Save the Day Program, once again. (Gundam IBO/Satisfactory SI): Chapter 17

FICSIT secret Hub, Outside the Ariadne network, Pluto, P.D. 317.

I walked into the room connected to the Hub, where ADA had set up the medical pod for me.

Originally, this place had been my home for more than five years on that desert planet. A place where I had spent sleeping, showering, and eating with no company other than ADA’s.

But now, ADA has changed the structure to house a state-of-the-art Medical pod that she bought from Gjallarhorn at an exorbitant cost.

Of course, if it were a regular medical pod, ADA would not even have looked at it since FICSIT’s medical technology was just as advanced as their industrial technology.

No, the reason why ADA bought this particular medical bot was due to how it functioned.

Unlike FICSIT’s medical pod, which performed surgeries or treatments through regenerative therapies using various chemicals and techniques, the Gjallarhorn medical pod worked through the use of medical nanobots.

The patient would be placed inside a medical liquid that helps enhance the natural regenerative capability of a human body, just like with FICSIT’s medical pod, while purpose built nanobots would enter the body through the various orifices and heal the body from within.

A revolutionary breakthrough in medical technology that was made before the Calamity War, and is now only available to the top 1% in the Solar System.

Walking to the pod, I watched through the transparent top as one of ADA’s clone bodies lay in there as the pod did its thing.

“How are things looking? ADA?”

“Promising. The modified FICSIT nanites are working as intended and are helping bridge the gap between Alya-Vijnana nanites and the body itself. I think we are close to replicating your success, Administrator.”

“Is the cure permanent?”

“Yes. The FICSIT nanites will remain in the body permanently. Over time, the nanites will work with the Alya-Vijnana nanites to create a pseudo-brain lobe gradually instead of immediately, reducing the damage caused by nearly 99%. Projections show that, once properly completed, this procedure will allow the recipient to get rid of the receptacle on their body dubbed ‘Whiskers’ and will only leave behind a barely noticeable port for their connection with machines.”

“In other words, the children will no longer have to worry about the receptacles on their back shortening their life with every use, and neither will they have to wear baggy clothes to hide the metal implant in their spines.”

“Correct. With this modification, the children’s bodies will become fully compatible with the system, which not only reverses the damage done to them but, over time, makes them healthier. And since we will be removing the metal protruding from their spines and leaving behind a port that melds into their skin, they will not be forced to continue sleeping on their sides instead of their backs due to the metal extension.”

Ever since word spread that we were taking in Human Debris and giving them proper lives, children and slaves from all kinds of places have been flocking to FICSIT in search of freedom and a safe place.

Of course, being who she was, ADA refused none of them and directly integrated them into FICSIT's various institutions.

However, as the number of children below the age of majority, which is 14 on mars, 18 on Earth, and 16 in the Venus and Jupiter Spheres, continued to grow, it became clear to us that we could not sustain all of their needs, such as proper schooling, food, shelter, clothing and other such necessities.

So, after much deliberation and screening, ADA bought out a few dozen schools, universities, and other educational institutions from all over Mars, an entire city focused on Farming on one of Jupiter’s space colonies, a textile company, a construction company, and a few other institutions all across the board, bringing them all under FICSIT’s name.

This instantly catapulted FICSIT from a regular company to a massive conglomerate that had fingers in many pies across the system.

Of course, to sustain such an expenditure, I was once again forced to sell off all our stockpiles and even start manufacturing and selling our humanoid Mobile Workers, which turned out to be very popular across the system.

I will not lie, when I saw the money star rolling in with massive orders from across the system for the Mobile Worker that ADA had named the H-Type, I felt my heart soar at the prospects.

I mean, who doesn’t like money?

But, even after such success, there were still things that we had to face that made things sour for us.

The various attempts to harm our company, one way or another, and the threats to the lives of ADA and me, along with our employees. The near-constant attacks made by various pirate groups and mercenaries in those initial days.

But most importantly, the danger and oppression faced by the children because of the metal implant in their spines.

For the former problem, the solution was relatively simple.

While I took care of the company on Mars and kept things going on my end, ADA concentrated on building a full-fledged shipyard in Pluto’s orbit from which she manufactured a fleet of fifty starships.

Thirty of the ships were the FICSIT cargo haulers that we had designed in the early days of our arrival in this universe, fitted with Ahab reactors created by ADA and made for the sole purpose of transporting cargo.

Whether that cargo is humans, goods, or nukes, it depends on the situation.

The rest, however, are warships that she designed based on the stolen Skipjack-class warships of Gjallarhorn.

She replaced its main gun with Macron Guns, which fired high-velocity macros with the help of built-in particle accelerators, creating a weapon that was far superior to any kind of Kinetic weapon available in this star system, while also bypassing the issue of energy weapons being useless against Nanolaminate armors.

This ‘beam’ weapon was mounted as the main gun while the missile pods were modified to carry nuclear warheads for maximum damage.

She also added drone bays within the ships, which held thousands of modified drones at a time. These drones were capable of both atmospheric and space flight. But the real surprise is that these things carry powerful auto-cannons and flak cannons with them for Anti-Mobile Suit combat.

As a last resort, they can also ram into the enemy mobile suit and detonate their built-in explosive.

All in all, the warships were terrifying engines of destruction that ADA created without any input from my end.

Fortunately, there has been no need to sortie those warships till now since ADA and I have been able to discreetly handle all kinds of trouble and avoid getting implicated in anything.

In this way, the first problem that we faced was cleared.

But the second problem? The one with the children? That needs a delicate approach and one where the bigger stick can’t change the outcome.

The fundamental problem that the children face is discrimination and social stigma in the Alya-Vijnana system, which highlights their status as ‘Space Rats’, as they are called.

