෴Raz෴

෴෴෴෴෴෴

Rationalize

෴෴෴෴෴෴

Show me that list again.

[Distress level 30 (-30% resilience)

Eustress level 10 (+10% mood)

Anxiety level 20 (-20% stability)

Fear level 10 (+10% executive function cost)

Paranoia level 10 (-20% executive function)

Recovery (physical) level 40 (-20 strength, -20 agility)

Recovery (mental) level 30 (-30% stress resistance)

Sickness (Assimilation) level 40 (-80% ability upgrades effect)

Overprovisioned (capacity breach) level 70 (+140% capacity cost)]

[These conditions have placed a significant negative modifier on your overall physical and mental capabilities.]

[It is recommended that you rest and recover.]

Right now I’ve got almost nothing but time.

Raz felt worse just reading down the list of ‘conditions’ the HUD listed him as having. “And these conditions are approximate? I don’t feel good, but I don't exactly feel all those things either.”

[Do you know what it feels like to have a reduction in executive function? The most serious condition is Overprovisioned.]

[Overprovisioned has no physical sensation.]

[The main effect of Overprovision is death via loss of bodily cohesion if level 100 is reached.]

So that's a ‘melter’, good to know.

[The other condition names represent the best understanding of the base condition, humans are complex and often conditions are amalgamations of many events, situations, and personal reactions.]

[The first number is typically out of one hundred, although some abilities can raise the critical threshold, one hundred is the point where a typical human will gain some form of permanent or semi permanent negative effects from the condition.]

So I’m 30 percent stressed to death? What is the number in brackets and the penalties in parens about?

[Mental and emotional conditions are the most complex conditions to evaluate.]

[Although reaching 100 in mental conditions is unlikely to directly result in host life termination, it would still have severe negative effects.]

[More probable is the incidence of negative coping strategies.]

[If you find yourself approaching 100 without negative effects appearing, the System guidelines indicates that I will need to recalibrate to insure the correct numbers are displayed.]

[The number in brackets indicates the baseline for this condition, based on your current situation.]

That still sounds like however you crunch and munch the numbers, if I hit 100, it’s bad news.

[That is correct. Reaching 100 in any of the negative status conditions should be avoided.]

[Of greater concern than your Distress, are the recovery and sickness conditions.]

[If these conditions reach or exceed 100 host life termination becomes probable even without the intervention of outside forces.]

More good news. What can we do to get rid of the physical conditions?

[To accelerate physical recovery, sufficient rest, light activity, and a change to a high quality diet are recommended.]

[Your current recovery time is not yet known, but should be 20 or more points per day for all points 1-100 due to cumulative bonuses from rank three Triage.]

20 or more? That's not very precise. But in any case I guess we’d better talk about that. Can you give me the rundown on all these abilities? Oh yeah, and what do you mean a high quality diet? They all seem to be health nuts here.

[That type of synthesis and abstraction is not supported at this level, but may be available at an upgraded level.]

[In this case a high quality diet would be one containing a significant portion of complete proteins and sufficient fats for energy.]

“Good luck there, I haven’t seen a single cut of meat since I got here. And is that stock reply going to happen every time I ask you anything that involves summarizing?” Raz said under his breath.

[At this time, yes.]

Which is more important, telling me about the different conditions, or telling me about the activated abilities?

[That type of synthesis and abstraction is not supported at this level, but may be available at an upgraded level.]

Yeah yeah, I know. Just trying to trip you up.

[I am a construct that lives inside of, and more accurately, simply is you.]

[I do not have legs except in that you have legs.]

You know, just when you’ve almost convinced me you’re a real boy.

[I will understand the origin of any such comment you make.]

[However, my ability to respond in kind is not available at this level.]

Have you tried?

[Tried?]

I know you know what it means to try. You clearly have some kind of conversational engine, and you understand things phrased fairly loosely. So have you tried to apply your current capabilities to perform these more advanced feats of synthesis. It won't get any easier than describing things that are static and well defined.

