Strider

"Just a frankly overwhelming number of regular soldiers." Liliya explained to the one she assumed to be Gabriel. "How much of, well, everything were you told before you got here? Did you know we've got three other teams in other battles right now? Any knowledge of the conflict? We're gonna need to know how much we gotta tell."

<"Director Piggot's a rather private woman then?"> <"That's pretty accurate. Maybe even a mild way of putting it. I was more curious though if there was any way I would be able to assure you of my. . . Not harmlessness, since everyone can be dangerous, but perhaps. . .relative harmlessness in comparison to others. Probably not something that could easily be done though. On a rather different subject, you mentioned being part of the 'Guild'? Since you're already quite aware of my ignorance, there's probably no reason not to ask. Mind telling me a bit about this organization?"> Harry nodded along, pleased. "That's good to hear. Will the PRT require anything of me before meeting Panacea, or what?"

<"Oh, I see. . .Thank you for the explanation, Dragon. I genuinely appreciate it. I suppose that our capabilities would definitely be worrying. Were you by chance watching while we filled out the paperwork? I'm guessing Director Piggot's sudden departure had something to do with that?"> Harry typed out, pausing as he considered the events. <"I'd really like to find a way to reassure you all that I don't have biotinkering capacities, if they're at all similar to regular tinkers. Not really sure how that type of reassurance would be possible. . . Any ideas? At the very least, perhaps you can take some comfort in the fact that I can't create these things without your assistance."> "Interesting. If instead Panacea were to instead test a programmed virus, you think she'd be able to detect the function of that? Since it's a bit more complex, sitting on the border between living and nonliving and everything. Sounds like quite the altruist though, so I look forward to meeting her."

<"He didn't seem that upset. In fact, I thought he handled things quite tactfully. But, I was more curious about your thoughts about us, what the girl said, etc. Maybe your thoughts on the others' abilities? How threatening we seem? Stuff that's not classified of course. I won't take offense to anything you say."> Meanwhile, Harry glanced around the room, and noticed that Armsmaster was seemingly comfortable with them being alone in his lab. He'd expected the man to be slightly more protective, but perhaps he was simply satisfied with Dragon's watchful eye. "Panacea does healing, right? So would testing this require giving it to a test subject, and then having her attempt to determine whether they require healing, or would she be able to determine it's capacity without using a test subject?" Dragon had mentioned her specialty. Armsmaster had mentioned her being a tinker, and it seemed her tinker skill was to make tech without tinker tech? That seemed a bit odd. Might be something worth looking into. "Think I could meet Panacea some time? As a Doctor, ithe healing power is something I take a great interest in, regardless of the fact that it's nothing that could be taught."

"Just curious how much of a Big Sister figure you were. I was curious if you heard all that, and judging from your reaction, I'm guessing that you did." Harry spoke quietly, with the purpose of allowing those left in the room to talk amongst themselves without distraction. "So tell me, what's your opinion on the molecule I uploaded? Going to cause the end of the world any time soon from what you can tell?" At the same time, Harry resumed typing. That way he could keep the conversation somewhat private for now, and if at some point he needed to reveal the truth about their mission, it could be done in a tactful way, without the chaos of four or five people offering conflicting explanations. <"Mind if I keep some of this private? It might keep things a bit more. . .confidential? Not sure what the word I want is. Anyway, I'm curious what. . . your opinion of what just happened is."> He tentatively probed, to see what conclusion Dragon came to about this possible revelation.

<"Going very well, thank you for asking. I can parse the file, I am sure."> The words scrolled across the screen quickly following Harry's greeting. Dragon was polite, and very business focused, Harry found himself thinking. He keyed in a phrase on his compad, sending the data on the molecule to Dragon. When the upload had completed, the formula and structure began to scroll across the screen, and a quiet hum arose from the synthesizer. <"This machine works by using precision electron beams to shove molocules around, so it's uses are fairly decent. It is much more complex than Armsmaster's Nanoforge, but only because it requires more accuracy."> Oh, interesting. Harry found himself thinking about the logistics of such a machine. It probably wasn't close to an accelerator, since that would liekly destroy any molecule that was in the process of being built. Additionally, it would be exceptionally slow if it simply worked on one molecule at a time. Perhaps some form of metamaterial latice? Vacuum deposit the skeleton onto this material, then perhaps the material could create syncronous beams of electrons on multiple molecules at once? That left the problem of getting the electron beam to strike from multiple directions. . . He was probably overthinking it, and it seemed more likely that the machine simply wasn't that fast. Harry vaguely heard the cat girl speaking to Armsmaster, and noticed the sudden glow in the room. He watched quietly, taking note of what she said. He frowned at her mention of her society falling, a little annoyed at this stretch between her society and this one. It seemed to be a bit much extrapolation, but who knew? It was the blatant admission of being not from this world that annoyed him more. They had been trying to keep a low profile, hadn't they? "Oh boy. Doomsday prophesizing, my favorite. Even got a bit of the good ole folly of man in there too. A real classic. Didn't hear any fire and brimstone; can't be forgetting those. . . Nice cat though,." Harry muttered, before taking a deep breath, and turning back to the machine. This wasn't something he'd be able to fix, and he wanted to hear how Armsmaster and the others would react before he intervened. <"Can you manifest yourself pretty much everywhere? Or is it limited to things like Armsmaster's lab and the main board in the meeting room?"> Harry sent this off, before sending off the following a second later. <"Basically wondering how much you know about what else is going on in this room?">

Shelly frowned in thought, and then remarked, "Tree of Life? I don't know myself, but based on some cryptic remarks, I might know someone who knows." Pulling out her A-comm, Shelly sent of a quick transmission. "Can someone put Zeta on the line? I want to ask if she knows anything about a Tree of Life." Glancing over the stick thin woman, Shelly hesitated to ask, but decided to do so anyway. "So, what do you want with this Tree of Life? Does it do something, or is it more of an archaeological curiosity?"

Huh. Harry hadn't expected, after Armsmaster's slight concern over the viruses, to be allowed to simply mess with the chemical synthesizer unsupervised. Harry stepped over to the machine, and connected his device using the cable he'd recieved from Armsmaster. A moment later, a text box appeared on the screen of the synthesizer. As clear an invitation to communication as any. He crouched down, and typed, <"Good morning, Dragon. How are things going? So, not really certain if this machine works the same as what I'm used to, but I should be able to upload a file, and then you can lead on from there?"> Following a response, Harry would transfer the file containing the data on the S-Igeron prion listed in the immunology and toxicology section of his copy of D'Arnet's. The file would include exact spacial coordinates for the different atoms making up the molecule, and information on the types of bonds and their effect on the protein's shape. In addition to the prion, the file also contained the design for a much smaller enzyme that appears to drastically alter the shape of the protein. Harry wasn't certain the speed with which the machine could produce molecules, so for now, he would simply attempt this one creation.

"I have. . .the information on certain possible viruses. All are short lived, generally beneficial, and have a collection of built in failsafes. Part of the reason prions would be a bit less useful, since they just don't have the information capacity to keep them as foolproof. Need a fair amount in order to have virus build nucleases, reproduce without totally destroying a cell, and not mutate into something . . .less fun." Harry accepted the cable from the Cape, and tested it on his device. Well, it fit, so that was good. He'd have to see if he could download information at any later point. "Thanks, Armsmaster." "Most of what I know involves the use of a collection of a few viral agents used to edit certain genetic snips early in life. There are a few designs more applicable in surgery and field medicine, and while I don't have the knowledge myself, there are some which can be used to selectively target and eliminate tumors. Anyway, rest assured. I'm incapable of manufacturing these myself, and if I did have the ability, I don't have the requisite knowledge to instigate an Armageddon." "Now that I think about it, there are a few prions which might be useful, if you could create them." Harry flicked on his compad, and quickly navigated to a section focusing on field toxicology, and found what he was looking for: "S-Igeron. Basically temporarily hijacks basophils and mast cells. Prevents most IgE from binding to them, prevents the majority of acute inflammatory response. Isn't able to work or recreate itself without the presence of 3-polytykerosine in the blood stream, similar to a lot of utility viruses that I know of. You can use it beforehand for generally annoying allergies, and anaphylaxis inducing toxins, or as a rapid response mixed with a small dose of epinephrine. Much higher chance of success than a straight epinephrine injection. So, it's a pretty simple and specific creation, all things considered, but it's useful for delaying certain troublesome immune responses." In similar fashion, Harry pointed out two other mildly useful prions, one to reduce swelling of brain tissue following concussive injuries, and the other to facilitate and speed bone regrowth. He didn't quite feel comfortable with immediately handing out every advancement that had occurred in the past six hundred years to someone who seemed not to specialize in this field, so he satisfied himself with showing of these three minor items for the time being.

"And that size and complexity is? Could viruses be created, given a template, or at least prions?" Harry supposed it would be a question of whether Armsmaster was willing to let Harry try some things out with the machine. Since he wasn't a tinker, he'd probably need some justification. He briefly contemplated showing the cape the data on his Compad, but then thought better of it. Instead he asked, "Do you think you could figure out a way to interface a certain piece of tech I have to a regular computer? I don't have any way of connecting the two right now, but I should be able to pull up specs, and show you what the plug should look like." Harry held up the surprisingly thick tablet that he had pulled from his backpack, pointing to a space on the side that was meant for charging and physical interface. He was glad at that moment, to have chose to pay extra to get that option installed, back when he was paranoid about remote signal jamming.

Ciara shut off her iPad, jumped up, and hurried down the halls to an elevator, taking her one deck lower. She passed by one of the doors, that cannon was already manned. The next was not, so she stepped in to the box, before entering the startup code. She made sure not to move the barrel of the weapon, since that would might be seen as too aggressive, and the monitors showed no hostilities as of yet. Once the cannon she had manned was online, Ciara turned on the intercom to listen to the chatter going on through the ship. ". . .[Incomprehensible Roaring]". Well. Sounded like negotiations were expiring.

Harry mostly ignored Armsmaster's question about their tinker skills, allowing the others who might actually be considered closer to Tinkers to speak up first. He quietly watched the passing blueprints on the screen, mentally noting their uses. A nanolathe and forge. Not something he'd seen before, definitely not on Libra. Might be a few on earth among the larger corporations under different names, if these machines did what Harry concluded they were meant to do. A supercomputer; well, that was a rather uninformative name, giving Harry no further information on how it compared to his world's computers. There were a great deal of other less interesting computer parts, which Harry ignored, before glancing over at another word that caught his eye. Micro fusion cores. Pretty damn advanced, something that his world still relied heavily on. Those things had to be a good three hundred years away without this "tinker tech" stuff. As Harry was finishing his slow sweep of the room, he noticed one other design. A chemical synthesis unit. Harry's world had plenty of them, and they were some of the most important tools for any hospital.That could be useful. "Armsmaster, what are the limits or the Chemical Synthesizer? In terms of time to create molecules, and the maximum complexity of those molecules? Can you create complex organic molecules? Maybe proteins and enzymes?"

The woman was nearly a skeleton. That couldn't be healthy, Shelly found herself thinking. In combination with the extremely soft voice, and general paleness, it seemed her health might be seriously questionable. "Oh, nice to meet you Uno--can I just call you Uno? So what are you looking for? I'm not doing anything right now, so maybe I could help?" Perhaps she could figure out why someone had actually let this woman come out to a the field.

"Lovely woman, that Director. So what now, Armsmaster? Power testing for just the people who claim to have powers, or are you going to need to ascertain that those who claimed to be unpowered, are in fact, the boring humans that they claim to be?" Harry addressed this question to the halberd man, curious about what came next in general. Harry perked up when he heard the question about tinkers, torn between annoyance at the ignorance that the question revealed to Armsmaster--better would have been to look it up personally, or question Soma later--, and curiosity, since he himself had not learned much about tinkers. "So, no offense, but if you've got tinkers, why's all the general tech here so. . . ahem, lacking in advancement? Seems even with a few tinkers, you could just go around trying patch up infrastructure and market new tech around the world."

"Lots of explanations. Maybe they wanted to give us an easy first mission that would ingratiate us to the coalition elves. Maybe we're transporting weapons or military tech. Could be that they're smuggling contraband, and we'll get a boarding order once we're far enough from anyone else. Though, no. . . last one doesn't make sense. The freighters wouldn't want us to give them an escort if they were smuggling. Maybe you should go ask Captain La Lune or something. If she knows and doesn't tell you, it's not something you need to worry about." Ciara tapped the screen of her iPad flicking to a new page.

At the sudden voice, Ciara perked up, rapidly searching the room for the speaker that gave rise to this intrusion. If it was just an intercom system, there wasn't really any way that she could respond. Unless there were microphones in the room that could catch whatever she said. That would certainly be an invasion of privacy. . . "I'd be willing to bet a hell of a lot. Most ships aren't strawberries. They've got an unfortunate tendency towards being unable to fly, or carry passengers for that matter." There was a slight edge in her voice. It certainly wasn't the captain speaking to her, which implied that someone was using the intercom system for personal use. Perhaps this intruder had some legitimate reason, but the casualness and pointlessness bugged her.