During our dive into the history of this issue, we came across several interesting pieces of info that gave us a theory to work with.

First, before the Calamity War, civilian-grade augmentation, mechanical prosthetics, and implants were commonplace.

Two, after the war, Gjallarhorn destroyed the cockpits of all Gundam-frames and other Mobile Suits of those times to keep the technology of the advanced Alya-Vijnana system from falling into the hands of other parties.

Three, around the same time, a mysterious stigma began spreading on Earth, and then to the rest of the star system. A stigma against mechanical prosthetics, implants, and man-machine interfaces.

Four, any company, institute, or person who had the knowledge of the inner workings of Alya-Vijana either died under mysterious circumstances, or disappeared from existence shortly after this stigma started spreading.

Based on these points, it is fairly easy to see that Gjallarhorn had some hand in creating the stigma and hatred of mechanical implants within the human body. My guess is to further dissuade anyone from experimenting and creating their own version of the Alya-Vijnana system that Gjallarhorn could not control.

While doing this, I think they also found some kind of remote detonation system for the cockpits of the Gundam frames, since it is nearly impossible for them to remove all the cockpits from all the Gundam frames when they don’t even know where they are.

Whatever they did, it worked, since I have three Gundam frames in my HQ, all of which were found in various different ways but still had their cockpits destroyed through internal damage.

However, despite their best efforts, someone, somewhere, managed to create an incomplete Alya-Vijnana system of their own in the past three hundred years, and promptly started using it on child slaves, leading to the birth of the Human Debris.

This is the true reason why the stigma exists against these children.

A mixture of government manipulations, hatred of the man-machine interface born from the Calamity War, and the need to maintain the status quo by the various corporations across the star system for the sake of cheap labor and security.

Obviously, neither ADA nor I can solve such an issue by ourselves, especially since this stigma has been fed into the entire human race for the past three centuries, either directly or indirectly by Gjallarhorn and the Economic Blocs.

This means that the only way for these children to lead normal lives without being discriminated against is to make it so that the source of their stigma, the Alya-Vijnana system, is no longer visible to other people.

To that end, ADA had been working for months on end, running with her full processing power to crack the code and modify FICSIT nanites to help change the fate of these children.

And now, finally, after months of work, we have arrived at the solution.

That being said, the process was not without hiccups.

Originally, the incomplete Alya-Vijana system that the children underwent was completely incompatible with ADA’s clones due to their built-in augmentations clashing with the Alya-Vijana, leading the clones to have extreme deformations and very short lifespans, counted in mere hours.

After more than a month of testing and no improvement, we were on the verge of giving up.

That is when I made a decision that finally gave us the breakthrough we needed, but was extremely foolish in hindsight.

ADA’s clones kept failing because they did not have a consciousness of their own to keep them awake throughout the procedure of Alya-Vijnana implantation, something that ADA needed to see firsthand so that she could understand how it interacts with the human body.

However, there was no way ADA and I were bringing in a human and test the procedure out on them.

So, I made the decision to have the surgery done on my own body.

Since I was a real human, I could remain conscious throughout the surgery. And since I already had standard FICSIT augmentations and implants, ADA could observe the surgery in a much better way than the Clone body.

The downside, however, was that should something go wrong, I would be permanently crippled and would need to have the majority of my organs and spine replaced.

I knew the risks from the start, but our desperation made me make the decision to go under the knife.

Fortunately, nothing went wrong. In fact, I would say that a miracle happened.

One moment, I was being prepped for surgery by ADA’s clone body, and the next moment, all I knew was pain.

However, despite the mind-breaking pain, I kept my eyes on the monitor, watching the data feed from ADA’s systems.

Unlike what we learned from our research. Somehow, the Alya-Vijana nanites perfectly melded with my spine and even communicated without issue with the nanites already present in my body.

The pseudo-brain lobe formed without issues, and surprisingly, my FICSIT augmentations started to influence this new addition to my body, turning up its processing capacity to such a degree that if anyone else wanted to have the same kind of man-machine interface level as my own, they would have to undergo this surgery at least six times.

However, it is bloody uncomfortable to have a protrusion on your spine, let me tell you.

From that point on, we worked day and night to find a way to rectify the problem.

And now, after such a long time, we finally have a cure.

No, not just a cure, but a complete overhaul of the Alya-Vijana system.

Maybe even better than what it was during the War.

“What is the ETA looking like?”

“One month, at most. After that, we can start treating the children with this cure.”

One month, huh? I guess that is enough time to prepare the children mentally for this.

While it is not invasive and only requires them to be submerged in the pods for an hour while the nanites work their magic, there is no doubt that ADA and I will have to give them a lot of counseling to get them into the pods.

If the pain I felt when I got the surgery done was anything to go by, there is no doubt that the children have PTSD originating from the initial surgery done on them.

With a sigh, I sat down and watched the clone’s biometrics, watching for any sign of deviation from the projected changes in the body.

“While we are at it, why not take advantage of the system and-“

“No.”

“….You didn’t even listen to what I have to say-“

“I know you better than anyone, Administrator. And I know exactly what you were going to suggest. You are not getting into a Mobile Suit, let alone a Gundam frame. Not after you trashed that Rodi-frame last time.”

“That was an accident, and you know it! Besides, don’t you want to know what kind of systems are being hidden in those machines? You said it yourself, the Gundams require the Alya-Vijnana to reach their full potential, so why not make use of this opportunity and gather the data you need?”

“….Very well. But you will do so here, on Pluto, where you cannot break anything important to FICSIT. I will not lose another mobile suite and an assembler because you could not control it and dove headfirst into an assembler’s manipulators.”

“Like I said, that was one time!”

“And like I said, one time too many.”

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Skipjack-class warships: