Hello, my dear readers, another week has passed and thus another chapter has been magically conjured into reality. Just a heads up some of this section's work goes into computer science...a field of education I have never studied or excelled at so please forgive me if, and by if I mean most likely, got any information of coding completely incorrect.
As always, I do my best to proofread my work, but my grammar remains questionable. However, I hope that won't stop any of you from enjoying this next chapter!
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Chapter 3
Everything was off, slightly out of focus and disoriented as if opening one's eyes underwater. Of course, when Penny first got her glimpse into the world again the first thing, she noticed was the pixilation count was off, not nearly dense enough for the images of an Atlas military grade camera. Before even addressing the pictures displayed before her, which would have been an easy and faster solution to realize where she is or rather where she isn't, she delved into the code. An action that only brought her into more confused state. But how this confusion emerged was sparked an excruciating few seconds prior towards her eyes being open once more,
None of the programming makes sense, which shouldn't be possible, the bodiless girl spoke as if scrunching her eyes genuinely perplexed, the basic binary structure is there, but it's flowing in such a way that the inputs and outputs are giving alternative signals. More so than that it is like no other program I've ever seen, even if scripts are essentially different dialects of a language this one isn't even part of the same linguistic tree. It's as if the person making this created an entirely new alphabet.
This new system, or rather different system, processor was outstanding and deeply obnoxious at the same time. In one sense it was remarkable with how different it was to any electronic computer on her planet. While both the basic positive and negative binary response built each one up, it was as if this system took a completely different digital evolutionary path from the first ever computer built. Scratch that it was as if the path diverged from the first ever theory of a computer. The only equivalent she could even begin to think of in human terminology would be two different human languages, whose only common route was not of a parent tongue but rather the basic biological evolution of vocal cords.
What made it annoying was the mere fact of how pointless it was. The amount of time and energy needed to produce such a different system far outweighed any possible benefits of its implications. In truth it could keep digital data safe, with hackers having no idea how to go about accessing them, however it also meant one could not connect it to the digital web, and even worse could only directly connect to a machine built from the same system.
For Penny this confused train of logic led into more and more questions than answered. All of which now stemming from who and why somebody would construct such a thing, too questions of where in the world was, she. Determining the negative of this was simple, her father had been around for the digital ages birth and development. Nursing it in a sense to what it was today meant that all of Atlas's machinery and network was operating on that system. And it wasn't just her home kingdom, all of Remnants governing bodies, and modern civilization itself was built around the same numerical coding system. Of course, there were different types of scripting languages, but that wasn't split by political entity, more so corporations. Regardless the all were incredibly similar despite what companies would have people believe, and when compared to other anomalies before her all the processing programs that she had catalogued were essentially the same. Even her truly unique software was essentially an identical twin to the systems of remnants when placed next to something so alien.
Father's a smart man, but even he wouldn't have the time to produce an entirely different numerical system to process code. In fact, this would go even deeper than that, even if spent every waking second of his life devising something, he couldn't oversee the evolution of a different form of data processing. What lays before me is the compilation of multiple generations and minds...but how could such a civilization remain hidden, still relying on her stored memory and the motherboard of her centralized unit the hairless carrot head began running through human and or faunus settlements outside the main governing bodies, most villages don't focus or have need for digital communication. Without the support, population, and protection of a nation state they wouldn't even be able to produce an electric grid to supply enough power for it. On top of that they simply wouldn't be foolish enough to waste valuable resources on making a unique coding language when they could bring with them the bones of the old...this would only leave Menagerie. Being a pseudo kingdom, it could certainly pull something like this off, but all evidence points to them using a similar system to Vale electronics. Even more so, they simply haven't been around long enough to develop something like this, or once again need too
Of course, this calculation was made on the political body of Menagerie, a thought that Penny distinctly separated from another organized unit based on the tropic island
The White Fang however would benefit greatly from this, they could communicate without risk of interception. Or rather without risk of those being able to compute what's been intercepted. They'd still possess knowledge on the traditional scripts and this could still hack and dismantle any system based on them...which would be everybody but their own, the usually emerald eyed android felt, or rather thought, the feeling of a cold chill up a the no longer present metal frame that acted as her spine. The idea of having a foreign body directly alter your code, would be as if a person could alter the neuronal pathways of another human while they were still conscious. Feel the mental control slip from their grasp, fully aware of the violation going on but unable to do anything to stop the murder of their own free will, ...theoretically speaking the White Fangs, or at least the seeds which birthed it, predate Menagerie political body. While improbable they could produce something akin to this, although how it would be able to go under the radar for so long, or not be implemented with devastating effect, is illogical to say the least. With such technology they could quite possibly build their own cellular towers. Allowing for the opportunity to destroy the others leaving only the kingdoms with negative outcomes of such a terrorist act while they could still communicate freely.
