Bioshock 6.6
February 1, 2011, Dev's House - Brockton Bay, 9:16 PM
"Done! All done! Muhahaha!" Dada was standing in front of us in a weird way... Oh, he was trying to strike a pose. Considering his audience was Taylor, Lisa and me sitting in the couch, It wasn't very effective.
"Eh, it needed a few more 'ha'-s to sound properly evil and maniacal. He needs more practice." I commented sotto voce.
"Meh, everyone's a critic. Don't forget you're talking to a multimillionaire entrepreneur, I'm by definition evil and maniacal!"
Lisa snorted, "Ah, yes, the mysterious BankerMan, so, does that mean we're millionaires too?"
"In liquid cash, no. All of you are minors. It'd draw a lot of eyes if itsy bitsy teenie weenies like you suddenly get that kind of a cash influx. Whereas I'm the recently promoted CFO of Fortress, no one would even blink if a few offshore accounts remotely connected to me get a few hundred mil in transfers, the bureaucracy is trained to overlook these..." Dada nodded in an 'I know something you don't' way, "But Assets! Properties! Stocks! If someone manages to wade through the morass of shell corporations and trusts, they'll find you guys rolling in riches."
We tried snooty backpats and nods at each other, but we generally failed and ended up cheering.
But dada wasn't finished, his eyes were sparkling, "Now, my ragtag bunch of Richie Riches... You have access to a lot of money... What's the next step?"
"Invest!/Invest it!/Investments!" The three of us piped up in unison.
Dada smiled and wiped a metaphorical tear, "The kids grow up so fast... Anyway, Aveek! I'm still waiting for the tech plans you were talking about." I waved my hands in a placative way, they'll come when they come.
Dada gave me a disappointed glare and pointed at Lisa, "Lisa! I've already dropped a good sum in the bonds you marked out, you've got a decent eye." Coming from Dev SenGupta, that was high praise. Lisa's grin reached new levels of smug.
Finally, Dada pointed at Taylor, "And Taylor! You're a creepy bug monster!" Taylor giggled.
He clapped his hands, "Excellent! Think of more investment avenues and let me know. Next up, you need to set up alternate trickle incomes, it's a good practice, also helps legitimize the odd zero being displaced in your bank balance. So Taylor, I've already gotten your carbon-enhanced spidersilk tested anonymously, it's roughly 15 times stronger than Kevlar and reasonably stretchy, it's gonna be a huge hit. But I've refrained from sending out feelers for buyers because you asked me to wait." Taylor nodded.
Dada moved on to me again, "Aveek, contacts who have contacts who have contacts who have expressed interest in Maker's services as a materials tinker. I've already started making a list of what is being asked for. I need to know what is your current production capacity before I start accepting orders. Also, I'm against accepting orders for radioactive stuff, right?"
I shrugged, "Unless it's the Defense Ministry asking. And keeping my other activities mostly unharmed, my production capacity is currently about half KG per day."
"It's called the Department of Defense, and you mean about a pound of mass per day." Taylor huffed in annoyance.
Dada shrugged, "Well, I understood that."
"No, no. It's a matter of principle." Lisa shook her head and smiled, "When in America," she looked at me and her smile turned predatory, "do the American."
Yeah, my blush was probably visible even through my brown skin. Dada cheered, "That's my sister-in-law!" Arg! Not again with this... He lifted a pre-emptive finger at Lisa, "And little miss inept blackmailer, you've lost your leverage! Number Man and I are professional BFFs now!"
Dammit, dada you have no idea who you're poking at... Lisa's predatory smile never faltered, "My my... I should've remembered that. I should also remember who has set up a fresh online dating pro..."
"My Lady Lisa! Did anyone tell you how amazing and awesome and generous and forgiving you are?" Dada was frantically waving his hands.
"Hmph, not in a while, and see to it that you don't abuse it." Lisa sniffed in mock condescension, dada was nodding frantically as she continued, "Anyway, back to the topic, what about my trickle income?"
