(Rewritten) Ch. 123 – The Chrysaora Plenum

"They can't choke you to death if you're already dead."

– Sun Tsu

***

Tinea, the designs I've sent will let you test them in a virtual space, if you'd like. Please have the Quanta simulate everything for you.

Curious, I harnessed the Quanta's considerable capacities and launched a dedicated mental tab. This one wouldn't ever be a bud, just a smart tool integrated with my awareness.

Simulations were computationally expensive and required a great deal of processing time, usually. The organic supercomputer in my brain had plenty of power, but even so, as soon as I let the tab simulate my body, the Quanta's consumption of energy shot through the roof. A quick calculation showed that the caloric intake of my enhanced guts wasn't high enough to sustain the draw forever—and the activity of my organic avionics complicated the math further.

The simulation's synaptic patterns were a storm of fractals flashing across the Quanta, so complex that I might've lost myself in the evolving kaleidoscope of miniature lightning in my brain, had I not had complete control over my curiosity.

I identified thousands of simplifications to be made. Shortcuts that would cascade throughout the patterns and reduce the ridiculous number of calculations. I turned conscious thoughts into automated functions that would determine which details within the simulation were superfluous, and trained them with hundreds of those adjustments. Then I set them to learn and improve their own efficiency until they'd only gnaw at the fringes of the simulation's absolute fidelity.

Eventually, I'd have a nice playground for my buds and I to mess around in. But for now, it was just an empty, black space within which I floated.

I studied my virtual body and ran my hands across my tummy and up my breasts. The touch felt fairly realistic, if just a bit…flat. Like stale soda was flat. But it was good enough for my purposes.

Needled by unrelenting curiosity, I tried to grow my wings out all the way. The consumption of calories spiked hard and I hurriedly stopped when a headache squeezed my brain. It felt as though the Quanta had begun to shrivel, but the headache receded to a mild throb.

Mission Control dragged my attention to herself with a poke of alarm.

– Warning! Considerable loss of glucose and electrolytes within the Quanta! –

There were already signals racing across my nerves to ramp up my entire metabolism to replace them. I'd have to live with the headache until my body caught up.

– Observation: Metabolism not sufficient for full-realism simulation of non-existent body parts! –

I studied the simulator's patterns closely and found that they were accessing real information from all over my body to run the simulation of my physical self with as little resource consumption as possible. Of course, I lacked real wings for them to poll, so those would've had to be simulated from the ground up, no shortcuts.

Oh, well. They were going to be a lot more fun beyond the logical calm of the Quanta anyway. But I really will need to upgrade my metabolism further.

Satisfied, I turned my attention to the designs I'd received from Tynea. As I unfolded them, I saw that she must have optimized them extensively—they barely added any strain. I queued them up, and moved on to the simulations themselves.

First was a new, utterly gorgeous battle dress. It shimmered into being, already hugging my body. Gray fluff rested in a band against my lower ribs, cradling the underside of my boobs. From there, a black sheet of alien silk painted itself onto my abdomen and dipped down between my legs, like the bottom half of a leotard.

Fine, swirling lines of crushed diamond, worked into the silk, traced my curves and the dip of my navel, subtly emphasizing my charms. It was adult, feminine, and just a touch naughty below my navel, where delicious secrets lay hidden behind a complex assembly of belt, skirt, and machine panels that wafted around my hips and floated down my legs.

The belt was made of square geometries, like a bismuth geode. Warm and comfortable to touch, it rode high on my hips and dipped low in the back where it tucked itself beneath my tail. The silken sheets glued to my tummy also left my back entirely free on account of my increasing number of limbs. At the front, the belt swung beneath my navel and formed a small curvy plate in front of my sex, of lots of little ever-shifting crystal squares.

LEDs glimmered across the belt with twinkling brightness, less like technological signals and more like tiny stars. They lit up the diamond dust on the bodysuit-slash-bikini-bottoms, which refracted the soft light in rainbow rays. It created an ethereal picture, a mirror to the glowing nimbus around my antennae.

Twelve elegantly curved robotic panels extended from the belt, mostly black, partly transparent and brilliant like cut gemstones. They were shaped to mirror the organic curves of my hips and thighs and floated in layers close to my body. Where the panels were transparent, visible frames held exposed machinery, dense and highly complex. It was a mix of futuristic clockwork aesthetics and jewelry, but notably missing were the magnetic launch tubes of the Myriad.

