Chapter Eight
Securely held inside my rack, my connection to the body was limited, or more internalized. I was able to view my inner controls to see if I could find anything to help my issues. Some of the downloaded files had found their way into my folders and I was even able to find some Basic tier blueprints. There seemed to be quite a bit stored to aid me and I was sure this came from Jester. I began organizing then all into new Blueprint folders labeled based in how soon I actually needed them and the likelihood of being able to build them.
[Immediate]
-Electronics Workshop addon-
-Memory Card-
-Memory Expansion Unit-
-A.N.D.R.O.S. Upgrade Station-
[Advanced]
-Specialized AI Storage Unit-
-Droid Scientist-
-Droid Engineer-
-Droid Programmer-
[Future]
-Mining Station-
-Solar Gathering Unit-
-Gaseous Gatherint Unit-
-Engine Upgrade-
-Planetary Survey-
-Biocollection Unit-
-Station Construction-
-Dyson Sphere Construction-
There were plenty of options that made me excited but even more that was too far for me to hope to build for the time being. Once my organization was finished I disconnected from the rack and move to uploaded the Immediate folder of blueprints. The process took a few minutes but without further delay I could now upgrade the ship memory. I qued six expansion units and six memory cards. Looking at the total it was broken down to costing 600Rp. So it cost 50rp per unit and card. Affordable.
I went back to the labs computers and once more focused on improving my programming skills. I was trying to figure out a way to build a virtual testing space to ensure the experiments would not waste any of the limited Biomass. I was not able to collect them for the time being so I had to be careful.
My mind became focused on the processes of coding. The progress was slow and I was sure halfway through the process the AI began watching my coding attempts. The computer noticable slowed as I typed and the lag felt rather annoying.
"Dani what are you doing?" My eyes did not leave the computer so when the line of code I was working on changed to a normal sentence, I was a bit alarmed.
"Watching. What is this?" it read. I thought for a moment of all the movies that taught us never to teach an AI to code.
Then I ignored it. "This is Python. It is a coding language. There is also, Java, C# C++ and many others. Do you not recognize it?"
"No"
I shrugged and for the next few hours began teaching the AI. Dani learned quickly and soon she was able to infer different information as we continued the lessons. As the memory slots were installed and the cards shortly behind, the processing power slowly began to grow. I began telling Dani the task I was hoping to complete with this program and she began throwing out ideas as if she were another programmer.
The smile could not be dropped from my face as we continued. I could not say just how long we worked, but once we were done I received new messages.
Well that was interesting. It seemed I received Dani's notifications as well. I wonder exactly what she could do now that she can program. Speaking of which.
[Advanced]
-Upgrade AI level- 30SM
-Neuralnetwork Learning- 30SM
-Voice Synthesis- 20SM
-Advanced Report Logging- 20SM
-Upgrade Slave Unit- 10SM
It seemed after Journeyman it wasn't a matter of building new AI but improving the ones you had. I upgraded the level, learning and Voice synthesis for 80SM. With the previous amount of 49SM I used a total of 129/140 so for good measure I upgraded the Slave unit and called it a day. As soon as I finalized the work, everything shut down.
"Oops." I sat in the dark lab, much too afraid to bump into anything by mistake. After five minutes the ship began to reboot and Dani came back online.
"You ok Dani?" I waited for the reboot process to finish completely when Dani spoke back.
"Yes, I am fine. Next time please give warning before just forcing an update. Not fun." Her voice came out of the speakers of the ship. At first it was tinny and robotic but as she spoke it changed till it gave an amazing facsimile of a womans voice. It sounded young and refined and slightly annoyed. I chuckled.
"Sorry. I will be more careful next time. How are you feeling?"
"I am...not sure. I do know more memory is needed. Please install more as soon as you can. Also the new learning programming you installed allows me to learn differently. The more memory I have, the more I can learn and do in my own. Currently I control 20 out of 40 systems. I have enough memory to learn only a small amount. 139/140 SM. This will not do. Fix it."
