67 Deep Entanglents
Mack sat in front of his PC and stared at the monitor before him. Its cold blue glow etched hard lines on his face.
It was late at night, and his eyes were bloodshot. His pupils looked flat and dead, even more so after he took a swig of his now-warm beer.
On the monitor was raw footage that Eva and Miko had sent him. Just the two streams instead of the normal five.
There really wasn’t much that he could work with, and that gnawed at him. On top of that, neither of the girls had given him much direction as to where to go with any of it. Previously, they knew what they were going to get into. It usually involved a great deal of violence and excitent.
But even after a few days had passed by, all they had given him was rather mundane. It was usually them traveling, or talking, or sightseeing, or sitting in their cores, or recovering in darkness. Hours and hours of it.
What really ate at him was the fact that Eva hadn’t talked to him very much in all that ti. Usually, they chatted a bit for about an hour every day or so. It wasn’t much, but he enjoyed his ti with her greatly.
The two of them had always vibed well with each other. They had faced similar obstacles and problems when they were children, and it shaped them into social outcasts. On top of that, they were their family’s black sheep.
Eva’s parents wanted absolutely nothing to do with her, and pawned her off to her grandparents instead. Similarly, Mack’s parents were so hands-off that they simply hired people to raise him – they were certainly affluent enough to do so.
Not having strong parental figures had pretty much wrecked them throughout their lives. Both had grown into horrible misanthropes, and avoided most people most of the ti. Although she was the worse of the two.
.....
Eva was basically a modern-day hermit.
Now that she had started up her new life, she had changed dramatically. She beca much more proactive and a little more social. Her life was headed upwards and forwards.
But since she began this contract, she barely said anything at all. Usually just a perfunctory greeting.
And that ate away at him.
He took another swig of his beer, but found that it was already empty. He got up with a slight groan and headed towards the kitchen.
Why hasn’t she said anything? Is she ignoring ? Or is she mad? Is it because I told her I wanted to try again?
Truth was, the attention she gave him pumped him full of endorphins. And now that she had gone rather quiet, he felt starved for attention both emotionally and physically. He needed a fix, badly.
He put his empty bottle on the counter, where it joined a number of others – about a half dozen. Then he grabbed a fresh one from the fridge.
Why do I feel like this? he thought. Why do I still want to be with her? I know it’s impossible. We’re in two separate universes.
He wanted to have the one person he could never have again. And he honestly felt a little stupid for feeling that way.
The very idea that he deserved another chance after all he had done, on top of them being literally divided across realities... But his desire overrode any logic.
The combination of his thoughts, emotions, and alcohol spun him round and round. He beca incredibly frustrated by the civil war that raged in him. It slowly tore him apart.
He popped open his new beer, and downed it in one go. Then he added the empty bottle to the rest.
~
Back in the lab, Eva was making a couple of simple adjustnts and repairs to her core. Sort of.
She had gotten a feel for her core, and beca more familiar with it. She began to see it as an extension of herself. And not just the core itself, but of the installed modules and systems as well.
While in the midst of her 23rd Prothean rge, she ended up detecting a couple of potential problems. She had noticed a few slight power fluctuations with a couple of her installed modules.
For example, control translation module three ‘flickered’ in regards to its maximum power. All others sat at exactly what she wanted them to be, but this one kept going slightly over or slightly under.
It felt restless, like sothing had bugged it.
There were a few other modules that behaved similarly. None of them had caused any warnings of any kind and operated normally. But they felt a little off.
It was as though the modules were irritated and itchy.
So after she had spent a couple more hours in the core and another one to rest, she ca back with the intent to scratch those itches.
Using so of the tools that were strewn about, she opened up a number of outer access panels, then dove into it.
But she didn’t know exactly what she was looking at. Although she had gotten a sense for the core’s systems, it didn’t an she suddenly understood everything.
At the sight of all those nuts and bolts and wires and circuits, she beca imdiately lost. So she quickly turned to the other pilots and asked them for their help.
“Hey, uh,” she began, “anyone know how to do core maintenance?”
“Ugh,” exclaid Redstar. “Fixing the core is for the rest of the team.
“Yes, well, you don’t exactly have your team of chanics here, do you?” provoked rlin.
“I have so knowledge,” said Miko, “and would like to know more. It is probably to our benefit if we learn how to fix our own cores.”
Redstar huffed at that statent.
