NOVEL NEXT B2 – Lesson 28: “Know How to Bait Your Line.”
The Federation loved modularization.
From ship systems to housing to industrial equipment, if it could be made modular, it was.
After all, the Federation comprised hundreds of sapient species. When dealing with tens of thousands of different plants, all with their own ecosystems, weather, and cultures, flexibility was key. Adding exotics to the mix made things even more chaotic. Planets or star systems with high levels of exotics could get… weird.
Okay, maybe not as weird as this planet, where everything seemed intent on eating everything else, and superpowers were the norm.
Even so, it paid to be adaptable, and modularity was the Federation’s solution.
When Alpha had first discovered arrays and recognized their potential, his first obvious direction was applying the Federation philosophy, though to mixed results.
As the book Jīshí given him mostly touched on basic concepts, Alpha had been forced down a far more experimental route. Simulations weren’t very effective when you didn’t already know all the rules, which left good old trial and error.
A lot of errors.
A lot of explosive errors.
While the storage arrays had been relatively simple, Alpha quickly learned that whatever system governed arrays was far more complicated than he’d imagined. And more temperamental.
One of the primary reasons the Lab had to be built so far away from Alpha’s primary base behind the royal ant chamber was that his array experiments have a nasty habit of exploding in his face — literally.
Only after interrogating the captured bandits did Alpha start to make any genuine progress in his array research. Not that any single bandit knew much, but when what they knew was combined, a more complete picture began to form.
As it stood, Alpha had isolated dozens of different effects by reverse engineering the array on the [Wasp] modified by Malaki at the Slatewalker village. The problem was these ‘seals’ — as the more educated of the bandits called them — were like letters in an alphabet. They could be combined, rearranged, and even altered slightly to create ‘words’ that translated into ‘effects.’ But once those ‘words’ were written — or carved — onto an object, they were set. Because how and where each of the array seals connected to each other could greatly alter the ultimate effect of the overall array, even minor changes could cascade the larger the array was.
So, how do you turn such an intricate system of interlocking parts into a modular system?
Alpha hadn’t the faintest clue!
Not that he hadn’t tried, of course.
However, the seals weren’t the only frustrating piece of this puzzle. Not only was how the seals were arranged important, but also what they were placed on. An array that did perfectly fine on a piece of steel might suddenly become explosive if carved into copper or wood. Some seals flat-out didn’t work if they weren’t placed on the correct materials. How Malaki had modified the [Wasp] at all was baffling.
That’s why the talk of ‘spiritual tablets’ among the bandits had caught his interest.
Alpha soon learned that he wasn’t the first to cross this road — which should have been obvious — and while the solution the natives had come to wasn’t quite what he was looking for, it had given him ideas.
It had taken him nearly three months of translight time — two days of real-time, with his energy surplus — but Alpha had finally refined what would become the MUDs to a working state. All he needed was some willing volunteers to test them out for him.
Thus, the screaming woman — and slightly terrified goblins — in front of him. Alpha mentally smirked to himself. The first time he’d talked to Dr. Maria in any depth, he’d instantly pegged her for a type of person he was intimately familiar with. Despite the front of calm, reserved stoicism she often radiated, behind her eyes lay a mind that was never… satisfied. She was the type who had to be constantly doing something.
Learning something.
The kind that always had to be poking, testing, and stretching the boundaries to their limits for no other reason than ‘to see what would happen.’ Be it science, music, art, or any other field, her type was always testing what was possible, then blasting through those limits with a reckless abandonment that bordered on psychosis.
They were responsible for some of the Federation’s greatest scientific and cultural achievements… as well as some of its most horrific.
Yet—lucky for Alpha—despite all their brilliance, they were also some of the easiest to manipulate. All you had to do was play to whatever their focus was, and they would be putty in your hands.
Okay, so it was a bit more complicated than that! Alpha thought to himself. After all, people were still people. Nonetheless, as soon as Alpha shared some of the Federation’s more advanced medical knowledge with her, he knew Dr. Maria was fully in his camp.
—————————————————————
Back to the present, Boarslayer held back a raving Dr. Maria as the older woman ranted at the Alpha-controlled Alphantonso.
Antchaser moved between them and held up his hand. “Hold up, Dr. Maria, calm down, please! Explain what exactly is going on here! What’s the issue?!”
Dr. Maria paused, turned to Antchaser, and pointed at him. “What’s the problem?! I’ll show you the problem!” With that, she whirled and rushed to the machine at the base of the tank. A moment later, she held a newly minted MUD.
She flicked her wrist, and a small clay tablet the size of an open palm appeared in her other hand. The glazed clay tablet sparkled slightly under the artificial lights, as if it had been covered in glitter. Three small crystals were embedded at points along a complex web of array lines carved into its surface.
“This —” she held the tablet up and shook it, “—is a [Tablet of minor Regeneration]. And this —” she held up the coin-sized token, “—is a so-called MUD. Tell me, what’s different about them?”
