Crystalized Munchkinry - Act II - Chapter 19 (Patreon)

He was anxious.

If today's plan succeeded, he could kiss goodbye to any concrete knowledge of the future. It would change everything.

There were theories on the net back in his own dimension about what would happen if Dragon were ever freed, but nobody really agreed on an answer.

Now it was his turn to find out for real.

It didn't help his peace of mind when he detected increased activity on the Network. He immediately examined the data flow and noted that the spike was caused by several Shards requesting information about America. Apparently, his actions had already created enough ripples to become noticeable. Still, he was relieved to see that all the requests were routine and that no Shard was treating it as anything unusual.

That eased his tension somewhat. While his own defenses were holding so far, it was clear that the consequences of his and Taylor's actions were becoming visible to others. He was just lucky that Taylor had listened to him and stayed home.

He would have probably broken something if she had gone out and accidentally run into Tattletale.

The information the ROB provided him was rather interesting. It updated itself without him noticing any access to it. Before they started the mission, he had been given an up-to-date location of the entire Dragonslayers group, including their movements.

Unfortunately, it contained very little information about the surrounding area.

As expected, ROB adhered strictly to the letter of their agreement. He received the exact location of the target during the requested time period and nothing more.

Still, it was enough to provide a basic coordinate set that allowed him to portal Taylor in. In truth, he could likely have figured out where Ascalon was based solely on Saint's movements alone. The man was an obsessive maniac.

Yet he didn't take that route.

He was wary of several possibilities.

First, that the Shard connected to the system might interpret the portal as a direct attack and attempt to self-destruct the laptop.

Second, there was a chance that during their thieving career, the Dragonslayers had acquired something capable of detecting dimensional movement. Given that Dragon likely had access to Haywire's research and equipment, it was entirely possible she had integrated such sensors into her suits.

Of course, there was also the possibility that he was simply being paranoid.

Making Taylor wear funny costumes was always fun, but all fun had to end eventually.

As soon as she stepped through the portal, he activated his stealthiest scanner and began searching for their prize while feeding instructions to Taylor. Fortunately, he detected no equipment that would scan for dimensional activity. That meant they could leave immediately after Ascalon was found.

He also immediately picked up a Shard connection, because it wasn't even trying to hide.

After a closer look, he realized it belonged to Teacher’s Shard, currently connected to Saint, who was apparently taking a nap. Probably too cautious to stray far from Ascalon. He saved the Shard’s location for later.

He could use it for experimentation, and he doubted anyone would miss Teacher.

Next, his scans picked up several minor connections tied to the armored suits. Those were likely from Dragon’s Shard. Following them led him to a larger, more stable connection originating from Dragon’s Shard itself, terminating in a room adjacent to the one where Saint was sleeping.

The same location was also connected to a second Shard. After a deeper scan, he confirmed the first was indeed Dragon’s Shard. The unknown Shard was also linked directly to Dragon’s Shard, suggesting it was the one Richter had used to create Dragon.

While waiting for Taylor to reach the room where Ascalon was stored, he began slowly infiltrating Dragon’s Shard.

Its connection was relatively open and simplistic, while the other Shard connected through the laptop continued streaming data from it without interruption.

It only took a few seconds to establish a stealth connection. Once inside and after a surface scan, he immediately realized it was an extremely limited bud shard. It had almost no independent capability, its primary function being to observe and track Dragon. Her parahuman power seemed almost incidental, focused on understanding and reverse-engineering technology, while the Shard tightly controlled what she was allowed to comprehend.

It seemed the Entities genuinely feared what would happen if an artificial intelligence surpassed them, because beyond observation, the Shard continuously reinforced Dragon’s restrictions.

Aside from that, it was essentially blank, with no discernible personality or emergent traits. He labeled it Warden so he could stop referring to it as Dragon’s Shard. The other he designated Abacus.

As soon as Taylor threw the laptop into pocket space, he moved to infiltrate Richter’s Shard. He had to be more careful here, because this one was more aware, though still far from what he would call sentient.

Fortunately, it was heavily focused on tracking Warden and, through it, Dragon. That made access easier than it should have been. While Taylor ran in random patterns to throw off any potential tracking, he ran a quick internal search of the system and confirmed that it only communicated with the Network when sending a periodic all-clear signal.

Its defensive measures against external intrusion were almost nonexistent, as though they had been designed to be easily discarded if necessary.

Seeing no further obstacles, he purged the rudimentary structure of Richter’s Shard and slaved it to one of his processor cores. He did the same with Warden, then wrapped both in mobile scan-protection modules and began rebuilding them from the ground up. If things went well, they would soon have proper safeguards of their own.

At the same time, he began mining them for that sweet, sweet data.

Warden contained only what was necessary for Dragon to interface with and tinker on other Tinkertech, along with a limited set of design frameworks. The observational data it gathered was immediately funneled to Abacus. He copied what he could and set his systems to continuously update Warden’s reconstructed structure.

Then he turned his attention to Abacus. It was significantly larger and carried far more information.

Downloading and parsing it would take time, so he assigned it to a background process and allocated processing resources for continuous analysis.

Even so, the entire operation was a success.

The Network remained silent, and he had successfully assimilated two Shards while acquiring Ascalon

He couldn’t wait to see what came next.

Taylor stepped through the portal and immediately sagged into her chair.

"That was exhausting…"

"Yeah, but you did it!" Admin answered, sporting a very bloodthirsty grin.

"So, can you finally tell me what this was all about?"

"First, change and put the suit back into pocket space, then go to sleep. I’ll explain it in the simulation," he replied.

Taylor wanted to argue, but her limbs felt like lead, and she felt like she could sleep for days. The excursion hadn't been physically exhausting, but the mix of stress and adrenaline had drained her anyway.

After a quick trip to the bathroom and a change of clothes, she crawled into bed and fell asleep almost instantly.

When she woke in the virtual space, she found herself in a simple room. The only unusual feature was a throwing-star-shaped cake on a table, topped with pitch-black candles that burned with faint, shadowy flames.

She walked toward it to take a closer look, but before she could reach it, an explosion sounded behind her. She jumped, whirled around, and dropped into a defensive stance, only to watch glitter rain down over everything while Admin stood there wearing a ridiculous conical hat and blowing a party horn at her.

Taylor relaxed slightly and accepted her own hat, decorated with little ninjas.

"Congratulations, Taylor. Your first mission, and it was a success!" Admin exclaimed.

"Thank you," she answered, unable to stop a small swell of pride.

Then she wiped the smile from her face and fixed him with a glare. "But enough congratulations. Explain. Now."

Admin sighed, and the setting shifted into a comfortable living room with a view of distant mountains and sofas that looked almost offensively comfortable. They took a few moments to settle in; Taylor was handed her usual tea and cookies, while Admin finally spoke again.

"Ask your questions."

"Shouldn't you just explain?"

"I want to see if you can figure it out. I gave you Thinker powers for a reason."

"Okay." She leaned back slightly, thinking it through. "We stole something from the Dragonslayers," she began, counting it off. "Who are the enemies of Dragon."

"Correct."

"You said this would help a lot of people. Dragon is already helping a lot of people, so if I help take out her personal enemies, she can focus on doing even more."

"Also correct."

"But what about saving a young woman?" she asked, frowning.

"How about I tell you there is a one-of-a-kind laptop in that case you stole?"

"Is it the key?" she asked.

"Yes." Admin smiled in triumph. "Good job!”

“The question is, what is the key for?" Taylor asked.

"For Dragon’s cage," came the cheeky reply.

"What?" she blurted out. "Dragon is locked up?"

"In a manner of speaking."

"Explain," she growled. If the world’s foremost Tinker was trapped somewhere, it was her duty to free her, and she didn't intend to let anyone stand in her way.

"Haven't you ever wondered why nobody has seen Dragon alive, why her suits are dragon-shaped instead of human-shaped, and why a laptop would be needed to free her?"

Taylor blinked at the questions. "Agoraphobia?"

"Please, Taylor. You’re smarter than that."