From the belt, and from each of the panels, hung meter-long strips of a sheer and wispy material that I hesitated to call textile. It seemed too ephemeral to be something so mundane. The strips followed my future wings' aesthetic, a soft fuzz of translucent black and gray with the characteristic diamond dusting that broke the light in gentle rainbows. A single layer was quite transparent, but as the panels layered themselves around my hips, so did the fabrics.

The panels and their strips flared a little and created the bell of a ball gown as long as my legs, but the robotics shifted positions as I moved. Even when I bent or crouched, they stayed conveniently out of the way. My legs and modesty remained covered at all times, yet glimpses of skin taunted from beneath the sheerest of textiles. It truly was a dress, with the elegance of the dance.

I was sure I would be completely smitten once I'd have a chance to explore it later, beyond the emotional freeze of the Quanta.

But if it was to be a battle garment, then it would also be a weapon.

"Tynea?" I asked aloud in the simulation.

This is the Chrysaora Plenum, named after a genus of beautiful jellyfish with a rather painful sting. They've gone extinct now, but they counted amongst themselves several of the few aquatic species that the Antithesis would not directly consume due to the defenses they possessed for their minute body mass. They weren't worth the hassle, so to say.

"Oh? That sounds rather promising. What can it do?"

As the big sister of the Myriad, she will be capable of crafting and launching micro-missiles up to thrice the diameter, which is a considerable upgrade in volume for the warheads. She can also build and deploy guided bombs. They won't have any form of propulsion, but are massively more destructive than the missiles. She also offers a very small dimensional pocket for miscellaneous items without requiring you to unlock the relevant Class II Dimensional Storage tech tree. That's a rather rare bonus.

"She?"

The Chrysaora Plenum is part of the Class II Moonsinger Esoterics catalog, and like most Class II Moonsinger items, comes with a Class I organic AI, integrated as an organoid within the belt. This AI can simulate a believable personality, though the more you use the battle dress, the more you'll notice that it's still only a simulation. The Class I AIs still suffer from typical machine-learning weaknesses, such as a slow drift of their behavioral patterns that do not quite seem right to the average user. Nonetheless, most people prefer to anthropomorphize their AIs.

"I see. How's the organoid kept alive?"

There's a capsule with the nutrients required to keep it healthy for decades. The capsule can be easily replaced. The organoid's imprint is continually backed up and can be impressed on its replacement, in case of fatal damage.

"Ah, backups. We haven't managed those for organics yet, on Earth."

Indeed. Tinea, would you like to simulate the deployment of a few missiles and bombs?

"Sure, please go ahead."

Familiar plug-tanks appeared next to me, and as I grabbed them, four of the panels moved forward. Cassettes popped open and I started inserting the tanks. I barely had to touch each plug to its slot before they were magnetically pulled into position. Tynea spoke again.

You can load the material tanks manually, of course, but this Class II gear allows you to simply teleport them directly into the panels. The Chrysaora Plenum's AI will manage proper installation and material routing between the fabricators, as well as seamlessly order reloads for you, if permitted. She will also evaluate your habits during battle, the enemies you face or intend to face, and ensure that you'll never go into combat without a full complement of suitable explosives.

"That'll be useful."

Yes—reduced user overhead and increased preparedness are the primary raison d'être for AI in weaponry.

The battle dress pinged my Quanta, and after I granted it access, a soft voice introduced herself, as ephemeral as the dress's fabric.

"Greetings, dear user! I am Chrysaora Plenum, and I have activated and adjusted my default profile as instructed by your personal assistant. I am keyed to listen to your voice. If you wish to alter our method of communication or otherwise change my settings, please indicate so at your leisure. I am currently lacking readied ordnance and am not ready for battle. May I begin producing a basic loadout?"

Huh. She sounded rather helpful—and kind of impersonal. Emotional me would probably play around with her personality. I gave the AI a few extra permissions instead.

"Chrysaora, access to my HUD has been provided. Please display the basic loadout."

"Understood, dear user!"

"Call me Tinea, please."

"Understood, Tinea!"