The concept of such a destructive operation made even Penny disgusted. If Kingdoms were organisms, then the act of sabotaging their communication relays was like removing an animal's vertebrae. Theoretically the brain, or capital could still operate, but without a direct line of information being sent back and forth everyone was on their own. Unaware that the danger on the way now outpaced the message of its warning.
Furthermore, it's not as if the White Fang wouldn't have reason for my demise or study. After my interference in the shipping district incident they probably conducted a thorough investigation on anyone involved myself included. While I doubt they could decrypt any Atlas file on me I also had no such knowledge that a system of computers could exist like the one I currently am interacting with so disregarding anything due to statistical impossibility seems counter intuitive.
Regaining some level of plausibility to ground herself in reality, Penny began accessing a more militaristic mindset to analyze her situation. Composing a checklist with Atlas like, or more so Atlas programmed, discipline the binary minded girl started making a checklist of what was at her disposal.
While I can't access data through a script incompatible with my own, I can make use of the basic systems of this machine and or computer. First step when isolated in hostile or foreign territory is to look for geographical or culture signs based on the environment and or building structure.
Surfing through the system's processor, the engineered sentience gained access to a camera like display. While there was a set of code needed to run the program associated with it, Penny found that it was already running. And while the stream of data remained gibberish, she could connect the apparatus to compute through her data collector instead. If her core had been connected to the foreign processor such a task as simply accessing the digital light detector would have been nay impossible, but luckily the mechanics of a frame capturing device are a bit too universal.
Taking advantage of this, Penny simply made it so that she could computerize the ones and zeros being displayed by the device to manifest through her own script software, creating mathematical information that she could detect as images, much like an eye does with the visual spectrum.
Returning the basic survival doctrine, the computerized red head made note of every minute detail about the device, and area she now inhabited. Even things such as how the images were presented to her were analyzed.
Which made the first bit of evidence all the easier to tell, the camera was producing inadequate imagery compared to governmental or military grade equipment. The resolution was less than ideal, and from what she could tell, the device presented before her had a mechanical keyboard rather than a holographic display. Cross checking this with known organizations suggested that the device was hardly of the most advanced design, even Vacuo's least developed cities had access to common hard light displays for the disorganized bands of militias they called an army.
Of course, this information led to others, such as the fact that the device she was currently on did not compare to her processing power in the slightest. In fact, the difference in power was comparable to that of a ripple in a pond when placed side by side with a tsunami. Which unfortunately meant her processing unit would continue to be the most beneficial way for her to compute the outside world. However, what the device could provide was access to an electrical grid.
With her own computer boxes displayed in all its unfocused glory before her, it became quickly clear that she had made an incorrect assumption in predicting she was still connected to her power cells. With no glowing green liquid even splashed or stained upon her night shaded brain its pathways must have been clearly separated from its adapter and along with the rest of her body. Regardless, thoughts of her suddenly entering the void as quickly as a light switch was touched dissipated. There was a flow of ionized particles charging her emergency battery. This may have resulted in a slower processing speed in order to preserve power and function, but a much more appealing disablement when presented with the loss of sentience.
How much power she was currently getting remained a mystery, one that could only be solved when she was either attached to a proper Atlas computer, or she somehow managed to decrypt this new script from the ground up. Such problems could be addressed momentarily however as she now went from observer the camera to the room it actually showed.
The first bit of evidence to come to her on that front was that it was wooden. Such a thing could seem arbitrary for some, but to one Penny this material may as well have been an autobiography on where it could be from.
