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Research Tower | 1:42 PM | Second Day
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extremely pale, with straight hair that was an unnatural shade of icy aquamarine. She looked...
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culture as circumstance demanded. Evolve beyond the base tendancies our species." I noticed she was holding a scepter, which she was tossing idly from hand to hand. "But such a feat is not easily accomplished, not with follies of the Ironworkers hanging over our heads, and especially not under the cumbersome restrictions of the Covenant. So what you are witnessing represents the latest of many of my attempts to sidestep the issue through human-machine integration. A mixed success, so far, but the work is ongoing." She smirked. "Though, I expect you know this much already."
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other retrospectively obvious conclusions. Instead I stared, deer-like, for several moments.
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What the hell is she talking about?
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Quick, try to ask a smarter question, a different part of my brain said. This might be Zeno''s assistant, or part of some kind of weird test.
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now is creating a machine capable of first keeping up with, then surpassing human cognitive potential. The energy is feeding an incantation that produces huge amounts of junk sensory data, then attempts to reformat the synapses as quickly as possible in line with it. At the moment, the amount of processing power far exceeds what would ever be reasonable for practical application, but the results are promising."
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Oh god. I''d only understood about 50% of that. This was not the kind of interaction I was in the market for right after nearly surrendering my breakfast for the tilework not five minutes ealier.
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Ask another question so she doesn''t notice!
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Gods, you really are committed to this, aren''t you?"
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sexual in nature. It was reminded me more of the of the expression my mother made when she was really focused on gardening.
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wrong. Like something between crystal and flesh.
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She''s criticizing your anima scripting, one of the components of my deductive reasoning skills that was still functioning said. Also, she seems to have some knowledge about the circumstances of your birth. Probably through your grandfather, of course.
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She''s also criticizing you still wearing glasses, the minuscule voice that was my sense of fashion pointed out. How rude! They''re pretty!
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very much." She turned away from me suddenly and stepped to the side, opening up the inside of the logic engine and speaking an incantation. I noted now that her scepter was crowned with an owl of diamond, its wings spread aloft. This was the Owl of Providence, the single most prestigious symbol an arcanist could attain within the Grand Alliance outside of the government itself, awarded directly by the First Administrator. "??????????????????, ??????????????."
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can''t be substituted to the elements. The old witch in particular seems to have a death wish."
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are Zeno?"
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Yes. I am Zeno of Apocyrion. This is a body I artificed for my personal use, which I control remotely, while my ''real'' one is preserved in the safest environment possible within this sanctuary. An advanced application of my Impulse-Transmitting Arcana, sadly as yet unviable for laymen and most of the so-called practitioners of my discipline." She snorted immaturely, with a wheezing sound. "Not that that''s much of a surprise. Most of the piss-brained professors in Altaia I tried to impart it onto couldn''t incant creatively if you held a hot knife to their testicles."
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pedestrian as sex?"
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knew what I had been trying to get at. I felt terminally awkward all of a sudden, and broke eye contact, scratching at my scalp. Eventually, I stammered out: "Well, what I mean is... I''ve read a lot of your interviews, and you never appear like... Rather, you don''t ever discuss, um..."
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hell, little girl. You''re acting like a mouse that''s been dropped in a bucket." She shook her head, then turned and shot back into the air, levitating to another pylon. "If it helps restore your constitution to some level of functionality, then you''re probably reading too much into the situation. As I said, this is one of several proxies I make use of, all of them with different properties. I have no particular sentiment about it."
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interesting. Diversity of morphological experience; feeling different sensations, performing different roles, stretching the range of ones fundamental nature-- That is the quintessence of mankind''s intellectual gnosis, of cultural and technological actualization. The better question is not ''why a woman'', but rather ''why not a giant lizard''? To which the only non-imbecilic reply would be ''because I haven''t figured it out,'' of course." She paused. "Well, that, and because it probably wouldn''t fit in the building."
