Sorry about the delay. I rewrote this chapter around three to four times before deciding that you would probably prefer to have more than 4000 words and so I combined the chapter with a later section. And I had to run it past my beta readers a few more iterations than usual.
Oh, and I almost forgot. Yorokobe Shonnen has translated this story into Spanish. For those who want to read it in Spanish, s/13482275/1/Orden-del-Tecnico. It looks good but I can't read Spanish.
Checklist 17: Use the Appropriate Amount of Materials for the Task!
The door opened and Romani Archaman stepped into the Command Center, listening to the sounds of typing and clicking. Even with holographic screens, people found having an unobtrusive confirmation that their input was acknowledged to be beneficial. And since the keyboards were virtual, that meant they had to use audio.
Privately, Roman rather liked the sound. It was different from the scratching of quills or the chipping of clay tablets. Also, if messed around with the setting menu, you could end up with some cool sound effects! Not that Olga allowed it after she took over.
But Roman had a duty to do and it didn't involve making his own life more exciting. No, Da Vinci and the other workers had agreed that the five systems were tentatively up and able to be ran. Which meant it was now time to diagnose CHALDEAS and figure out why it was red.
Tom nodded in greeting as Roman walked to the center spot of the control center. Roman smiled back before taking the last few steps needed to plop down into the comfy chair. He let out a small sigh before placing the mug of coffee, laced with maybe another stimulant or two, on the flat portion of the desk.
Time to get to work. And not his work as a doctor, which he wished was all he was doing. No, he had to fix what had gone wrong with CHALDEAS, LAPLACE, or SHEBA. Or TRIMEGISTUS for that matter but if it came to that, he might as well just call Atlas. It would be just as productive, even with the phones and telecommunications being deader than a fish in the Dead Sea.
Typing in his password, Roman brought up a log of the changes since his last look at what had happened.
Okay, Singularity F is destabilizing in a natural and predicted manner. Just as expected, the waves across space-time originating from the Singularity was falling in a decay pattern not too far off what had been predicted before the whole Lev turning traitor mess. Except for one problem.
CHALDEAS was still insisting that humanity did not exist in the future.
That was not how it should be. With Singularity F destroyed and falling apart, the future of humanity should have returned. Instead, the loss of all signs of humanity, both past and future was sticking around.
It didn't make sense. How did Rayshifting into a Singularity cause things to get worse?
The door opened again and the last few workers Roman had assigned to this entered the room.
"Welcome," Roman said as he addressed the workers of Chaldea. Here were over 10 people, most of the people who could be spared as there still needed to be food, Shirou and Da Vinci were working on the Olga problem, Mash and Ritsuka were working on getting the boy up to snuff, and there were still some things that needed to be fixed already. But the rest, over half of the survivors, were here. "As you all know, we are still getting errors from SHEBA and it has been over a day since Singularity F was resolved. It might be a bit hasty, but I think we need to run another scan and see if things are getting better and we just need a better eye on it or if Singularity F was not the source for the loss of the future."
The workers nodded in unison. They understood the stakes. Say what you will about Marisbury and Olga Marie, but both of them had an eye for recruiting the brilliant ones.
"If we are lucky, as soon as Singularity F finishes being corrected, humanity's future will reappear." Roman continued before scratching his head. "That said, it is funny that there is no sign of improvement already like we actually didn't solve the problem. But maybe passive detection isn't enough and we just need to be active in looking for any improvement at all. So, we're going to start from Singularity F, figure out if we missed something or if that Berserker is somehow messing things up. Hopefully not, I don't think Mash and Ritsuka could handle Heracles even if we prepared. After that, we will run a scan of the rest of history to see if there is anything else that is possibly causing this."
Roman gestured towards the red CHALDEAS before pausing. "Yes, Mr. Darkwood?"
The man lowered his hand that he had politely raised to indicate that he had something to say without interrupting Roman. "The scans I have seen bear traces that are indicative of interference patterns. I believe a reasonable conclusion will include the possibility of additional Singularities."