"Well, you already have a budding online reputation as an information broker, I don't think you need my help solidifying that." Dada shrugged, "By the way, your new fake ID has come through, as have the ones you requested for the Travellers."
"Good." Lisa nodded, "They'd do well to get out and have some normalcy. I'll have it sent to them with compliments from Swarm."
Dada smiled, "That's a nice move. Keeping the incorporeal cape as your official spokesperson. Anyway, dealing with you kids is strenuous." He turned towards the kitchen and hollered, "Hey! Clone bro! Dinner ready yet?"
Maker/I hollered back from the kitchen, "In a few moments, someone call Mr. Hebert over please?"
Taylor nodded, "I've called him."
Danny arrived in a minute as I was setting the table, dada let him in. He was looking slightly flustered as he looked at the girls on the couch, "Hello there kiddos. Taylor, sweetie, please give me a warning before you buzz words in my ear, I almost stabbed through the forms I was signing."
"Sorry dad." Taylor smiled in embarrassment.
"No worries. Anyway, heard you guys were leaving tonight for your field trip? Where to?"
"The Amazonian Rainforests, Taylor wants more bugs, and I need mover training." Lisa chipped in resignedly. For someone so good at combat, she was unusually averse to physical exertion, oh well, she needed to train her physicals up to scratch before she could spend her stat points.
"Ah. I've no doubts you'd do well." Danny patted Lisa's shoulder as they all moved to the dining table, Lisa's smile at that was one of the most genuine I'd ever seen.
Danny spotted me at the table, "Aveek! Dev said you'll be cooking for us while Taylor is away, aren't you going too?"
"I am, Sir. I'll also be staying here."
"Oh, clones, right, it's a bit creepy if one thinks of it..." Ha! Look whose father is talking! "Anyway, I'm more than glad to be in your care for the duration. I really didn't want to cook just for myself without Taylor here. And I'm sure you'd definitely cook much better than me or her."
"Hey!" Taylor shouted with mock indignation.
Danny was nonplussed, "What? Look at the boy! He's smart, good looking, and a gamer! Honestly, if I didn't know otherwise, I'd be rooting for you and him!"
"Daaaad!"
Lisa possessively grabbed my arm, "Mine!"
Danny laughed and ruffled Lisa's hair, "Without a doubt kid. Without a doubt."
Lisa grinned bashfully. She had very few interactions with Danny, but it was strange to see how childishly she behaved around him. Oh well, he had an unassuming aura of parentness that I couldn't help but respect.
Apart from one visit to the Undersiders, Lisa had spent most of her time finishing learning all the skills we had in the list. What could I say? She was a completionist! The rest of the time she spent between my house with me (or... ahem, holodecks, at times) or out doing girl things with Taylor and Victoria. I'd taken the time to go on one more hospital grind with Amy, where she'd asked me to make time for another session. That was an interesting conversation.
I climbed up on the roof of the hospital where Amy was smoking a cigarette, she was going to drop it when she heard my footsteps, but smiled and resumed when she saw it was me, "Hey there Maker, good work today. You've improved a lot."
"Thanks Sensei," I smiled, "Vicky being late?"
"Nah, I'll call her once I finish the smoke. She's on patrol nearby anyway. By the way, I was at the PRT HQ a few days ago, they'd been asking around about you. Gallant, who's a friend of Glory Girl had also asked her about you."
I nodded, "Okay, what did you tell them?"
"Well, I've told them that I've been in contact with you and have been teaching you biology to help with your healing tech. I've told them you're a tinker. And that's about it, so they know about as much as the hospital knows. I've already instructed Vicky to divulge only as much."
"That's thoughtful of you, to keep the privacy of my information."
"Well, you learn at least that much when you're a healer. Private information is sensitive, and it goes doubly for capes. Anyway, the PRT has asked me to tell you to consider going over and registering with them."