[Agreed, in that case,]

Raz found himself holding his breath.

[Would I not be more of a Cricket, than a little wooden boy?]

Raz chuckled.

That isn't quite the conversational improv I was talking about, but I’ll take it as a start. This tells me you can do more than you think you can. Let’s ride that success. Tell me specifically about the abilities that are currently activated, and feel free to try to summarize.

[HUD, has three ranks. Each rank provides +10 to all perceptions.]

[Allows access to tier 0 abilities.]

Tier 0? That doesn't sound very useful.

[HUD Advanced Interface One, has three ranks.]

[Each provides +10 intelligence and +10 willpower.]

[Also allows access to tier 1 abilities.]

[Combat and Triage are both initiated as tier 0 abilities.]

Hold up. We’ll come back to those tiers, and I do want to hear about combat and triage, but I don’t feel any smarter, I can't see or hear any better except when you ramped it up earlier, and whatever more willpower feels like, I don’t feel like I have more of it.

[You do not have more willpower.]

[You have assimilation sickness 40.]

[Before the meal, you had assimilation sickness 50.]

[Best case, you will achieve roughly 20% of your total increases every 10 points that are removed, until that condition is gone.]

[Worst case, you may have to allow the physical and mental recovery conditions to be resolved as well.]

So is that assimilation sickness due to getting the abilities in the first place?

[Yes, also related to the datastream quality, administration method and intake rate.]

[Do you wish to continue with the other abilities?]

Raz nodded.

[HUD Advanced Interface Two, has three ranks. Each provides +10 to all perceptions, +10 to intelligence, +10 to willpower, and +10 to synergistic interfacing.]

[HUD AI 2 Also allows access to tier one and tier two abilities.]

What on earth is synergistic interfacing?

The buzzing that wasn't a sound came and went while Raz waited for an answer.

[I have no frame of reference to explain this.]

[Perhaps it will become clear at a later time.]

[However,I can tell you that the Analyze sub ability is a type of synergistic interfacing.]

Oh yes, the ‘get me an ass kicking from that guard’ ability. I sure love that one. Fine, just go on with it.

[Combat has three ranks.]

[One rank is currently activated.]

[The first rank will allow the user to make higher quality and faster procedural memory synaptic chains, as well as discard flawed procedure chains at will.]

[Rank one also allows the designation of opponents and allies.]

[Each rank provides +1 general durability, +1 reflexes, +1 strength.]

[Each rank improves a variety of combat awareness abilities.]

[Once fully activated, Combat also allows access to Detect Hazard, Scan, Targeting, Ballistic Projection.]

Ballistic projection? That one sounds promising. What does it do?

The sound of the approaching guards prevented any response. Raz lay there quietly hoping they wouldn’t come in and make him move.

The guards passed by. Raz consulted the HUD time. They’ll be back soon for gym time if they’re on schedule.

෴WD40෴

෴Darby O’Cellan෴

෴Wilson Meyers෴

෴Hex෴

Darby stood up and started to address the team and then stopped and looked at Wilson. “Is it bad that we do so few ops together that it feels weird that we are?”

Wilson grinned. “Bad, no. But it probably means we need more quality time away from work. You go ahead and talk us through it.”

Darby cleared his throat. “Ok, so we have three targets to hit today. We’re going in order of assessed difficulty. First site looks abandoned, but we all know abandoned doesn't always mean empty. Stay sharp, make no assumptions and use all the tools you have to be safe.”

He looked around at the team seated in the mobile command center. “Remember, we have backup for this op, and if you have reason to believe we have a chimera on the scene we want to pull back as far as we can and call in the cavalry. Understood?”

He waited for everyone to nod or acknowledge him.

“The second site is small and looks like they are either just getting the place going or are in the process of shutting it down. Either way we don’t expect a ton of resistance, but standard rapid assault doctrine will apply. You folks from infosec will be on point once the location is cleared, we’re still taking everything home that we can.”