Roman felt his face automatically grimace as he processed the man's words. "Well, that we lost most of our people in solving the wrong Singularity won't sound very good on our report to the UN and Mage's Association. Welp, nothing we can do about that now. We'll just have to handle it as it comes or hope that we can get Olga to handle that. Any further questions?"
None were coming.
Roman nodded. "Let's get to it, people!"
"Well, this doesn't make sense," Roman muttered as he looked over the scans.
Singularity F was getting back to normal. Small errors but nothing outside of expectations, no retrogression, no relapse, no signs of a Singularity inside another Singularity, nothing. It looked just like how they expected it. If you excluded the lack of humans, lifeforms or anything alive.
"Sir, nothing to be done. Singularity F is visibly resolving. Between the first scan and the most recent one, those changes are plainly visible."
Roman hummed to himself before realizing that the 'Sir' being addressed was him.
"Hmm," He looked up from a mug of instant coffee. "What was that? Sorry, I wasn't paying attention."
"Singularity F is visibly resolving," the worker repeated with a trace of concealed irritation. "We have to look elsewhere."
"Alright," Roman agreed reluctantly. He didn't like to think that there was more that they had to resolve. Especially with Olga gone and no communication with the Mages Association. "I don't like it but go ahead. Start scanning the rest of history."
"Yes Sir," the worker turned around.
"Found something!" someone immediately called out. "I have a response from around the 15th century, Western Continental Europe. Estimated Humanity Distortion Value to be… C with one rank of distortion."
"Found another!" A different worker yelled before the first had even finished speaking, causing heads to snap to him. "Singularity Response in the Mediterranean, early AD era. Possibly Distortion Value around C. Need more slots from SHEBA to get better readings."
Roman realized that his cup of coffee was rolling on the ground, liquid contents leaving like a bunch of children let out to recess but he couldn't be bothered.
"Focus on the 15th Century one," he ordered, mind racing as he tried to figure out which was real and which was false. "SHEBA is better at analyzing closer to the modern era."
"Shouldn't we check both of them? If one of them is a dud…"
"It is entirely possible that the Roman one is just SHEBA struggling to read the BC era," Roman decided. "It is just inside the border of our range but with everything else, it is possible that it is a false reading. Let's focus on the one more likely to have results, get that taken care of and then go check it out."
Thinking a moment, Roman added. "Keep one slot on top of it though. I don't want to lose it in case we are wrong and we have more than one singularity to deal with."
It was a busy hour or two of work but at the end, they had something.
"Well at least we found life in both," Roman said as optimistically as he could. Not really succeeding, he decided to take a sip from his second cup of coffee instead.
Ah. Much better. He could feel his tired blood turn into caffeine. Wait, that wasn't good.
"We should be glad because we finally found life inside a Singularity?" Someone muttered. "Isn't that like saying at least the stolen chicken is laying eggs for someone else? And that there are two stolen chickens instead of just the one we knew about?"
"What I want to know is why does these have life and human civilization but Singularity F had nobody?" John Erwing asked.
"Well, at least we have some results for our overlords?" Roman half-heartedly offered up.
"The overlords that we can't get in contact with?"
"Yeah," Romani slumped into his chair. "Not all that encouraging at all. But hey, at least we have something Olga can use. If we are quiet and lucky, maybe Olga and them will be distracted about it long enough to not fire us."
"Sir," Darkwood said as he typed rapidly. "The background readings are rather high."
"I know, I know," Romani affirmed with a sigh. "Just filter them out."
"It is not infeasible that there might be other contradictions among the rejected data," Darkwood continued. "If you grant permission, sir, I will analyze the data and parse out the contradictory readings until a reasonable conclusion is reached and the hypothesis is affirmed or refuted."
"Enough with the 'sir' stuff," Roman let the irritation finally poke him into speaking up about it. He didn't like formality. Reminded him of a less pleasant time. "Just call me Roman or Romani like everyone else does."
In the faint reflection cast by the glass window, Roman could see Darkwood raise just one eyebrow. The man never called anyone by a nickname.
"And could you please break down the technical jargon?" Roman asked. "It gives me a headache when presented like that."'