"Thank you, for the privacy I mean. And if they ask you again, tell them I've received the message and will consider it with sincerity."
She nodded, "Okay. You might as well just do it. The registration part is pretty non-invasive, they don't ask much that you don't want to divulge." She looked thoughtful, "But on the other hand. You're a tinker. They're very particular about tinkers. I myself had registered as a healer instead of a... a bio-tinker" she almost winced at the word, "because of how much it would raise their hackles. I guess I'll have to change that if I start offering them the upgrades." She seemed conflicted, "Anyway, I'll deal with it when the time comes. As of now I'm still good with the healer angle even with the retroviral treatment pills thingy. Is it the same reason you're reluctant to go to them? Or is it because you're a follower of Aveek's philosophy of heroes and villains being loudmouthed showoffs?"
I chuckled, "That's a way to put it. Well, that's not the only reason, I do understand why heroes and villains do it. But I have better goals and plans. Regardless, Swarm and I will register, we had some business to take care, it's halfway done. As soon as the preparations are ready, we'll have to go public anyway, so I'm just waiting for it."
Amy nodded, "Sounds good. So, um... Can we have another session? After a week or so? If you're free that is. I want to check on my mods and add some new tweaks and stuff."
"Hmm. Let me check my calendar." I made a show of projecting random sheets of info in front of me, "Let's see... Nothing, nothing, nothing, oh, also nothing. Well Panacea, I guess I have to choose between my extremely busy schedule of doing nothing or to have a session where I get to learn new stuff... Tough call."
Amy chuckled, "Right! If you manage to take the decision in my favour. I want to invite you to my place for the session. And Taylor, Aveek and Lisa too if they agree?"
"Sure, any particular purpose of the change of venue?"
"What? Can't I invite friends over?" There was mock hurt on her face but real nervousness.
"Of course you can Amy, well, I for one would be glad to come. You should call and check with the others... But before you do. I'm asking as a friend, is something up?"
She looked both relieved and guilty, "No..not particularly... Well, you see, Caro-I mean Mom might have seen me sparring with Vicky, and maybe gotten a little suspicious? I wanted to come clean to her about the upgrade thing? So... The story is incomplete without you guys? Argh! Dammit! I want you guys for moral support!"
I smiled, "See? That was probably a bit difficult for you to admit. But good communication makes for a very good friendship-glue. Though I'm sure the others will agree, you should just call and check with them."
She'd called Taylor, Aveek and Lisa individually and asked for moral support in clear words, that must've taken guts.
Dinner was good. Danny left, Taylor and I went for a quick patrol to remind the goons in the area that we existed. Then we picked up Lisa, went into an ID and started running south.
February 7, 2011, Rainforests - Brazil, 8:22 PM
"Are you sure you want to put that many points in Dexterity?"
"Trust me, it's a good match for me. Being quick is what I'm all about."
Lisa's training was officially done, Physicals all above 25 (Except for DEX, which gained only 3 points from its already impressive 31), a slight increase in her base INT, +4 WIS and a charisma of 19 - well, I wasn't complaining when she'd become ridiculously hot! Anyway, she leveled up Gamer's Body to omit the need to sleep, and upped Gamer's Mind enough to get mental controls, emotion spike suppression and finally her Anonymity Protocols a few hours back. The last one marked the official goal.
Lisa continued explaining, "Besides, I only decided on DEX after pushing my base INT and WIS to 50. And I AM the thinker, so trust me."
Though it was her best base stat - when we had started on our way here from the Bay, Lisa was the slowest of us in pure movement speed, by the time we reached this forest, she was faster than both of us, I had to apply a mild boost to keep up with her just because of her high base DEX. Still, she was not a frontline combatant, what would she do with more agility and speed? I nodded somewhat noncommittally.
Lisa rolled her eyes and dropped 66 points in her DEX, that left her only 3 statpoints in store. "Wow" She was beaming.
"What? Show us?" Taylor asked.
Lisa forwarded an AI prompt.