“I didn’t co all the way out here to beco a chanic,” she said. “I’m a fuckin’ pilot.”
“It does ntion in our contracts,” rlin retorted, “that we-”
“That we get to test a prototype, not learn to fix it.”
“I consider maintenance a part of flying. If you’re in a long hauler on a job, and sothing breaks down, you’re stuck unless you can manage the issue.”
“And if you can’t, you call soone to show up and help you.”
“Calm down, everyone,” the Admiral interjected. “I suppose we could have so techs in here to assist you with your repairs. But I certainly recomnd that you fully understand your cores first.”
The Admiral had taken note of how rlin and Redstar beca more heated with each other over ti. When they first started, the two were rather genial towards each other.
But now, their very presence began to irritate the other.
Admiral Chase wasn’t sure if that was the after-effects of the Protheus core, or if it was cabin fever due to being in a sunless asteroid all the ti, or if they just didn’t like each other very much.
Could have been a mixture of all three. Regardless, she needed to know if there were ntal ramifications to rging with the cores. So she surreptitiously ssaged her brother to keep an eye out for their ntal health as well.
If they changed, she wanted to know the details about it.
“Okay, fine,” groaned Redstar. “Guess I’ve got no choice, then.”
“Er, what were we doing again? Repairs?” asked rlin.
“Ah, I just have a couple of small replacents to make, but don’t know where to start. Figured I’d ask one of you.”
Eva then pointed out her open panels, and listed out the modules and systems that needed to be looked at.
“Those are easy,” said rlin.
He then picked up a few tools and showed her how to pry apart the casing to get to the parts. Miko and Redstar also peeked over his shoulder as he worked.
He was a rather adequate teacher, all told. Explanations often ca as he dismantled things, about why they needed to co off in the order they did.
The core pieces he had taken out were also laid out in a sowhat organized manner, where similar or exact pieces were grouped with each other.
He then pulled out the offending piece – it was a length of woven silver wire. However, a portion of it had burnt from overuse. Although it still behaved well within paraters, it was a potential danger.
“Ah, interesting,” he said. “It’s good that you wanted to remove this. If it burned out completely while out in the field, it might have been disastrous.”
It didn’t take him long to cut off an equal length of fresh silver wire, then put it in place of the old one. Putting it all back together also didn’t take much ti, and he made sure to walk them through every step.
Although it was a very simple repair with very little moving parts, Eva found it incredibly enlightening. The more she understood about her core, the easier it was for her to rge with it.
“Anyone else’s cores need fixing or adjustnts or whatever?” she asked. “I wanna see more of this.”
“Adjustnts? Fixes?” asked Redstar. “Nah, my core reported all systems green.”
“Mine too,” said Miko.
“My core also reported green,” Eva said. “It passed basic diags. I only figured out these issues when I looked at the modules a little closer. When I did, so of them felt a bit – don’t make fun of for saying this – they felt annoyed.”
“Annoyed?” queried the Admiral.
“Yeah, like when you’ve got an itch you can’t reach,” replied Eva. “It felt as though those modules expressed that level of annoyance.”
The Admiral’s eyes went wide with shock as the implications suddenly hit her. If Protheus was affecting the pilots’ minds, it was possible that their minds also affected their cores.
It was possible that the cores were developing ergent intelligences.
She wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing. Not that she cared either way. She wanted to see a core develop independent thought.
“I think I’m going to check my own core,” said the Admiral. “And everyone else should, too.”
“Great, more work,” moaned Redstar. “Less vroom.”
~
Commander Chase was in his assigned dbay unit when his sister’s ssage ca in his DI. It asked for him to take a better look at everyone’s ntal state.
“Didn’t need to ask that,” he muttered aloud.
The bags under his eyes were also puffy and dark. He rubbed the strain out of his reddened eyes, then turned back towards his terminal.
On it were a number of strands of DNA, which she scrolled up and down. As though he was searching for sothing. He stopped at a portion, rotated around it, then copied it over to a tray to the side.
The tray had a number of portions of DNA in it, perhaps a dozen or so.
He then zood out until he hit the cellular level, and did the sa thing. Looked for a few specific cells and saved them off to the side.
Another zoom level later, and he copied over neurons and synapses.
.....
Afterwards, he zood out all the way until Eva’s naked form appeared on his screen. Commander Chase sat there for so ti, and simply stared at her.
His thoughts, emotions, and libido were all in disarray at the very sight of her.
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