"Very well," Darkwood acquiesced. "There might be more signatures of Singularities in the background noise, though the destabilization of Singularity F is interfering with normal data patterns. I would like to take a closer look at the whole set."
"Knock yourself out," Roman shrugged. He was a medical doctor, not a control room operator! Except, he was now the acting vice-director so he supposed he had to be the one giving orders.
And now he was required to figure out how to deal with a multiplying number of Singularities. It would be horrible if resolving a Singularity would just mean two more springing up in its place. But by that point, it should be Olga's job. Speaking of which…
"Alright," Roman walked into Da Vinci's workshop, not even pausing to look at the dozens of machines, blueprints, or odd stuff that made up Da Vinci's territory. Stopping to face Da Vinci, the acting Vice-director addressed the pair. "So we are approaching the end of the second day. How is progress here? And please let it be good news, I could use some."
"All the news is," Da Vinci grimaced. "Is that progress is satisfactory. Shirou has the principle of Bounded Fields adequately down now."
Shirou looked up the mention of his name, taking out an earbud that connected to a recorded lecture from Da Vinci. His body was sweating a river, his face pale, and expression was haunted.
"Is he even in good enough condition to let us into the Reality Marble?" Roman asked doubtfully, eying the exhausted magus.
"That is the harder part," Da Vinci looked away. "It took about one and a half times as long as I anticipated for him to understand Bounded Fields. He misunderstood an important aspect and it took forever for me to root down which term he misunderstood."
"Soooo?" Roman trailed off, hoping that there was something better to hear than that Chaldea had found the wrong Singularity to fix.
"So, we are in the middle of self-exploratory poetry," Da Vinci puffed herself up.
Roman felt his mind flop.
"Then why does he look like he ran a marathon?" Roman shouted, pointing at Shirou's state. What kind of poetry involves causing a person to look like they were on the brink of collapse?
"He overthinks and is a kinesthetic learner," Da Vinci sighed. "Keeps a lot more commentary locked up in his head than he lets out. Unless he lets me know who he is, I can't refine his vocabulary and word choice in creating an aria. In addition, the exercise keeps some pressure on him which helps him perform better. But right now, he looks like that because his circuits ran a tad long and heated his body up pretty far."
Of course I don't say it all, Shirou thought, only barely keeping it in. If I did, it would be rude!
"See!" Da Vinci pointed at Shirou without even looking at him. Oh wait, Roman noticed the flicker of her eyes as she glanced at Shirou out of the corner of her eye. "Like that! He won't give enough data on his mentality!"
"You already know what I would say anyway," Shirou protested in a raspy voice.
"So, he mastered a concept he probably should have learned long ago and is still not close enough to manifesting his Reality Marble?" Roman asked hoping he had gotten something wrong.
"Accurate summarization, Romani," Da Vinci folded her arms. "That said, the impression that Shirou works better under pressure was confirmed so I stepped up the exercise routine and merged it with more intellectual pursuits. We should be able to speed up the progress rate and make the equivalent of years or progress by noon tomorrow. Only need one or three more breakthroughs to have the beginnings of the experimental trials."
"Well, that's good," Romani brightened up. "So tomorrow by noon we should be able to retrieve Olga?"
"Unfortunately, no." Da Vinci quickly shot down.
"I don't think I like the sound of this," Romani slumped as both he and Shirou fastened their gaze onto the innocent acting inventor.
Da Vinci was frowning and twisting back and forth in place. "Getting her out might be more problematic than we expected."
"We're not going to be able to?" Romani felt his heart sink as he realized that Olga might just die inside a stranger's Reality Marble. Marisbury's daughter would die while he could do nothing.
"If she had been in good condition, she might be able to hold on long enough for us to figure out how to get Shirou to be able to power the Reality Marble for more than 30 seconds," Da Vinci confessed. "But even if we fed him a lot of high magical density infused fluids, at such an early stage, he wouldn't be able to consume as much energy as he would need to output to maintain the field. And to transfer Olga's soul to another object would take about that long at minimum, and that is without factoring in the amount of time it would take to find her inside the Reality Marble. We might be able to get her some food and drink in that time frame but anything more would require a different approach."
