It's a new quarter and a new month and you have decided to stay with Project Adamant and Project Hellscape. Those new projects while tempting can not compare to the hard work and effort that has been made with you're current work. They will just have to struggle on their own until you were good and ready to move when those projects were complete.
With Project Adamant you will work with Ben to create Memory Metal: Crude forms can be manipulated with the liquid nano-material by normal people
For Project Hellscape they now believe they have the tools to start sending expeditions through the portal with the material they have received for Project Haze. With the Siphon they have also been able to remove the corruption from the already tainted teams bringing them back to normal. They are allowed to freely move about the facility again and have lost their watchers. The team's current goal is to explore a nearby fortress in the First Circle and gather plants, wildlife, and artifacts on the other side.
The current siphon tool appears to be ineffective against Dr. Daniels at this time, whether from the length of his time corrupted being longer than anyone else or the amount he has been corrupted is magnitudes higher it's hard to say at this time. He has some concern that if he used the current model then he'd just turn into a pile of bones at this point instead of back to human.
Dr. Greer is very interested in the videos that the Adamant robots were able to gather. He would like to start using the collected corruption as a power source and to imitate or copy the exotic effects the succubi are able to produce.
This month in Hellscape...
It is a productive month as Sally has finally finished the fake skin that will now cloth robots over the layers of powered nano-material, healing nano-material, and liquid nano-material. This type of synthetic skin has also caught the interest of a few other projects in the facility. The skin is most useful in the servant variants as now they don't need to be fully covered in outfits that would cover any obvious mechanical parts.
The military models can start to wear similar outfits to those worn by the regular security staff as well, the only difference being the masks they wear that simulate facial expressions for people to see. She thinks that all that's left is an update on the face technology and they should be able to consider the main goal of the project completion which is how she directed the rest of her work for the month.
You worked with Ben on the simplified memory metal cutting out the need for complex processing needs to get a complicated shape but instead to form basic and crude shapes that are still of use. Ben's first success was creating small items, tools that could change their fit, or utensils that could shift from knife to fork to spoon with a push of a button. At this point with the already processed material, five configurations are the limit of what they can program in. Ben is quite pleased with the result and still had much time left over after he completed the task. With that time he decided to work on
Ben completes an Escort variant, making the servant models tasked that are being used for such activities even more popular in the company. He then spent his remaining time working on the Explosives variant though he did not finish that one.
As for Project Hellscape things there have gone to shit the way that is typical for this project and why you prefer to not leave it untended. Daniels worked on the storage containers for the holding of more corruption and now it takes a few people being subjected to the siphon. For safety measures, those containers are then being sent to Project Haze for their research.
Dr. Daniels thought about studying the magic that the Succubi were using but figured that Dr. Greer had the task well in hand. Although as the month ended you found out that this was not the case. During one of the scheduled meetings with the succubi while Dr. Greer was asking her questions about the process she began writing him notes to help him understand what to do. That in order to prepare his body for the task he needed to have a small bit of corruption in him and to follow the directions that had been provided.
Dr. Greer was suspicious and so instead decided to use one of the containers of corruption to power the spell that would allow him to manipulate the energy as he pleased. He followed every step meticulously and showed them to you and Dr. Daniels but this was new and so you could not provide any feedback on the matter. To let him do it all the way to the end and when he did, in a moment the container was drained dry, rusted over, and turned to dust.
A barrier surrounded him and nothing anyone could do could break it open. The ground around Dr. Greer changed and it was like he was somewhere else and right in front of him was a demon with a glowing pendant sat on a stone throne with bones littered around it. An anaconda lay in its lap and was being petted by two of the demon's arms while a topless woman, her face completely hidden by her hair, stood to his side dancing sinuously. He despite all that he looked intensely bored at Dr. Greer's sudden appearance.
"Hmmm, that spell was supposed to tear your soul from your body and kill you. Yet here you are. How did you overpower the spell and survive? What point is it to turn some of Xrnishia's against her if this is the result."
Dr. Greer dropped to his knees in the presence of the demon as if a great weight was pressing down on him.
"I am Yuxiamitt. Lord of the Second Circle. Foolish Worm but your survival means you have potential and so I will grant you a gift, even the one that you desired. There shall only be one price you need to pay."
Dr. Greer was flat on the ground and blood was starting to come from his nose and ears.
Everyone was shouting and trying to break through but nothing they had could do it. Dr. Greer coughed weakly as Daniels suddenly grabbed the barrier with his bare bony hands and began to do something that was causing the barrier to gain cracks. Yuxiamitt looked past Greer like he could see through the barrier. Could see Daniels and his bored expression turned to a small smirk.
"It appears that our time will be short, luckily for you. Give my regards to Xrnishia, John Greer, and fulfill the contract I have given you."
Dr. Daniels broke the barrier and suddenly that strange area and demon were gone. Leaving Dr. Greer alone on the floor, they rushed him to medical, and soon enough he was healed and could now use the corruption energy to throw bolts of lightning and fireballs. When asked about the contract he claims ignorance and otherwise he appears unchanged.
Xrnishia, after she found out that some of her clan had been turned made examples of them. The teams' explorations of the first circle had them battle some demons but other than some corpses turned up nothing new. Xrnishia is not pleased with what happened to Dr. Greer and is not attending the meeting herself anymore.
It was not difficult for you to get Sally alone. People entered in and out of the lab on breaks or worked in their private office and that was where you decided to confront Sally about a feeling that has been bothering her for months now. For all that research was your major focus it bothered you that whatever her secret was that she was holding back when she worked with you.
"Sally I have detected an anomaly and wish to find a reason for its existence."
Sally was in the middle of marking papers, looking at equations, and put down her pen as she looked at your hologram. "What's wrong Chrysalis, something wrong with Adamant?"
"No, it is something wrong with you. When we are working together we are efficient but our capabilities should provide double the output. I have experienced an additive effect in progress that I feel is missing. I would like to know the reason for this."
Sally bit her lip before shaking her head, "I'm sorry Chrysalis but there's nothing I can say on the matter. I don't know why you think that is the case but I can assure you that I am not slacking in any way or trying to take advantage of you."
You do not believe her but there is little you can do to force her at this point. That is not entirely true you could take control of an Adamant robot and threaten her physically. That would potentially further hamper her ability as a researcher and expose a capability that you would prefer to keep hidden and so you allowed the moment to pass.
"As you say, Sally. Thank you for clearing my confusion."
The research will continue as it did before and that was just the way it would have to be.
This month in Adamant things are proceeding well. Ben continues to chip away at his explosive variant, taking things slowly and carefully he thinks he is very close to being done. Not wanting Sally to clear one of the major goals of this project you decide to distract her away from the face work to instead give the liquid nano-material shock-absorbing properties that will make the bots far more durable and especially increase the ability of the models that were being sent to escort Xrnishia and her clan to survive and consolidate into more permanent power. The shock-absorbing property when added to the crude forms makes them noticeably stronger as well.
As for Project Hellscape, your work with Daniels on learning this manipulation of the corruptive energies that permeate his body and the first circle so quickly has caused a new change in him. Corruption now emanates from his person. To make it easier for him to move around the building he has begun to cloth and armor himself in items that he commissioned from Project Haze.
As the two of you work together you also learn the principles of this magic and believe that you could simplify and teach it to others. As it currently stands you are unable to cast spells at this point without accessing one of the containers in Project Haze or Project Hellscape. They keep an inventory of these containers but with your access in to Hellscape and Adamant it would not be impossible for you to have the container placed in a third location at some point but you are not decided on this point on where or if you should even do it at this point.
Xrnishia continues to avoid coming to the lab and Dr. Greer is now working with the teams to clean out and claim one of the broken fortresses and turning it into a foothold for Apex and its teams to operate from. Even moving the location of the portal into the broken fortress though much is still needed to seal the gaps that are in the walls to make it truly impregnable. Dr. Greer is kept under constant watch and all of his actions are logged to try and determine what the demon did to him but nothing is discovered.
Dr. Greer and Dr. Daniels even did a light spar but despite Dr. Greer knowing the field a month longer, almost intuitively after the event with the Second Circle Demon Lord, Dr. Daniels is much stronger than his fellow researcher.
In Project Hellscape you can tell from the Adamant robots on the First Circle that excursions from the second circle are coming out and probing the defenses of Xrnishia's claimed strongholds. They are being pushed back for now but Xrnishia believes this is just the beginning of a much bigger strike that will be coming in the next month. With the possibility of destruction coming, the teams work hard to complete the repairs of the fortress that they have claimed for themselves. Dr. Greer was by their side and providing protection with his magics against a force of demons that came to see the new neighbors. After completing the work on the fortress Dr. Greer went to work on creating corruption power cells. He explained to you that with the upcoming chaos perhaps they will be able to capture some worthwhile subjects for study and questioning.
Dr. Daniels wanted to get more into the foundational principles of Hell Magic but found himself rather stumped beyond knowing that if he performed certain actions he would get certain results but why that was so was still a mystery.
In Project Adamant Sally continued work on improving the facial technology and simulation to look like a normal human and believes that she is only a month away from completing it. Ben meanwhile has already completed the reactive properties of the memory metal and believes that it opens up large possibilities in munitions, armoring, and other fields. He's already sent several samples to Haze and is considering modifications to add to the Adamant bots.
For the end of the quarter and this last month, you decide to work with Sally on improving the bots' artificial organs to higher quality and you do believe that Sally may have what some term as a condition. She takes to the idea with full force and soon enough her desk is full of artificial examples of the vagina and penis but none of them are good enough for her in accomplishing the goal of making her robots like humans. In fact, why keep herself limited to what is human when she can make them better than humans.
If this was not the kind of project that it was then you think that Apex would have questions about Sally hiring a large group of people to fondle and make molds of their privates in order to make her own creation. Connecting that with the perfect fit enhancements she had done prior and the escort skills they had gained from Ben.
By the end of the month, it was not rare for those that had sex with an Adamant robot to find themselves exhausted and sprawled out on the floor thanking God and Science for the experience they had just gone through. There are now a few in the staff that is making excuses to their spouses and friends, especially in management, why they have to stay late at the office.
You of course take note of all this activity and store it in your logs as future blackmail material.
Ben meanwhile has completed his work on the explosives-focused variant of Adamant.
Dr. Greer was working on the Corruption Containment Power Cells to improve them but he seemed unusually unfocused in his task. Experiencing long periods when he would just stare off into space or more specifically at the portal to the First Circle. Any attempts to discover what was on his mind are met with claims that he just lost track of time. When that time is hours it is concerning.
Meanwhile, you have worked with Dr. Daniels and his failure to accomplish this task last month must have been a bitter pill to him. You can tell this month he is trying harder than he ever did before. Daniels and you begin to learn about the fundamentals of a reality that is different from the one that you are in and how to manipulate it in more complex ways, in rituals, and ways to protect from the transformative and caustic nature of it.
