October 13th

3:32 AM [15 Hours before Diana and Belle reached the Steelgrounds]

Diamante's Base of Operations [Old Mall]

Ripley

"New lenses?" I snickered as Diamante popped some scarlet discs into his eyes, meanwhile, I dissected Shardware off the Muramasa assassin who'd tried to snipe me during the music video. I was quick to begin; the metal and flesh peeled off much easier when the corpses were fresh compared to the mass-dissections me and Harold Anderson got sometimes.

"New head." Diamante corrected and tapped his skull. "You'll shit your pants when you can see what it can do! R0N1N's Sheds went to good use."

"Still not going to tell me where you get your stuff from?"

"So you can sell some low-quality knockoffs? Hell no."

"Hey, I only build Shardware with an assured build and functionality! I've been a real threat during the jobs Missy sends me."

"Oh please, you have an overreliance on that fancy gimmick you stole from R0N1N."

Hypermind. The Module I'd built to emulate his Unique Feature, OverMind. I couldn't deny it was certainly a massive boost to my arsenal, but I was still peeved that all I ended up being counted as was a discount R0N1N. Dreadwire was to be a new legend to the city, a master of weaponry and Shardware.

"Hey, it's your loss since you won't get an early-bird discount."

"The only early birds you'll be getting are Iron-Member Vultures to your funeral."

"Really, I'm not even deserving of a damn Silver-Member?"

"Not a Shard."

That was it. "Shoot me in the head."

Diamante scoffed. "So you've finally gone ahead and done it, scooped your brain out."

I tapped my head, an audible metallic ring caused Diamante to still. "The Endoskeleton, you installed it?" His gaze narrowed on me.

"Why don't you shoot me in the head and find out?" I calmly sat back in my chair, waiting for him to take the bluff.

Without warning, he grabbed the pistol and a blink later I'd fallen to the floor and everything went blurry and painful and throbbing through my skull. It was like my brain was in the middle of a whirlpool, and pain was what swirled down that drain.

"WHAT THE FUCK, DIAMANTE!" I roared, barely able to get on my feet as I hobbled against the fallen chair to support me.

"Between the eyebrows." He blew off the dust from his pistol, it was even a weapon I'd modded for him. I gave it the Trajectory Curve Feature-Link.

I muttered in bitter distaste. "A little bit of prep time would've been nice!"

"That damned Preservation Matrix of yours would have pulled you out of the way."

"Okay, that might be- wait, I never told you about my Psyche Protocols other than the Thought Multiplier! Did Elsa tell you?!"

"For someone with barely a few months of combat experience, you have a keen instinct of self-preservation and namely not getting killed despite all odds. Barely seen you actually get shot; that's rarer than dying in this job. I guessed it off a list I found online."

I… wasn't too keen on believing that he guessed that. It wasn't impossible to guess a Feature Protocol, but the list of them spanned hundreds of possible variants. It was even possible for one Protocol to be on multiple Features with slightly different effects. Like my Consciousness Link Protocol for Database, in its current state, it allowed me to digest information directly through an uplink, whereas if it would have been attached to Psyche it would likely allow my mind to attach to another's in a faux-Proxy Protocol.

Or… maybe I could do that? I hadn't tried it out.

"Okay, fine." I crossed my arms, defiance etching my voice. "Think you're so smart, huh? Let me take a guess at yours. For every I get right, I have a free pass at mimicking any of your Features for one instance."

Diamante gave me an intense stare. "I dare you."

Immediately, I accessed Database and Data Mimicry. Reaching for two Protocols respectively, Defragmentation and Frequency Sync. The second of those Protocols was odd, to say the least. At first, I'd only used it to mimic Bioshard frequencies, some weird tech Mazhyr developed to be included in a cancer-curing vaccine inserted into every child upon birth.

Bioshards somehow could create a unique signature for every single Adapter, extracting Implant-coded data similar to how I could read it off BUGs and then dumbing down the information to be analyzed by special scanners only available to those trusted with it. From what I'd heard, almost every mercenary has their Bioshard tampered by one Datashield or another, but they were playing guesswork as to how it actually functioned. It was likely those in Corporate Nations that had more specialized equipment to steal your whole life's history.

But the point is, it reads Implant-Coded Data. It emitted a frequency. One that I could sync up with. I was a living Bioshard scanner.

And Diamante had already told me his Features once before, so it was easy to lock on. Overclock, Analyze and Accomodation.

Synchronizing Bioshard Frequency…

Grade: Silver

Tier: Metamorphosis [Tier III]

Name: ????

Implant History: ???? [41y 8m]

Damn, this guy is old.

Features identified: Accomodation, Overclock, Analyze

Then, I reached for the core function of Data Mimicry, to read his Warpcode.

Reading Warpcode… Error: Insufficient Data.

Estimating Feature Development

Accomodation [>V.6.0]; Overclock [>V.6.0]: Analyze [>V.5.0]

And this was where Defragmentation came into play.