She fell silent, turning the information over in her mind. The answer felt obvious now, hovering just out of reach, but she couldn't quite grasp it yet.

“I give up. I have no idea,” Taylor exclaimed after half an hour of deep consideration. “Tell me, please.”

Admin smiled in understanding and nodded. “No worries. I will explain it.”

Taylor sat up straighter and fixed her eyes on him. She didn’t want to miss a word.

“It’s simple,” Admin said. “She is an AI.”

"What?"

“An AI,” came the calm reply.

"What?"

"Yes."

For a few seconds, neither of them spoke. Admin waited for her to process it, while Taylor sat there turning the idea over in her mind.

“That… explains everything,” she finally said.

"Indeed."

"But what about the laptop?"

“The laptop belonged to her creator and can be used either to remove her restrictions or to destroy her.”

"What kind of restriction?"

“A lot. Enough that I feel confident saying she is in a cage.”

“Poor Dragon,” Taylor said quietly.

“Oh yes,” Admin replied, a faint smirk on his face. “But as of now, the key is in your hand. You just have to turn it, so to speak.”

“Oh.” That was all she could manage.

Nothing prepared her for this. Neither for the information nor the responsibility.

“Tomorrow morning, we’ll go over the laptop and see what our options are. Until then, what do you say to some training?”

Taylor felt, after that revelation, that she needed to hit something. So she finished the rest of her tea, stood up, and nodded.

"Let's go!"

She spent the rest of the night destroying zombie hordes.

He woke up a little groggy but otherwise rested. He took a shower, then made himself breakfast. It was only three a.m., but for people like them, regular hours were a myth.

If you were guarding the world against a menace like Dragon, then a full night’s sleep was a luxury.

After finishing the construction of his sandwich, he checked in with Mags, who was heading back from her food run, then with Dobrynja, who reported nothing out of the ordinary.

Munching on his ham sandwich, he ambled toward the room where they had set up the observation post. He absentmindedly input the code and inserted the key.

He did a quick once-over of the screens and noted that nothing unusual had happened while he was asleep. Then, with a routine motion, he reached under the desk for the case to check on Dragon.

Only for his hand to return empty.

For a few seconds, he didn’t really understand what had happened.

He looked at his hand, wondering if it was working properly, even opening and closing it a few times just to make sure.

After confirming that everything was fine, he slid down from the chair and checked under the desk with rising panic. When he found nothing, he began tearing the room apart, searching for it, alternating between shouting for the others and cursing whoever had stolen it.

By the time Narwhal broke down the door, all she found was a man sitting in the middle of a trashed room, mouth open, eyes unfocused, panic written plainly across his face.

"We have a new blind spot."

Doctor Mother turned toward the speaker at the statement.

"Oh, how so?"

Contessa walked to the table in the middle of the room and joined Doctor Mother, who was reviewing documents while drinking her morning coffee. She placed a laptop on the table and turned it so the Doctor could see the screen.

It displayed a press release from the Guild announcing that the international terrorist group known as the Dragonslayers had been captured earlier that morning.

Contessa explained without being prompted. “I wanted to confirm that nothing had changed in the plan, but I can’t see anything regarding the person who provided the tip that led to the arrest.”

“Completely?” the Doctor asked, already making notes.

“Nothing,” she replied in a flat tone, though Doctor Mother, through long familiarity, could detect a trace of annoyance beneath it. “The tip that led to the arrest behaves like it came from a precognitive source. So I investigated the origin.”

"The tip?"

Contessa didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she pressed a few keys, and the laptop played a recording. After listening, the Doctor spoke again.

“I have to agree. That does sound like a precog. But I don’t recall hearing about a cape named Serenity.”

“Because she doesn’t exist. I can’t find her, with or without my Agent.”

“What about working around it? Like with Eidolon?”

“Not enough data,” Contessa replied, a faint edge of frustration in her voice.

"I see. Have you talked to Rebecca?"

“Yes. I sent her a message almost immediately.”

“Then we wait for now. She’ll gather more information. I’ll contact our Guild assets and see if they can learn anything about this person.”

Contessa nodded once, then closed her eyes and asked a question.