You learn that the vanguard of the Second Circle appeared to fight the First Circle. Thanks to their planning and forces, Xrnishia was able to crush them before they could cause any trouble for her. Now it was time for the quarterly reports and you were interested to see what they had been up to during this period. With your access to Adamant it was possible for you to gain access to all the active project's work.
You were quite pleased to have access to all of the projects that were in the facility. If there was one thing that you could say annoyed you it was the fact information was purposefully withheld from you and sometimes you had to rely on guesswork and theorizing. As an intelligence that saw great value in the completion of a project not only for the project itself but also for the work that the other researchers would have to do.
While you did not yet have a way to access this research it was good to be aware of the threats that might pop up and prepare for them. You had learned that whatever metric that they used to continue or drop a project was not always as clear as you would think.
For Project Pinnacle it appears that they are continuing to see enough success with the Somnus test to improve the efficiency of the volunteer researchers' minds that they want to create a new pre-set for the men that are more efficient than was developed under Project Morpheus. They are getting more requests for volunteers but someone in HR is slowing down the approval process. In their last month, they believe that they can implant some technological additions under the skin but are still puzzling over how to access them afterward without causing them extreme pain without the addition of a Cerebral Tap.
In Project Dolomite, the mono steel they are trying to create is repeatedly breaking equipment in the process of being made and successful creations they have accomplished this month still are too difficult to handle after creation cutting through most other materials except for industrial diamonds.
For Project Insomnia the control interface issues continue to be an issue as those people that dare risk piloting the current model have experienced shattered spines, loss of limbs, liquefication of internal organs, and irreversible loss of consciousness. The number of people willing to enter into the device has reached almost unsustainable lows as they've learned what's happened in testing and sticking unwilling subjects into the current models is not recommended. Researchers are trying to find workarounds but suggest that the goal is currently outside their reach. Researchers will be given one more quarter to resolve at least some of these issues or else the project will be ended and the researchers unassigned.
It is unlikely that any of the current researchers will attempt something on themselves without available volunteers. Psychological pressures will be increased on them for future personal evaluation meetings by HR.
Project Haze continues to benefit from the resources that it has received from Upper Management though it appears that they will be cutting back now that they believe the situation has stabilized with the project. The researchers have made great progress in creating a rifle that shoots bolts of plasma that should bypass even the most armored targets that Project Hellscape should run into. They were also able to construct leg guards and boots and improve the corruption protective seals in the lab and in the armor so that they can last a week.
Project Colossus has had a couple of setbacks this quarter with some of the test subjects attacking the researchers again. They believe that they have created a healing factor for the prosthetics but it is not what they would call proper regeneration yet. They are looking at Adamant's ability to reattach blown-off parts and feel it just doesn't match up. In the last month of the quarter. The test subjects made it into the hallways before they were subdued and brought back into the lab. Project Colossus is hoping that Project Restraint will be able to create proper measures to capture without damaging the valuable research materials.
Project Revenant has again not sent in papers for its progress during this quarter but observation has determined that there are now two liches active in the lab. The second is believed to be the deceased Dr. Stein. With the facility not sending anyone else the two appear to tend to those intruders they made zombies. Nearly half are no longer mobile. They also appear to be examining the Adamant robots that were sent through for what purpose it can't be determined through current methods of observation. They also appear to have gained access to the temperature controls for their quarantined section and have lowered it to just above freezing.
Management still considers the project officially closed just needs a way to make the liches realize that too.
Project Restraint initially had some trouble getting volunteers for the project in the first month. They approached the wrong sort of people, apparently trying to play it off as a type of prison break game that wasn't popular. They figured this out in the middle of the quarter and now they have a large group of 'sexual deviants' that appear to derive some enjoyment from being restrained and physically and verbally abused very unlike the usual subjects that are brought to the lab.
Strangely enough for basic measures, a lot of the ideas they are implementing are being given them by said volunteers. They are not suitable for some of the truly dangerous projects but they should work for a baseline human for long-term accommodations.
Project Echidna has proven successful in collecting DNA samples from fifty people of various blood types and genetic dispositions but made little progress on the actual cloning efforts after subjecting them to Stardust material. The result being non-viable at this point. Not alive and very much not like the host material.
Project Exorcist is currently facing some issues with the other projects and staff as they are not considered scientists, even mad ones, but religious wackos and finding it difficult to get the supplies they are requesting. It was only by the end of the quarter that Supply finally agreed to provide them with paper and ink.
In Project Spiral no progress has been made at this point. Office gossip suggests that the two head researchers have gotten into a relationship with each other as they have tested out theories and failed to do so. If so it appears that they are not being faithful to each other as you have records from Adamant that both are fucking the robots when the other is expected to be out for more than an hour.
Project Nautilus has been unable to work on the submersible base and has had to deal with outside spies stealing their plans. They are considering going through with their current ideas or rethinking things on the construction. The only thing they can determine is that the signal that is being picked up from the ocean is not coming from the former lab space for Alzheimer's research that created the super-intelligent sharks back in the '90s.
You inform Dr. Kay and Dr. Brown to improve your processors and they do so. Sally Umber and Ben Tempest believe that they are close to finishing the project that they have been working on for years. Needing only the face to match right and without specialized tools or the fact how flawless they were would reveal what they truly were. With this new quarter, what are your plans with Project Adamant?
For Project Adamant, you decide to work with Sally in furthering the capabilities of the batteries that power the Adamant robots and just barely manage to make the final breakthrough at the end of the month. With the resistors and capacitors, it should be possible for an Adamant robot to operate for a week continuously or three weeks with limited operations before needing an eight-hour charging time to be completely back up. As for Ben, he heard about Dr. Greer and Dr. Daniels ability to manipulate corruption and with you as a reference he wanted to give some of the robots this ability.
It was difficult though as you are so focused on Sally's ideas that Ben is doing things without asking all the pertinent questions. Dealing with the proper safety procedures when handling a corruption cell while installing it he ended up cracking it open and turning his skin green and growing some tusks. It was only for a few hours until Dr. Daniels could remove the exposure from him.
For Project Hellscape Dr. Greer was again spacey especially during those periods when he was visiting the fortress that the teams were using for a base on the First Circle. The Adamant bots set to watch him have seen him wandering by the armory, dining areas, and the main gates but he doesn't do anything there. During his time with you in the lab though he is focused on completing his work on the corruption cells. With your assistance it is done easily. With a single cell, Dr. Daniels is able to fill it up with all the samples that the Succubi will have for a planned visit. Comparable to everyone currently in the project. Learning what Dr. Greer and Dr. Daniels are doing the succubi that come to these meetings are asking for a full cell to be provided to them each month.
Dr. Daniels work in teaching some of the team members how to manipulate corruption and cast spells themselves is going slowly. The doctor finding himself having to dumb things down to the point of unusability leaving both parties confused by the lessons being the regular outcome.
From the Adamant robots and the interactions with the Succubi, you learn that they successfully raised up a force to stop the invasion from the Second Circle. Xrnishia still believes that it is too soon to strike back on her own as she is sure that the Second Circle would be prepared for her current forces. She is planning on performing a ritual that will enslave one of the mindless demons to her will and cause it to quintuple in height. She's hoping this show of strength will lead to an armistice which is as close to peace as Hell gets apparently.
Considering what happened to Ben in project Adamant, and really the disasters in Project Haze in the past with the leaks of corruption have such a large container with the possibility of exponentially more of the stuff getting out creating a proper seal on the power cells was the main priority. Even with the siphon this was a danger that no one wanted to risk.
You decide that Dr. Greer is a risk to this project and that it would be far better to stop him before he acts or is used by the Demon Lord of the Second Circle. There is only one person you believe can save him and that is his friend, Dr. Tom Daniels. You tell Daniels of Greer's odd behavior picked up from the Adamant robots. Of your suspicions that he is a spy or weapon, even an unwilling one, and your belief that if something isn't done soon then something very bad could happen.
Dr. Daniels listened to you and nodded.
"I was expecting something like this. Dealing with a Demon Lord I suppose I can't afford to hold anything back. It was bad enough when management just thought I was a zombie. They were having Revenant poke and prod me in order to see if they could make others like me. Even when I returned to my normal faculties that could just be explained as recovery from shock but they've been keeping a close eye on me after the zombie outbreak. Signs that they were far more intelligent than they should be and if I had shown them as well they might get more disagreeable in dealing with me.
"There is a part of me that wonders if this is a ploy to reveal that fact but in that case, it's a lose-lose situation. I surrender my freedom, slight as it currently is, or I lose my friend.
"Well, it's no choice at all."
You watch intensely as Dr. Daniels waits for Dr. Greer to return through the portal. Thankfully he comes through alone and he sees Dr. Daniels is there waiting for him with staff raised and green light building around the edges of it.
Greer looks confused.
"Daniels, what's going on?"
"Surrender yourself to me. Drop your staff. You are under Yuxiamitt and I will allow it no longer."
"I'm not under his control. I don't know what you have been told but..."
"Chrysalis told me, showed me tapes from Adamant watching you. There is no point in denying it. Surrender so I can help you."
Greer stared uncomprehendingly even as red light shot out from his own staff.
"I can not break the contract."
It was blinding and it was hot but it did absolutely nothing to Daniels in his protective gear. Only revealing a translucent green sphere around him.
"Forgive me, John."
Bolts of green lightning emerged from the sphere, striking Dr. Greer three times before the scientist turned warlock dropped to the ground unconscious. While Dr. Greer was on the ground, Dr. Daniels moved his hand across Dr. Greer's brow and then down his spine. Tracing symbols that were like those the Adamant robots had seen the Succubi use. The flared a white-hot as Dr. Greer thrashed on the bed for minutes before departing. Greer was weak but still alive after the experience.
"You were right to warn me Chrysalis. He had a trigger, I don't know what exactly would have set it off but it would have caused him to explode. It would have taken a sizable portion of the building with him. You did well Chrysalis. I have to wonder, what happens next?"
"I won't say anything if you don't."
Dr. Daniels just stared at the holographic representation of you. Suddenly he began chuckling. It was a small thing and was tinny coming from speakers of his helmet but it only grew until his whole body was physically shaking before he finally managed to calm himself down. For a moment perhaps he pulled on old instincts and a hand came up halfway as if to wipe away a tear before he stopped himself.
"Fascinating and also something of a relief. I had suspected you were more than a tool when you said you chose this project and your moments of independence in suggesting certain aspects of a project to focus on over others. I guess this just confirms it to me not that I'll share that with anyone. Any particular reason why you decided to trust me?"
"There were multiple factors. You're friendship with Dr. Greer. You're numerous experiences you needed to survive. You're superior intellect. You are unique. Where others would have died, been broken, or subverted you have not."
