She puffed out rings of smoke from her mouth as her eyes glanced at the holoscreen before her. There was the projection of a young woman on the other end, and she looked very concerned. She had sleek black hair and grey eyes, and she wore a black leather uniform with the symbol of MUG on it. Behind her was a ch designer studio.
"So what about it?" asked the woman who smoked at her screen.
The uniford woman on the other end gritted her teeth and said, "Don’t use that tone on , Alberta. The Silver Seats are not pleased with your absence."
Professor Maria Alberta Einstein chuckled at the screen projected by her comm device. "Since when are they ever pleased, darling?"
The woman on the other end failed to suppress a groan. "When do you plan to tell them you’re on your ho planet, or that you’re actually on a secret mission?"
The professor shook her head lightly. "And divulge quality information? Not my style. Besides, what I do with my private life is none of their business."
The woman on the other end tapped her forehead gently. "You’re gifted, Alberta, and no one usually bothers geniuses like yourself. But you’re a goddamn Silver Seat. Unless you take up an heir or disciple, they’ll just keep bugging you. I can’t stall for long. I’m even risking my skin trying to contain you."
Professor Alberta took her cigarette from her mouth and let out a puff of steam before saying, "Such insufferable cunts they are. Alright, just give a year or two. I’ve almost cracked this thing. How are things on your end, darling?"
The woman on the other end leaned back into the seat she was seated on and sighed. "That’s Vanice to you. And don’t fuck with , you bitch. The world doesn’t revolve around your sorry ass. There have been speculations that so of the hostile alien regints have begun to make a move on humanity. Also, the kaiju have been seen dominating more planets."
Professor Alberta fell mute for a few minutes, leaving them both in awkward silence. She spoke shortly after. "Beco a Silver Seat, they said. It’ll be fun, they said. But it’s all a load of bull crap. Sure, it has its advantages, but nothing more than a load of work. I never got any ti to touch a ch there, so what’s the point?"
Vanice looked at Alberta from her end and responded in a soft tone. "Being on the Silver Seat makes you a symbol for the newer generation of ch designers. The other Seats have many disciples—teaching the next generation to be even better than us."
"Boy, who are we kidding?" Professor Alberta snorted aloud. Her face didn’t take the conversation seriously, but her eyes told a different story. "Power is simply an oppressive front. Look at . How the hell did I beco a goddamn image to anyone? I used to be a poor girl from so trash planet. I used to hate this place. So I left to tour the galaxy. Being a ch designer was the easiest way to go about that. I worked for rcenaries, pirates, and soon the fucking embassy."
She took another whiff of her cigarette before continuing. "Then they started spouting so bullshit about image and change. Truly a pod of crap."
Vanice raised a questioning eyebrow as she said, "But you stayed."
Professor Alberta smiled happily as she played with her hair. "That’s because they’d wipe my slate clean. So let’s be honest—my physical presence is only for publicity for their next tournant coming up in a few years. But here’s what I say: suck my tits."
Vanice groaned loudly. "Why do you have to be so problematic? If there’s sothing you want, then tell ."
Professor Alberta smiled victoriously. "You really know how to touch a lady’s heart, darling. I want information, and it depends on whether you guys are going to release it or not." Vanice’s gaze darkened at the ntion of those words. "Romanus Alpha."
Vanice’s face paled, the colour draining from it. "Where did you hear that na?"
Professor Alberta smiled again. "I’ll give you so ti to ponder on that." Saying that, she cut the line and stared at the containnt pod that had a serial number and the word Romanus Alpha on it. "I can’t possibly leave this planet till I know where you ca from."
She recalled what her colleague had said about the other mbers of the Seat having disciples. She wondered if she would ever care to take soone under her wing as a disciple. Of the two that served under her, only one of them actually thought of her as his master, while the other had another path in life.
As she was leaving her secret room, she cleaned up her tools and tied her hair up with a rubber band. She suddenly rembered that she had a third person whom she said she would start to take seriously. She had been so busy with her visitors that she had forgotten about him.
"I haven’t seen the asle in a while. No doubt he’s still learning how to make that old ch tick. When he fails and cos to , I can fix him into a certain area of specialization and be done with him," she said nonchalantly. In Alto, all she could see was a young, ignorant boy with a dream. He acted and talked with great promise, but he had no way to back it up. In the current world, those who could fight against their fates were needed.
If humans had chosen not to fight their fates, they would have never survived in space. They would have never created chs or ford a great civilisation spanning multiple solar systems. Even if Alto had the courage to fight against his fate, she doubted he would amount to much. There were certain things that limited so aspiring ch designers from reaching certain feats or advancing faster than their shadows, and that all ca down to their genetics. There were so genetic limitations that could not be broken down through normal ans. Because of this, noble families were known to use gene boosters, but this knowledge was rumour at best. To people like Professor Alberta, however, she knew it was true.
After all, she had used such gene boosters before, and the cigarette she casually took a whiff of every now and then was a much lesser version of a gene booster. It acted as a stimulant and enhancer to so parts of her body. As she went about her day, she couldn’t help but wish for sothing important to happen soon.
Back in Alto’s room, he was thinking about what he would allocate his creation points into. He decided to spend half of the creation points as wisely as he could. He had only managed to get this one by chance and hard work. The chances of the sa happening anyti soon were unpredictable, so he chose to think it through carefully.
He pondered on the things that seed hard or tasking when he built his ch, and the ways his ch fell short of others. He knew he lacked crucial knowledge compared to the professor’s two other disciples. He had been behind them since the day he arrived, and now, three years later, he could only imagine how much the gap had widened.
Alto hopped into the ga once more, only this ti with the intention of learning from it rather than working on it. He wished the ga had books on ch designing, but due to copyright issues, it did not co with that feature. However, there was a feature where he could observe the gaplay of those who had bought his ch. He watched the battle of his ch in a frozen forest landscape. Seeing ice for the first ti stole his breath, but he focused his mind on his real goal and observed the battle.
It was his first ti seeing a ch battle, and though not as flashy as he had expected, it was still sowhat remarkable. He watched the clip three tis and found himself baffled by the sa thing: the opponent of the person who piloted his ch seed to know where his ch would co out from before he even appeared.
Nothing Alto had studied could explain this strange phenonon. He decided to do so research on his own. He looked at the specifications of the ch that had almost crushed his, and he was surprised by how capable it was. Its armour and firepower were superior to his. While he had watched the clip for the first ti, he had to say he was at the edge of his seat. He had expected his ch to fall short, but it seed its pilot was gifted.
Looking at the spec sheet of the Blue Knight light-dium ch, he found a few odd elents that his ch lacked. He rembered the ch Designer Protocol giving him the bold "F" for them in its own evaluation of his work.
Alto realized that his ch lacked basic sensor systems such as heat sensors, sonar sensors, visual sensors. It also lacked an AI interface for the correct optimization of the ch. Alto felt a bit sad for whoever had piloted his ch under such unfair circumstances, but then again, the only reason these things were not part of his work was because the professor never taught him that. Alto wondered if she omitted them on purpose or thought he wasn’t ready for them.
Alto had to agree with himself: he was lacking in basic knowledge like thermodynamics and mathematics. Perhaps that was why he failed to know there was circuitry involved in chs.
Now, Alto was beginning to feel foolish for being proud of his ch. "What was I thinking? What was I getting all excited for? I created a ch? All I did was create a chanical bodysuit. If this wasn’t a ga, I could have killed soone. I need to do better in future. I need to use the ch Designer Protocol, hit the books, and learn more. There’s more to building a ch than just making the gears turn or fabricating a piece of armour. It takes actual work and dedication."
Saying those words to himself made him realise sothing. "Could this be why the professor said that to those years back? Could this be why they rarely made a full ch? Are my seniors incompetent? No, it can’t be. They’ve been with the professor far longer than I have. Still, it doesn’t make any sense."
He could clearly rember the professor saying sothing on the first day that they t. She had said she would make him specialise in a special field at best.
Alto shook his head to face his own problems. It took him a while, but he finally decided on what to invest his creation points into.
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