An hour in the training room working with my scorpion fists got me no skill-ups, but it did let me and Albert get some experience working together. And have our first major fight.

Things started off simply enough. Donut, Carl, and Mongo were working on cavalry tactics at one end of the room while Albert and I were doing our thing at the other. Before doing any actual fighting, I needed more mass; I tossed two tons of wooden and metal junk (all that I had) into his cargo compartment and borrowed another three tons from Carl. I thought it was a ridiculous amount, but Albert promised he could handle it. ("I thought I had made clear, Ms Katia, that I bring 100,000 newtons of graviton control to the table. Your sprinkle of equippage, weighing in at a puny five tons? Pish.") That sounded like a brag to me but no, he proved quite capable of rendering all that metal and stuff weightless, or even buoyant.

I put the straps on and stood up carefully; Albert adjusted his gravitic assist such that the metal had negative weight and 'fell' upwards at the same speed I was moving.

Error: Cannot equip 5217 kg of mass. Current limit is 2900 kg.

"What? Since when is there a limit?!"

"I believe you are level 29 at the moment, Ms Katia? It would seem that there is a 100 kilogram per level limit."

New Achievement: Powerfully Clueless!

That's not how your powers work, dummy! You can only absorb up to your mass limit! I guess you were shooting for a 'Morbidly Obese' achievement?

Reward: That sense of humiliation and dismay you're feeling right now.

This is one of the rare achievements that can be received more than once. Mostly because it amuses the crap out of me.

I sighed. And then I started taking junk out of the bag and tossing it into my inventory until it was down to the maximum and I could equip it. Albert and his contents faded into my body and I began the laborious process of giving myself wooden soles in a way that would not count as unequipping my stupid stiletto heels. Minutes later I was wrapped in a 12-centimeter-thick layer of metal and my feet were insulated so that I would not be grounded when electricity started flying around.

"Being absorbed into your body is an interesting sensation," Albert said a moment later. "I recall being in subspace storage before but this is quite unprecedented. Rather comforting, actually. Warm and close. Fortunately, I am far too refined a field harness to make any of the double entendres that spring to mind."

"When were you ever in subspace storage?" I asked, ignoring all the double entendres that were now springing to mind. "Aren't you, like, twenty minutes old?"

"A bit more, but your point is taken. The memories in question are derived from the proto-ASI from which I was decanted. It supplies the essence of my personality, my memories of training, and the background information that informs me of how to use my various capacities in your service. Now, to battle! Please call out your training simulants that we may destroy them!"

I wanted to brief him on my abilities at the beginning but he asked that I wait and let him see me fight 'with no preconceived notions' first. I shrugged and spent ten or fifteen minutes smacking Jikininki and Drek simultants around (and getting smacked around in return), at which point he had seen enough and asked for the infodump. I laid it out for him, explaining how I automatically absorbed anything I equipped but couldn't absorb weapons or anything I couldn't equip, how I could sculpt my body like clay, how it hurt to shift into anything except my various preset forms, and so on.

"Thank you," he said at the end. "All right, with that in hand I think it's time for me to review the records of your feed...aaaaand, done."

"Wait, you have records of my feed?"

"Yes, from the moment you entered the dungeon until roughly thirty-four hours ago when my box was dispatched to you."

"Thirty-four hours ago? I only got the announcement three hours ago. You mean I could have had you with me when we went to that boss fight?"

"Indeed. There is always a delay in the delivery of Benefactor Boxes as it takes time to distribute them." *Said more directly: The Buffoon Coalition is staffed by useless tail-whacking slackjawed moppets who couldn't find their buttocks with all four fins, a GPS device, and an anatomy professor's guidance. My Princess provided my box to them thirty-four hours and seventeen minutes ago but they took their own sweet time actually delivering it to you.*

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. That would explain why Donut and I got our boxes at the same time despite them coming from different Benefactors. I wondered if my box had waited on hers or vice versa? Presumably Borant had delivered them in the middle of a boss fight because it would drive curiosity among the viewers and thereby keep them in their seats after the fight ended.

"That reminds me, I need to ask Donut what was in her box."

"Indeed. We can do that in a moment, if you'll allow me. For now, a question: Do you have any objection if I adjust your action potentials in order to maximize your combat capacity?"

"Sure, go ahead. What do I have to do?"

"Wrap your arm around that training post, if you would be so kind. Yes, good. Now, when I say 'go', I want you to extend thirty-centimeter spikes from the inner surface of your arm, as fast as you can. Really shoot them out there, as though you were attempting to decapitate an enemy."

"Shifting fast really hurts."

"Trust me."

It was very frustrating that I couldn't glower at him. "Fine."

"Excellent. Three, two, one, GO!"