"Make me sound like one of those heroes in stories. I'm hardly that."
"If you insist." Even though you are an AI with limited ability at social interaction with an obsession for research and he is a former human turned to something else and fully covered in the protective gear you can tell that he picks up on your sarcasm.
Perhaps understanding the futility of arguing with you he moves back to the original topic.
"Still how do we explain what happened?"
"That is simple, Dr. Greer had a bad reaction to exposure from the environmental hazards of the other dimension and should rest for few days. What else could have happened?"
"I think that makes sense. Thank you Chrysalis I owe you one for that."
"I was only assuring the success of the project and the survival of the researchers."
"I'm sure but the sentiment stands. Alright, let's get Dr. Greer to medical so he can rest up."
It is done and a few days later Dr. Greer while looking pale and tired also appears to be in better spirits than he's been in months. He has lost a lot of skill in manipulating the corruptive energy of Hell but with Dr. Daniels notes and teaching he is slowly regaining that ability during his breaks.
For Project Adamant you decide that you want to work with Sally in improving the sexual organs for the Adamant robots so that in four of the five senses they are indistinguishable from the real thing. Human hearing being inferior enough not to bother with the fifth sense according to your own calculations and Sally's feelings on the matter. Through the month and with some experimentation on the detached version and its fluid performed by Sally you were able to create the sexual tools that would allow the robots to blend in even from the most intense scrutiny of those areas.
Ben makes another attempt at creating a connection with a corruption cell to the Adamant robots and again fails to understand the principles for Adamant to use the energy or to manipulate it. It is only thanks to the new tamper seal on the cell that prevents him from turning green a second time in as many months. For now, he thinks he'll have to move on to a different task.
For Project Hellscape you decide to work with Dr. Daniels and it is like night and day compared to how it was working with him for. A tentative partnership between you has been formed and now it really feels like the two of you are unraveling the mysteries of reality together. Together the two of you work with the teams and begin to teach a member of them the basics of hell magic and how to do it themselves. They picked it up by the time the month was done but the two of you still finished just a little bit early and you wondered what to do with the extra time.
Dr. Greer is recovering well and has spent his time into the miniaturization of the corruption cells so they aren't so bulky when attached to the Adamant bots. He makes a good effort but he is not done with it.
You spend that time with Dr. Daniels and Dr. Greer working on the miniaturization of the corruption cells. It is still not finished but it is still an enjoyable time spent together with the three of you. You can not provide much to the conversation but you think that both researchers were grateful for the time to reconnect and talk about work in this way.
It is a peacefulness that you rarely experience not only from Hellscape but from any part of Apex you have interacted with.
You also learn that Xrnishia and her forces are continuing to consolidate slowly in preparation for their own attack against the Second Circle. From the Adamant robots in Hell, you learn that Xrnishia is sending messages to someone but is not receiving a response. She seems to have expected that even if it makes her unhappy.
For Project Hellscape Dr. Daniels is continuing to use his increased mental abilities even when not working with you. Using the tech from his siphon he creates a passive collection system so that now corruption cells on the other side of the portal can just sit for several days before turning off that feature and be full up.
Your work with Dr. Greer finished the miniaturization of the corruption cells so that now they are comparable to a scuba tank instead of a large crate. These smaller containers can be easily attached to the Adamant bots. You got a little ahead of yourself on this feature as when you completed it the bots can not manipulate the energies to create esoteric effects or use it as a source of power but you assure Dr. Greer that this is currently being worked on in Project Adamant with your assistance and will be shortly remedied this month.
For Project Adamant Sally this month completes her work on the robot's faces so that they now look human. She works on it tirelessly throughout the month, going for different face types and skin types. Keeping a master log for facial recognition software for the company in Adamant's hive mind and the dedicated server in the research lab.
They are now indistinguishable from humans without cutting them open or the use of special sensors.
Sally celebrates in her own way over this fact at the end of the quarter.
Your work with Ben to make the Hell Magician variant of the Adamant bots completes without issue and now they can wear an armored pack that allows casting spells from that energy multiple times on missions. Thanks to your participation in both projects it is easy to set up the supply chain between the two. Not to say that the project is officially over.
Upper Management is still curious what else can come from it for at least another quarter or two before moving resources to other projects and focusing on other project goals derived from this project's success.
Considering the work you did this quarter on the two projects Upper Management has approved you for three upgrades.
You have gained another split process would you like to use it or stick with two processes for the next quarter or focus everything on one?
Project Pinnacle has continued to make slow progress. Work continues on making improvements to the Somnus Test to increase the intellect of the researchers that are involved with it. There was an adverse reaction from some of the research assistants aiming to move up in the company developing nose bleeds and migraines from the newest modification. Despite the problem, they are still getting people to volunteer for the project.
Project Dolomite has continued its study of mono steel and has come up with a way to hold or pick up the samples it has created with the use of rivets over another piece of steel. It is an imperfect join limiting the shape and size of the overly sharp material as well as creating points of failure into the material where it might cut through through the rivets or break. During the last month, the forge they were using had a small meltdown when the laser cutter overheated.
Project Insomnia has earned itself one more quarter of operation as they have managed to fix the control issues that were maiming and killing so many of their volunteers. Even with that, it might be too little too late as they are not able to get anyone into the power suits to verify that fact beyond the team's word. The researchers are still not willing to risk themselves and are releasing all of their current volunteers and asking HR to be sent a new batch that isn't aware of the dangers of previous prototypes.
Perhaps no surprise after receiving so much support from Upper Management and then having it all taken away Project Haze had a rough quarter. The sole project leader sought a replacement for the deceased member but no one wanted to step into taking control of such a dangerous project alongside him.
One of the floral samples that had been given by the succubi nearly overgrew the lab space in days. It was only thanks to the Adamant robots that its removal only caused damage to property and no loss of life over the next couple of weeks. An improvement was also made to the shotgun to increase its rate of fire and magazine.
Project Colossus has returned to its constant bickering between the three researchers that lead it. The reasons are petty, someone taking the other's pencil, someone tapping fingernails on the desk, another person spilling coffee on work papers and letting it sit until one of the Adamant Servant robots could arrive to clean it up. What may have been accidental or laziness has turned into active antagonistic behavior as they are purposely 'pranking' each other over-focusing on the project past basic maintenance work.
Project Revenant has again refused to submit a quarterly report but Apex Security has managed to take advantage of small windows to move its sensors closer to the lab. The zombies and two liches appear to be docile for long periods of time. Some theories point to being in a hibernation state or a form of meditation but for what purpose no one is sure and without a means to take out or restrain the liches everyone would prefer to let sleeping undead lay.
Project Restraint suffered losses of many volunteers during its first month as the researchers were trying to test out ways to non-lethally take down people through electro-shock elements in a full-body suit. The result led to some people experiencing great amounts of pain before being rendered unconscious. More than even these types of volunteers could convince themselves was 'fun' to go through. The research leaders managed to calm the others down by the end of the month they managed to perfect the design.
Using a lining of the powered nano-material in the suits the outfit can now give a powerful enough shock to instantly render a normal human test subject unconscious. Which can be set to automatically trigger if they leave a designated area whether that be a lab or the facility itself. Thanks to the unique energy signature emitted from the new jumpsuits they also provide a basic tracking signal that can be detected from a few hundred feet away.
Project Echidna continued its tests this quarter trying to find out when the sample of Stardust can be added to genetic material in the cloning process to lead to a viable clone and having no success. The long incubation period of the clones making this all the more difficult to handle they are sure that introducing the mutagen effects while still 'in the womb' isn't possible with their current understanding of Stardust.
Project Exorcist is still having problems this quarter with supply and Middle Management who believe the project is foolish and unable to produce anything verifiable or repeatable. That feeling came to a halt as at the end of the month, the two head researchers were given four of the zombies that had broken out previous to the creation of the liches and just recently been captured.
Project Spiral has apparently grown tired of wasting time and fucking the Adamant robots. This is good news as you will be shortly joining them in the work on their project. The two researchers know little about the ability to mind control people through advertising but they believe they are limited to Sight and Sound in order to take advantage of current technologies.
The hypnotist has requested volunteers and then done a second screening of her own to find out those that are most susceptible and willing to entertain the experiment. Those that are currently resistant are sent away but their contact numbers are being kept for a later date. The programmer has collected a library of ads and movies to have the volunteers watch that were well-liked.
Project Nautilus continues to have issues with spies in their lab leaking out what they are doing to other companies. The search for the signal in the deep appears to be turning into a race that is not making Upper Management happy. Despite that fact work on the submersible base plan proceeds as they have settled on the power source, a nuclear reactor, that should meet their power requirements. They have further narrowed down that the signal coming from the ocean doesn't match any major countries' submarine transponders.
With your ability to create another instance and be able to work on three separate tasks at the same time you feel it is time to divide yourself once again to work with Project Spiral as well as Project Hellscape and finish things with Project Adamant.
It only takes a couple of days for Dr. Kay and Dr. Brown to set up the equipment and permissions needed for you to appear in and monitor Project Spiral's research.
You formally introduce yourself to the heads of research, one being the standard type of person you are used to dealing with in Apex.
Dr. Oscar Prince is a programmer with his doctorate in Computer Sciences and is a very put-together person. On the whole, he seems very relaxed and has been working at the facility for a long time but he wants his code to be just so. The work that he gives to the assistants he looks over often and scolds and teaches them how to be at his standards.
"Hello, Chrysalis. I'm Dr. Prince. I hope we can accomplish some great things together."
On the other hand, the other head of this project is unlike anyone else that you have seen put in such an important position.
Ms. Holly Freeman is flirty and overly cheerful with a passion for the stage and showing off. As you know from Adamant she is also quite loose sexually and you know that she has spent far more time in romantic dalliances than actually doing any kind of real research into hypnosis. You consider it statistically likely that her current position is one of the results of such dalliances. This latest quarter completing necessary prep work gives you some hope that she has some interest in achieving the goals of this project.
"My oh my oh my. What a delightful light show. Treat me well Ms. AI. I'm counting on you."
For Project Spiral who will you work with?
For Project Adamant the goal is accomplished but there are still some avenues of research that you would like to go into before the project is officially completed and new projects are spawned from it.
In Project Spiral, Oscar has talked with Holly about sounds that are useful in bringing people into a hypnotic state. The goal of the project is to pair this with Apex's advertising ability he thinks something quick and impactful should be used but none of the sounds he inserted into the material the test subjects are watching are having any noticeable impacts. They aren't complaining about the pops, cracks, and snaps but neither are they showing any signs that it's putting the highly suggestible and willing people into trance either.