Following the brief instructions by the director, Harry picked up a set of papers. He patted his pockets, then glanced around. "May I borrow a pen?" He asked. Once he had recieved a writing tool, Harry sat himself down on one of the benches, and began to scan the papers. First question was easy. He moved on rapidly, answering to the best of his knowledge.

"You just want high explosives? What if someone came in with a good old fashioned black powder bomb? Sorry, I don't have any high explosives on my person right now, but I'm guessing that you'd probably like these?" Harry dropped the twin glocks he had picked up earlier into the tray. It was a courtesy, since many of the people around him could probably do far better without weapons, but gestures of trust were what made friends. As he did so, he made a mental note to question Arminius on where he had obtained the grenade.

Somewhere aboard the Crescent, Ciara Walton was in a gym. First a run on the treadmill. Five kilometers, twenty minutes. She kept up a steady pace, feet pounding to the sound of an old song. Lots of electronic beats, something which she found kept her moving quickly. When five kilometers were up, there was a small beep from the machine, and the belt slowed to a halt. She stepped off, experiencing that slight bit of disorientation that comes from abandoning a rhythmic pattern of motion, but it disappeared quickly. Standing now on solid ground, Ciara peered intently at a small bright screen embedded in the wall. She flicked over to the heart rate data, and frowned a bit. Too high, for her standards. And, though she hadn't broken a sweat, her breathing was a bit heavy. That would have to be fixed. Ciara stepped over to a bench, and sat down. It'd be a long trip, so she could take her time with the workout. No need to rush from one machine to the next or anything. She pulled out her iPad, and brought up a book she'd been working on. Sensen's memoirs. She'd been meaning to get around to it for a while, but it was dense, so she had been procrastinating.

Harry hadn't forgotten about Ador; he had simply felt that a much larger dragon would have been a better tool for explaining what Assault meant. "I meant real dragons, not the little flying geologist's curiosity." He murmured to Ador, not unkindly. He didn't know how sentient it was, or capable of understanding speech, but it had chosen to settle on his shoulder at that moment, so perhaps.

"Pretty much a big fire breathing lizard. . . or just a monster if you don't know what that is, usually present in mythology, though modern fiction often takes them for it's own purposes. They're entirely mythological in my world. Maybe in some other world they exist though. I think they called Lung a dragon because he was breathing fire, and taking on the appearance of one. Some type of parahuman power I guess." Harry turned his attention back towards the cape standing before them. "Did you join the Protectorate to do battle with that nemesis? They seem pretty big on discipline here, from what I can tell."

"Calvera. He's talking about Lung." After that quick explanation, Harry turned to the Hero in front of them. "Dr. Walters, at your service. Nice setup you got here. I know some people--not currently present--who'd love to get to see something like this up close and personal." Harry gestured at the forcefield, marveling a little at the advanced technology all around them. "So, you going to be our tour guide on this little jaunt through the rig? How does this work?" Harry asked Assault.

So, for the remainder of the boat ride, Harry questioned Proditor about the function of certain organs, his physiology, and general medical attention which he might need in the future. Following this, if there is any time, Harry will simply rest.

Harry, for the most part had ignored the discussion. If someone had asked him whether he had a soul, he would probably have answered "no". Really depended on what they meant by a soul, whether it be consciousness, some ineffable life energy in all things, or something unique to humans an Rokugani. However, they all seemed convinced of its existence, and he felt it wouldn't help current tensions to enter the discussion, questioning whether he had a soul. Ignoring the debate for the meantime--there could be no resolving it to one conclusion--Harry paced across the deck absentmindedly. There weren't any capes on board. As far as he could tell. Either the standard troopers, or the boat, was then expected to stop them. Other possibilities did include a test or trap, in which the Protectorate would ease their escape to see whether they would take advantage of it before swooping in. Harry stoppd pacing in front of Proditor. "Proddy. How are you feeling? You mind if I give you a quick look over to make sure everything's healing well? And well, it'd be good to get more of a sense for how you work. Makes it easier to take you apart if something goes wrong." Harry then quickly added, "and makes fixing you easier too."

During the ride, Harry checked over the boat, searching for Director Piggot. If she did not appear to be on the boat, he'd search out if there were any heroes who had attended the meeting, or any other capes who seemed especially interesting. He would specifically take note of the costumes, and any apparent emblems, in addition to any obvious powers.