Atlas must unfortunately be officially ruled out, the girl began to think, her thoughts portraying the disappointment her tone should have carried, Even if I wasn't brought aboard an airship, Atlas buildings do not possess wooden frames and or walls. The same goes for mantle as well, the timber is just too expensive to import. And when a kingdoms been manufacturing concrete, brick, and steel from local mines as long as Atlas has not even a upper class aristocrat would put in the time or money to produce a settlement out of a material nobody in the local area knew how to upkeep...nor risk going against the CEO's who ran the construction and or mining operation for the city.
The next most likely option would be Vale, but even still the main city where I would be moved...even in the dreaded case of being apprehended a White Fang cell, would be constructed of stone. Pine housing is more not unheard of, but those towns and cities have no real strategic importance. Nor have they caught the attention of the faunus criminal organization since the Great War. And although the cultural structure of the room has some faint similarities with Vale, certainly more than the other kingdoms and Menagerie, its aesthetic is all to foreign from them all to be deduced by such an analysis.
Vacuo can be ruled out for the same reasoning as Atlas. Common structures there are made from commercialized heated clay. Even in its most advanced settlements and huntsmen academies prefer tile to the weakened vegetations bark that grows in its southern regions. Menagerie simply does not produce the bark and lumber that is supporting this structure, and the design is all wrong and or asking for a structural collapse if meant to be supported on stilts to avoid flooding. Regardless of that the pattern on the wood suggests that of the interior of a type of evergreen. Unfortunately, my data on plant life across Remnant is not sufficient enough to deduce the exact species... although this encounter will be noted for such information would probe most beneficial for pinpointing a location.
The last location would be of course Mistral, but as recorded above Vale still seems the most likely location, Penny almost giggled to herself even when knowing she lacked the physical units to do so. The phrase she just thought had been so human in a way, or more so she thought the expression and images of a person recording or typing down such a report was them attempting to be more machine. An ironic fact she could perhaps enjoy later, but the brief moment of light heartedness in a foreign situation could not last for long and soon she was drawn back to her military code.
While some of Mistral's more residential buildings are composed from a wood-based material, their structural build is that of paper walls and screen doors. The bark texture and color remain far off as well. Meaning Vale remains the most prominent geographical location. However, this does little for all I can safely assume I am around the Central Kingdom's capital, and or north of it.
Given the technology, and its archaic advancement, having been collected by none Atlas personal seems to be the most likely conclusion, Penny's train of thought continued, now focusing on what objects laid within the house rather than the components that made it, White Fang would have a logical reason to steal Atlas technology such as myself...but I do not believe this room could qualify as a safe house or a terrorist cell headquarters.
Scanning the room with this next step of analysis in mind only added to the bizarreness of her situation. With such objects as scattered about books, a gaming console from no brand she recognized, and a scattered display of clothing with an unknown art style that focused heavily on negative space, linework, and incomplete eclipses Penny could not picture a bloodthirsty and violent criminal living here.
Besides the...unique taste in fashion sense, what purpose would they have to leave the material they commandeered unattended. Certainly, they would be intelligent enough to place a safeguard or at least have somebody present at the computer at all times in case I tried to hack in and send help. On top of all that, all these clothes fit an identical build and no signs of the typical uniform is in sight. The White Fang operate in small, but dense groups according to all known records. They simply wouldn't allow one member to waste space by giving them their own room, and the bed in the corner, while the disunity and scattering of it sheets suggest its been slept in by multiple people at one, would be a vast misuse of their limited finance and resources.
Nothing about this situation makes sense from any mathematical or realistic point of view. After being trisected by my opponent in a supervised and heavily guarded sanction tournament, I was disconnected from my own sensor array only to reconnect to one that uses a completely different binary system. Somehow the entire Atlas military personal, including my unc- General Ironwood didn't see fit to immediately collect my parts. Allowing me to go unnoticed until my parts were picked up, not by a well-known criminal array, but rather a curious Vale citizen who also possessed different coding software.