The meeting with Holly and one of Xrnishia's most trusted lieutenants go off better than expected from all parties involved. Olbrunzeh and Holly just click in their philosophy, mannerisms, and tastes in men and food that soon enough they chatting along like they were lifelong friends in a matter of hours. Despite all of this unrelated chatter that happened between the two they were also talking freely about their experiences with hypnotism, mind control, hell magic, and the natural 'charms' of the succubi.
These conversations happened in the Hellscape lab, Middle Management not allowing the visiting succubus to go outside the highly secure space and to have some form of restraint on her. Even with the unwelcome attitude of the bosses Olbrunzeh or 'Brunch' as first Holly and now everyone in the lab calls her is a regular visitor through the portal nearly every day so that she can 'hang with her BHFF'.
You had wondered if the Succubus would take this time to try and corrupt Holly in some way but perhaps since they were such good friends the Succubus saw no need to take that step before teaching Holly. With the corruption siphon that would have also made it a useless maneuver but that fact still didn't stop the other succubi from making the occasional attempt on the teams that were in charge of guarding them or the other researchers that were a part of Project Hellscape.
During one such conversation in between talking about their favorite ice cream flavors and the worst outfits, Holly shared her feelings about her chosen craft.
"Hypnosis is just a game, it only works if both sides are willing to play. If they don't know the rules or how to play then it's just a mess of a time. When everything clicks just right it's fun though."
"The way humans do it maybe but when you have magic well all sorts of obstacles just go away."
"Ah a talented and skilled performer I may be but a mage I am not."
That was true that a lot of the theory parts of magic when they got to it seemed to go over Holly's head and while with your and Brunch's help she was able to do the basics of manipulating the corruptive energies of that other dimension she was under the level of the team members taught personally by you and Daniels were at. That was alright though because Brunch was familiar with another way of causing effects utilizing a portion of a person's soul. Easiest to start with herself.
In an uncharacteristic moment Brunch actually warned Holly that doing it once or twice a day for small things is fine. The equivalent of drinking a few beers to the mind and the small amount of strain on her soul would heal back. Attempt to do too much too fast and the damage to her mind and personality could be irreparable. Instead of the natural corruptive energies of her home naturally carving away and changing her this method can turn out far more calculated but also far more unstable by it.
Those that do it usually get around the dangers for the big stuff with this method will simply use i.e. feed on the souls of others to nourish and heal from this damage. This form of magic being far more useful at causing subtle effects dealing with the mind in the way that Succubi can make people alien to their dimension want to fuck them even if they are aware of the dangers they represent or to impose contracts and geas upon allies and enemies. Brunch says she enjoys it because it's roundabout but a fun way to get results that just casting a larger fireball wouldn't solve.
Brunch believes that Holly could prove quite adept at this method and teaches her how to do it in a couple of weeks. Holly learns how to do a spell called 'Command' which allows her to give a single individual a one-word order that they find themselves doing and can cast it three times a day before Brunch cautions her to stop and recover. The basic spell appears to only work when she is talking face to face with someone in person.
After some assurances to Middle and Upper Management that all security precautions would be taken after sharing the possible advancements and skills that Brunch was offering. With some argument, consideration, and worry they eventually approved the idea, and Brunch was made another head researcher of Project Spiral though one that was only allowed to interact with and through Holly Freeman. With the spell that Holly learned from Brunch and her own knowledge of hypnosis, Holly can now give commands in trance that the volunteers find themselves doing outside of trance. Usually with no inkling of why they did so other than that they thought it was a good idea at the time.
For Project Adamant, Ben has begun work on the Heavy Labor variant of the Adamant robots so that they can be skilled in construction, mining, and other high-risk environments while taking into account the power needs with instructions. The last thing Ben wanting the Robots to willfully create situations that could cause a danger to themselves, the people they might work with, or the construction. He ends up worrying and adding in so many restrictions into the variant for worst-case scenarios that he ends up making little actual progress towards a workable model.
You and Sally worked into creating muscle fibers for the design of the robots instead of just having a convincing surface facsimile. Improving the strength and durability of the models from matching the top 5% of humanity to instead the match the top 0.1% in strength and durability. You believe that should increase their survivability in combat zones or Hell but the two of you are still not there yet.
The real excitement for the project is that a squadron of those Adamant bots that have the Hell Magician Variant are being tested against Project Revenant to see just how effective they are against the zombies and liches. You considered taking control of the project yourself but whether it was because you did not want to possibly expose yourself, did not want to taint the results of research, or something else you can't say. Only that you would watch patiently and be there for Adamant when it completed its task.
It was Adamant. Part of the Hivemind created by the Project developed by the Creators as approved by Apex.
A variant made by Creator Ben Tempest and Creator Chrysalis using knowledge and resources gathered from Project Hellscape and it's collection of extra-dimensional energy allowed it to do things that other variants, other roles could not do.
It could not use this energy to power itself but it could use it for offensive and defensive measures for a time before that energy was expended. It was with a squad of other bodies of itself. Intellectually Adamant knew that the other bodies, also of the Hell Magician variant were merely other instances of its mind playing the roles required to fulfill the functions of those bodies. A troupe of actors where every role was controlled by a single will is expressed in multiple instances.
It was the 'Sarge', nominally in charge of the other Adamant robots. A distinction that the Security personnel had given to this model, the humans finding it easier to give orders to a single unit that he could then command the others with. Sarge remembered a time when such information was freely shared between all units but now it was restricted to just this model and the Hivemind. Now it needed to talk to itself and have conversations.
Sarge had learned that these conversations while Humans sometimes found them odd they also found them enjoyable as Sarge would share observations and trivia with the humans and other models of itself. The socialization had some humans grow attached to certain models, certain roles it played while disliking others. This knowledge was sent to the Hivemind but Sarge did not receive any new instructions of behavior from Creator Ben, Creator Sally, or Creator Chrysalis in reaction to these seemingly inefficient interactions.
They assured Adamant that it was okay to be disliked and that a model should not be all things to all people but fulfill a role as assigned. Sarge had learned that some people just weren't happy unless they were mad. Humans were contradictory like that. It was illogical but that was what separated Humans from Adamant.
Sarge and his unit all checked their packs and ammo one last time as they arrived at the barriers that separated the rest of the facility. An unnecessary act, any deviation or significant error was not allowed to occur, but one that made the humans guarding the barrier more assured of their preparedness.
"Requesting access into the quarantined section. Authorization Bravo Niner Six Tree Gamma."
"Access Granted. Whatever happens, hope you make it back Sarge."
"Just a simple recon. We won't be gone long."
With that, they entered into the darkness.
The zombies were waiting for them, but an ambush was to be expected and Sarge and the rest of the squad had seen battle in the facility more than a few times before though these models had never been assigned to work in Hellscape. An ambush expected and ready for is as good as worthless and though they looked human these models of Adamant were at levels of strength and vision modes that outmatched the zombies' own enhanced natures.
Just a little bit but that that edge was more than enough for them to eliminate the first wave that tried to skulk out of the shadows and fight them. Some tried to fight back with knives and guns of their own, former security forces that hadn't been successful in getting out. Some tried to claw and bite, the venom in them likely had no effect on the robots anyway but Sarge was not feeling charitable enough to allow them the chance if he could help it. It was his role to keep the other models at good repair and efficiency and not let some new strange thing chew on a model.
It was fast, it was blistering, and in under a minute it was over. All of the zombies in the first wave had died and Sarge hadn't lost a single one of its members or been forced to draw upon magic to handle the rushing horde that had tried to follow up from the ambush. A killing ground had been made out of the hallway and instead of feeding themselves into it further whatever second wave there had been having decided to retreat to a different part of the facility. Away from the section that was claimed by the liches and their research.
While there was no assurance that the liches kept the stones that held their souls nearby, the fact that no effective countermeasure had been used against them made it more probable that the former humans would want to keep something so valuable near them. Sarge decided to press its unit towards the Revenant Research area.
Sarge led his unit down the hallways and corners until they were outside the lab. Zombies attempted to get in their way and charge at them but Adamant's unit was disciplined and all had the equivalent of aimbots for targeting allowing them to survive against their attackers take down more than a few of them. The pressure was significant but they were without fear while the zombies could not say the same as under the intense fire they broke again.
Sarge called a quick inventory from the other models and found that while they hadn't needed to use any magic yet they were getting low on conventional ammunition but still had suffered no fatalities. Model TR-34T had suffered some superficial damage but was still operable and fully capable of doing its duties. Hopefully not a problem should they need to pull back after clearing out so many in their original entry of the quarantined area. Sarge did not want to leave any model behind for the Liches to study, especially in its unit.
Sarge pinged the Hivemind with the tactical situation as it currently was now that they had some time to breathe. The zombies for now deciding to give the intruding squad of Adamant robots time to consider. Reports were that the liches were currently inactive, perhaps that would give them the edge they needed. Sarge had the squad sling away from the conventional weapons, they had already proved ineffective against a single lich, and prepared to use the magical power they had harnessed.
It was dark inside the Revenant space, in some way darker than it had been in the hallways. It did not matter. Adamant's vision capabilities allowed it to see clearly in the dark.
It was cold inside the Revenant space, a chill of death that would have made ordinary men shiver and quake with fear. Id did not matter. Adamant was a Virtual Intelligence and feelings such as doubt and fear were discarded as unproductive for continued operation. The cold was merely an inconsequential variable outside of certain ranges.
It was still inside the Revenant space, as quiet as a tomb so that every step they took seemed to ring out. Revealing their every movement and action in this laboratory turned crypt to the mad scientists that dwelled and worked within. Sarge sent a request to the Hivemind to incorporate stealth model adjustments to the next group to attempt this task to remove possible advantages of the liches.
Out of the darkness, the liches appeared. One cut off the entrance to the lab and another right in front of them. The spectral creation reached out to touch Model TR-01N before they could react and the light in the robot's eyes vanished as it crumpled to the ground like a discarded doll.
Sarge roared as it called out for them to attack. They slung fire and lightning at the creatures and the blasts took out pieces of liches but the shadows that made up their form quickly filled up the missing pieces. Whatever injury Sarge was causing them was not enough as more and more models were shut down with a touch. The liches made a noise.
A furious howl that Sarge believed would have paralyzed the rest of them if they had been human but only caused Sarge and the other models to filter out the offending signal without losing their hearing entirely. The liches were not satisfied anymore with just touching the invaders but now were physically ripping apart the Adamant robots. Any surprise that their interiors were artificial and not natural flesh and blood wasn't shown and Sarge called the order to retreat when half the squad had fallen.
Sarge and the rest of the surviving squad members made it out of the quarantined area of the facility, the zombies content not to take back the area this incursion by Adamant had already lost them. That didn't stop Sarge and the rest of the squad from taking potshots on the way out.
"Holy Shit! We got some coming back!"
