A Bio-Weapon's Rhapsody

Chapter 4: …can you both like…not quarrell?

It hurt, it hurt…why did it hurt?Ale felt as if her head wanted to split, the words…The resounded on her head. World? World? World?

What? Why? She could see it, her body splitting, the world around her splitting…

And just as it started, it ended, Ale felt the whole world turn to a stop and refocus once more, her head no longer hurt, what she noticed first was that she was kneeling on the ground holding her head with both hands, a stream of blood flowing from her eyes.

“That is worrisome,” Ale said as she quickly reabsorbed that back into her body. At least no one had seen it since her Face Mask covered her.

She had felt her…[Consciousness Stream] wanting to split into several pieces; if she had been built differently, then that may have worked; at least [Main Core] managed to mitigate and solve the issue.

“AAAAAAAAHHHHH THE SHADOWS! THE SHADOWS!!!!!” Not so much for the other people around her.

The Domino-masked minion she had been talking to was bashing his head against a wall, and if Ale was hearing things quite right, then people outside were not having it any better.

[Filtered]” That one was new.

Ale…hadn’t quite heard that?

“What was that?” Ale said aloud and noticed the people around clawing at their ears.

“....Of course I do, I need to know what is happening,” Ale said aloud, sighing; sometimes Main Core seemed really smart…while others it seemed incredibly dumb, as if it couldn’t act upon the more nuanced aspects.

Main Core said at the back and Ale noticed a new program hovering on the edge of her [Consciousness Stream].

“[You need to wake up! The world is a lie! This world is a mirage! Wake up people!]” The voice resounded once more, but there was a mechanical aspect to it, perhaps it was because there was a new program parsing the meaning? How could [Main Core] even parse it?

He isn't.

“Ah yeah, that makes more sense,” Ale said nodding, was more efficient after all. Why was that?

Ale heard that being transmitted to her earphones.

So she pushed the button that allowed her to answer and did so, “Rhapsody here, I am awaiting pickup. I can see one of the Domino-Maked Minion being affected, he is currently attempting to break a wall using his head. Should I…do something?” Ale said speaking into the speakers.

“ The voice in her head said once again, who was this one? She didn’t recognize the voice quite yet, but since it came from her headphones then it should be someone from [Haephestus’ Forge], “

That one she recognized, Her vitals did?

Main Core answered the question on her head.

“I got a very bad headache followed by the feeling of being split,” Ale said, recounting the events that had sucked, “Main Core managed to pull us together before we broke, and then we just used our power to deal with the interference, I can’t hear or interact with whatever is causing this now.”

And that was the important bit; she wasn’t sure if she would be immune to directed applications of this [Core Power], but at least the broad uses of it should not work on her, for now anyway.

“ [Elder] asked, so multiple types of [Core Users] could do this?

“I’m not sure, besides the weird symptoms the only thing that comes to mind is that weird voice,” Ale said, unsure of what else to say, she hadn’t actually seen the [Core User] who did this, and all she had heard were those weird words that her [Brain] couldn’t process, and yet she somehow understood.

She knew they were words since the new program at the back translated them into words.

“ [Elder] sounded worried,

…that was a very specific thing to ask, was the new [Core User] that arrived a [Mind Core User]?

“He said that this world was a lie, a mirage. And that we needed to wake up. As for what he said before I don’t know, Main Core deleted those memories.” Ale answered while picking up the briefcase and checking if it had been opened. It hadn’t, dang it.

“” [Elder] asked, was he arriving at another convenient realization on his own again? The [Humans] really liked doing that, didn’t they?

“I can’t hear him, his voice is dangerous. Main Core is parsing the words for me and giving me a translation of what he says, but I can’t actively interact with him. He made a program that recognized the pitch, tone, and vibration his voice makes and deleted it as soon as it interacted with me, then made a secondary program to turn what it deleted into data that fed me the meaning of what he attempted to communicate. So I only get the sound but not the [Mana] he had on his voice.” Ale answered. That was one loooong explanation.

[Elder] laughed on the other side of the call, “

Him?

“Who is doing this?” Ale asked trying to find something to snack on while she waited for new orders, she was feeling hungry with all the things that Main Core was doing at the back, and she didn’t want to quite tap into her [Banked Storage] if she could help it.

[Elder] said suddenly sounding serious,

…The who?

“I have no idea who that is,” Ale said after finishing her scavenging hunt, the only thing that she had found to eat was the domino-masked minion who was frothing on the floor.

She knew he was frothing because the saliva was leaking from the side of his domino mask as he tried to cover his ears, but he did not succeed on that.

“Side question, what happens to the victims of this Scrambler guy?” Ale said kneeling at the side of the domino-masked minion while pocking him on the side, there was no answer to his pocking.

So far, nothing of what [Elder] had said sounded that troublesome…Or what she had experienced.

