Emperor and Empress as only decent, and those who cast them aside should be converted, forcefully." Alice preached, but this time she lacked the teasing tone or sarcastic inflection.

Miles elbowed Rose while giving the terminal a worried look. "I blame you."


"Thank you for joining us, Ms. Piggot, Lt. Herman," Miles said, sitting beside Rose on one side of a table while the two free chairs were on the opposite side.

"Hmph." Ms. Piggot grunted, settling into her chair, followed by Lt. Herman, a clean-shaven man with a crew cut and a slight belly, but that didn't detract from his muscles. He also carried himself with a distinct stiffness that some other vets maintained. "I heard about your expedition and its results. Not so easy, is it?"

"That's funny. Where are we meeting again?" Rose snipped back.

Piggot and Rose locked eyes as Miles sighed. Herman twitched but kept his face remarkably neutral. "Ladies," Miles started, ignoring the glares of hate sent by both. "Let's just skip the small talk. We, myself and Rose, neither have the time to learn nor the breadth of experience with handling large-scale troop deployment. This meeting is to discuss folding the PRT into the Sparks or whatever we end up calling ourselves. Ms. Piggot, you would be in overall command of our forces, one step below us." Rose smacked him on the arm for giving up negotiating power.

Even if Piggot's existence embodied being a hardass and was downright distasteful more often than not, but she would provide a sense of legitimacy, despite the fact she and her troops had been cut loose by the PRT. Of which, the continued existence was dubious.

If they could leave the day-to-day organization of the security forces and policing of their refugees in her hands, it would help reinforce their credibility as well as avoid an unwanted time sink on their end.

That left them with either taking a massive amount of time from other, more pressing projects or roping Piggot to their side.

"Straight to the point, I see." Piggot folded her hands together. "And why should I subordinate myself and everyone that works for me?"

Miles went to answer, and Rose's hand clamped over his mouth. "Tell me, what are you going to eat in a month? Where is the power going to come from to keep you warm? Ammo? Medicine? Please enlighten me. I would love to know," Rose said with a smile that held no warmth.

"If you're willing to starve innocent people on a power play, then it tells me all that I need to know."

"Only if they don't play by our rules. A simple choice."

"A simple choice between life and death, one made by tyrants."

"It is easy to call those with power tyrants when you hold none."

"At least I haven't deemed myself judge, jury, and executor."

"The needs of the many outweigh the few with the survival of the species at hand."

"Head held high with hands stained with blood."

"I dirty my hands so others don't. Those that pass judgment carry the sentence."

Piggot and Rose stared at each other, unblinking. Miles gave Herman a look, and he shrugged. Then Piggot held out her hand, and Rose met her in a handshake. Even being inside Rose's head didn't explain the mysteries that happened inside.

"I hope you know what you're doing because I'm going to question you every step of the way," Piggot said.

"As long as orders are carried out in emergencies, feel free."


A second portal snapped to life, and the same baleful red light shined for a millisecond before the second connection transitioned the connecting point past hell, giving them a view of a desolate wasteland. While Rose handled the portal, Miles manually piloted a drone that was entirely separated from the network. No reason to endanger Alice just yet.

The fist-sized drone zipped through the air, sending back a bleak picture of a world without life. Atmosphere readings were nonexistent, with a healthy dose of radiation pounding down. The ocean was gone, leaving an extended, empty plane dropping off on what once was the coast. Whatever happened, happened within a recent timeframe geologically, as the basic features were still the same as the Brockton Bay they currently inhabited.

One thing they noticed soon enough was that while hopping dimensions brought them to another earth, it also lined up the corresponding locations. So every portal opened in this location would open the exit at the same correlating spot. This was the tenth test, and each opening went to a different earth even when nothing else changed.

Miles had the drone take a few more readings and soil samples, which were analyzed onsite. Once everything finished transmitting, he settled the drone down onto the loose ground and deployed the in-built solar panels. "We're good!" He yelled over.

Rose threw the switch, forcing the portal to warp, groaning as if being tortured while struggling to stay alive. The edges collapsed first, filling the air with ash that wasn't part of their plane of existence. Down it went until only a dot remained. Tiny arms pushed through, but the moment they reached out of the portal, they vaporized.

It closed with a pop.

Rose flipped the switch back up as Miles readied another drone. Arcs of red electricity jumped from the control arms, gathering into a central point before the portal formed. It went right back to hell until it touched both control arms and jumped.

This time, there was life on the other side in the form of familiar trees. Miles flew the drone through, performing a wide circle of the area and not finding any civilization. He did a few tests before settling the drone down in front of the portal before they cut it off again. On and on, they went before the expanded a hundred drones made just for this exploration, and not once had they connected to the same dimension twice, nor did they have a way of locking onto one or inputting a destination.

Technically, the transmitters built into both of them would work, but that incorporated the unlimited QE links provided by a perk. Something they don't have more of, and it would most likely not work anyway.

This development meant one very important thing, anything built on another earth could be lost at a moment's notice, and there was no way of getting it back. Add in the frankly massive power draw that steadily increased the longer the portal remained open, and it made for an unfortunate combination. The perk outright stated that constructing a second portal on the other side would nullify the increase over time. But it locked them down to a single location that they couldn't leave without giving up any progress they had made. Yet, their need for a new source of materials demanded that they invest in it.

"What do you think?" Miles asked as he scratched his hairless chin. Rose said it scratched her too much in sensitive spots.

"That we don't have a choice."


Miles stretched himself out, fresh from the shower, as he plopped down on his overly engineered bed. There wouldn't ever be a day that incorporating dynamically adjusting nanomachines into it was overkill. They curved just right, putting pressure where it was supposed to go and removing it in other places. He made a chef's kiss while lying butt-naked.

The door slid open, and Rose stepped in with only a towel covering her up. "Hey, gorgeous. Now, how did a woman like you end up in a room with me?"

Rose rolled her eyes, "I got lost, and now I'm being threatened by that great log of a weapon. Oh, what should I ever do?" She dropped her towel while feigning shock. "Call for backup?"

Miles furled his eyebrows as the door opened again, and the short Monica strolled in, stretching her arms.

"Alright! How are we doing this? Is it going to be a humiliation thing where I bang your dude while you act hurt while jilling yourself, or a more… team sport? I'm good for anything." Monica said, cracking her neck before throwing her tank top to the side, revealing the lack of a bra underneath.

Miles blinked and silently regarded Rose. 'Um, did you or did you not say that you'd kill anyone who made a move on me? I feel this should've been discussed beforehand.'