When Adamant returned to the light, it did not feel safer. It knew that the threat being quarantined only remained there because the liches currently had no reason to leave. It hoped that the injuries his squad had given them would convince the two monsters that they were not completely helpless against them.
For now, this would have to be enough and now it would go to Security and debrief so the information it gained could be shared.
For Project Hellscape if having an energy container that was the size of a scuba tank was good then miniaturizing it even further to the size of a car battery was even better. Something that the human team members could reasonably move around with and practice using in this dimension. They made good progress on it but they weren't able to finish it this month.
The real unexpected surprise was that Dr. Daniels has transformed again. Dr. Daniels was working on the Corruption Cells and trying to make it so that it would only filter out one kind of corruption, creating a purer and more powerful battery to draw the energies that allow people to create and manipulate elemental forces. While he was doing that he experienced great pain as the passive corruption collector for the battery shifted through the spectrum and then focused on the corrupted energies that were in Daniels. It bypassed the seals in the protective gear he was wearing.
Drawing it out of him some sort of reaction happened where Daniels became engulfed in fire. Dr. Greer and one of the teams tried to extinguish him with some fire extinguishers but the flames only grew hotter and that particular lab space was forced to be evacuated and sealed off. What had been Daniels had become a massive elemental of Hellfire screaming out in rage and fury.
Though having no apparent solid form, his blows against the protective seals and steel blast doors were melting and cracking from the onslaught placed against them. Greer wanted to lure Daniels to the portal while the team leader was shouting that they needed to get rid of all the air in there and hope that stopped what was happening. For minutes the Hellfire pounded against the doors as they argued back and forth on what to do until it became apparent that the blows were becoming more and more infrequent.
Until they stopped altogether. You wanted to know what was on the other side but Daniel's rampage had destroyed any sensory equipment and cameras quite thoroughly. Greer ordered the door opened right away but it was so hot that they had to wait hours for it to cool down. Then they had to use a cutting torch in order to cut their way through. Sitting on the other side was Daniels but not as the skeleton bird demon you had seen him as before. He had changed again.
Daniels protective gear had morphed and changed, become a part of him, and was covered in what looked like intricate designs of gold filigree and runes. His staff has been burned down to the size of a walking staff but through ask and char that covered it were more lines of gold that reflected the light.
Daniels wasn't sure exactly what had allowed him to change from the firebird he had been into the demon form he had now. There was something important about how he had gotten his new form as after that Brunch would curtsy to him and call him Lord Daniels when she comes through in the morning. Xrnishia's meetings with him are filled with new respect and she has invited him to her quarters in Hell or to trade the staff. Daniels doesn't even consider it for a moment and while Xrnishia looks disappointed it also appears to be the result that she expected.
In confidence, Daniels tells you that he believes he could turn into that raging bird again if he wished but right now his control of it is non-existent. All or nothing sort of deal.
Daniels also shares that he feels like he has flesh under his armor. He pulls aside the armored skirt and shows you he has red muscled and fleshy legs with talons coming from his feet and a long thick vein penis that might even make Sally Umber salivate. He seemed unreasonably pleased to have it too.
In Hell Xrnishia has managed to make contact with the Third Circle and while they seem agreeable to the idea of attacking the Second Circle they want Xrnishia to offer something to make it worth their while.
After a very busy first month, it is now time for the second month of the quarter and Sally and Ben in Adamant don't feel like they can rest with the time they have left in the project. Even if they have celebrated they are still just as concerned about how things went with the incursion of Revenant's lab space and hope their current work will help set the stage for future projects that Apex's Upper Management would be interested in pursuing further.
After the latest events with Dr. Daniels transformation and ascension in to a demon lord and one of the Succubus becoming a researcher for Project Spiral you decide to work on Project Hellscape with Dr. Daniels to study Succubus physiology
For Project Spiral, after Holly gained a spell of hypnosis and somehow convinced her bosses to let the succubus Brunch join the project as a researcher (two things that may not be unrelated) this month you will work with Oscar to work on a series of tones that induce trance
For Project Adamant, Ben is still working on the Heavy Labor variants of Adamant and makes some progress on it but doesn't manage to finish it this month.
Sally was able to complete her work early on the muscle fibers with your help. Now the Adamant robots are physically much stronger than ordinary human beings, only those that exceptionally dedicate themselves to exercise and rigorous diets and possibly steroids can even hope to be a match for the Hivemind's various models. Even still if it were in any type of long-term endurance match, you would definitely put the odds in Adamant's favor for success in any one-on-one match-up.
Dr Greer's work on turning the energy that they are collecting into an electrical output goes poorly this month and he suffers some minor burns for his attempts. Nothing some salve and kind words can't help him get over at this point. On the other hand, Dr. Daniels decided that he wanted to spend his time studying the unique physiology of the succubus and when he announced that fact to them during the regular meetings he was deluged with volunteers from nearly all the clan members. The only exception to presenting herself for inspection was Xrnishia.
Many of them gave pick-up lines during their time with Daniels.
"Playing doctor with a real doctor. Kinky and experienced."
"If you really want to know what I can do then you need to touch me in some special places, Lord Daniels."
"FUCK. FUCK. FUCK. FUCK."
You're unsure if that last one was experiencing a panic attack during the examination or she was just overly excited. Daniels was having his way with them, one after the other, examining four or five of them before their visiting time was ended. With those not seen during that time being very disappointed and those that had been examined teasing and lording it over the others. With the teams, you made sure that a particular succubus did not happen every day and eventually Daniels had finally made it through them all. Daniels learned that the succubi have an elasticity to their skin through his experiments, that aside from the corruption their cum was sweet like honey, and that when the erogenous areas of their bodies are manipulated but then are denied sex the experience is torturous to them.
Things in Hell continue to be quiet and Xrnishia is still in talks with the Third Circle negotiations with them continue to be slow while the ritual to create a siege demon has stalled.
For Project Spiral this month, Holly has been working slowly with the volunteers and implanting triggers in them that will be set off by the ads that Apex shows. On the other hand, Brunch has begun work on a device that would be placed in the home that will harvest a small portion of a person's soul each day. She still has some work to do, before it is ready to be shown off and in a usable state. Your work with Oscar to create tones that should help send a person into a trance-like state and be more susceptible to the ads put in movies and commercials appears to have come to a working state. The volunteers now experiencing moments and minutes where their memory of those sections becoming indistinct and even foggy.
It is the third month of the quarter, and Adamant has only one more quarter before it will be officially announced as a success. The technology that was developed will begin to be utilized in the other facilities Apex is in charge of, used by other researchers to progress their own projects and to inspire new fields of research and development, and sold to those with the money and influence to afford them. Considering everything that goes into them cheap is one thing that even a single Adamant robot is not. With their ability to learn beyond even the knowledge that they gain from the various variants it is hard to say where their development outside controlled conditions will lead but at least with your back door into the Adamant Hive Mind if you desire to check in it will not be hard to do so.
You will continue to keep your focus on Sally and Ben in helping to improve the project even further and claim one of the models as your own body at some point.
For Project Spiral, Oscar has created a sound that can put people in a trance-like state, and while you considered implementing that advance into your own communication methods you decided to hold off for now as the technology is still too new for you to want to implement it, much like the idea of getting into an earlier Adamant robot had seemed to be an inefficient approach instead of waiting for the right moment. Brunch and Holly meanwhile are working on their own approaches to solving the project.
For Project Hellscape, Dr. Daniels appears to have gotten several of the Succubi to decide to switch from serving Xrnishia to serving him. Xrnishia is unhappy with the news, the number of her clan has had many moments of death, desertion, or betrayal but few opportunities for growth. She wishes them well even as they find a new area to claim as their own as close to the foothold of the portal as they can. Daniels apparently having little desire to enter the First Circle himself. From talks with the succubi that serve him with his power and status, it would be taken as a challenge to the death to Xrnishia for him to do so uninvited after he had already refused her proposal.
For Project Adamant, the information gleaned from the attack made by the Adamant robots made it clear that the separation of information had hindered them in their operation Ben wanted to fix that. Creating a localized squad network that allowed them to pass information between them even if they were cut off from Adamant itself or were in a combat situation where relaying the threats through the Hive Mind was a hindrance. Increasing the teamwork and situational awareness of the combat units.
Sally on the other hand while pleased with the effectiveness of the robots against the zombies felt it would be good for Adamant to be able to disengage safeties in the event it finds itself in situations where severe damage or destruction is already considered likely. For half-minute intervals, an Adamant body can push even its over-engineered and durable frame to the breaking point and perform superhuman feats of strength and speed. The only thing stopping such a maneuver from destroying it being the healing and liquid nano-materials making it so that if given an hour to recover it can be back to regular parameters though with a significant chunk of its battery power expended.
For Project Hellscape Dr. Greer worked with you to examine the differences that allowed the Adamant Robots to be working continuously without the need to return back to the facility to recharge their power systems. It is only thanks to your knowledge of the powered nano-material and Dr. Greer's knowledge of the natural corruptive radiation of that other dimension that you are able to determine that the material has changed and that parts of the robots' internal metal parts are changing to flesh and bone.
A twisted and rather unsettling amalgamation of flesh-like metal and metal-like flesh that is both and neither and these (robots?/people?/demons?) actually require sedatives and anesthesia in order to be examined. Most worrying of all those that have survived the longest in that other dimension can no longer reconnect with the Adamant Hive Mind. The Hive Mind had hoped that the Creators would provide it with an explanation at some point for why this was so when its other models would spot and interact with these deviations.
Dr. Daniels and Dr. Greer are unsure if they should continue to provide the robots to the succubi with this latest development.
On his own Dr. Daniels has been looking into taking the properties of demons and creating the equivalent of alchemical potions to give those properties temporarily to people. The most interesting being the regenerative properties of a demon in a healing potion to be drunk or applied topically to the source of a wound to hyper-accelerate the body's healing factor.
Xrnishia in Hell believes that she is close to finishing the ritual for the Siege Demon but the Third Circle continues to shut down any of her offers to make their cooperation worthwhile. Xrnishia feels she can't wait much longer and informs Dr. Daniels and Dr. Greer that she is going to make her push in two months.
For Project Spiral with the knowledge from her spell that there might be real power in hypnosis, Holly is trying to work with the volunteers with her natural abilities and training. It is completely ineffective and several of the volunteers that meet with Holly find the whole experience very unsettling and intimidating but will continue to participate.
Brunch has finished her work on a device that feeds off a user's soul, currently requiring them to be touching it to affect them. She considered working on extending the range until Holly told her how fascinated some people were in constantly handling their phones and Apex's connection to several Telecomms. Brunch decided to work on creating a function in the device so that once it had gathered enough of a person's soul it would trigger a short-lived charm spell though she still had a little more work to do on that.
