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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Thausgt01 on 2024-06-17 08:10:57+00:00.
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“Cyber Core: Book Two” by Perrin L. Rynning Chapter 13
Mission Log: Day 0024
Addendum 13
Thusarrel squirmed a bit as he settled into the bench-seat facing Diorama #5, with the visual aids to explain the fundamental principles of how the nanites worked. He kept his legs crossed at the ankles as he leaned back, with Plenulru to his right, Kregorim to his left, and Packard behind Kregorim and about 2.238 meters closer to the hallway leading up and back to the surface.
“There’s a pair of restrooms at the other end of the hallway,” I said to the Wood-Elf, animating the avatar gesturing in the appropriate direction. “Water-dispenser, too. Though it seems like I should consider opening a snack-bar down here…”
Thusarrel glanced over at the screen, and the avatar’s face showing on it. I had finally been able to take advantage of a large deposit of iron pyrite that Sudryal had discovered back when he and the others were still in residence, replacing most of the mass of the “fool’s gold” with hollow but sturdy shells of artificial sandstone to maintain the general texture of the land. Once I processed the first few kilograms of iron and other metals the nanites had started transporting to my fabricators, I was able to set up a sliding track along the corner so that the one screen could ‘travel’ the entire length of the diorama-series, and I could at least let Thusarrel feel like I was ‘closer’ and giving him ‘personal attention’ when the nanites ‘finally’ arrived.
Really, though, I followed the advice of the “Human-A.I. Relations” handbook to downplay just how quickly I could draw a given volume of nanites from ‘their other duties elsewhere’ to the destination, giving Thusarrel time to get ready for the experience… or as close as he could get to what I’m pretty sure was completely outside of his previous experience.
The wood-elf flinched a bit as a puddle of silvery liquid seeped upward from the drainage channels in the neo-concrete flooring. “How…” he began, swallowed, then tried again. “How much of them will you need to use?” he asked.
“You’d be able to hold all of the first wave in one cupped hand,” I told him. “Mostly because that one will simply flow over you as well as the shackles to see precisely what we’re working with.”
Kregorim gave an approving nod at that. “I must advise caution, Joachim. The Lignignory family have been slave-traders for generations, after all. Lord Zee has expressly forbidden me from examining the restraints away from the presence of the House’s slavemaster, so I cannot say with any certainty whether they are or are not merely welded shut around Thusarrel’s flesh.”
I animated the avatar nodding. “Understandable, and very wise advice,” I answered. “Thusarrel, if you’d like some water or anything, you’re more than welcome to have a sip before I get started.”
The Wood-Elf’s mouth tightened, but he shook his head. “Sooner started, soonest finished,” he bit out. “The only one of the Ells who never spun one horrible campfire tale after another about the tortures these things could inflict on any slaves who tried to escape was Zoti, and that probably only because she spent most of her time either asleep or occupied with something or other away from the Household back in the Capital…”
His voice dropped to a hiss as the pooled nanites flowed up over his well-worn footwear, reaching his ankles in 0.928 seconds; to be fair, the damage to and repairs on the Wood-Elf’s footwear were almost as fascinating as the dyes, carvings and knotwork-decorations, and it took longer than expected to map them in proper detail. Then came his skin and… how fascinating, it seems that, like Sudryal, the pure-blooded Wood-Elves have no body-hair on their feet or lower legs, at least, though they do sport toenails…
Thusarrel flinched again as the nanites made first contact with his skin. I halted their progress immediately but left them saturating his shoes. “Are you all right?” I asked. “I can make the nanites give off or even re-direct a bit of heat, if they make you uncomfortable…”
The tension in his facial muscles slowly eased, though his eyebrows remained furrowed. “No, it’s not that… it’s just the strangest sensation. These ‘nanites’ just don’t feel like anything. Not warm or cool, not really wet, either, but I’m not used to sand or dust just flowing over my skin that smoothly…”
I animated the avatar nodding. “Well, they’ve still got to touch you to study everything,” I pointed out, then let the avatar shoot a grin in Kregorim’s direction. “We can’t all cast spells to gather information from a distance. These nanites are simply the best tools I have available at the moment. Eventually, I’ll be able to build other tools and other, more specialized nanites, but that’s for later.” I redirected the avatar’s attention to the Wood-Elf’s face. “I can warm them up or cool them a little bit, if you’d prefer. And I can certainly give your toenails a trim, and maybe thin out some of those callouses…”
He shook his head, his expression more curious than afraid but still determined. “The toenails, maybe,” he said. “…But I still need the callouses unless and until I can ensure that my duties to the Ells won’t just put them back in a month of the usual labors. Can you repair the boots while you’re down there?”