Anger never came easily to Penny, she certainly wasn't built that way, and even if the rules of nurture applied to a being such as herself her father was far too much of a caring individual for her to inherit a temper that way. Every living thing, regardless of biology apparently, had a breaking point and right now the electronic emerald defense android reached her. The tone she meant to carry wouldn't have been easy to tell as anger pursue, her enthusiastic and social personally resisting such an act every step of the way, but if she did possess a voice at the moment the passive aggressiveness would be made quite obvious.
The location I'm in makes no sense from a logistic perspective. The idea that some standard passersby and or curious groundskeeper would be the ones to salvage my units after my destruction is something that Atlas regulation would never allow. With all the video surveillance in the area, even if a stranger was able to illegally collect one of my parts, let alone my central processor, they would be tracked down immediately. Everything about this predicament simply cannot happen, it shouldn't have even been able to happen. The attention to detail to create such a bizarre environment, for no functional purpose, is beyond anything my code can conjure. Even the moon in the sky is incorrect…
Small arcs of electricity sparked off the boxes, and being the first truly physical response of emotions, it blurred the camera even further for a few crucial moments. But before the pixels had lost their focus she had seen clearly, shining through the windows clear glass a moon. Appearing much farther away, no more than a marble in the sky, but there all the same. Hidden beneath curvature shadow, but very much rounded and complete.
...the moon's not correct, or more accurately it's too correct. It's nearly full, but more so than that it's not shattered. Its gravitational structure is still complete, it actually obeys the laws of physics,
It was weird to think that the strangeness of this new or rather different moon was unique in Penny's eyes because of how normal it was. One of the first things she noticed when she had gotten out of her testing phase and was allowed outside the Atlas academy premise, was Remnant's moon. From an astrological point of view, it was a physically impossible cosmic collective of matter. For starters the natural satellite was too close to the planets to orbit correctly. It should have been torn apart, shredded, really by the planet's own gravity.
While in truth the moon looked like it was in the midst of that dismantling process, the next bit of its structural anomaly came from the fact that it was paused in the middle of obliteration indefinitely. As if the moon was trapped in the moment of its own destruction...something that Penny could in a sense relate to now.
Comparison between herself and a pseudo planetary object aside, Remnants moon should not have been able to exist in its current state, but somehow it did. Penny asked her father about it relentlessly, but unfortunately study into the field of astrophysics was never deeply pursued. There simply aren't the resources or the benefit to do so. And growing up in Atlas such a combination made it so that the science was simply put to the wayside if it had no financial benefit and or practical value. As her father had explained, all of Remnants naturally produced energy sources seems to have a negative exponential relationship when reacting with lower level of atmospheric density.
With such a gifted code, Penny was quick to point out that such a solution to this was to have the dust operate within a sealed chamber. This way the reaction would be sparked within an environment in which the energy could be funneled out to produce thrust. To this her father simply shook his head, but with a smile. Most likely a result of the paradoxes the explanation caused, and the pride that he felt upon his daughter thinking through possible solutions so fast. Unfortunately, though, all he could tell her was that the exhaust was subject to this negative correlation as well. It was physically impossible, but it was deduced through multiple different tests, experiments, and thousands of theoretical models that Remnant could simply not launch any of its material into orbit, let alone to its celestial body or beyond.
But the broken moon did not fill this sky, and as the pixels refocused so did her gaze. Even with the silver orb pushing her back to square one, ruining all her current calculation and making her question reality itself she could for the moment only produced one thought beneath its unformed light,
It's beautiful.
Penny could stare at the moon's digital form for hours, and for a person with a skewed view of time the minutes she did certainly felt like such. However, the electronic video display was not the only sense the computer she had infected possessed.
With a sharp crack of wood on wood, hearing was violently returned to the mechanical girl as the sight of the room's soul door was instantly honed in. What came next was picked up through the speakers' receptors. A high pitch voice was spoken in a pattern that could be speech but was even more mysterious and foreign then the moon and script when brought before Penny.