"Let's settle for what we can then," Roman sighed as he brought one gloved hand to rub his itching eyes. "Do we even have a different approach?"
"Given that the Reality Marble is finished, we do actually," Da Vinci snapped her fingers and a holographic screen appeared in front of the trio. It had a diagram of a person with 27 grooves inside while beside it was a layered circle inside a circle. "First is Shirou could transfer her out of the Reality Marble. But his 27 circuits aren't able to output the required power to move around a human soul so that is unviable and we can't have multiple magi working in unison with him on this. Even if we somehow got him an unlimited power supply, his circuits would give out under the strain of outputting more than they are capable of. If he had a compatible affinity with Olga, it might work but he doesn't so he can't."
"That's possible?" Shirou looked shocked when Romani's eye swung around to the sitting man. "To just transfer her out?"
"I estimate it would take over a year for Shirou to learn even the easiest of those possible methods," Da Vinci continued. "And to top it off, the only ways I can think of to get him more circuits all have a much higher chance of him dying than this method in succeeding."
"Pass," Romani instantly judged.
"The next is similar," a picture of the device that Romani had used to put Olga into the Unlimited Blade Works appeared on the screen along with a purple number 2. "We just go in, give her an appropriate Mystic Code and activate it to pull her out. But I anticipate that the world would reject her as she doesn't have a body. If Olga was at full strength, I would recommend this course of action but the shock could possibly kill her by this point, not to mention her Od reserves must be low by now. If she is in better condition than I think she is, I would say this might be viable."
"So a back-up option," Romani noted down on an electronic notepad. "We can put the device into the rescuer team if needed."
"I hate speculating on insufficient facts," Da Vinci grumbled to herself. Roman ignored it. "But again, we have to hope that we can find Olga before Shirou runs out of power keeping up the Bounded Field used as a gateway to the Reality Marble and have the Mystic Code finish invoking the spell before that happens while hoping the shock doesn't kill her."
"Sounds complex and complicated," Shirou winced. "Let's try a better option?"
"Option three," a bright green 3 appeared on the screen and two anatomy models appeared. "Tantric ritual. Get Shirou to use someone else's power to keep the Bounded Field up long enough."
"Can't," Romani said immediately, remembering a scandal that Olga had hushed up by threatening everyone involved and firing the perpetrator on the spot. "Regulations forbids the solicitation of sexual favors, especially by higher ranking personnel to lower ranking personnel. This tantric ritual would fall under that, especially with the UN oversight. If we had a volunteer or an already established relationship it would be possible but even asking for a volunteer at this point is just a nasty mess that will get the UN firing us all, if not imprisoning us with life sentences."
"I would say less time than that or execution depending on the court of law but I figured as much," Da Vinci shrugged and the 3 was replaced by a 4 as Shirou's expression went from stunned awkward horror to relief. "So the fourth one is we adjust the Evocation-Invocation Engine to focus on Shirou's Reality Marble instead and Rayshift in a team."
Romani winced. "The UN and the Mage's Association will not happy about an unauthorized Rayshift but we might be able to keep our jobs and not go to prison for that. Our poor budget though."
"So, this is the best one so far?" Da Vinci interrupted his mourning for all the forms he would have to fill out.
"Yeah," Romani sighed. "Best one so far. I hope there is a better alternative though."
"Well, there is one more but we need the Director's permission beforehand," Da Vinci said as sheets of paper appeared on her screen. "She's the only one still alive on the list of people able to authorize this. Even a non-acting vice-director would need the Director to sign off on this before TRIMEGISTUS would accept it as valid. Sorry, Romani."
"No offense taken." Romani waved it off as he leaned forward, Shirou doing the same. "So, if we can get Olga's permission, this method would work for a second expedition?"
"A first expedition to give basic medical care and authorization would suffice. Even a verbal acknowledgement could be stretched," Da Vinci continued. "But this is probably our best option for long-term, at least, until Shirou gets good enough at manifesting to do it with his own reserves. But that will take months of practice at the most optimistic."