“I felt as if what makes me [Me] was splitting multiple ways.” Ale said turning to stare down at the Domino-Masked Minion, “And it also felt as if I was staring down at an empty void, as if I would turn into nothing.”

Ale did not like that feeling, she would have probably destroyed her [Brain] first if [Main Core] hadn’t reacted in time.

[Elder] let his words trail.

“[Fan-]” Ale was about to ask, but remembered that she was at work, and also was better than Alexa, “Is [Sylph] and [Golem] fine?” Follow current novels on NovєlFіre.net

[Elder] recounted the situation of both of them, it seemed that only Ale was affected then.

Lose more Minions?

“How do you lose more minions? Wasn’t this effect one that was limited to the psyche? How could it be a cause of losing Minions?” Ale asked confused.

[Elder] said in a low tone,

So that would mean, at worst, six people? And at best eight? She assumed that the client and minions would be The Theater Guy and Aqua. The only one that Ale was concerned for was the Pizza wielding one to be honest, she was hungry. And it sounded as if she wouldn’t be able to nom the domino-masked minion. Or former minion?

“What are my orders?” Ale said walking towards the window, there was chaos down there, “I have the [Data Banks] and the [Briefcase] that were one of the targets of this [Mission].”

She wasn’t sure if there were more [Data Banks] around, or other briefcases with more data, but perhaps this would be her chance to fish for more? She wanted to be sure if there was data of her going around or not.

The [Elder] started speaking at the very back, it seemed he had connected with Aqua?

Ale didn’t even have a chance to say anything when there was the sound of a new voice getting into her earphones, The voice of [Aqua] sounded on, it sounded as if she was speaking surrounded by waves,

That was…a very specific question…How did she even know the name of her teacher?

“Tristan De’Medicci.” Ale answered with some worry, “How is that relevant? How do you know my personal information?

Aqua said, dismissing her worry,

The Package?

Ale looked down at the briefcase. That was one interesting way to say it.

“I have…” Ale did a recount of the amount of data she ripped, “around five [Data Banks] plus a briefcase with an unconfirmed amount of folders given to me here at the rendevouz point.”

Ale really hoped they asked her to confirm the contents of those.

Aqua said dismissing her wants,

…It was good that Ale refrained from trying to worm her way into it then.

A series of coordinates flooded into her eyes as the Mask she was wearing received a data dump; it even updated in real time the air humidity and wind direction… That would make it easier to deliver the package.

…That was one weird petition.

And like that, the call was cut.

[Elder] spoke next in her head,

…Why did both sound like that?

Not like it was Ale’s problem anyway, as soon as she wondered about her route of evacuation it manifested on her sight, as a minimap that showed her ubication and nothing else really.

[Elder] finished the communication with that.

Did it matter the age of a [Core]? Ale didn’t think it mattered that much; all the [Cores] she had seen were roughly the same, and the same could be said of all the [Cores] she made. If anything, there weren’t that many differences.

The perceived difference attributed to age may be related to the Mana Density achieved within the Core; as there is more mana stored within, the same Mana increases in density, allowing more Mana to grow and increasing the sturdiness of the Core.

Notice:

Current density measured for all the Cores within both host and blueprint library measured using Mana μnits.

Mana DensityNameDensityMana μnitsStatusTypeCore330FoundationAnchorMind01TempSlaveNanite110PrimaryInformationConstruction110SecondaryDeconstructionShapeshifting01TempSlaveBeast00BlueprintBaseRat00BlueprintFormCat00BlueprintFormHuman00BlueprintFormMutant00BlueprintAdd OnBroken00BlueprintAdd OnTruth00BlueprintMindInformation00BlueprintData

( ` ꒳ ´ )✧

“So there is a difference, but we don’t know how much it will change with time,” Ale said reading the blue screens.

Main Core said, turning the conversation into one that seemed to ignore the fact that he had previously stated something very different.

But Ale was magnanimous and would not poke fun at him (for now).

“Okay, then plot a route, we are leaving at the fastest speed possible,” Ale said placing the briefcase on her back and grabbing it firmly by using some wiggle-wiggles that would hug it, she changed their color to match her current Nuzzler Armor too.

Ale could feel the pressure building within her boots and arm-mament, she would need to be very precise with her change of directions, lest she end up as a splat. That was something that only Alexandra needed to experiment.

“Rhapsody, lift off!” Ale said, giggling as she jumped out of the building and allowed the pressurized air to shoot out from her feet; she extended her arms sideways to try and control some of her trajectory as she was flying through the air.

One could hear her laughing as she was changing directions at high speed while following [Main Core]’s directions, this was quite fun actually.

Ale would do this again when she wasn’t surrounded by the masses screaming while crying tears of blood and clawing at their ears, that kinda ruined the image.