I animated the avatar nodding. “Fair enough,” I answered out loud; I programmed two sub-masses of nanites to get to work on an abbreviated pedicure, and two more to re-purpose the particles of alpha-keratin, shed skin-cells and other debris collected from his long walk north from the Capitol into raw-materials for patching the worn soles and the stained, cracked panels forming the upper pieces. I also set the sub-masses to reinforcing the stitches connecting all the pieces composing the boots together and the knotted cords holding the things closed around his feet.
Overall, the boots’ design and decoration wouldn’t have caused much comment at a Renaissance Faire back home, other than a few questions about ‘authenticity’ from the folks with greater interest in that sort of thing.
I did make a point of adjusting the thermal signature of the mapping-nanite wave a bit. Between the heat they generated as well as the emanations from Thusarrel’s feet, I could easily manage to provide the sensation of gentle, even warmth, 5.293 degrees warmer than his skin temperature. Judging by the notable degree of tension released from the visible muscles in his neck, face and upper shoulders, I chalked it up as a ‘positive learning experience’, perhaps even an unexpectedly pleasant one, and let the nanites climb further up his legs.
As it turns out, the shackles themselves were just full of surprises. For one thing, they represented a degree of metallurgical sophistication that I must admit impressed me in more than one way. Somehow, for example, this world had managed to produce something chemically identical to stainless steel. Type 304, to be exact, with very specific ratios of chemical elements. It’s the stuff most commonly used for everything from cookware to medical equipment back home, even after almost 200 years of development; I provisionally put a note in the mission log to consult with Kregorim for his expertise on ‘magic’ relating to the topic, since Joachim 1.0’s predecessors had assumed that producing the stuff could only have arisen from an extensive and expensive industrial process.
I have no access to data on how the rest of the Ducal States manage their slave-populations. I can state that the Ells, specifically, had learned the value of maximizing their resources; the nanites probed and determined that the shackles were hollow, consisting of a stainless-steel shell of approximately 5 millimeters’ thickness, shaped around an inner core of…
I actually had to take a clock-cycle to go over the results to make sure the nanites’ scans were accurate, and that I not had somehow misread the data.
No mistake: the partially-hollow steel shell of the shackles had a core of nearly-pure silicon. Something like half a kilogram in each of the leg-shackles, presumably to make them feel almost as heavy as a solid-steel mass. But somehow, the magical economy of this world made producing silicon in such quantities that using them as weights inside hollow stainless-steel slave-restraints more cost-effective than using relatively simple, solid steel ones.
At various points in history… relatively recently, from my perspective of 2077… the silicon inside the steel would have been worth 1,000 times the steel. And for me, it was no exaggeration to say that I could have added a zero, possibly two, to that assessment; it was like the Ells had hidden a king’s ransom in platinum bars under thin shells of iron. Assuming that each of the five components contained a similar mass of silicon, and given that there were exactly… 42 ‘servants’ in the Ell’s ‘stock’, all wearing the same general design…
I toyed with the notion of animating the avatar’s jaw dropping almost to the edge of the screen, with similarly-cartoonish distortions to the eyes, but restrained myself. Still, though, with the mass of silicon in the entire set of shackles around Thusarrel’s limbs and body, I would p…
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