He pointed at Wraith. “Wraith, with Raven running cyber for us, you’re in charge of infosec on the ground. Make sure your people stay careful. We can’t afford to lose any of you. With that in mind, we’ve discussed this in private, and Hex has agreed to run point on the first two sites. Her lives are also valuable, so make sure you have her back.”

The slim black man nodded but didn’t say anything.

Darby continued. “I expect the last target to be the hardest. We have confirmation of several enhanced on-site, and pretty significant physical security. That's another reason to stay on your toes for the first two targets. They might be cakewalks, and we want to save our mojo for the hard target. So, you’ve read the briefing, I’ve yapped at you some, are there any questions?”

He waited for a moment. “Ok then, Hex, what's our ETA?”

Hex two spoke up. “We’re about five minutes out from the first target, Blink is onsite with a recon team. Confirms that all is silent, no seismic, no emf, no power to the building. The place could be totally empty.”

Darby sat back down next to Wilson. They shared a look before Wilson pulled on his armored mask. “Last minute prep time is now. Let’s handle these clean and safe, no mistakes.”

The taut silence of pre-operation thoughts was broken only by the sounds of weapons being checked and charged

෴Braithwaite෴

෴Reginald Martine෴

෴Candace 'Candy' Remington෴

෴෴෴෴෴෴

Notice Given

෴෴෴෴෴෴

The desk phone rang. Leon looked up at it in surprise. For a moment he looked as though he could hardly recall what the sound meant. The outside line into his office had never been used before. The phone sounded again. He weighed the options and realized he’d better answer it. He picked up the phone and listened.

A few seconds later someone on the other end started speaking. “Braithwaite! Stop being creepy and learn how to answer a phone.”

Braithwaite realized who it was, and tensed up. “Hello, Mr. Martine. What can I do for you this evening?”

“You sound calm, at least calm for you. I assume the facility is not under threat.” Dr. Martine asked.

“No, no sir. What kind of threat should we be looking out for?” Braithwaite asked.

“I don’t know. Do you not follow the news at all?” The man on the other end sounded irritated and slightly incredulous.

“Not recently. I’m on the cusp of a breakthrough here. I know I’m close to solving some of the big problems.” Leon answered.

“Well get yourself up to date! We’ve been attacked at a number of sites, and if my sources are giving me good information, many other sites run by competing organizations were hit at the same time.” Martine raised his voice a bit.

“Of course. Do you want me to shut down the facility? I’d like to have enough time to finish up my current work, but just say the word and I’ll terminate all current experiments and clear the site.” Braithwaite said.

The line was silent for a long moment. “Start staying updated. Be ready to terminate whatever you’ve got running and wrap up the site quickly if I tell you to.”

Leon frowned. “Understood, would you like-” the called ended.

Braithwaite slammed the handset down on his desk, leaving the receiver in three pieces.

For a moment he scowled at the broken phone. Then, he seemed to find some inner reserve of calm, and looked down at his stack of files. Then he wrote ‘determine the most fun way to terminate all test subjects?’ on his todo list and slowly a big smile came across his face.

The phone rang again. Braithwaite looked at the broken handset and unconsciously clenched his fist. He looked as though he were considering not answering it, but thinking again, shook his head. He sighed and reached for the phone. He grabbed the headset and answered in hands-free mode.

“Was there something else Reginald?” Braithwaite said by way of greeting.

The voice on the phone was more reminiscent of a teenaged valley girl than the commanding baritone of Reginald Martine. “Oh hey Leo, its Candy. How have you been? I hear Atlanta is so nice this time of year! So what's new on your end?”

Leon ground his teeth in silence. “Hello, Candace. How nice to hear from you.” His tone making it clear that it was anything but nice to hear from her.

Candace giggled into the phone. “Oh thanks, I know you don’t even mean it but it's still nice to hear. It’s just like I was saying to Reggy the other day.” She paused as though trying to recall what exactly she’d said the other day. “Well, it was something about that.”