"Well, if we can transfer Olga into a doll or something, that will be easiest," Roman thought out loud. "That way she can take back over and I can give her a medical check-up. But she's bound to be in poor condition by now so that's the second method out. If she's unable to talk, we can't use the fifth method. But if we can use a Bounded Field to give her basic medical care and nutrition, we might be able to use number five depending on what it is. Options 1 and 3 are just out and 2 is only viable if Olga is in excellent condition. So, what is the fifth option?"
Da Vinci smugly smiled and Roman realized that this was the one she had been in favor of all along.
She told them and Romani frowned.
"Oh no," Roman groaned as he saw the spot where the medical supplies he needed were supposed to be. "Did Lev do this?"
With a 'bleep' and a 'bloop' of his portable touchpad, Roman called up the inventory history for this section. Taking a look at the items taken out, he found that all of the items were used up on the exact same day. Replacements and replacement parts had been ordered but the delivery was scheduled to happen half a week ago. Only, Ritsuka Fujimaru had gotten express delivery using the same helicopter so the projected arrival of the shipment had been pushed back until two hours after the Rayshift to Singularity F.
A shipment that had never arrived.
"Did Lev do something to the base at the foot of the mountain?" Romani wondered before shrugging. "Nothing I can do about that from here right now. Not with the blizzard cutting all travel."
But who had used them all up? Romani wondered as he looked down towards the signature of the requisition form, expecting to see Lev Lainur's name. Only it was a different name.
"Da Vinci!" he yelled.
"Iron is my blood," Shirou mumbled the phrase to himself. It felt right. But this was his magnum opus, the best magecraft he could ever perform. Well, until he managed to figure out how to enter Avalon to be with Saber but Shirou had to confess that he was practically forever away from making it in. Regardless of his future romantic life prospect, nothing less than a ten-count aria would do for manifesting his Reality Marble.
"Good allusion," Caster complimented as she typed something. "It creates a link between reality and yourself. Very important when you are seeking to supplant reality after eroding it. Even better, it is true. Iron is found in the blood after all, along with dozens of other elements but by focusing on one element, we can minimize the others which will help reject the world and the Human Order's influence. However, that isn't enough for the first meter in the poem, you'll need another term."
"Like?" Shirou asked while running on a treadmill. Hopefully Leonardo won't decide to toss a series of wrenches at him again. He was starting to think that Leonardo was viewing training him as a stress relief for herself.
"Hmm, well is there something else you can refer to?" Leonardo asked. "Some formative experience in your life yet can, from a point of view, refer to swords?"
A memory of fire, fire influenced by Angra Mainyu.
"Iron is my blood," Shirou frowned as he tried this whole creative poetry thing. It wasn't easy. "Evil is my ore."
"Don't like it," Leonardo instantly criticized. "If you are referring to purifying yourself, that phrase would lend itself better to the miracle of Avalon you are seeking, not manifesting your reality marble. Something for you to try later, but not now."
Shirou nodded as he continued running, keeping part of his attention on the surroundings. If he started overthinking, Da Vinci would throw things at him. He had to balance remembering, interpreting, running, staying aware of the surroundings, listening, and making poetry. All in all, it actually was good progress. The first line had taken forever to get right but 'I am the bone of my sword' was perfect in the omnipotent genius's own phrasing as it referred to himself, his internals, his origin, and his element. But it had also been the first line and needed to make a strong impact.
Maybe there was something else.
"Hmm," Shirou hummed in thought only to have to duck as the bird familiar swooped down through where his head had been. He kept running.
"Stay on the first line of thought," Leonardo chided without looking away from what she was working on. "You work by instinct and experience. Don't switch tracks from a flash of inspiration. Stay with it, chase it. Hunt it like how a bird will harass a predator near her nest. Now, what was the thought that inspired you?"
"The Fuyuki fire," Shirou honestly replied. "The one that was influenced by Avenger."