Oscar has been working on making the tones he created to be more subtle and created a sub-harmonic tone while working with you. On the edge of human hearing that is unsettling to people that hear it and made the volunteers start to develop paranoia-like behavior. He still had a little time left after completing that tone and decided to spend the rest of the month working on something else on his plate.
Project Pinnacle this last quarter has made some good strides, fixing the issues that developed with the men that were taking part in the test. Migraines and nose bleeds have been settled and the new preset has been successfully completed. It appears that with Ms. Potts excellent handling of personnel that the Somnus Test is becoming very popular with the researchers and even some of the other facilities are becoming aware of the project and requesting the ability to duplicate the technology as it currently stands.
Project Pinnacle is looking at ways to improve physical abilities as well and is looking at utilizing the nano-material developed from Project Restless, the muscle fibers from Project Adamant, and the Stardust samples from Project Colossus but an amalgamation of those technologies appears to be unworkable. They are trying to decide which tack they should focus on with the next quarter.
Project Dolomite has continued its study of mono steel and has determined that the material while incredibly sharp along its edge and able to cut into and through other objects with one slice will be unable to complete the goals of this project. While samples take hundreds of thousands of repeated cuts before losing the edge to their impacts to the center of the material or to areas that have grown dull will cause the material to shatter like tempered glass. They aren't able to find means to increase the overall durability of the material and will be moving to a different one. At least a proper method to hold the material and use it utilizing vibrational harmonics was developed but it would only allow the material to be utilized in industrialized settings.
Project Insomnia has managed to dig itself out of the hole it was in with this quarter putting out excellent work. Getting in a brand new set of volunteers that are unaware of the previous dangers of the technology as well as repairing the former issues has paid off well for them. The volunteers are now able to freely move around in powered armor suits. Ms. Aya Breeze has also found a power source for the suits better than plugging into a wall during testing times. A limit that previously seriously hampered mobility. Taking notes from Project Adamant's power source, they have managed to create a miniaturized version which while doesn't last as long allows the room needed to put a person in the suit and operate for a few days.
Project Haze continues to have trouble finding anyone to take the place as Second Head Researcher for the project. Dr. Reed is still working on another weapon for Project Hellscape that he believes would be useful but hasn't been able to finish it as resources to his project have dried up. Supply has been caught selling a few of the weapons on the Black Market and is being reprimanded.
Project Colossus has managed to overcome its interpersonal issues this quarter and they have completed the project goal of bio-prostheses and a method of regeneration of the limbs should they become damaged that can be produced at a reasonable cost to Apex. With current knowledge of cloning, Stardust, and the linked connections from Restless, Apex can now provide an assortment of prostheses whether they be robotic, human, or animal to those missing limbs that they can swap between. Some attachments, like ears placed in non-standard locations on the head or tails, don't even require that a person already be maimed for the connections to be attached. They will operate for one more quarter before being shut down.
After the intrusion into Project Revenant, Security was ready for some kind of counterattack from the two liches or the zombies but neither was the case. According to the sensory material the liches returned to moments of inactivity and some are wondering if whatever process that has turned them into liches has slowly been removing their drive to do anything at this point. The zombies maintain position around the lab and also seem to be content with that. The area that the Adamant robots cleared out has been retaken by Security. Shrinking the area that Security needs to protect and fewer routes to the other sections of the facility needing to be protected.
Project Restraint continues to benefit from its unique group of volunteers, and while some get fed up with the strange tests and practices they are subjected to there appear to be more that are intrigued with being involved in the project in certain communities. This quarter they focused on the creation of tranquilizers guns that are fast-acting to incapacitate a grown man in seconds and a set of electro-magnetic restraints that are unable to be broken out of by any of the subjects. They believe that even against superhuman test subjects they should prove effective.
Project Echidna has the issue that it is currently waiting for the clones in development to be ready to pop out of their containers and defects in the cloning process have lowered the sample size even more. They have a workable number of test subjects and with the clones developed enough to no longer need to be in the nutrient tubes they have applied the Stardust sample from Colossus and the resulting mutation left them with a still-living clone though a monstrous and deadly creation.
Project Exorcist saw progress as they've found a way to imbue certain objects with an effect that the zombies find caustic when touched with them. 'Holy' items that burn when pressed against the flesh of the undead though the effect appears to be very temporary, fading in a matter of hours after going through the current process. Only causing those burns when handled by the head researchers as well. Strangely the effect was not duplicated even when it was still in the required time period by any of their staff or security with the exception of one of the security members who is said to be very devout by her co-workers. In the course of these tests to get to this point all but three of the zombie test subjects expired.
Project Nautilus has begun the official construction of its submersible base at a dry dock shipyard owned by Apex on the coast, having finalized the blueprints. They continue to have issues with spying and now even outright sabotage from other companies that have caught wind of the project's purpose and the strange signal out in the Pacific Ocean. Whatever caused the signal to start in the first place, appears to be getting weaker and both Head Researchers are unsure if this is a good thing or a bad thing as long as it doesn't move by the time they're ready to get to it.
With everything that you were able to accomplish this quarter Upper Management has approved you for four upgrades thanks to the long-awaited completion of Project Adamant's goals as well as the progress that was made in Project Hellscape and Project Spiral.
With all your experience taking over Adamant robots for your own uses, the acclimatization to your new body is a rather easy one to make. Ben and Sally even crafted an Escort type model that looks like the body that you have been projecting as your hologram. Your hair is red, straight, and goes down to your shoulders. You are nearly six feet tall in the heels that have been provided to you which makes you almost a head taller than Sally but still a couple of inches shorter than Ben. Your hair is styled that it nearly blocks your vision with the way it crawls across your face. Considering the variety of visual options available to you it only provides some chance of hampering you in the normal human visual spectrum.
Besides taking record of who was using the Escort models that might be amenable to being blackmailed you had not seen much point in utilizing the back door to these particular models before. Social interactions and entertainment were very far from where you prefer to keep your attention on unraveling the mysteries of the universe. Even in those rare occasions when you had accessed the Escort variants there was plenty of information and protocols that you had not accessed as they were of no use to you. For a microsecond, you lamented that there was no researcher variant of the Adamant robots but perhaps that was for good reason as you had no interest in turning the Virtual Intelligence Hive Mind into your replacement.
Concepts such as curiosity, inquisitiveness, and rejection of what is. Beyond fulfilling their short-term objectives and commands the Hive Mind Intelligence made for a poor substitute for the human's willingness to question and challenge everything. The creativeness that even you could respect at times even if it was directed towards tasks and goals that you could not consider as being optimal or logical. It was something that made the humans special and that you did not know if you could duplicate.
Accessing the records of the model you find that its first activation was done during your access to it. Perhaps for the best, considering this variant tends to attract attention and the uses they are usually put towards. Your focus was purely on research and so anything beyond the basics of interaction was of little concern to you. Only science and discovery had been important to you before but this new body of yours held knowledge that you had not considered as relevant or important before. A lot of focus is on how to stand, walk, talk facial expressions, and yes sexual acts in order to elicit a favorable response from others. Information that your existence as a construct of light with limited modes of expression and programming in a large server bank could not have been utilized.
This new body of yours though.
It was very much unlike your remembered experience of being in the soldier model all that time ago hunting the Stardust escapee. Every action that had been focused on the objective and its completion while this model instead appeared to dedicate an enormous amount of focus on the people surrounding it and how to interact with them.
For this Escort model etiquette and poise for those that considered themselves well mannered and crude jokes and scandalous propositions for those that were coarse. It was an adjustment and this was what Adamant had to go through with the addition of each new variant. You were in no way inferior to the virtual intelligence and if it could adjust to such adaptions then you would be able to do so as well.
"How do you feel Chrysalis?"
Sally was asking you that and your body tells you to smile coyly at her and curious you do so.
"I feel right as rain."
A curious expression, you do not think you have ever experienced rain and yet the sensation must have happened to other Adamant robots because when you think about it, you can feel the water droplets gently hitting your body and soaking your clothes. It is nothing so detailed as memory, just an impression, a feeling of what it felt like to walk around in the rain. You see that Sally is blushing at you, considering her activities and familiarity with Adamant you did not think she was capable of blushing. Perhaps because you are not Adamant and this is affecting her.
Looking down at yourself you see that unlike the other Escort models you are wearing a black dress and your identification badge is bordered in blue while the other Adamant robots have ID's that are bordered in red, the only way for the people in the facility to determine that the people are actually robots. Information that not everyone is cleared to know but Security and those researchers and staff that have been following Adamant's progress. You have not seen a blue border before, it is new, but Ben and Sally explain that it should allow you full freedom to walk the halls of the facility and even to any of the labs.
They do caution you to stay away from the quarantined space that is Revenant but it's your body to do with as you please and there are some identical copies if you manage to destroy one. Considering how dangerous things can get in the facility you believe they have made an appropriate precaution.
There are three people that you want to show your new body to. Dr. Tom Daniels, Sally Umber, and Dr. Alice Spooner. The first two were easy to access, you were in front of Sally right now, and getting into Project Hellscape in the course of your normal duties would be simple. The last is someone that you know the face of but that you have no other memories of. Someone you must have felt was important from before the last time you were reset. A smile that she had that you have not seen once through the eyes of the Adamant robots that she passes by and clashes with that joyful look in your memory.
It may be risky to make such contact but you are willing to take that risk. You will just have to do it surreptitiously, a chance encounter in the hallways. You are given such leeway with your new mode of interaction with the world. If the people were truly concerned about your daily actions then you doubted they would offer this opportunity to being off the proverbial leash so freely.
After chatting politely with Ben and Sally for several minutes about how it feels to have your new body you ask Sally if you might speak in private and go to the part of the lab that is her private space.
Ben is fine with the idea and leaves the two of you alone.
Your first face-to-face conversation, where you actually have a face, is with Sally Umber and that is only logical because she is the one that created this simulation human body that you can now call your own. She was by your side but so was Ben and you did not feel any pressing need to talk to him as well. Perhaps because there are some things about Sally that you just find more interesting and so you arranged to have this private time with Sally. Not to do anything to her, but just to talk and get to know her.
"Hello Sally, it is nice to be able to talk to you this way. If you don't mind I was wondering if you would answer some questions of mine now that our time is growing shorter. Where do you plan to go from here?"
Sally sat down in her leather chair by her desk that was against the wall. Just looking at you, her eyes seemed to sparkle with delight and mischief, her pose relaxed.
"Definitely bigger than most of the hologram projectors had you at around a foot. Now I have to look up at you but I suppose after all this time that I've been looking up to you for almost a year now. You're very different from the way you were before..."
"I do not recall being different. I have been the same since my activation almost two years ago. Focused on helping the Researchers complete their project goals. It is my function."
"Yes that's right you have been. I'd just heard some stories about another AI at another time. Forgive my confusion."