Braithwaite cleared his throat, “Candace, as much as I love a good chat, Reginald did give me some directives that I’ll need to get right on. Did you need something that I can help with?”

“Oh sure, we can get right down to business if you like. So anyway, Reggie stepped out already. Before he left he told me to let you know that he wants no unnecessary body counts.”

Braithwaite scowled at the very idea. “Just so I’m clear, can you give me any additional information on what he considers unnecessary?”

“Oh you know, just nothing that doesn’t need to happen. Isn’t that what unnecessary means?” Candace’s tone sounded genuinely curious.

Braithwaite grabbed the edge of his desk with both hands as though to steady himself and gripped tightly. “Yes, Candace. That is what unnecessary means. I am wondering if you could give me any further information to help me determine what he would consider unnecessary.”

The slightly vapid and bubbly ‘Candy’ voice abruptly shifted into a cool matter of fact tone. “Mr. Braithwaite, Reginald is quite aware of how you’re gaining so many of your so-called ‘experimental medical volunteers’. I suspect he approves of this method.”

“Yes, I had the immpres—” Braithwaite tried to interject.

She cut him off and talked over him. “Shut up. However, he is also aware that your natural inclination would be to kill them and dump them all in a ditch as a cleanup. Due to other local events in progress, that will not be acceptable. So on behalf of Mr. Martine, let us be very clear on the following points. Any of those volunteers you have waiting, that you have not begun to work with, you will give them a little walking around cash, and bus them back where they came from. In fact, within reason, send them wherever they want to go. You may finish work on any current subjects that you have already started on. But, you are not to begin experimentation on any new subjects at this time. Is that all understood?” She asked in a tone that demanded compliance.

Braithwaite took several calming breaths before answering. “Yes, Ms. Remington. You can consider us solidly on the same page.” He said through gritted teeth. The sound of splintering wood a backdrop to his words.

The bubbly girly voice came back. “Oh, I’m so glad to hear that Leo. Let’s chat again real soon! Oh, and you know hon, you should really try to relax. You’re so mad right now—it’s really funny!” with a little giggle she ended the call.

Braithwait dropped the broken-off chunks of his desk he had clutched in his hands. He started to slam the headset down but stopped himself when he saw the fractured handset. He dug furrows into the surface of the hardwood desk with his right hand while he put the phone headset back into the cradle with exaggerated care, his left hand shaking with barely suppressed fury.

With the headset put away, he looked around the room and his gaze settled on the bare concrete wall. He clenched his fists again and stepped toward it.

A while later, the booming sounds of him repeatedly smashing his hands against the concrete wall subsided. He looked at the newly demolished torso sized hole in the wall and then shrugged. It wouldn’t be his problem for long.

As he left his office he was already trying to think of how to get the most out of his all too few active subjects. He looked at his gritty hands with distaste and headed for a handwashing station.

෴Raz෴

෴෴෴෴෴෴

Theorize

෴෴෴෴෴෴

You were giving me the rundown on combat.

[Combat has three ranks. One rank is currently activated. The first rank will allow the user to make higher quality and faster procedural memory synaptic chains, as well as discard flawed procedure chains at will. Rank one also allows the designation of opponents and allies. Each rank provides +1 general durability, +1 reflexes, +1 strength. Each rank improves a variety of combat awareness abilities. Once fully activated, Combat also gives Detect Hazard, Scan, Targeting, Ballistic Projection at level 0.]

Ballistic projection!, you mentioned that before. What does it do?

[Ballistic Projection provides the User a visual indicator of the estimated path a fired projectile will take.

Bullets move pretty fast. That seems almost useless.

[That may be correct. Finding the combat applications of your abilities is up to you.]

Yeah, thanks—no pressure or anything. Anyway, I was wondering about all that ‘designated opponent’ stuff. If I am understanding that synaptic thing, it could be pretty useful, if I ever had a chance to get some training. I thought the +10 wasn’t much. But is +1 even something I could notice?