"Ah, your first major determinative experience," the genius nodded. A large portion of the previous day had been Shirou telling her about his life, leaving most of the private stuff out. It hadn't protected him from having her dig it out of him. "Good choice. But I think we will want something more transitive. We already have an illusion to material with iron, perhaps something that changes that iron?"
"Fire?" Shirou asked between breaths.
"Excellent deduction, especially with the hint I dropped you," the Caster lost no time in praising herself. "Now what should you do with it?"
"Link it back," Shirou decided after a few moments. Was that screwdriver about to move? "To myself?"
"Are you deciding or affirming?" Da Vinci sent a piercing question in response. "Remember, we are trying to break away from the Human Order and we have no Foundation to work from. Anything you decide on will have to affirm with yourself and only yourself."
"So 'Iron is my blood', fire…" Shirou trailed off, thinking about what phrase he could use. And how could he use fire in regard to himself? Wait, link it back to himself. What if he had fire link to his blood? What could change blood?
"Ask your question Shirou," Da Vinci reminded.
"What changes blood?" Shirou asked.
"Lots of things," came the immediate answer. "Oxygen for one, causes the blood to turn its distinctive red color when mixing with the iron element in your blood. And we could go for days just naming all the various chemicals that can interact with the various substances that comprise the liquid in your veins."
"Oxygen," Shirou mumbled. Blood carried oxygen to the parts of the body. He remembered that from his high school classes. But how did it get into the blood again? It was pulled out of the air by his lungs before…
Heart! Heart and fire.
"Iron is my blood and my heart is on fire," Shirou winced as he listened to the words running from his mouth. "I sound like a chuunibyou."
"A degree of chuuni is to be expected," Leonardo disagreed, readily understanding the Japanese sentence Shirou had used. "We magi are changing nature and common sense to do what we want out of the common order. Hypnotizing yourself with elements of powerful word choice means that our arias matter greatly. However, I do agree that 'my heart is on fire' needs to be different."
"If I switch it around," Shirou mumbled. "Iron is my blood and fire is in my heart."
"Too easily comprehensible," she disagreed. "Add some mysticism and difficulty in comprehension in."
"Iron is my blood and fire is my heart?" Shirou tested to himself before nodding. It sounded better. "Yeah, that'll do. 'I am the bone of my sword. Iron is my blood and fire is my heart.' Or would 'and fire stokes my heart' be better?"
"Well, it is yourself so whichever you like better," Da Vinci shrugged. Was she disappointed that he had gone off on his own way again? Thinking back to her word choices, maybe she wanted him to focus more on oxygen? Shoot, that meant she would be upset that her opinion was rejected and she would be more trigger happy for a bit. "But that works for your first two lines. Powerful start that alludes to your basis for the magecraft and to the start of who you are. That said, switching to a new poetic device could help. What one would you like to use?"
"Um," Shirou thought about the various poetic terms and techniques that his current tutor had jammed into his head over the last day since he had gotten Bounded Field down to her satisfaction. He still had to do some practice with Bounded Fields just to refine his ability to make manifesting his Reality Marble through a Bounded Field easier. But he was low on Od right now so waiting for it to replenish made sense. "Enjambment."
And he wasn't just saying that because he didn't want to figure out which English words were iambic, or an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.
"Will be tricky," the genius warned. "You have to do several lines that can stand on their own when broken down while running from one line to the next and being comprehensible. Run-on sentences require skill to devise, especially for a non-native speaker. We will have to tackle several lines together and that will take time. The pay-off though will be that we will be half-way done."
A buzz sound interrupted the pair. Shirou hit the button to slow down the treadmill to an eventual stop.
"Come in Romani," Da Vinci called out to the person outside her workshop.
Wonder what he was here for. Wait, Romani had been going to do some preparations for their plan.
"Are we still going with the plan for getting Olga out?" Shirou immediately asked as an exhausted Roman slouched into Da Vinci's workshop.
"About that," Roman winced. "I looked into our reserve of available puppet bodies."
"So we're going to use a puppet body for her?" Shirou confirmed with a creased brow. "Will that work?"
"In this case, definitely not," Roman winced. "We're out."
Silence.