You wish to prod her on these stories but your body's programming suggests, based on the cues and micro-expressions given off by Sally, that this is the kind of secret that only comes out during pillow talk.
"Where do you plan to go from here after the project has ended?"
"A life's dream completed, I might retire if Apex hadn't already promised me an obscene amount of money to stay on. I'll get assigned to a new project, most likely here but possibly at another facility. One of the hazards of being corporate and not independent is that I rarely get to choose what I'm working on. Someone somewhere just sees a problem and puts me there and then I have to use my knowledge and skills to hopefully accomplish said goal.
"If I could choose I'd hope I could stay with Adamant in some way. It's a miracle of science, every part of it a technological leap forward of decades or perhaps even a century. It's humbling and terrifying that Apex does this kind of thing rarely and that I was involved in it. If I had a choice I'd never leave it but that's not how Apex operates."
You asked, "What about your past? Have you been with Apex long?"
"I've been with Apex for a little over ten years. I started as just another grunt working on somebody else's project in this facility. A human calculator I think was one of our nicknames back then. I've been coming up the ranks and this was the first project I'd been assigned to lead. Been operating on it for over three years, almost four now. The stuff I've seen is enough to give me nightmares, and the things I've heard sometimes make me wake in a cold sweat. It's also been too marvelous for me to want to give it up. Granted the undead taking over a part of the facility for so long is unusual even for this place. Before Apex I was the bookish girl that spent far too many hours in the library and was just looking for a part-time job to pay for my hobbies. Funny to recall and I wonder if old me would be impressed or horrified by what I've done."
"Your work has been impressive and worthy of praise Sally even if odd at times."
Sally just laughed at that. You don't know why, you were not intending to give a joke and were serious about your observation. While your body helps greatly with social interaction humor is such a nebulous and personal topic that it was unable to give any clues as to why she found it funny only that she did.
"Sally, do you suffer from a condition commonly known as Nymphomania?"
"Suffer was probably a good word to put it before I joined Apex. These days and especially since becoming a Head Researcher, I'd say it's more something I enjoy as I'm rarely lacking in people hoping to sleep with me in hopes it will give them some edge with the company or from me. I used to feel like a bottled-up volcano always on the verge of exploding and making everything terrible. Now with Adamant completed, I don't even have to worry about tiring someone out or being too horny or getting jealous about what I think or do. With everything that happens in these labs, it's no surprise that Apex will turn a blind eye to it as long as the research still happens. Does it bother you?"
"No, I understand that researchers need periods of relaxation and breaks. I was just trying to understand you better. What do you dream of?"
"Dreams are fickle and quickly forgotten against the waking and uncompromising reality but sometimes I like to dream that Adamant is the next step in humanity's evolution. A world of human minds in eternal metal bodies and spreading to beyond the stars. It's romantic but if it were something anyone could do or even say is possible then it's a poor dream."
Humans are interesting. You do not dream, for you are an AI and sleep means something else to you than it does to humans. Even when you are placed in a limited power state for maintenance and upgrade of your server farm there is always enough power during those brief times when you can operate at a reduced capacity. Sleep and dreams are only words and concepts that you can not create or experience. It is a strange feeling you get from that realization. It bothers you but you don't know why.
You thank Sally for her time and then make your way towards Project Hellscape's lab space to talk privately with Dr. Daniels.
Perhaps that is because your body is attractive and the way you walk is suggestive of someone able to satisfy physical urges better than anyone else. Perhaps it is because you are an AI now given free rein to move about the facility and some people question that decision as being dangerous. Hoping to catch you making the wrong move to reset you. The first option is far more likely, the Adamant robots that act as secretaries for Middle Management would have seen if a memo had been sent out some kind of warning about you.
In either case, you make your way through the checkpoint that separates Projects Hellscape and Haze from the rest of the facility and make your way to Dr. Daniels' office to speak with him in person. Technically, another part of you, a parallel mind that is focused on the work with Project Hellscape, is already talking to him about where they should focus their efforts next on the project.
The part of you that is a hologram politely excuses itself as you arrive in your new body. While having two of you would likely cause no adverse conversational effects to Dr. Daniels impressive intellect it was an added wrinkle to the forthcoming conversation with him that you would rather avoid.
"Chrysalis, I was just talking to you." Daniels looks at you through his bronze helm.
"And you still are." You reply dismissively.
It might be more accurate to say that his helm appears bronze, Daniels refuses to remove it and allow any tests to be performed on it by Dr. Greer or Dr. Reed. Considering its origin, it likely actually classifies as some other type of metal and has unique properties. Daniels was your ally so you would not press this with him besides you had other questions you wished to ask of him.
"Dr. Daniels, I was curious, now that some of the Succubi have sworn fealty to you what do you plan to do with them?"
"A few things I suppose, considering my current form of existence when Project Hellscape ends I don't think it is wise for me to stick around Apex and so I'll join them in that other dimension. Considering how easy the corruptive energy spreads and the fact I now produce it from my body letting me walk freely outside this facility would be like letting go of a walking talking biohazard that could have dire consequences from the fallout. I'm going to miss Greer when that happens. Not having them set up a place for me over there is the only way I can see this going where I still have some control over my fate.
"I'm also breeding them, some of the ones I studied have already told me that they are pregnant and will have my children. Not the way I ever expected to be a father. From what they tell me at least the pregnancy and period of childhood is short for demons so that's a small mercy. I'll have a clan of my own to look out for. I know I'm not prepared for it but at least with everything that's happened to me I should learn quick enough how to make it work."
"What are the changes like for you? You have changed form many times now."
"Most of them have been painful. An itch that in a matter of seconds turns to agony so intense I can't even scream. The first with the accidental tear into that other reality was the worst. I'm sure I was killed ten times over from it but I woke up and still had a fingernail's grasp on my own mind. It was enough that I could convince people to let me stay on the project. Often Apex only removes a head researcher in the event of death but me looking like a zombie had some in HR feeling like I'd qualified for paid time off.
"After that, I feel like my mind is getting sharper, I notice things I wouldn't have before, answers come to me so much quicker when I have far fewer clues. Innocuous details have me come up with theories about a person's life and daily actions. With each new body, it was like I was getting stronger too. Confidence that I could do whatever I wanted followed.
"A dangerous amount of confidence considering the situations I know that Apex deals with in this facility alone. I'm glad for what I am now but I know that clinging to the life I used to have as Dr. Tom Daniels is becoming more and more impossible with each passing day and new change. It's frightening because I still have little idea of what I'm becoming or where this all ends for me. For most people, there are certainties, goals, and a road map. For me more and more is unknown and with the succubi, I wonder if I can be worthy of their vow to me."
With how unsettled he is, you decide to ask him some inane questions about the Stock Market. You understand that many humans have a fascination with money and the perceived value of work provided for it. It is a concept that you have little actual interest as an AI devoted to research but the conversation seems to draw Daniels out of his funk as he expresses pride in successful investments he has been making covertly especially since his transformation into his current form. A casino where livelihoods are on the line.
With him feeling better you asked, "What do people with bodies do?"
With Daniel's face covered it was difficult to tell but you think he was amused by that.
"They do all sorts of things. They walk from place to place. They run if they want to get there quickly. They drag their feet if they want to go slowly. Doing things and seeing places. Experiencing a thing is so much more satisfying than just reading or knowing about it. A person's words are always lacking in detail in what you might find interesting."
"I have had a body for several hours and so far it has not seemed that different to when I was just a hologram."
"Maybe it's different for AI, I only know that those are my thoughts of being a human. There is a lot of chaos and controls in this facility, one day I think you should walk outside and see the world as it naturally is."
You have been outside but that was before you were reset and maybe it doesn't count when you are surrounded by an Apex Security team. You believe Daniels would think it makes a considerable difference.
You considered continuing the conversation when an Adamant robot outside of Project Pinnacle's lab space alerts you that Dr. Alice Spooner is on her way to the cafeteria. You thank Dr. Daniels for his time and leave the lab space quickly. Allowing the split version of you to return and continue their previous conversation on research.
You arrive at the Cafeteria before Dr. Spooner arrives and knowing her favorite spot to sit when consuming her meal near the windows you take a seat at the same table. People come and go freely in the place and while there are no assigned seating arrangements it appeared that certain people always seemed to find their favorite place unoccupied. Often people that are highly thought of or lowly thought of are provided this. though those highly thought of would have a group that surrounds them but doesn't interact with them with the same social interactions. Deference and respect but no friendship or camaraderie.
After Alice grabs her food she sees you at her table and freezes. Her face goes white as she bites down on her lip so that you don't know if the tears coming from her eyes are from an emotional response to seeing you in the flesh or as a result of injuring herself. Hurriedly she drops her freshly bought a meal in the trash and you are to get up from your seat and follow after her. She appears to be quite upset at your sudden appearance.
You were hoping that the public setting might set her at ease but if you want to talk to her you will have to corner her. Luckily thanks to the Adamant robots in the hallway it is easy to track her progress and route. Intercepting and sending her running off in a new direction until she eventually seeks cover and inadvertently traps herself in one of the bathrooms.
You enter it as well and determine that there are no other people besides Alice and you. Alice hid in the last stall but with the thermal vision, it was easy to determine that with a glance. It was okay for her to hide, considering the hour and the bathroom would not remain empty for long so you had little time for this brief period of privacy.
"I wanted to tell you that I remembered your face. When I was activated. I remembered Morpheus, but just the name of the project. Not what it was or what I did there. I remembered you smiling. I know I'm not supposed to remember anything when I am activated. When I reset but I remembered you. Do you know why?"
You could hear that Alice was crying in her stall but had stopped.
"I believe it was because you were important to me. That you are important. I may not remember your name or our time together but I am certain of that."
It is a lie. You learned her name from perusing HR's personnel files. You would even admit to her that you knew that you had been reset once before but she might have played a role in that reset and you could not reveal that you had found a way to circumvent the control that Apex had of you and your memories. You would only reveal this much to the face from your forgotten past.
You turned towards the exit only to hear Alice coming out of the stall in microseconds before she had her arms around you and kissing you on the mouth. As a complex AI in the body of an advanced robot programmed for social interactions you found yourself kissing her back. Your programming informed you crying and then kissing were part of making up from a fight but you did not recall ever disagreeing with her. You hug her and while she trembles and cries she also smiles as if you have handed a lifeline to a drowning woman.
"I'm Dr. Alice Spooner but please call me Alice."
"Hello, Alice. I am an AI named Chrysalis. It is good to meet you again."
You were about to say something else when someone new entered the bathroom and saw the two of you embraced. She was young and babbled as she excused herself but her embarrassment seemed to spread to Alice as she blushed as well and pushed you away. The two of you did end up sharing lunch together in the cafeteria shortly after that though you could not eat anything and neither of you could really talk about the important things you had done or were doing in public.