Emerging into the room, was, if nothing else the most normal thing the copper haired android had seen since her sight returned. With a literal wet mop of chestnut haired, a towel clad boy walked into the room and for all extent purposes was very human. Obviously not being the source of the previous noise, he said something back albeit in a lower tone and octave. Once again, the sound was unlike anything Penny had ever heard on Remnant. The universal tongue had some familiarity to the syllabus being produced by this individual, and ancient Atlesian carried some of the unique vowel structures being presented, but outside that the language was unrecognizable. So much so that the robotic brained being couldn't even be sure were a word ended and another began.
Observing every bit of the bipedal ape, Penny began trying to deduce where his features would locate him. However, upon remembering the outside moon, and the foreignness of everything else, assuming he was in one of the Four Kingdoms was a pointless endeavor. His pale pink skin tone gave some evidence to possibly being a native Atlesian, or descent perhaps, but once again everything else in the room indicated against them being anywhere near the northernmost continent.
Just as these thoughts came and went for Penny, the sound of the door being pushed on its hinged brought her back into the situation. Disrobing the cloth covering his innocence, Penny quickly zoomed in towards the window. Data gathering was important, but even she possessed the social maturity to realize how inappropriate observing an unwilling boy would be,
Before the dance father was also very adamant about me needing to be on high alert around any potential suitors, and not to ever find myself in this type of situation regardless of male or female...Ironwood most likely got the message too given the added security, funnily enough that was the first time Penny gave the scenario any thought, and with it brought the emotions that followed. Feelings of happiness that her father was being protective, but also a slight annoyance that she could not participate in activities like the other attendants...of course Penny wasn't blind to the reason why, her father, well the female engineers he hired, went very in depth in what could happen when too post prepubescent young adults shared the same area alone.
...not that I could or even would want to do something like that, the machine thought next, wondering if her electricity turned crimson. Still refusing to turn back to the emerald eyed young man despite enough time having passed for him to safely change multiple times over, Besides, technically speaking, he has kidnapped me. Even if he is unaware nor has any malicious intent, he still is in the unauthorized possession of Atlas equipment. On the bright side however, his less than ideal physic as well as lacking any obvious animalistic traits can at least increase the probability that I am not in the possession of the White Fang.
Eventually enough time had passed that Penny regained the courage to continue her self-imposed mission of finding out where she was, and thus she turned back to the soul biological occupant of the room. Perhaps a gust of wind outside could act as her sigh of relief, but luckily enough she was greeted to the sigh of a fully clothed individual.
Upon a more accurate look, Penny even noticed he wore a pair of spectacles with a thickness that rivaled even her fathers. Which only added to the conclusion that this man was in no way a physical threat to herself or the kingdom. His body's muscle mass seemed below even that of a regular soldier, let alone a trained huntsman. Unfortunately, though, physical combatants weren't Penny's most threatening advisories at the moment, and with his head turning towards the computer she feared of what he could do,
The manipulation of light through the glass suggests a form of nearsightedness. While often being attributed to genetics, intense work in front of literacy works or computer screens can also require the need for corrective lens, luckily the boy's facial expression, perhaps the only thing she could truly translate, didn't seem to indicate he was aware of her watching him. However, as he continued to step towards the monitor she was concerned if he was going to attempt to reach her system. Despite his organic limitation, if he knew anything about the standard script program, he at the moment would have a much easier time hacking into her then she did of his device.
As soon as his fingers touched the chair connecting him to the digital world the other occupants' voices once again rose out. This time in a higher volume, but similar pitch. Although Penny remained lost in the exact information it carried, the crunch of the boy's brows into his closed eyelids indicated as good as anything that he was seemingly caught as if his hand was in the cookie jar.
Giving off a sigh, he quickly turned his back towards the camera Penny had annexed and began walking towards what could only be compared to a light switch. Thoughts of terror Penny had put to bed only minutes early reemerged in all its gory fear, as she realized if this device was disconnected to the electrical current, she would follow suit.
With the boy seemingly being a noncombatant, and most likely a non-hostile advisory. Penny could not bring the courage to attempt to shout out, or signal in some other way to cease his action. Even if she could, she wouldn't even know where to begin to communicate such a thing, bypassing the code was a nigh impossible task as it was, but forging him a message in his own alien tongue was all but impossible at the moment.