"Doo, doo, doo, doo," Silence that was broken by a sudden innocuous whistling from the only female body in the room.
"What?" Shirou asked. "I'm sorry, but what do you mean by 'we're out'?"
"Apparently a certain Caster used up the entire supply of puppet bodies a few weeks ago. And not for the first time either." Roman turned to the whistling Da Vinci. "While she did at least put in a requisition form for replacements, as she had the previous 13 times, I do wonder why the only explanation on the requisition usage on all of them is 'artistic license'."
"Doo, doo, doo, doo!" The only Caster in Chaldea whistled louder as Shirou turned to look at her.
"Da Vinci?" Roman asked with a haggard put-on air. "Could you please at least tell us where the puppet bodies are?"
"Well," Da Vinci looked away. "With the announcement of the First Order, I decided to upgrade my body a few months early with an emphasis on elegant combat prowess mixed with artistic beauty. But in order to be satisfied with the results, a certain experimentation is required to make the upgrade satisfactory. But I was sure the replacements were scheduled to come in the day of, even before, the First Order Rayshift started."
"The resupply run was delayed in favor of delivering Ritsuka Fujimaru to Chaldeas with all due haste. Good thing as otherwise, not only might we all be dead, Singularity F would be unsolved, and both Olga and Mash would be dead as well. But the bodies, Da Vinci," Roman exasperatedly begged. "where are the bodies? We can at least use any that haven't been used yet."
"Well, funny thing about that," Da Vinci looked almost nervous. "There isn't any unused."
"What did you use them for?" Roman asked rapidly.
"Artistic experimentation for better ratios in regard to the idealization of the perfect body," Da Vinci spat off some buzz words. "The result included an upgrade to the Golden Rule where I was able to better insert in angelic symbolism into one model. However, upon further reflection, the ability to reach the top shelf was better suited and I switched back to a previous model type with some upgrades particularly towards the efficacy of Uomo Universale."
"All of them?" Roman asked desperately, latching onto what he cared about.
"Hold it," Shirou asked, trying to piece together what Da Vinci was saying. "Are you saying that you used a puppet body for yourself?"
"Indeed," Da Vinci affirmed with a nod.
"And it was all of them?" Shirou pressed on.
"Not a single one was wasted," Da Vinci defended. "Every single one had different proportions, ratios, and modules and were compared rigorously."
"Can we at least use one to hold a human spirit without a Spirit Origin?" Roman pressed on.
"…No." Da Vinci said after a moment for thought. "I scrapped the rejects and the successes are permanently adjusted and are dependent on the interactions with a Spirit Origin."
"So in other words, you got excited over the Rayshift experiment with Singularity F and decided to do a full cosmetic upgrade after testing each upgrade out in different bodies. Then you disposed of the failures or kept a few back-ups that were optimized to your Spirit Origin." Roman concluded. "And you don't think you can adjust them to function as a container for a human spirit now."
"Not possible to remove the dependence on a Spirit Origin," Da Vinci affirmed. "Inserting her into a puppet body now would be like trapping Olga inside a locked and immobile car without an engine. Turning her into a ghost would be kinder."
"I heard that artist types could be difficult to deal with," Shirou began with slight disbelief, still on Da Vinci using them all up as he turned back to Roman. "But how could she go through all of them? Isn't that wasteful?"
"Artistic success requires sacrifice!" Da Vinci stated unabashedly as she wheeled around to point a finger at the pair.
"At least we have the materials down at the base. We just need to get Chaldea up and running again and then help solve the problems down there." Roman sighed and planted his face onto a desk. His muffled voice rose up from the wood. "A supply run whose late deliverance is an indication that Lev's sabotage was not limited to us."
"So we are left with no body for Olga to inhabit," Shirou concluded. "Thus rendering our plans to move her into a puppet body impossible."
"But my artistic form and back-ups are now superior!" Da Vinci gave a twirl to show off.
"Olga will not be happy to hear this, you know," After a pause to digest all this, Shirou stated with the solemnity of a man sentenced to hanging until dead.