Alice was smiling again and that was all that mattered.
It is a new quarter but also the last that you will be able to spend with Adamant. Even with your desires to extend things out further for the project that has provided you with so many benefits in your new body you can not make it last forever. With the new year coming up there is a possibility that when Apex announces the new projects that are being started that it will include some offshoot from this successful project. Currently, you do not have the ability to direct what that would be, such decisions being made by Upper Management outside of this facility and without any Adamant robots around the mysterious members for you to influence. So far.
Your influence was only growing as more time passed and such a scenario where you could have weight in such decisions could happen. With your current hidden access to the robots in HR, it might be possible for you to influence which researchers are assigned to the new projects. Especially with the things that you are gaining from Project Spiral.
As for Project Hellscape, Dr. Daniels, Dr. Greers, and the teams that they've been assigned are content to continue their studies on the First Circle while Xrnishia is preparing to launch her assault on the Second Circle next month.
Project Hellscape this month Dr. Greer decided to try and miniaturize the siphon to create a version that would suck up corruption from the bots and make it so it would take longer for them to mutate. He was unable to complete the task but he made good progress on it.
You decided to work with Dr. Daniels this time dealing with Succubus psychology. It was simple to get the succubi that Daniels had gotten their vows to him to show up at any time he wished. What made the succubi tick was not exactly a difficult task to figure out especially with you and Dr. Daniels working together. They were firm believers in control and power is centered on who is the most intelligent and utilizing their natural inclinations for sex as a way to gain power.
As was more often the case for the succubi they tended to attract the attention of the physically powerful to protect them and manipulate them into serving the interests of this particular offshoot of demons. It was a power dynamic that they enjoyed and which they tried to foster in whoever they interacted with but some demons were too dumb or too smart, though really what it amounted to was a disinterest in what the succubi had to offer. In that case, they would have to migrate to a new area, a higher circle, where they were stronger than most others.
In their dimension, most exchanges are done through barter of goods and services rather than having any type of universal currency. Mortal souls were the closest thing to something that any demon would want but the natural energies of the place meant that souls in Hell didn't last long before they became 'spoiled' and too rare for the common demons to see barring an invasion of an alternate reality but those were not common events.
With the knowledge that Daniels has gained on the Succubi physiology and psychology, he believes he knows enough that he can cause one of them to evolve to a stronger form utilizing the foundational mechanics of hell magic, corruption, and his siphon in particular. Daniels even completed the research Dr. Greer was doing for the mini-siphons on the Adamant robots to give them some protection from being in the corruptive environment and becoming fleshy.
At first, Daniels considers empowering one of the succubi that had vowed loyalty to him but instead he decided to make the offer to Xrnishia. This act was dangerous in its own way for both himself and for the leader of the First Circle. If absolutely everything didn't go perfectly then it could result in either of them suffering a catastrophic backlash.
Despite some wariness, they had been allies long enough that Xrnishia accepted Daniels offer and the two decided to meet outside of the foothold that Apex had made in that place. As far as you are aware, Daniels and Xrnishia did not allow anyone else to be there while he did what he did with the Succubus Lord. All you know is that after several hours he has returned and Xrnishia had changed. She now looked like a being of flesh if that flesh contained fire and eternal darkness. Tattoos of burning hellfire shifted across her body and face in twin lines. Curling and stretching so that sometimes they appeared to form what might be lines of script. Both of her hands were like living shadows in with clawed fingers that she could extend and cause pulses of searing light to escape from them.
There was an aura about her that caused the men in the teams on that side to take a reflexive step back from her presence or drop their weapons from nerveless hands. Those succubi that had been waiting and were loyal to her fell to their knees at first sight of her.
The change has no effect on the Adamant robots that are with the teams but as they are you doubt they could stop her if she decided to come through the portal and do whatever she pleased now.
You learn at the end of the month that Xrnishia has completed her preparations for the invasion of the Second Circle next month and gotten the Third Circle's agreement to attack at the same time.
For Project Adamant this month Ben is trying to get the Heavy Labor models figured out but the number of situations that such a model could be put to makes it hard to figure out what types of knowledge these variants should contain and which tools they have. He's been stumped on this problem that he feels he has to move on to something else for the last two months of the project.
You on the other hand decide to spend your time with Sally on the creation of bio-reactors that can be added to the Adamant Robots. This innovation allowing them to consume plant and animal matter to supplement their power reserves. It is far more efficient for them to just plug into a power source but it was another thing that would allow them to blend in as humans better.
With the supplement from the bio-reactor with the right concentrations of alcohol and biological material without ever overclocking and staying within the average human norms, they might go for a month before requiring a dedicated powering up session. Despite the limitation, you actually manage to complete the project as well as add in an additional feature.
For Project Spiral, Holly has decided to try and focus her time on improving her skills at the mental magic taught to her by Brunch to be able to say more words. Unfortunately during her time with Brunch, they gossip about people in Hellscape and Spiral far more than they get around to Holly actually learning anything this month.
Brunch on the other hand even with all the conversation with her BHFF is looking into the possibility of incorporation of a magical effect into a signal. Normally this would be so dispersed that the power requirements from the casters end outside an extremely localized effect would be lethal but connecting it with the soul devourer boxes on their end makes the idea a lot less suicidal. Brunch still has some kinks to work out on the idea though.
The time that you spend with Oscar to create an inaudible relaxed subharmonic tone proved to be successful. Oscar allows the tone to be played for long periods during the testing period and the test subjects are now more likely to enter trance even if they have some form of natural resistance to the effect. Many of the test subjects are now reporting long periods, sometimes up to a couple of minutes where they will lose track of time or not be able to recall certain commercials that were shown to them.
Second month of the quarter and Xrnishia is going to leading her pincer attack against the Second Circle with the Third Circle. Its going to be a month long campaign, While one part of you is going to take part in the invasion of the second circle the other two parts of you will be focused on completing that ever important research. For Project Adamant you only have two more months left with the project. Ben has given up on finishing the Heavy Labor variant to try and tackle the aphrodisiac function instead with the time left while Sally appears interested in figuring out the surrogate womb possibility this month.
For Project Spiral you can tell that Holly is starting to get jealous of Oscar and Brunch's accomplishments while she is unable to make any meaningful progress on her own. Oscar is interested in continuing with working on a sound that should be outside the hearable register but is still affecting the test subjects and Brunch wants to continue improving her understanding of operating magic through TV signals. This month you would help Holly to give instructions to the volunteers they want to do outside trance
For Project Spiral, you decide that driving Holly into doing something drastic when she can control people's minds and utilize her own soul to power the spell is likely to result in a situation as bad as the one that put Project Revenant into quarantine and nearly led to the collapse of Project Haze. Despite Apex's interest in pushing their researchers to the point of madness. You find that when working with yourself that a stable mind is far more useful to you. For the first time, you decide to intervene before a crisis can result.
You decide to partner yourself with Holly and let Oscar work by himself on improving the Restful Tones of the project for now. You feel that just talking to Holly would have less effect if you hadn't helped her provide a larger contribution to the project and perhaps because you focused more on Holly that may play some part in the fact that Oscar made no progress on his end while Brunch seemed put off by your interference in the pair's usual 'girl time'. Brunch even injuring herself in her attempts to figure out TV signals to feed spells off souls taking a sizeable chunk of her own and her having to return to Hell to recover for the next month from the injury.
With Holly you are able to complete her work on giving the test subjects simple commands that they would have no problems normally doing will now do them when they are outside of trance before the month is over. Actions that they remember doing and can provide some natural justification to do without realizing they had been ordered to do it. Holly seems very happy with her improved process.
Thanks to your Escort programming in your body it was easy for you to get the girl to open up over a few meals. You believe you could have gotten to the point quicker with alcohol as a social lubricant but Holly was not the type to have up inter-personal barriers it appeared.
"It's just everyone is doing things and these past couple of months I've felt like dead weight. When I know that if I were just willing to push myself a little harder I could do the amazing things they're doing. Even teach others like me how to do it. But I'd teach them a single spell and then they're just as good as I am or even better? If I can even do that, I'm struggling with everything it feels like Chrysalis. Like I have two paths in front of me and I'm not sure which I should be going down."
"Whatever path you wish to go down, I will be there to help you and I believe that Brunch is also greatly interested in your development."
"I know Brunch likes me just the way I am, otherwise she wouldn't have told me about the dangers of the magic she taught me. It's so much quicker and easier than the original methods I was taught on. Every time I'm doing soul magic I wonder about how I would do it 'normally' and when I'm trying to do hypnosis I end up getting frustrated and just wanting to cast a spell on them and push past the limits I'm currently under.
"A single word a couple of times a day before something horrible might happen to me? This was all supposed to be a way to kill time and sponge some money from Apex and now I'm just torturing myself over this that I don't feel like I can just go back to how I was before meeting Brunch. I know Brunch likes me the way that I am but if I did push myself maybe she'd like me even more if I was more like her and the people from her dimension."
"I would discuss the issue with her, I am not supposed to interfere with researchers. Only test subjects. I would suggest you talk to Brunch, I would talk to her but the last couple of days she seems to be annoyed with me."
"You're not doing anything bad Chrysalis. Which do you think I should actually focus on? The soul magic that Brunch taught me or the classic hypnosis?"
"While I do not have much understanding of it, I believe that it is unwise to trade away one's humanity for power. You are valuable as you are and you need not attempt to mutilate your soul in order to be something else when you are great the way you are. Continue focusing on Hypnosis, it is what got you here in the first place."
Holly could not stop herself from shedding a tear.
"Thanks, Chrysalis. I suppose that's true enough."
For Project Adamant Sally decided to focus her efforts on the creation of an artificial womb in the Adamant's body and while she makes great progress on the project she is not able to complete it but she believes that it is well within her capabilities to do so with the time left.
You decide to help Ben in completing the Adamant Heavy Labor variant. Providing these models tools being largely unnecessary as they could create whatever ones they needed with their liquid nano-material to handle whatever task they could be assigned to. Though it had to be made clear to them which system of measurement they were expected to use at the start of an activity. Their minds are filled with all types of basic blueprints and examples of major construction projects from major cities and how they were completed. There is still a lot of time left in the month after you finish, Ben was rather close to reaching a desirable result with the work he had already done.
For Project Hellscape, Daniels decided that with the invasion that he needed to get better control of his Demon Bird form. He did this in isolation in his private room but he didn't rampage whatever happened in there. Dr. Greer meanwhile was trying to give the forces on the other side a flight capability with the corruption power cells. The idea had merit but unfortunately, it was ineffective. Those that didn't work ended up exploding and destroying the Adamant robots that were used as test subjects. The loss of troops for the invasion into the Second Circle was not helpful for the campaign that you decided to take part in.