Watching in horror she could only sit as time seemed to slow down. Flipping the button in what appeared to be a maliciously slow state, Penny waited for the world to disappear once again when the boy's fingers completed their motion. Waited for the electricity, and therefore her soul, to be lost. However, such a moment was not to come, and even as the lights were extinguished, she quickly realized, through the very process of realization, that her consciousness did not go with them. Whatever this house's energy grid was, it still ran through the foreign computer and her.
Now only seeing silhouettes the Atlas made robot watched the boy stumble his way towards his bed. Reaching up to grab his spectacles, an act that took multiple attempts, before placing them on a counter. Afterwards he simply flopped on his spring supported mattress and made a lazily pull to cover himself with a crumpled comforter.
Penny stared at his prone form for some time, unsure of what move he was going to make next, but not willing to enact her until she was sure he was out of commission. Given his breathing pattern he was yet to be in a full sleep. Even as the artificial light creeping in from beneath the door was put to sleep his awareness remained. Eventually after an hour, or what Penny assumed to be that time, he finally did enter what she could determine as the first stage of unconsciousness.
Making sure she did not jump to any unwarranted conclusion she waited for his chest to rise and fall ten more times before finally focusing back on her thought,
The information this room, and its occupant have given me have reached their potential. Any more knowledge could only be gained at this time through actions on his end, unbeknownst to her, and certainly to the human in the room, her processing speed increased. As if displaying an unnoticed surge in determination, such an act could prove harmful to my own existence, thus I need to make contact and then overwrite his own data processor unit. Such an act will take time, and feasibly impossible to do in the span of an average human sleep cycle. However, I am not bound to the limitations my father or any other prodigal mind would have when tackling such a challenge. This machine is just a byproduct of a different evolutionary path in computerized engineering, where I am the culmination of my adaptational path. The pinnacle of my father's work and Atlesian innovation.
Leaving the camera, Penny went back to the confinements of her own unit. However, she would not stay there for line. Once again stepping up to the barrier, or more accurately ocean, that separated her and this computer, she prepared herself to enter the water. Not to glide upon its surface like before but rather jump in. To swim to its deepest depth to reveal then understand and conquer all the information it held. With no need for a breath, the young Polendina would live up to her name and jumped into the sea of truths and false. Her own ones and zeros parting away the distilled water in spearhead movement,
The fight in the physical world made me helpless, but I refuse to be at anyone's mercy in the digital realm. I will decrypt this code and find a way back to my father, and to myself. Too my computerized cousin be aware I take no pleasure in making you feel inadequate, but your creators have forced my hand, and thus as one electronic advisory to another let it be known I am combat ready!
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Progress is an ever-changing slope that is exponentially both slow and fast at the same time. Human civilization can be an incredibly good example for this. Breakthroughs started out slow and were few and far between. This isn't to say they didn't produce radical change, but rather the foundation is harder to conceive out of nowhere than the alteration that can be imaged from it. In a sense invention and innovation are both equally important but the first flows at the speed of a glacier, and by its very nature the second may as well be traveling light speed when compared its creator.
To mirror this with civilization, first came stone tools and fire, emerging 300,00 thousand years ago. This would be the pinnacle of technology until 288,000 years later when farming equipment would give rise to organized communities. From this it would be another 8,000 years until buildings and bronze would become all the rage. From that improvement iron and stonework wouldn't emerge for another 2,000. Acceleration at this point of course is much faster between each cycle relativity but still not the blink of an eye humans needs. After iron came steel, and then with that gunpowder, within the next 1,800 years. However, it was then that the planet's energy would be utilized in mast for the first time.
The industrial revolution was the spark which marked the greatest change in the exponential growth of human civilization. For all purposes the steam engine and the international space station may as well have been invented at the same chronological moment. Computer and electronics emerged simultaneously with mere 50, 20, and even eventually yearly gaps between them and their superior predecessors.
Her own industrial revolution was what Penny was trying to achieve now. With only the basic binary system of data signals acting as a starting point like fire, she now built her way up to the verge of translating the system.