"The future and current loss of my salary is worth the artistry of my perfect body!" Da Vinci defended her past actions without a trace of shame.
"I know, I know," Roman sighed. "Even Magi Mari told me that my only hope was to die."
"Who?"
"My internet idol!" Roman exclaimed with a look of happiness as he drew himself up from his faceplant. "The lovely Magi Mari whose wise and uplifting advice has brightened my days for many a year!"
"You just told me she told you to die," Shirou riposted.
Roman winced. "It is a bad day for her?"
"She always tells you to die," Da Vinci said in a flat voice.
"She has a lot of them?" Roman weakly defended.
Shirou looked flatly at Roman. "Are you sure she isn't just repeating the last thing she was programmed to say?"
"Can't be!" Roman declared. "She's an internet idol."
"From an internet we do not have access to," Shirou held up his communicator which had his email account open and informing him that his latest email to home was not able to be sent due to an error to connect to the external internet.
"She is amazing that way?" Roman stumbled in his defense.
"Something here sure is amazing," Shirou mumbled. "The amount of denial that is."
Da Vinci nodded in agreement, pouting over Roman's profuse praise of a suspicious internet program.
"Come to think of it, do we even know if Olga is in there?" Roman asked suddenly, trying to get the critics off of Magi Mari's—hypothetical!—failings.
Shirou glanced at Da Vinci. Da Vinci glanced at Roman. Roman glanced at Shirou.
Shirou shrugged. Da Vinci shrugged. Roman slumped in discouragement.
"So for all we know," Roman stated glumly. "Olga is already dead."
Somehow, that brought down the mood even further. Shirou would have been impressed as he was under the impression that it was pretty low to begin with but he was too discouraged to feel that amazement.
"I don't know," Shirou bluntly explained. "She isn't a sword so I don't know if she is there or her condition."
"Reality Marbles tend to be self-contained," Da Vinci defended her ignorance. "To probe one… I could set up CHALDEAS, SHEBA, and LAPLACE to do so but I don't have the time to do that and work on everything else."
"Well, looks like we'll need to start making preparations for the Rayshift and the Bounded Field," Roman pulled himself up to a standing posture. "Can we pull you off of a project to work on it?"
"Hmm," Da Vinci hummed in consideration. "I suppose that I can move off of writing the manuals to work on the project. It does mean we will have to put off upgrading Chaldea's defenses even further though."
"Oh yeah," Roman frowned. "That would be bad."
"Defenses?" Shirou asked.
Roman glanced in alarm at Shirou.
"Yes," Da Vinci affirmed. "Lev's betrayal at the very least means that all of Chaldea's defenses are known to the enemy, whoever their identity is. And since Lev has displayed an ability to link space-time to reach even into the heart of Chaldea, we have to rework the defenses to be able to handle Spatial Transportation, possibly even Pure Spatial Transference. It's rather tricky to handle."
Roman lowered his upraised hand.
"Don't worry, I'm pretty confident that Shirou knowing about the adjustments to the Bounded Fields won't compromise their integrity or effectiveness," Da Vinci continued. "Besides, any attack would require getting through the heightened security and we've already locked Lev out of the system. His recorded confession and assault upon the director helped a great deal with getting the permissions through. If he does try to repeat any such attack, he will have to deal with all of Chaldea's Bounded Fields. Nobody would be able to handle it lightly."
"Will he attack?" Shirou questioned, turning to Roman.
"To be honest," Roman shrugged as he gave in. "I'm surprised he hasn't yet. Lev knows where we are and our state. While you badly hurt him, blew out his torso actually, Ritsuka's and Mash's reports indicate that he was more angry and upset than afraid. Also, his abilities to move and talk weren't reduced at all despite the loss of his lungs so he seems to be non-human currently. And while we can hope that his backers have been crushed by the Mages Association, I wouldn't count on it."
"You don't think we are that lucky?" Shirou asked with irony thick in his voice.
"Considering everything that happened this last week?" Roman answered in a slump, the sarcasm flying over his exhausted head. "I'm afraid to ask how much worse it could get."
Thanks to shadyxlr for beta-reading.