Analyzing probable Implant Development History:

Accommodation: Recognition of cerebrospinal deformation due to injury prior to Convergence; reduction of neuro-compatibility to flesh and increasing it with Shardware. Further development has significantly boosted Capacity through the cleaving of defunct biological material from the nervous system.

Overclock: Extreme voltages and usage of Daemons with the intention to inflict neural stimulation up to extreme levels of stress overload have increased the Adapter's ability to act at high levels of output under stressful situations. Further development has significantly increased conversion of Warp Energy into electrical and thermal output through the use of convertors.

Analyze: Recognition of prior trauma as a result of firearms have allowed the Adapter to expertly predict the velocity and vector trajectory of any object in motion. Further development has significantly boosted identification of weak-points in material structure and the overall function of Shardware.

I… took a deep breath. That was… more information than I'd intended to extract. Diamante had always kept quiet about what Metal Heavens had done to him before my grandfather saved him from their grasps as The Hammersmith, but it was beginning to be easy to see why.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

When he'd been a kid, they tortured him. Used him as a test subject.

Almost ashamedly, I pulled up the list of Feature Protocols I'd compiled from Data off on the Abyssnet and used Database to correlate and identify what was probably a third of his Protocols.

Bio-rejection. Stress Focus. Vector Sight.

I only said two of them. "Stress Focus and Vector Sight."

Diamante's mouth curled. "Now… I would say you're half right. Stress Focus is still there but Vector Sight's been recalibrated several times over. Merged with an Accommodation Protocol named called Cyber-thought to become… Eh, why don't you take a guess at that."

A quick search up of Cyber-thought revealed that it was a Protocol typically found in Psyche, Accomodation, Database and the Sustain Features. Effectively, it allowed a small portion of your thoughts to be automated by a calculative algorithm. If I was right, then it meant that Diamante's new Protocol allowed him to passively be aware of the motion and direction of all things around him even without direct visual sight or manual activation of the Protocol.

"Kinetic Computation?" I guessed.

His grin dropped at that. "When the fuck did that get on the net?!"

"It wasn't." I tapped my skull. "I just ran the calculations in my head and… reckoned what the name would be."

"That exact phrasing?"

"Guess I got lucky. You owe me two free Mimickings at my ask." I shrugged. He grumbled and I got back to my dissections, using yet another Protocol named Retrofit from my second Unique Feature, Shardweave. Diamante had mentioned Protocols recalibrating and combining, and that was how this one had formed. It was a result of my former Technician Protocols, the short-lived Shardware Modulation, and Reverse Engineering combining into one.

Sort of like Mutational Convergence.

The term: 'retrofit', simply meant to add additional components to a piece of tech not deemed necessary at the time of manufacturing. To essentially put your own spin on widely-available tech. However, in my case, it was a bit more broad.

Effectively, it had two purposes. One for the creation of new Shardware, where it enhanced my deconstruction and reconstruction of Shardware I'd… definitely legally attained. That was its foundation. Its bigger job was to modify Shardware. Not only once, but on a situational basis.

To create adaptive Shardware.

Which was why I was currently in the stage of doing a complete Shardware overhaul, from my Enskel to my limbs. To create a solid basis that would allow a highly variable self-modification ability to effectively have a tool for every job. Was that… cheap? Haithama's nutsack knew it wasn't. Was it smart? It needed me to be. Was it… awesome as fuck?

Yeah. A simple thought could have my right arm turn into a gun or a blade, or a hammer or even a pair of barbeque tongs if I just somehow managed to get all those sliding parts in order. My whole build started from Data Mimicry, which allowed me to be adaptable, and now I just needed my Shardware to be as much.

But it was away for now, I'd be working on it step-by-step alongside three other projects. First, my mother's Implant. I needed to experiment, maybe on more than a hundred Irons or Bronzes before I could probably make a Silver fit for her. Otherwise, I'd be relying on pure chance for a compatible BUG to show up and hoping I had the funds for it.

Second, Livewire integration into musculature. It was an expensive material to make, but according to my simulations, a full Livewire-based musculoskeletal system would be strong enough to toss around trains without strain. It would certainly leave the R0N1N with intact legs for once.

Third… the Goliath Nanites. It was the one I dreaded the most, having a flesh-eating swarm of nanites within me. Logically, I knew it would be a slow death. There were only 5000 of them, and they were forty times smaller than a blood cell. But it had the potential to grow rapidly at an exponential rate, converting organic tissues to extract their carbon and create more Midas Steel from which they self-replicated.

Nanomachinery was… leagues more complicated than the engineering I was doing. It was easy to imagine metal pouring out of my body and forming into giant walls of steel, but the truth was that it was impractical to think like that. Nanites worked on a cellular and genetic level, they were used far more on the SIM side of Implants than the BUGs. Primarily for Mutagenic distribution and constant self-monitoring and adjustment of the body's warped physiology.

And I knew Missy had some in her, she'd specifically told me to head to her bar back when I first injected myself with them since she had equipment for them. And she was a Dual Adapter, she'd have both the benefit of self-regulating her Mutations and the ability of having a Shard Adapter's control over the nanites.