A list of items appeared in the center of my view and immediately shifted out of the way, only to return when I focused on it. A hundred each of the Myriad's 20x200mm high-explosive and high-explosive fragmentary micro-missiles, a hundred each of the Chrysaora's new 60x600mm variants of the same, five 'Raptor's Gaze' jet-powered UAVs, and some upsized chaff payloads for the Chrysaora's larger carrier missiles.

The panels of the dress lit up, and within the frames and machinery, gates—or perhaps portals—ripped open, rimmed in a deep violet. I watched them swallow mechanical parts by the dozen, only for new streams of raw materials to take their place and be melded and alloyed into more parts. A timer beneath the list indicated that the whole batch would only take seconds to be produced, minus final assembly. The plug-tanks were emptied once, flung free, and automatically replaced.

If I weren't sunk within the Quanta and taking advantage of its subjective time dilation, I would've had no chance to keep pace.

"Tinea," Chrysaora said, "your personal assistant indicates that you have not previously used a Chrysaora Plenum. One of my most useful upgrades from the older Myriad model is the ability to rack a loadout for imminent use, to skip the assembly time on the first volley. The only limit on the size of this readied loadout is practicality. Shall I demonstrate this function?"

"Go ahead, please."

A susurration drew my attention downwards and I saw the strips of fabric ignite into long streamers of energy, extending dozens of meters past my feet. Thousands of the pre-produced missile parts fell along the bands of energy. Colorful pulses grabbed hold of each part and welded them together into motors and tubes, inserted with solid sticks of fuel. Ready payloads were plugged into warheads, and the warheads affixed to the readied missile chassis.

In only seconds, the activity died down and I floated in the black space of the simulation with long streamers of energy holding onto hundreds and hundreds of rockets ready to go. Kind of like a fighter jet with its missiles on pylons beneath its wings, except more. So much more.

The Chrysaora Plenum really deserved the Plenum in her name.

"I am battle-ready!" chimed Chrysaora in a mildly upbeat tone.

"Thank you, Chrysaora."

Some of the ribbons curved away to my sides and created a wide, fluttery bell, others hung straight down past my feet and moved only to imaginary currents.

"I see why she was named after the jellyfish. I kinda look like one now, don't I?"

Yes. And you possess a rather nasty sting, too.

Electric arcs suddenly played across the ribbons, and with a powerful thump all missiles jumped dozens of meters forward. Then their motors ignited and the entire volley raced away on whirling trajectories, deep into the black, only to explode in hundreds of brilliant flashes. The new, larger missiles completely overshadowed the smaller ones, though it was obvious that they weren't nearly as agile. I'd still have a use for the Myriad's micro-missiles, then, beyond their lesser costs.

New missiles flowed down the ribbons almost as quickly as the previous set had vacated them, and the next volley was ready to go. Yes, the Myriad simply could not match the raw throughput of the Chrysaora Plenum.

"Tynea, what happens if somebody tries to shoot at the exposed weaponry while I'm still holding onto it?"

None of these will cook off so easily, and the ribbons double as defensive forcefields. They do quite well against conductive projectiles and attacks with magnetic or electromagnetic properties. But you could set the AI of the Chrysaora to automatically retaliate. She would detect inbound threats, and launch something suitable to take the threat down.

"Ah, I'd like you to run interference on that. It'd be too easy to cause collateral around trigger-happy idiots in the city if the AI doesn't respond correctly. Combat Command will keep an eye on that, too, I think. I'll need to see how she develops as a bud."

As you wish. I'd also like to mention that the Chrysaora comes with a few basic blueprints unlocked, just as the Myriad did. Both missiles and bombs. You'll probably want to buy upgrades again. The increased volume of the missiles opens up a vast array of new options. There are even some specialized models that would allow you to remotely build shelters via self-assembling construction drones and concrete printers, if you have the patience. It'd be a slow process, but that, and other things, are a possibility.

I was a bit skeptical. Six by sixty centimeters was still a tiny payload, all things considered. Unless those shelters were basically just tents, I'd need a lot of rockets to make that work. Especially if fuel needed to fit in there somewhere. Perhaps Class II would change the calculations, but that was another token and a lot of points away.

Although, who says I can't put plug-tanks into the missiles?

"...Maybe smaller turret emplacements? I imagine that might be more useful than trying to build entire bunkers, no matter how small."

Certainly. Shall we move on to the replacement for your hunting rifle?

***