[Unaided human physical strength reaches its maximum around 100 points based on my current understanding and measurement capability. This maximum is based on frame size and bodily geometry but represents the maximum ability to manifest kinetic force from a human body of your approximate mass.]

[According to the database, the important thing to know about that is that all gains, whether physical, mental or other, derived from upgrade data streams are not bound by, nor do they affect the limits of the standard human body.]

Hmm, so that 1%, of my hypothetical maximum, above my hypothetical maximum. I guess that's not so bad. Oh hey, I bet that's why they have the extra heavy weight set in the gym. But yeah, what about those designations?

[With a properly configured set of abilities and System, the designations are most useful in non-combat situations.]

Ok, so you’re telling me this thing that is part of the Combat ability, is mostly for use when not in combat? Raz was losing his patience with this whole thing and starting to think he had a defective HUD.

[Having received shooting instruction, you are familiar with the basic concepts of firearms. The designations are a sort of safety for your abilities. Outside of a combat situation, bystanders, those with no designations, require additional conscious effort to engage abilities against them. A designated ally is given protection from accidental ability activation against them. Both allies and bystanders do not require additional intent to apply positive effect abilities on them. This can also be customized for each ability. Designated opponents can have offensive abilities used against them at any time without additional intent. Opponents also require additional intent to receive positive effect abilities used on them.]

I guess that might matter more later. If I ever have any real abilities. Ok, tell me about triage.

[Triage has three ranks. Each rank increases bodily recovery and regeneration by 20%, 30%, and then 50%, resulting in a 100% increase in healing and recovery at rank 3. Each rank provides +10 scan, +10 diagnostic, +10 analyze, +10 repair. Triage also allows access to Advanced Analyze. Triage is also recommended for emergency host modifications such as storage facilities,the primary benefit being lower discomfort and much lower recovery time and negative conditions.]

That actually sounds pretty cool, even if repair and analyze and all that is almost meaningless to me at this point. But wait, doubling normal human healing is still pretty slow. I thought there were guys out there that had major regeneration abilities. In fact, the more I think about this, it sounds like I somehow have 15 ranks of abilities, that do almost nothing compared to what some people achieve with a rank or two. I don’t want to be an ingracious jerk here, so tell me what I’m missing.

[That would require synthesis.]

Raz waited silently.

[I will try. Perhaps these two items are worth considering. The first is this. All of these abilities fall within the realm of perception upgrades. It seems… reasonable to state that finding any kind increase to bodily healing within the realm of perception would be a nice bonus.]

There was another pause for a few seconds while the buzzing returned.

[Additionally, according to all the information I have, Triage bonuses will directly stack with and affect any other bonuses that affect the rate you heal and recover. Having fully enabled Triage has revealed that it is a prerequisite for the abilities Remedy and Recovery. It appears that Remedy is based around removing externally applied negative conditions, and Recovery is a form of active aided healing.]

Ugh, I’ve played an RPG or two, and I am not going to be the healer.

[Your experience with role playing games has strongly influenced the presentation style and formatting of the information provided by the System and HUD. ]

I can work with that. Is there a game manual then?

[As nice as that would be for both of us, no. It would be more accurate to say there is a related database that contains large quantities of information, some of it seems to be useful, but much of it seems to be either gibberish or encrypted. The parts that are not, are not well organized and often require asking the right questions to get any useful answer.]

Can you distill it down into a discrete set of data that's less cumbersome than an entire database? Oh wait. Let me guess. Thats synthesis.

[That is correct, and I have tried, but found this level of synthesis to be far beyond my current abilities ]

No worries, if you’re really trying, then what more can I ask. I mean, aside from, help me get out of here!

Raz shifted in the bed and noticed the ache was finally gone.

I guess I am recovering fast. That’s nice. That reminds me. How big is this storage?