I braced myself as he counted down and when he said 'go' I slammed spikes through the post. At least, I intended to. Instead, I fell over as all sense of my body disappeared from under me. It returned almost immediately, but I was already in a heap on the floor.

"What did you do?!"

"Katia, are you all right?!" Donut demanded, bounding over with Carl and Mongo a step behind.

"I think so. Give me a second. Albert, answer my question."

"Oh dear. I'm very sorry. I adjusted the action potentials of your nervous system, as I said I would. Specifically, I created antagonistic interference with nerve signals passing through the cervical region and destined for the brain. I had intended only to block nociceptor transmission, but I fear that I made insufficient allowance for the differences between human and doppelganger anatomies. I appear to have disabled your awareness of your mechanoreceptors, thermoreceptors, and proprioreceptors as well. I apologize."

"Albert, I swear to god, if you don't start speaking straightforwardly, I'm—"

"I rendered you numb, but I overdid it. I accidentally turned off your sense of touch and your awareness of where your body is, causing you to fall down."

"Why didn't you say that?! And so help me, you had better not dare say 'where's the fun in that?'"

"I was attempting to be complete and thorough but should have recognized that it was not the time for that. I sincerely apologize both for the initial error and the inappropriate communication. It was stupid and careless."

"What's he saying?" Carl demanded.

"He was trying to numb the pain of shifting but he overdid it. I couldn't tell where my body was, so I fell over.

"Albert, you couldn't have explained in advance?! When you said 'action potentials' I didn't realize you were talking about my nervous system! I thought you meant you were going to give me some advice on how to stand or act more efficiently or something!"

"I apologize, Ms Katia," he said, sounding sincerely contrite. "I admit to indulging in a bit of theatre—I had expected it to be a pleasant surprise. I shall be clearer in future." He paused, and when he continued his voice was hesitant. "This in no way justifies my error, but please note that it was effective." A red arrow flashed in my vision, pointing at the top of the training post, which was completely shredded. Apparently my spikes had gone in the full thirty centimeters and when I fell over they had been dragged through the post, almost tearing the top off.

"You're right, that doesn't make up for it. And you better be clearer in the future." I glanced over at my teammates. "I'm fine, guys. Sorry to have scared you."

"You sure?" Carl asked.

"Yup. I'll be fine."

The two of them looked dubious, but they nodded and went back to their own training, Mongo in tow. I rolled on my back, hands folded on my stomach, and closed my eyes as I thought about what I had gotten into. Albert wasn't human. He wasn't even alive. His first loyalty was almost certainly to Princess Formidable, not to me, so how could I really trust him? Could I afford to keep him with me if he could just...turn me off like that, anytime he wanted? Maybe I'd be safer if I threw him under a train and went on as I had been.

"Ms Katia?" he asked nervously. "Have I...was this error on my part irretrievable?"

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The answer was simple: No, I could not afford to get rid of him. That would mean going off-mission on the 'help Carl' assignment that Princess Formidable had given me, meaning that she would somehow arrange to kill me.

"It's fine," I said. "Let's try that again but with me lying down." I raised my right arm up so that I could see it. "Can you numb just the arm?"

"No, ma'am. Perhaps with significantly more study, but I'm currently doing an intensive review to see what I got wrong, and I'm discovering that doppelganger physiology is vastly more different than I had thought after only doing a basic scan. Are you aware that all parts of your body are in constant motion, with cells changing location and function from moment to moment? I'm currently looking at a spot where the flesh isn't even composed of cells."

"I was not aware of that." Eew. "Fine, do the whole-body blockage thing again and I'll practice shifting. Maybe you can sort out how to just block the pain and not the rest of it."

"I'll do my best, ma'am."

o-o-o-o

When I asked, Donut was more than happy to show me the contents of her Benefactor Box. She was positively bouncing up and down in excitement and going on about how Princess D'Nadia of Prism was the best Benefactor ever, which was enough to remind me about manners and have me fire off a quick thank-you message to Princess Formidable. Whatever concerns and reservations I had about Albert, whatever issues might come up in our working relationship, he was an excellent gift. It wasn't hard to sound appreciative.

Speaking of excellent gifts, Donut's was amazing, both for what it could do and the implications.

Higgs Diffusion Emission Reactor

HIDER consists of a Higgs boson manipulator, a graviton manipulator, a bioscrubber, a high-density lithium-unobtainium battery, and an expert system to run all of it. In combination, they are capable of reducing the mass of the wearer (and optionally a limited volume of contiguous material) to negligible amounts, clearing air and other gasses from the wearer's path, and maintaining an appropriate balance of oxygen and other gasses in the bloodstream.

Warning: This device is extremely energy intensive. Energy costs vary widely based on a number of factors. For operator convenience, capacity has been abstracted into a points measure. HIDER regenerates 1 point every 2 hours.