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constructive. Because it leads me to grow... As is the founding desire of all life."
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errata rather pursuing truly revolutionary ambition. Becoming make-up artists for the human condition, rather than the surgeons they ought to be."
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That''s easy to say when you have access to all these resources, I thought. "I don''t really know what to say to that, sir."
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check there was no overlap, then it''s hardly my responsibility." She swallowed, wiping flecks of colored sugar from her mouth. "This is why I always say that we ought to have actual employees here, instead of a bunch of aspirants we''re paying off with vague promises."
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now you''re coming out swinging with the critical thinking," she said dryly. She seemed to have stopped her work for the time being, simply looking down at me from overhead. "Very well: You could say I''m a... Patron, of his? No, benefactor is probably more accurate. He''s a relation of an old friend of mine who regrettably passed away recently. I promised them that I''d do what I could to take care of him."
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Oh, so it''s just more nepotism. Great. "That makes sense, I suppose..."
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once again, you ought to be well-aware of all this already," she went on. "If this is an act, I have to at least give you points for commitment. Even if it is kind of pissing me off."
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certain that this was a person whom I''d never met before. Not in any memory I possessed.
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But somehow, that doesn''t seem like what you''re actually asking.
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hilarious way for this to all have turned out, incidentally - then it would be better not to be explicit regardless," she said, turning her back to me again and heading towards one of the bookshelves. "Besides, it doesn''t matter. Even if you really are as you seem, Utsushikome of Fusai, then your role here will remain the same. Someone told you I wanted to speak with you, yes?"
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am incorrect in my fundamental assumptions, then you''re likely predisposed to distrust me." I opened my mouth to interject, but she cut me off. "And I have no intention of trying to disabuse you of such a notion! Everything I am about to say is something that will soon be vindicated by your own two eyes. However, there remains a concern that said attitude might lead you to fail to absorb this information outright out of pigheadedness. So I must insist that you pay attention. I am not a teacher, and it repulses me to repeat myself. Am I clear?"
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Gods, she won''t even let me get a word in. My frown deepened, and I fiddled with my glasses. "...yes."
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tell me that you hadn''t planned to accept."
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She''s right, my brain chimed in. You''ve had this thought countless times already. This whole place is full of things which have no real explanation given its stated purpose. This tower, the sheer size of the bioenclosures relative to their actual purpose, the entire location at the bottom of the ocean on another plane. Even little things, like the greenhouse, seem off.
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ever conducted for some vanity-project motive outside of government work, then I have a bridge in Babylonia to sell you," she said, looking at me like I was a complete idiot. She finally withdrew what it seemed she was looking for from the safe. It was a tiny wooden box, small enough to fit on your hand - the sort you''d usually imagine holding a necklace or bracelet. "There is work afoot here of a nature most could never conceive of. We are closing our fingers around a prize so spectacular that it will make the world shudder as it hasn''t since the Iron Epoch."
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liberate us from this decomposing corpse of a brane."
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That''s the archaic word for plane, I recalled from my secondary schooling.
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potentially excepted. You have a legacy here that confers an entitlement to the bounty which is about to be unearthed. But first you must claim that legacy. Otherwise, you''ll be like the rest of your class."
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Just like the rest of your class. I felt a chill run through me. "Something isn''t going to happen to them, is it?"
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would benefit me. I''d rather just forget about him, to be honest."
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Ungrateful. Gods, both of them can go straight to hell.
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Sublevel, I thought.
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Understand that I cannot comply with this request, it communicated.
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Maybe it leads out into the water? I speculated to myself. Just in case they need to access the exterior of the sanctuary for repairs. So the whole lower floor is designed to flood.
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Perhaps it''s sealing away a super-dangerous experiment! Now that the rational options had failed, more infantile voices were starting to prevail. Like a giant monster they gave immortality, but became *too* immortal, and never stops growing while being impossible to kill! That would be be pretty cool!
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