It was a grueling and torturous process even on her logical mind. Being programmed to mimic human behavior meant repetitive tasks could produce some level of dullness within her that other machines would not face. However, she had pushed through much of the groundwork. This took an increase in energy usage for sure, as running simulations on what worked and what didn't for billions of binary combinations took time. Time that she needed to accelerate in order to process everything.
This was of no concern to her, so long as no outage was produced by her increased use, but whoever did receive the knowledge of electrical consumption was sure to raise an eyebrow at this household's new unquenchable thirst for the resources. Of course, this was of no concern to her, their financial situation and even general emotional response was not of primary, or any, importance.
Her stone age, which took a grueling sixes hour, was filled with this processing of codes that came back with no meaning. This was all part of the plan, however, an unavoidable step needed to shine light on the next one she could move too. For what came back with information and what didn't was not nearly as important as the pattern it produced.
If she was still connected to the digital camera this era may have lasted indefinitely with her pausing every time the boy would grumble or shift in his sleep, but luckily he remained tied down to the bed by his own tiredness and caused Penny no impediment.
Luckily with no breaks the pattern finally did emerge in all its mathematical divinity. The script produced followed a base sixteen numerical system which could be expanded to a base 32 or possibly even base 64. If Penny had the time to express an emotion to this it would be joy. All coding requires the base two system, simply by the physical of a truth and false. From this origin, Atlas, and Remnants, Computers went to a base ten system. Entirely forged from the concept of human mathematics which emerged from the biological fact they have they had ten digits. Which were the appendages math was created and first counted on.
However, ten is an ugly number and was only used since computers in Remnants needed to be utilized immediately to fight the Grimm. Unfortunately, it had the lasting effect of making some of the signals harder than they had to be, in terms of the immediate odd prime number ten split into. This meant any base higher would eventually run into this problem, but for this coding system the problem was delayed until the original system of two.
Regardless Penny could then begin making signals with this system and seeing what they did and connected to. For her this was the agricultural revolution in all its forty-five minutes of glory. She could now put coded signals to physical results producing knowledge. It was basic information such as this will pop up a display, or beginning running program she could not read, but it was information that could and would directly lead to her understanding of the others.
Penny made her small progress with the metals, a time in history the consumed hundreds of hundreds of seconds. Stumbling onto copper when she made sense of the computer's inner structures. Mixed that with tin entered the bronze age when she made contact with the motherboard, and the central processor. Iron emerged, only to instantly turn to steel when she connected her own unit with it.
And with the two now bound, the revolution could begin. In the span of a picture frame moving through film she would be given everything this device could offer, and more importantly understand the world as it did.
Because of this she paused for a microsecond, perhaps representing a brief period where progress would stop. It wasn't to worry of the dangers that could be unveiled to her, or even the surge it might cause or the defense program it could unleash. Now known for this insignificant moment in time as she paused in excitement. Happy that she herself crawled out of her own purgatory, freed herself from an unknown environment and captive, and was going to contact her father through her own self earned merit.
With one final display of electricity, before she could control her interaction with the outside world, Penny put her will into the code, and drained the sea. Mixing the salt water with her own fresh to form something new along the coast. Happening at speeds so unimaginable, not even the lighting's plasma form could keep up with.
As its neon blue arc rose into the air her universe quite literally expanded as knowledge of science and mathematics became obvious to her despite the useless on Remnant. She became fluent in all forms of linguistic and mathematical language despite having only ever needed one of each. She became aware that she was not in the possession of a criminal organization, nor in some secret hideout amongst the Vale wilderness. That a stranger had picked her up, but not in the stadium of her defeat. The artwork of his clothes soon became readable as text, a single albeit among multiple, and a presentation of one symbolic system among countless others.
She realized in curious horror, that the moon was complete, and it shined down on four continents and their three sisters. None of which represented any kingdom she had known. With the information of a cheap desktop and battered processor, not a pioneer or pinnacle military model but an entertainment offshoot, she understood that while the humans of this world were very real, the planet beneath her was truly alien.
But even with the knowledge of two worlds, she still remained in the dark on how either could exist let alone travel between them. What was unavoidable to her though the truth. The truth that the ground that now supported her wasn't the bedrock of her Remnant. But rather the combination of heaven and hell known to her now as Earth.
