DLM, Bk 6, Ch 12

Waking up was a curious sensation, especially when I began to access the part of me that was connected to Galatea. It also allowed me to answer the first question, namely my current location and the realisation that I was within my Bunker in New Brunsburg brought a wide smile to my face. My plan, faced with the prospect of playing chess while blindfolded, trying to out-manoeuvre Powered who may or may not be able to see the future in ways I could only vaguely guess was to not play.

Instead of making a decision, I had banked on the assumption that any future-sight would be focused on my actions and my intentions, not the presence of my physical body. There was no evidence for that, but the truth of the matter was, it somewhat did not matter. If I wanted to go to New Brunsburg, I had to get there, simple as, and trying to preempt the movement of Powered who could see my movements and the preemption of theirs, before I ever made my plans was a pointless endeavour. Instead, I simply had Galatea knock me out, putting myself into a state of deep coma, just barely above a vegitative state, hoping that it would block divination focused on my actions, maybe even on my position, given that I was mostly dead. In that state, Galatea had been given the order to keep surveillance on every asset our opposition had and, if necessary, react to their movements. If they had moved to intercept, I had full confidence that Galatea could have retreated back to the power-plant, where we could try to come up with a different plan.

“Was there any movement on their side?” I asked, once my brain was sufficiently aware to contact Galatea.

“Nothing out of the ordinary. I also tapped into their communications, at least to a point, and nothing hinted at them having any idea that we were coming.” she assured me, not that it made me feel better. No visible reaction meant one of two things, either they were incompetent or they had done the smart thing and set up their communications in a way we were unable to intercept. If that meant a network of dedicated psions, some obscure radio-show with coded messages or even smoke-signals I had no idea. There were plenty of ways to transmit information and plenty more, to obscure such ways.

“Maybe the wards around the base actually work.” I muttered, thinking about the cubes of silver I had set up around the foundation. They had been made by the late Fey, given to me in exchange for some work but without anyone to actually test them, it was difficult to estimate their effect. Maybe they had worked, obscuring my plans, maybe it was just chance. Lack of information was a pain.

“What are our next steps?” Galatea asked, pushing me to cease my chase down intelectual rabbit-holes and focus on the present.

“First, we need to establish our supply-line, mostly by making sure that the dock-warehouse is still available. Afterwards, getting surveillance into key-areas is necessary, so we can actually start making educated plans.” I replied, before pushing myself up. From the information transmitted, I already knew that the base remained secure but there was a part of me that wanted to personally check.

“We will also need to go over the data we just gathered. The implications…” I paused, not sure how to phrase things. There was so much I did not understand, so much I could only address in the most coloquial, almost mythical, terms.

“I’ll create a file, those scans can be dealt with at a later point. One earth-shattering scientific project at a time.” Galatea decided, the amused tone of her mental voice making me grin. She was right, though the implications were interesting and would likely keep me up at night, just thinking and imagining, there were better ways to use our processing time, mainly in regards to the weird resonance we had discovered. Galatea was still running simulations and computations, trying to make sense of the data while a part of my brain was churning through the equations she had presented me, trying to make sense of them. We had some ideas how to deliberately link particles within a resonance-effect, hopefully allowing us to study the effect further, unlike the accidental linkage that occured in the creation of my energy-crystals.

“We also need to prepare a set-up for that experiment.” I added, putting the necessary modifications of the crystal-growth set-up together.

“It’s good to see you up and about.” Sophia spoke up, jostling me from my thoughts. I had not noticed her sitting nearby, watching my unconscious form, showing me just how detached from my body I was. I had looked at the base through the cameras, but had never thought to actually use my eyes to look around the room. Foolish of me, at the end of the day, no matter how good I was at multitasking, Galatea would always be better and what I brought to the partnership was the body and maintaining it should be a priority of mine. That included keeping it safe.

“It is. I hope everything worked out, it is a headache not knowing what you are up against.” I admitted, welcoming her arms around me.

“Do you think I should contact my father?” she quietly asked, stumping me for a moment. Having a local contact would be valuable, though I was not certain how useful that particular contact would be, given that he had joined a reclusive religious community and had likely little contact with the world. The additional problem was that I had only kept the most superficial surveillance, basically a script that alerted me to news-releases featuring his name, meaning I did not even know if he was still where I suspected him to be.

“I do not think so.” I admitted, but took her idea and adapted it a little.

“But we might want to make contact with Heather and Joy, simply to see if they are still around and maybe have some information on Sandra, Voltic’s civilian identity.” I reasoned, remembering the two young women we had met a few years ago. I would have to find a convenient excuse for contacting them again but meeting up after having been out of town for my studies and wanting to meet up with peers was a reasonably common occurrence that should not raise any red flags. Similarly, simple curiosity about a prior acquaintance should allow me to inquire about Sandra, without appearing to be anything but what I wanted to portray.

“You mean we’ll go dancing again?” Sophia asked, the happy smile on her face reminding me that our social life had been severely limited for the last two years of mostly building and hiding within a bunker.

“We can, but I do not think we should deliberately try to engineer a situation to meet them. I would rather simply send them a message and see what happens, instead of trying to surveil their habits and go from there.” I replied.

“Frankly, I would rather simply go out with you.” I added, her smile widening just a little before she gave me a quick kiss.

“Great. We’ll have to go shopping.” she decided, making me chuckle.

“That, we can do, too. But for now, let us make sure nothing is wrong with our home. There are a few things I would like to ascertain, especially with the plumbing. What I built before was somewhat sturdy, but everything needs maintenance, especially if it is built by an amateur.” I admitted,

A part of me was slightly insulted at Sophia’s amused laughter, the idea that I, who had managed to create some technology impossible by normal standards, was uncertain if I had designed something as basic as plumbing, technology that had been mastered long ago, correctly just tickled her pink  What annoyed me even more was that most of the plumbing was, actually, not made by me, but by the original engineers that had designed the bunker and withstood decades of neglect before Galatea and I had moved in.

Yet, from the small leaks I had noticed on the camera, the parts I had added to the system seemed to be the problem.

“Let’s get going. If nothing else, we might need to call in the plumbers, I’m sure that would go over well.” Sophia laughed, before mimicking the conversation of us, calling in the plumbers. If I was not so busy laughing, I might have been insulted at the insinuation that we needed to call in help to avoid flooding our secret underground-base.