For raising your INT to 150 and DEX to 100, you've unlocked a hidden skill!
Skill Unlocked: Hyperfocus
Lets you overclock your mind to speeds comparable to your body.
Faster ratios on higher levels.
"I concede. You ARE the thinker." That was all I could say. I checked the skill in my list, yep, those were the minimum requirements, at Lvl.1 it allowed her to up her mental speed to 2X for a measly deduction of 100SP from her pool. I knew how valuable that effect could be, when I was in full boost I felt a somewhat similar effect, but It still required a considerable amount of focus to operate the body at those speeds.
"Hehehehehe! Thisissoawesome!" Aaand Lisa had joined the fast-forward brigade... Well, technically we all were members because I'd applied some basic mods from Panacea's initial package to all of us, so we all had STR +12, DEX +15, VIT+16 and INT +4 modifiers. But at 2X mental speed Lisa was still doubly fast. I was still wary about applying anything from Amy's advanced mods because firstly I still didn't understand all of them completely and secondly they were highly customised for herself, I'd need to consult her before trying to fit them generically.
Taylor was still gaping at her, "Wow, I know I don't really need it due to my massive parallel processing thing... but damn I want that so bad!"
I shrugged, "You have a lot of spare points too. You can go the same way."
Taylor shook her head, "Nope. I know what I want. I'm going for a WIS build. And I'm going for it right now because I'm jealous."
Well, that was sensible of her, as our team tactician that was indeed the best choice for her. Taylor intentionally shifted to visual mode before applying the points, she pushed her WIS to 100. Then looked on in anticipation as nothing happened. She frowned.
Lisa smirked, "Taylor, put some in intelligence too."
She complied and dropped some of her remaining points to push INT to 50. And there it was.
For raising your INT to 50 and WIS to 100, you've unlocked a hidden skill!
Skill Unlocked: Sense Danger (Passive)
Provides you a warning when you're about to be attacked.
Combined with Administration Sensing, it extends the effect to your thralls and your party members when they're in range.
More information on the nature of attack and earlier warnings on higher levels.
"YES!" Taylor fistpumped and then glomped Lisa.
"Celebratory Spar!" I shouted, went full boost and attacked them.
We had been doing a lot of training of our own too, exercising with fallen logs and practising tree jumping allowed Taylor and me to squeeze a few more points in the physicals, I'd gotten tons of new organism scans. I didn't need to add to my biomass reserves after the 3 tons of it gained from Noelle.
I'd been heavily training Constructs, the hardest of my skills to level, yet the most effective one, Projection Range was up to 5m (or 16 ft, as Taylor would say) and Complexity was down to 1nm (no idea how Taylor would imperialize that.) Construct Persistence was up to 30 seconds and overall the skill was at Lvl. 49, I had a hunch something good would happen when it reached Lvl. 50, I was looking forward to it.
We'd also had a few sessions in IDs bashing Lvl. 30 mooks (They were all SWAT teams and Special Ops forces with artillery support), we got a considerable amount of XP. But it added only one level to Lisa and none to Taylor and me.
Taylor's personal training had improved her range to around 5Km (3 miles, she'd argue) and the delayed command aspect had improved so much that she was able to create a sustainable ecosystem of noninvasive harmless insects around a tribal village we passed by, the one where she'd picked up tons of bullet ants. She had appeared to them and explained to them that the new insects were harmless and will protect them from the harmful ones, she also pointed them to a nearby patch of forest where they could pick up the bullet ants they used for their coming of age rituals.
The Satere-Mawe people of that particular area worship a new insect goddess nowadays.
Speaking of bullet ants, we tried them, I'd gotten used to momentary pain but that was on a different level altogether. The venom remained so the pain didn't go away even if the damage was healed, it gave us a poisoned status which drained a negligible amount of HP but oh god the pain! I quit and healed myself after 20 minutes, Lisa quit in less than half an hour, Taylor endured it for the whole hour that the status effect lasted... Damn that girl had some crazy tolerance!
She had another stroke of luck, one of the cities we passed had a university research lab with a full terrarium of Darwin's Bark spiders, I scanned and duplicated the 350 odd spiders a few times to give her a respectable batch of web weavers. We'd have dada test the cloth from their silk when we get back.
We also sparred amongst ourselves. Lisa was as usual hard to hit without boosting, as was Taylor when she was using her insects to map my movements. But this celebratory spar took it to ridiculous levels.
I couldn't land a single hit on Lisa even in full boost, and she pummelled me constantly, all of us had raised our Kinetic Resistance enough that even when unarmored, most hits didn't do too much damage, but even at that speed she managed to rain calculated hits to cause specific debilitation, it was humbling.
At least with Lisa I still could understand how fast she was reacting to my attacks. With Taylor it was much weirder, she seemed to perform some weird jerky dance which avoided all my attacks magically. Thankfully her offence wasn't overwhelming like Lisa.
Of course I had the upper hand when I brought Telekinesis into play, Taylor was still hard to hit but I could box her in with combos that didn't leave space to dodge. As for Lisa, I got my revenge on her good and proper, however fast and perceptive she was - she couldn't dodge what she couldn't see. As long as I kept my attack pattern random enough, I ruled that round.
Then the girls ganged up on me. Taylor started to share her danger sense warnings mentally with Lisa... Taylor blanketed the area with a swarm that both distracted me and detected my telekinetic swipes before they hit either of them. Well, I was basically curbstomped... I finally cheated out a win by pushing loads of mana into omnidirectional, overwhelming force blasts, followed up with taser bolts.
"That's outright cheating! The fights started with pure physical force... Not fair!" Taylor whined.
"Well... Life's not fair." Yeah, that was extremely mature of me.
Lisa got up and dusted herself. "Admit it. You're just a sore loser." Taylor had made her a skinsuit from carbon fibre enhanced Darwin's Bark Silk... Yeah, if I weren't using Gamer's mind during the spar I'd have lost due to being distracted right at the beginning when she equipped it.
I went ahead and cleansed the both of them. "Not a sore loser, you see, I won." Yep, unfair and round, but I won.
Lisa patted my head patronisingly, "Sure you did honey. Just like that time when you burned me to ashes."
I huffed and changed the topic, "Anyway, listen, the ID skill levelled up yesterday, max level of mooks have gone up to level 40. What say we try it out?"
Lisa was checking her phone, her mood suddenly changed, "No can't do. Miss Xhao sent us an update. ABB goons were spotted in the area around the Undersiders' loft today. Huh, that was faster than expected... They'll be hitting us tonight."
Taylor shrugged, "As it stands now, you can probably handle them yourself. Buut..."
Lisa completed her sentence, "The plan says otherwise. Besides, I believe both Lung and Oni lee are going to participate personally. They'll be leading two separate teams targeting the loft and the decoy warehouse. You guys stick to the plan for Lung. I'll take the Undersiders and deal with Lee first." She turned to me, slightly nervous, "Aveek. You're absolutely sure about the plan for Lung?"
I nodded firmly, "Yes yes, I promise not to let it escalate beyond control. How much time do we have?"
Lisa thought for a moment, "About three hours. Too bad there's no time to run back." She didn't sound disappointed at all.
I chuckled and held out my hand, "Ladies, pack your bags and prepare for fast travel."
We really didn't have anything to pack, we'd been living out of our inventories and holodecks anyway. The girls shrugged and put their hands on mine.
I scanned them, biomassed and inventoried them and their clothes, then changed into my throwaway avatar (an emaciated nondescript old man with enough diseases to die in minutes without gamer abilities), then swapped primary with me at home and disconnected the clone.
As Taylor and Lisa found themselves suddenly transported to my bedroom in Brockton Bay, a comatose old man died of natural causes in the middle of the amazonian rainforest.