Antchaser stared at the objects with a raised eyebrow. What wasn’t different about them? The spiritual tablet looked like others he’d seen before, if better made, attesting to Dr. Maria’s skill. The MUD, on the other hand, while well made in his eyes, looked more like someone had tried to mint a gold coin out of clay and then given it a coat of glaze. It would have appeared utterly unremarkable if it hadn’t been for the array lines carved into it.
Even the array etched into the MUD made little sense. While the tablet’s arrays were chaotic and hard to read, with the telltale signs of array masking, they were all self-contained. It was like looking at an artistic piece telling its own story.
The MUD, on the other hand — as he’d noticed before — felt like it was missing parts. Seals suddenly cut off at the edges, and what complete seals were there made little sense in the context of a working array.
He voiced as much as well, “I mean, where do you want me to start? They’re totally different…”
“EXACTLY!” came the doctor’s response. “Now, watch what happens.” Without an ounce of hesitation, Dr. Maria pulled out a small knife and sliced open her palm. As her blood fell onto the tablet, the array lines lit up, while the three spirit stones embedded in its surface burst into pale white flames.
Under the light of the white flame, the blood on Dr. Maira’s hand quickly dried and flaked away while the cut itself slowly mended. By the time the light had faded, little more than a pink scar was left. As soon as the flames died from the spirit stones, the tablet cracked and crumbled to dust.
Antchaser stared, wide-eyed. That was his first time seeing a genuine spiritual tablet being used. Sure, he’d seen them for sale in Halirosa’s market during the rare visit; as Dr. Maria had stated, they were only cheap comparatively. They were far outside his meager budget during any of the visits.
“Now! Watch this!” Dr. Maria said as she held up the MUD. She poured a bit of Spirit Energy into the token, and like the last time, the array lines lit up, producing several small lights around the edge. The lights didn’t seem to do anything, but they were… pretty? She repeated the action again, then again, stopping after the fourth time, by which Antchaser was starting to put the puzzle pieces together.
Boarslayer was the one to actually voice Antchaser’s mental question. “So they’re what? Mini-tablets? I mean, sure, that’s impressive, but I don’t see why you’re so worked up about them.”
Dr. Maria turned and pointed at Boarslayer. “They’re not tablets, though!” she said, an almost manic laugh cracking her voice. “Tablets hold complete arrays used to trigger their effects through the application of set conditions. These things —” again she shook the MUD “—aren’t even full arrays!”
“But wait! There’s more!” Alpha cut the woman’s rant off with his best salesman’s voice. A [Wasp] swiped the MUD from Dr. Maria’s hand before she could react. Token in hand, it flew back to the MUD machine, where another hatch had opened. Inside lay a grid with a dozen MUDs arranged in neat rows. With only a quick glance, Antchaser could tell that each token was slightly different.
Using the [Wasp], Alpha set the first MUD on a shelf, then selected two more disks and moved them to the same shelf he’d placed the first on. With a magnetic click, they snapped into place next to the original, forming a small triangle out of the hexagonal tokens.
Throughout the entire process, Dr. Maria stared, wide-eyed. As soon as the [Wasp] moved away, she rushed the newly formed MUD token. The woman reached down with trembling hands, staring at it in awe, as if she could not believe what she saw was real.
Then, with a pulse of Spirit Energy, the array lines lit up, moving between and connecting the three individual tokens. Instantly, a thin blue bubble popped into existence around Dr. Maria. She stared at the bubble for a long, unblinking moment, then looked back at the small triangle of hexagons in her hand.
Without looking away, Dr. Maria called out. “Boarslayer…,”
“Yes?” Boarslayer responded, a brow raised.
“Hit me.” The doctor’s voice, despite the previous fervor, was oddly calm.
“Okay!” Boarslayer said with a little more enthusiasm than necessary.
“Wait up! Hold on a—” Antchaser tried to protest, but before he could finish, Boarslayer had already crossed the distance, a single massive fist raised high above the much smaller doctor’s head.
With a smile, Boarslayer’s fist slammed into the energy bubble surrounding Dr. Maria… and stopped.
Boarslayer frowned and backed away, shaking her fist. Her eyes narrowed, and she took a deep breath through her mouth. Again, Boarslayer struck out, this time with a left hook faster than Antchaser could follow with his eyes. The large goblin’s fit struck the barrier with a resounding BANG! and sent out a visible shockwave. This time, the bubble indented, and small cracks formed along its surface.
The next instant, it popped, sending fragments of light scattering into the aether. Boarslayer’s fist soared harmlessly past Dr. Maira, who had never once flinched during either attack. In the doctor’s hands, the leftmost hexagon of the triad cracked and crumbled away as the lines powering the whole thing flickered and died.
Dr. Maria stared down at the two remaining MUDs silently.
Then she laughed.
It was soft at first, but slowly, it grew in volume and intensity to the point that Antchaser felt a slight chill crawl down his spine.
To the side, Alpha mentally grinned. If he had any doubt about where Dr. Maria’s loyalties would lie, Alpha was more than confident they were no longer in question.
Hook, Line, and Sinker.