DLM, Bk 6, Ch 11

Getting back to New Brunsburg was both simple and difficult at the same time. If not for the need to remain undetected, Sophia and I could simply have taken the plane, flying in and landing openly but given that I was still wanted in my identity as Metis, that plane could not fly. On the other hand, there was the flight-frame for personal, small aviation and with a few more tweaks, I had been able to make the design about as undetectable for technical sensors as possible. That had been done to give us a secure and concealed way to escape, if the underground base ever got raided. The problem was, the flight-frame was good for short distances but for a long-distance flight, it would be rather uncomfortable for Anath and myself. Possible and likely secure, but uncomfortable.

All simulations Galatea ran showed that the thing most capable of detecting the flight-frame were classical, human optic and auditory senses. In other words, it was more likely that we would be heard or seen coming in, than it was to be detected by a radar-station.

Which left a whole different problem open, namely the varied and unpredictable abilities of other Powered, especially those commonly known as Divination or Pre-cogs. Someone like Ysleen could detect us, before we ever took off, finding the right spot to intercept and there was nothing I could do about it. Even in the old Guild-database, there was no universal way to avoid divination, the best listed options pointing at obfuscation, instead of avoidance.

The diviner needed something to focus on, though not necessarily something material. It could be something as simple as the name Metis and as long as the metaphysical connection between myself and that name was strong enough, I would be the target. How that metaphysical connection worked, I had no idea, nor did I have an idea how to detect or measure it. Which left me with a different approach, one that was an application of another technique Galatea and I had come up with before.

If the divination was focused on the actions of Metis, or on the position of the entity called Metis, which hopefully meant that it was focused on myself, not the complex composed of Galatea and myself. If so, we might be able to conceal my location by shifting my mind into the mental construct Galatea and I used, especially if we moved that construct completely into a stationary server.

When we tried that shift out for the first time, the experience was weird, there were no other words to describe it. I had thought I was somewhat used to the difference between the way my brain processed information and the way Galatea’s unique blend of soft- and hardware processed information but it was a thoroughly disconcerting experience. Not so much because I lost mental capability or because my processing was lacking but there was something missing, a tactile component to my thinking, so to speak.

There was also the additional problem that we did not know what consequences there would be, if the connection between my physical body and the mental construct was disrupted. It was not something we wanted to experiment on, as one of the possible consequences was that I would die. In some ways, the reconnect might equate to the ‘spark’ that once had brought Galatea from a complex, but purely axiomatic, learning-algorithm to the unique and complex being she had become. What had brought her alive.

As such, experimentation in that direction was a topic neither of us wanted to approach without a lot of time and consideration, both resources currently occupied by the research into the weird resonance phenomenon we had discovered.

Watching with a camera as Galatea walked my comatose body to the flight frame was a weird experience, the disconnect between me and myself so stark that I needed to gently prod the connection, just to get a small jolt that reminded me, I was still alive. Not some ghost in a machine.

Anath was moving with my body, wearing a specially prepared suit for the long journey, the flight frame seriously lacking in creature comforts and the pod we had designed for her was no better. There was no room to move, not even a real seat, just an insulated pod with some padding, a breathing-mask, a safety-harness and a communication-screen so she was not completely isolated.

For once, I was able to play the support-role, taking control of the robots to make sure the flight-frame was ready for take-off and inflating the launch-tunnel. It was yet another of the security-measures we had prepared, an emergency-exit that would cut off most pursuers. The first part had been relatively simple, a deep tunnel, leading a kilometre out, below the ocean and open water. There, hidden beneath almost two-hundred metres of water, we had prepared a small submarine, ready to carry a small group of people to safety. Not necessarily comfortable, but secure and quite fast, just in case.

But the submarine was only half of the preparation, the other half was a long, inflatable tube we could extend, sealed against the outside water until it reached the surface, at which point it opened up, allowing the flight frame to take off. It was somewhat impractical, and when Sophia had seen the design, she had asked if I had watched too many cartoons, but at the end of the day, it allowed us to take off and return without giving the underground-base away.

Signals were flowing back and forth and I could watch the flight-frame launch, the blast-shields taking the back-blast as it was shooting up. All systems within the base reported successful launch, no problems detected, as did the flight-frame.

“We are underway, all systems green.” Anath reported, even as I was looking at the system-read-out.

“Excellent. Hopefully, this will work.” I replied, my voice synthesised. The further the flight-frame went, the stranger things got for me. There were moments when I blanked, seconds going by without my mind recognising the passage of time, the moments simply vanishing. Almost like falling asleep for short times, but how could I fall asleep, when it was only my mind?

Out of interest, I set up some monitoring for the processing power used for my mental construct, curious what it would show and quite quickly, I got the answer. Flat lines. The moments during which I blanked were perfectly flat lines, no processing going on, almost as if I was dead. When I pulled up the telementery from the Flight Frame, my worries increased by an order of magnitude, as the data showed that during those periods, the already sparse brain-activity of my comatose body flat-lined. My heart kept beating, but that was only because it was controlled by Galatea, not because everything was fine. Because it most certainly was not.

Without room for hesitation, I shoved the information over to Galatea, triggering the process that would bring my body out of its comatose state, hopefully bringing me back to live. Moments passed by, the monitoring for the processing-resources reporting a massive spike in my cognition and I could feel the micro-seconds ticking by, only for my mind to blank.

A massive headache greeted me, when I was back in my body.

“Galatea, full diagnostic.” I ordered, trying to push through the pain. If I was not strapped into the flight-frame, I would have tried smashing my head against a wall, or maybe punching one. simply to have a different pain to distract myself from the pain in my head. Curling into a ball and dying would also be a valid option. Anything,to make the pain stop.

There was the siren’s song of the shared mental space but going there might mean I could never go back. I wanted to keep my body, if only because hugging Sophia required a body.

Finally, after who-knows how long, Galatea reported back, giving me a sobering report. The short blanks I had experienced were, in essence, short moments of brain-death and even within the mental space, some parts of my mind remained linked to my brain. A curious connection, and I made certain to save all recorded information. My reading of the data was that, the further the flight-frame, carrying my brain, got away from the server my mind was running on, the bigger the signal delay, causing those short moments of disconnect.

“Do we proceed?” Galatea asked, and for a moment, I hesitated. There was risk in continuing, but I was lacking a way to circumvent that risk. For a moment, I shifted into the shared, local mental space and placed my instructions there, hopefully, that would further obfuscate things. Damned pre-cogs, damned psychics, damned, unpredictable Powered. They were a pain in the ass.