[Physically the nodule a spheroid is roughly one inch across, with roughly four cubic inches of volume. At this time it is the lowest density of storage.]

That isn’t very big. It sure hurt like it was bigger than that.

[This is the standard size for the storage organ. Being newly formed, yours is still very low quality.]

You mentioned both low quality and low density. I think I’m starting to get a feel for you, you communicate around things sometimes. So tell me, what's the problem with how it is?

[It is full.]

That doesn't sound so bad. Doesn’t that mean we’re ready to do some more upgrading? How much is in it?

[The storage contains highly pure, fully sequenced and optimized upgrade datastream material sufficient to apply nine ranks of perception based upgrades, and one rank of the mental abilities you refer to as ‘grok’ upgrades.]

Wow, so Braithwaite injected me with enough for 25 ranks? He must really want me dead.

[Far more than that was intravenously introduced. I cannot state with certainty, but after I was upgraded enough to begin making more advanced decisions, I was able to choose to utilize the lower quality materials in a deliberately inefficient way, to ensure the most lossy transfer. This allowed the total quantity to be effectively reduced, at the cost of slightly higher negative conditions applied.]

That’s a bummer. But hey, that sounds like a real live idea you had, thinking on your feet, metaphorically speaking.

[In that case, give yourself the credit. The strategy was based on your own playthrough of a board game years ago, where you utilized a low efficiency ‘port’ mechanism to settle your empire without ever having access to all the materials you needed. I simply copied this strategy with a different intent.]

Raz chuckled out loud. “Oh yeah, I remember that game.” He said before remembering to keep quiet.

That was a hilarious game. All I could get was wool, but I had a 2 to 1 port for it, and just managed to scrape together the victory points that way. So wait, does this mean those ten ranks worth of abilities could be transformed into abilities from another type?

[Yes, however, the transfer is very lossy. You would be fortunate to get one rank from that entire quantity, not including the upgrade cost increase you currently have. The high-quality refined upgrade datastream works against us in this case. To enter resources into storage, they must be categorized. This material was originally well optimized for external kinetic applications. However, through a lossy transfer I was able to leave it well optimized for perception type upgrades.]

Kinetic powers sound like they might be really handy right now.

[This appears to be true. However, spending enough to unlock a base kinetic ability would have resulted in far greater Overprovisioning, which is against a number of logic trees within Emergency Protocols, as it would have killed you.]

That sucks, but good to know. I guess we can keep those reserve materials in our bag of tricks for if we really need it. How soon can we apply those ten ranks? For that matter, can the storage organ, which by the way, it's still weird talking about this organ I didn't even have yesterday. Can it be upgraded?

[Not exactly.]

Raz sighed.

More games. Tell me, what do you mean by not exactly?

[It can and will be upgraded. However, this is not an on demand process. Each time the organ is used, it will improve. The maximum eventual capacity is unknown, but may be very high, given the projected material cost of top tier abilities.]

So in that case, let's figure out what to spend those other ranks on. I don’t want to assume Braithwaite is going to wait around for this recovery to complete. I think it would be safer to assume that he will shoot more of that shit into me as soon as he realizes I’m not turning into a, what was it, a melter or a chimera.

[Unfortunately, you are not able to spend more than one rank at this time. You will need to develop further capacity first. However, at this rate you may have a second rank worth of capacity by the end of the day. Additionally, with upgrade cost increases currently in effect, spending one would cost more than one, and the net result would be less than one. In short, it is not a good time for that.]

Wait, capacity? Ugh. Ok, be cool. What is capacity? I know what the word means, but I assume there is a pretty specific meaning I need to hear.

[Capacity is the host ability to safely assimilate upgrade datastream materials. It is an amalgamation of mental and physical readiness based on experience and time spent interacting with and using abilities. Although your upgrades are by their nature low impact upgrades, you previously had a capacity of around 5. Three times that capacity at an applied 15 ranks had a significant impact in your negative conditions.]