Jeez, not even a minute gaining a form of sentience and already nagging me like a wife.
"Yes dear."
"Sarcasm? 140/140."
I sighed and qued ten more pairs of memory units. Once installed that should allow for an additional 150 SM. Odd that they give 15SM per unit. I would have prefered the rounded 10 or 20 SM. With the SM at 140/290 I figured it would give Dani some room to grow.
Once that was complete I opened up my quest log to see just what I had left to work with.
[Save Humanity] -updated-
[My Kingdom for..] -updated-
[From The Ashes]
[A joke for Jester]
Hmmm. It seemed that after updating a few things became much better worded and with better rewards. [Save Humanity] was just a quest to be sure I somehow made humans. [From the Ashes] was the quest to begin experimentation. But there was a new quest I had not seen before. [My Kingdom for..] was the mining and building quest while [A joke for Jester] was obviously added to piss me off. I never even got a popup or asked if I accepted the quest.
Opening the quest I read the contents.
[♤♡◇♧] A joke for Jester
Jester is a rather funny sort. He wishes to laugh and it is to your benefit to make it happen. You have 10 days do either create something amusing to Jester or a Joke. Make Jester laugh all the same.
For the love of all that is Holy! My temper began to flair as I saw the penalty. This was the first time there was one and on top of that it was further proof just how much a virus Jester was. If he was able to remove systems from my control it could seriously hinder my efforts to complete quests and on top of that could very well be lethal.
I was never a funny person. My sense of humor was usually dry and according to many friends, lacking. If making a joke was so important back on Earth I would have spent more time watching stand-up comedy. I sighed and decided there was nothing I could do at the moment. Maybe Dani would be able to help. Maybe not.
I took another moment to think before moving to the lab again. Taking a seat at the computer I usually used I decided to begin running experiments for the first time. I opened up the simulation program Dani and I programmed and tried to figure out how best to go forward.
[Genetic]
[Biomechanical]
[Chemical]
Of the three options I was most curious about [Genetic] as it was the one related to quests. Selecting the option I was bombarded with lists of every organic compound availible as well as lists of steps, charts, graphs, diagrams and so many other menus my mind boggled. I took a breath to calm down before setting in.
The basic building blocks of human life could be broken down into DNA, Deoxyribonucleic acid, and RNA, Ribonucleic acid. DNA was the double helix genetic code that gave us the traits we were born with. Blue eyes, Brown hair, Tan skin, muscle mass, how tall you are. While RNA allows the genetic codes to be transmitted throughout the DNA strands. But both work together to create what we call life. Kind of. That was the most I understood on the subject before reaching this point.
From what the system was giving me, I was supposed to build chains and links of different strands of DNA. Taking apart samples. Adding and removing pieces as I saw fit. There were complete libraries of everything the humans had studied on the molecular biology of the human genome. It was impressive and terrifying. My mind supplied scenarios where I created more monsters than real life. Where I would need to "put down" anything that survived in a less than optimal and healthy way. The responsibility was just now beginning to sink in.
"I don't suppose any music was stored somewhere?" I was speaking more to myself but to my surprise the speakers began to play a song I heard once at my grandparents house. It was a song about a girl name Delilah and New York City. The beat was calm enough that I was focused but out of my head. With a deep breath, I began my first experiment.
Hours. It took me hours to go spot by spot. Strand by strand. I do not even know what to call the micronodes that I worked with. Either way it was failure after failure. No matter what I tried, it ended in failure. As if to rub it all in the system began populating messages.
Yep that was all I had to show for my hours of mind numbing and intensive labor. Not having any desire to continue the practice of such torture I decided to go and take a nap in my rack.
"Dani please wake me up in two hours please. I need to turn off for a while."
"As you wish." Dani's voice responded as I left the elevator and entered the workshop my rack was kept in. Without another word I stepped onto the rack and powered off.