Current energy reserves: 37/37

Not only did it allow Donut to bound around like a sugared-up Jedi pinball, wall-running and flipping like a madcat, it made her immune to most physical damage. With her mass set to almost nothing, anything that hit her simply pushed her away instead of actually causing injury. It couldn't protect her if she was caught between a weapon and a hard surface but her reflexes and agility could generally prevent that. She loved it so much that she spent fifteen minutes with her eyes closed, allowing the training room's simulants to bat her randomly around the room as she cackled and squeed in delight.

Albert, however, did not squee in delight. When Donut messaged me the description of her device he started garbling his words in fury.

"What? WHAT?! That's a terrible translation! If that were the way it worked she would end up dead the moment a force was applied! If they didn't get the field tuning perfect then there would still be a pressure wave through her body that would kill her! Even if they did and the force was evenly applied, her hydrogen atoms would accelerate faster than her nitrogen or carbon atoms and she'd turn into paste! And if her mass was set to essentially zero then she would accelerate at relativistic speeds! It's nonsense! Who is writing these translations?!"

"Albert?" I asked carefully. "What are you talking about?"

"That description...Higgs field diffusion? Higgs diffusion?! They didn't even mention the terodan field! Or the teelon force! How is that description even remotely correct?!"

"Albert...I'm not a physicist, but I'm pretty sure Earth doesn't know anything about the terodan field or the teelon force."

That shut him up.

"Fine," he grumbled after a moment. "I suppose I should make allowances. Still, why did they try to use scientific terms if they were going to be wrong? It's not like she needs to know how it works as long as she knows that it works!"

"I'm sure that Princess D'Nadia was trying to be helpful," I said diplomatically. "She probably wanted to give Donut a clearer understanding of what HIDER would be capable of."

"Hrmph." He continued grumbling, but softly enough that I couldn't make out the individual words. Honestly, it was cute.

Still, all fun things must come to an end. After our allotted hour of enhanced training ran out, plus a bit more for experimenting with numbness, we quickly showered off the sweat and gathered back in the common area of our personal space.

"We've got about a week before level collapse and we need to figure out what to do," Carl said, jumping straight to the discussion without any social pleasantries. "Most of the mobs we've seen—I'm thinking of the Kickadas and the ghouls—are significantly below our level but come in big groups. They don't individually give a lot of experience so we need to kill a lot of them to be worth it, but the large groups can be dangerous. I see three options:

"First option: We grind on some of the less densely-populated stations around us, get used to our new abilities in a low-risk, low-reward area.

"Second option: We go back to Repair Station and take down that army of ghouls that was behind the fence. It's a target-rich environment and it should get us a level or two each. If things get bad we can retreat back up the tracks.

"Third option: We steam up the line and pick up as many crawlers as we can. I've been on chat, distributing all the information I could and hearing what's going on with everyone else."

And not including me in those chats.

"The only problem," Carl continued, "is that we don't know where people are. We'd need to coordinate through the Desperado Club and chat messages, and that would take a lot of time. Once we knew where people are we'd need to figure out where to send them, and that requires being able to make sense of the map."

"And for that awful Quan Ch poser to stop wrecking trains," Donut said. "If the trains keep going out of service without us knowing then any plan might be ruined."

"I can help with that, ma'am," Albert said. "Your City-boss map shows what appears to be a large chunk of the network, including real-time updates on trains, mobs, and bosses. I can monitor it in real time and update plans as needed."

"That's great news," I said.

"No it isn't," Donut said. "What are you talking about? It's not good at all."

I shook my head. "Sorry. Not you, Donut. I was replying to Albert. He was saying that he can monitor the map and update us in real time as to any changes we need to make.

"Albert," I asked, "is there any way to let Carl and Donut hear you? This repetition thing is going to get annoying fast."

"Yes, ma'am. With your authorization, I can use the chat interface with anyone in your contact list. I should note that the message will appear to come from you and a copy will be retained in your Sent Messages folder. By default you will receive an alert each time I send a message, although you can disable that in your preferences if you wish."

"Fine. You're authorized to contact Carl and Donut."

"Yes, ma'am. I shall use chat to include Carl and Donut in the discussion where appropriate. I will not message anyone aside from them unless you explicitly authorize it," Albert said, copying the words into a chat to Donut and Carl at the same time. Two alerts popped up saying that he had sent the chats in my name. I waved them away and quickly disabled further alerts on the subject, recognizing that there were going to be an overwhelming number of them soon enough.

"On a related subject, I believe I can help with the other communication issue, if you wish...?" he suggested tentatively.

"Oh?"

"Yes, ma'am. It is possible for us to create an opt-in network between crawlers that enables communication between any two members."

Carl's eyebrows shot up.