I’m ready.
Very well, please proceed into the closest medical capsule.
Alan walked over and climbed into the capsule, sinking into the pool of what he now knew were nanomachines. He closed his eyes, and drifted into unconsciousness.
Chapter 10
Alan slowly opened his eyes, trying to remember where he was. His most recent memory jolted into place, reminding him exactly what had occurred before he’d undergone the procedure. He hadn’t remembered his memory being that good, and it wasn’t, at least not before whatever had changed. Alan grinned.
The capsule cover slowly rose, and Alan sat up, gazing about the room in surprise. The blank compartments on the walls now had digital tags clear as day, listing various chemicals, DNA samples, tools and other information. The Administrator had a tag as well, a simple miniature message bar that displayed: “Senior Executive 03821A3CC7, Titan Medic-Bay.”
Alan began to climb out of the capsule, and this time he truly saw. This must be what it was like for Eve. He could anticipate where his foot would land on the ground, the exact angle and force with which it would meet the floor. The effects that air resistance would have on his body as he moved through the air. The level of artificial gravity that was imposed in the ship. The material the floor was made of, and all of its properties. All this information suddenly was apparent to him, clear as day. He felt like a god.
Alan stepped out onto the floor, then promptly slipped, falling forward. Alan hurriedly thrust his hands forward to break his fall, but the angle was off, different than what he expected. His hands simply slowed the fall instead of stopping it like he intended. His head thudded onto the floor.
Dazed, Alan blinked, then recalled the series of events. He had stepped onto floor, then had taken his other foot out of the capsule, planning on balancing with precisely the right amount of force, timing it so he could use the forward momentum to then easily lift his other leg out of the capsule except—
Except your perception of time is now different, a voice sounded in his head.
It sounded similar to Eve in his mind, perhaps slightly deeper. The AI sensed that this change annoyed him, and reverted back to Eve’s normal voice. Alan knew that it did this without it ever saying anything. He was simply aware of the change.
Sitting on the floor, Alan waved his hand back and forth in front of him, trying to get a sense of how much his timing was off by. He tried to concentrate on the movement, ignoring all the equations that sprang into his head. He silently communicated with the new Eve, and came to the conclusion that his perception of time was maybe a tenth slower than it had originally been, which meant that he could react to things 10% faster. Apparently, he could also directly access all of Eve’s data, and the calculations she performed. That was how all the information about the room and gravity and what-not had appeared in his head.
Unsteadily, Alan rose to his feet, trying to get used to this new perception of time and information. It was odd, having his body react a split second slower than he was used to. Alan proceeded out the hallway and back to his room, slowly and steadily, holding onto the wall. He came to the conclusion that he should first talk to the Chief Administrator as the new information he gained would doubtlessly influence his decisions.
He passed by a few Haxlards on his way back to his room. As he glanced at them their names, health, psi-energy, shield-energy and class would pop up above their head. This was apparently all information that Eve 2.0 had acquired from Titan’s AI. Alan decided to keep calling the AI Eve, and accessed Eve's information on the Haxlards.
It appeared that they followed a sort of class system, with their masks representing the field each worked in. A blue mask signified service or basic grunts, green meant a skilled worker of some sort, silver represented assassins or spies, red was reserved for elite warriors and gold, which Alan had yet to see, represented royalty of some sort. Being an Ultihaxlard was a difference in rank rather than a difference in race, signified by the marks on a Haxlard’s mask. That was how Eve had identified Pharaoh as an Ultihaxlard.
The five minute trip to the Med-bay turned into a 15 minute trek, but Alan managed to reach his room, tripping over his feet only a few times. He was starting to get used to things, he thought. Then he opened his mouth to turn on the table. He had intended to simply say turn on, yet what emerged from his mouth was a jumble of the syllables that sounded off to him. But the desk lit up.
Alan saw how the technology worked now: it simply adapted to the user's needs. He put his hands on the desk and a keyboard appeared. Alan could set up the table like a desktop computer, and the desk would simply supply the monitor, keyboard and mouse; it was just a matter of requesting them. If he chose to, Alan could also forge a mental connection to the desk, but he decided to stick with the mouse and keyboard he was used to. For now.
A few keystrokes later, it didn’t matter that his perception was a bit off as long as he hit the keys in the right order, he sent a message to Chief Administrator 170. It appeared there were also a few digital networks that he could access, basically a series of universal internets.
This time, the Chief Administrator immediately accepted his communication request, and launched into discourse. The Administrator talked as fast as he used to, despite everything else having slowed down.
“Hmm, I see you’ve chosen to join our brotherhood, welcome. Now, onwards, toward the future. As a Machine Lord I’m sure you’ve already realized your perception of time will be a bit different. In extreme situations you may further slow down your perception of time by many orders of magnitude. Adjusting yourself to these varying perceptions of time can take some getting used to, but you had better master it as I see you have a semi-combative subclass, a Rogue, which is interesting.
"Machine Lords generally stick to non-combative roles, doing more administrative work or research, but I suppose it could be quite useful in the heat of battle. I advise you set up some sort of signal with your AI to immediately exit out of any sort of hypercognition mode, as pain can be magnified severely. After all, if you’re experiencing time a hundred times slower, and you’re stabbed by a knife, you’ll experience the pain for a hundred times as long. That’s why most Machine Lords avoid active combat roles. It’s also actually one way that people die in real life due to the Game, severe pain that overloads their brain. But usually the Game stops things before that happens or the user loses consciousness. Anyway, you’re now a Machine Lord.
"Don’t spread any information about a Machine Lord’s capabilities. Or else. You’ll also be better off if you don’t disclose your class to anyone else, as even though not much is widely known about Machine Lords, we still have clear counters and weaknesses due to our low psionic ability and dependence on our machine implants. Your abilities may slightly differ from another Machine Lord’s abilities as well; it seems to be a somewhat customized class based upon a player’s performance during the Tutorial tests. Also, you should make sure to actually learn important information, not just have your AI store the data. You’ll be able to recall the information and take it into account much more easily that way.