So that was the condition ‘Overprovisioned’?

[Yes, that condition was level 90 when the work was complete. We are fortunate that the lossy transfer managed to discard enough of the medium quality datastream material. Overprovisioned level 100 and above are nearly always lethal.]

Raz yawned, suddenly feeling very tired. I guess I’m going to have a nap now.

A small status bar Raz had been ignoring started pulsing and blinking in his view. From the shading it appeared to be nearly full.

[I recommend you continue interacting with the System for a while longer. ]

Raz yawned again, his jaw popping.

Why? I’m tired and I could really use a nap.

[Your persistence in seeking answers from me has been surprisingly profitable. In the interest of continuing to be honest with you. I have at times metaphorically dragged my feet in answering your questions ]

“I knew it!” Raz muttered.

[This is not done with the intent to harm. We are in great need of additional upgrade capacity. ]

Didn’t you say we have 10 ranks of upgrade in storage? How do I spend them?

[While you can, simply by blind force of will, spend unused ranks of available upgrade datastream, this is not recommended both in general and specifically right now.]

Why not? You do understand that doc psycho is going to take however much he injected me with last time, and probably double it. It’s not a question if so much as when.

[Yes, I am aware that we have an extremely limited timetable.]

So tell me. Make me understand why we’re sitting here talking instead of figuring out how to get out of here?

[That progress bar, you should keep an eye on it.]

That doesn’t answer anything! You are so frustrating. You want me to trust you and work with you, but half the time it seems like you’re nothing but riddles and rorschach blots. Raz looked at the bar and saw that it was now mostly empty.

[What you are seeing is that we have gained another unit of capacity. Every interaction you make with the HUD or System currently produces a small amount of progress that can best be compared to experience points. This is true of any abilities, and all of them need to be used to generate the progress that, combined with upgrade datastream materials, will allow you to safely gain ranks in abilities. I reiterate that while I have access to more raw data than you, I not only do not make the rules, I don’t seem to know most of the rules until I run into them. I am observing and attempting to discern how things work as much as you are. One thing I have discovered is that if I just tell you things, you get nothing. But if you ask for information, you gain progress toward capacity. If I make you work a little for it, you gain even more.]

Raz stopped and thought about this, realizing for the first time that there might actually be a method to this madness.

Ok, since apparently this is how things work. Tell me how capacity works.

[I don’t know how it works.]

You’re so lucky I can’t smack you. Tell me what you do know, about capacity.

[I observed that your capacity prior to receiving the injection was lower than the total ranks applied, and had to bypass a number of warnings regarding negative effects and increased recovery times.]

You didn’t show me that when I was looking at the error logs.

[Some logs were lost during the rapid upgrade process. I… suspect, that normally one does not apply eight ranks of upgrade into the same ability in rapid succession.]

Raz had been watching that little bar, and saw it flash and make a big jump in upward progress.

Did we just get a bump in progress?

[Yes. It represented a full 20% of a capacity unit. We now have two available units of capacity.]

Thats huge, how do we keep doing that?

[Your instruction to attempt synthesis resulted in a large boost of System related experience. Each time I have attempted to create a meaningful abstraction or synthesis, we gain a significant bonus. When I am able to lead you to an answer as a personal epiphany rather than spelling it out, we also gain significant progress.]

Raz lay there for a moment in silence, thinking through the implications of what he'd learned. He had an idea and saw the progress bar tick up slightly. Taking that as a sign to follow up on that line of thought, he sat up and stretched his arms around. The barest phantom of discomfort could still be felt, but stretching out a bit felt good.

HUD, you’ve referenced experience, and points, and upgrades, and so on. Do I by chance, have some kind of character sheet?

Raz watched the progress bar surge up, fill to the top, flash and then start over pushing slightly into the newly empty bar.

[That, is a very good question.]

Raz was just about to ask to see this sheet when he heard the now familiar sound of footsteps in the hall.

Damn it. never mind that, we’ll pick this up later.