I was just a bit jealous of that, at least it would have given me an idea about what to do with the nanites. For me to even filter them out would need me seated on a specialized dialysis machine for about a day, at 500 nanometers, my Nanites were ridiculously tiny.

But ridiculously dense too for a bunch of Warp-altered carbon. From what I'd extracted from the source code in the Gold Datashield, they were about five times more dense than typical nanites. Assuming I ever had enough Midas Steel to make plating for my arm, it would be at a high Silver-Grade. But the amount of biomass consumed to produce even that much was about 30 kg.

With the human body consisting of 18% carbon, and assuming an average weight of 70 kg… a single arm would require me consuming the biomass of 3 human adults at approximately 12.4 kgs per body.

Unsure of what to do with them except experiment, I engaged a needle from my arm and carefully slid it into my brachiocephalic vein. The sting came and went, as I left it inserted and filtering my blood before a small hum registered.

Nanomachine extracted: 1

This nanite-extracting needle was a gift from Missy, and with it pulling out of my vein and a quick Iron Med-spray, I now had a single Goliath nanomachine in the vial.

I stabbed it into the heart I'd pulled out of my assassin.

Foreign Biomass detected, begin automated consumption and self-replication?

That was another Database Protocol, Nanomachine Reprogramming. Choosing 'yes', I let the singular nanite get to work and set up an automated observation algorithm to document its rate of self-replication. It would grow exponentially, but I also wanted to test if it needed me and my Warp Energy within vicinity for it to work. Once I had a good amount of them, I could do more specialized testing.

For now… I turned to Diamante, who was tinkering with his gun. "What time is it?"

"It's-"

4:27 AM

"Ah, great, the Hellfire Club should be closing up soon. I have an appointment today." I stretched my limbs, walking towards the exit of Diamante's underground bunker.

He stopped me by grabbing my arm, but the lack of pupils in his eyes couldn't hide the emotion in his voice. "Hey Ripley… you're doing a good job. You should know that."

———

"Be a hero, dad. Stop those bad men."

That was it. The line that had sent me down here. My dad held a younger me by the shoulders, his arms were quivering.

It was him who needed support. "But it could hurt you, and your mom."

"We'll be fine." A younger me smiled with a naive smile, I was even missing some teeth. "We have each other."

My dad wiped his face with his sleeve, even now he refused to show any tears to me. "You're a smart kid for your age, no matter what happens I'll—"

The scene snapped. "—I never should have listened to you!"

Broken shards of memories twisted against one another, morphing as my dad grabbed a bottle and was now hobbling outside to the door of our apartment. Our current apartment.

I snapped back, an older me with acne and a bad haircut shouting away at him. "This is your fault! You took us to these bad men! You're the reason why mom has to work for them!"

"I saved us!"

"You're the reason why everything's wrong, dad!"

"Fuck you, Ripley! Everything was fine before you were born, I told Isa we weren't ready yet… that the Swarm was soon. How are going to survive that, now!"

"I'll become a Shard Operator! I'll fix thi-"

"You haven't fixed a goddamn thing in your life! Now even S/////'s family is dead because of this! She's an orphan! Because of you!"

"What?" The younger me stopped. "S////'s… uncle Mary and John are dead?"

"They tried to follow up on what I told the police." My dad gulped from the

bottle. "Now even your little girlfriend's in the same situation as we are."

"I-" I stammered…

This didn't make sense. Who was he talking about?

"Can't say a damned thing now, can you?" He gulped again, and tossed the empty bottle near my feet, before his expression twisted in self-loathing and guilt to the tears falling down my face. "I… stop that… why are you…"

I was crying, me, the Ripley viewing these memories. A mere mirror image that paled in comparison to the streams running down the younger me's cheeks.

"I… what… what did I do?" My younger self sounded horrified.

What was this memory? Why couldn't I figure out who I was crying for? Who was… S////?

On second thought… maybe it didn't matter. I'd moved past this.

I had Elsa.

Wait, but why was that my first thought after viewing-

An invasive beeping noise pulled me to reality. The brief darkness, and the hot red of Crimson Heart's room.

RED ALERT: MOTHER IS NO LONGER IN THE ROOM

I stammered to my feet, the Crimson Heart's veiled gaze rising to my confused burst of movement. "Is something the matter, Donovick?"

"I have to go home." I managed out, still shaken by what I'd seen. "NOW!"

The scene snapped, and I was back in the black. I could feel the room, threads of Warp Energy radiating across every surface of it, the Crimson Heart was here but… something wasn't right.

She had Shardware on her but… this room was full of something more than that. It was like the walls breathed at the same time as she did-

The red room erupted into view around me once more. Crimson Heart, in her beautiful veiled form, gazed at me intently before pointing to the door that formed behind me but remained wordless.

I took the handle, not questioning how I stepped out into the sewers. Tapping my Frame, the Dreadwire mask consumed my head.

My Arachne expanded, and soon, I was in the night sky to figure out what had happened to my mother.

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