Chapter 42: Chapter 41 – Test Flight

Alpha, with the rest of the team and with those who were part of the military and leaders of Hephaestus, were standing in an observatory, up on Titan’s surface. It was a huge dome, filled with all kinds of sensors that the Hegemony had access to. Their current task was simple; Test out the Abyss Battery’s and the Suit of Ares’s compatibility. For the dismay of Lizzy, the one who would perform the test run was none other than her daughter, Marin. Unlike her mother, Marin was excited, already dressed up in her flight suit, sitting in the cockpit of the first prototype, fitted with its new powersource. 

“Everything is green!” Marin said, as she was checking the holo-projection before her. She was sitting  still, strapped in, hands on the controls. Around him, all the screens were on, giving her a 360 field of view. “Initiating the Abyss Battery.” She continued while Lizzy, standing next to Alpha, held onto his hand.

“Relax…” He said with a smile. “Everything is going to be okay.”

“I hope so…” Lizzy said, gulping as she watched their end of the camera feed. She could see her excited daughter, grinning behind her helmet as the new generator came to life. 

“It seems stable!” Marin said, “Taking off, now!” 

She didn’t wait for instructions and pushed down on the pedals at her feet, shooting out with the suit. It had such an acceleration, if not for the head unit’s anti-gravity fields, she would experience such g-force stress, it would prove fatal. 

“This is awesome!” Her cries came through as the suit was already way above the moon’s atmosphere, doing sharp turns, loops and different, stomach-turning maneuvers one after another. It was dancing, just as if it was her body, being controlled by her hands and legs. None of the crew watching her wanted to stop Marin, letting her do as many tricks as she felt like. It was exactly what they wanted. A full stress-test. To see what the new machine was capable of. 

“How’s the maneuverability?” Alpha asked. 

“It has improved a lot!” Marin answered, stringing together dozens of spins before taking a nosedive with the suit, heading back into Titan’s atmosphere. “Reading it, I think I set a new record in all departments, teehee!” She laughed proudly. “But…”

“But?” Alpha asked as they watched the suit glow in red as she was cutting through Titan’s atmosphere. 

“It is still not like moving my own body. I could be much quicker if I could do that… I could… bring more out of the reactor! It says it is still only working at 80% capacity. If I could move more freely I could bring out a 100%! I am sure of it!” 

“There is no technology for that…” Keelan said to the communicator. “Linking a human mind up with a machine is much more dangerous than you would think!”

“Maybe…” Alpha said, with a wondering voice, thinking about the stage that his equation was stuck at. For Keelan, it was enough to hear him say that as his eyes already lit up.

“We are going to think of something!” He added immediately after it, drawing many eyes to himself. Especially those who did not know him nor Alpha.

“Great!” Marin laughed then the suit shuddered and many warning signs came up on their end too.

“What is happening?” Lizzy asked which was followed by the sound of an explosion.

“Uh-oh…” Marin said as they lost the visual feed of the suit. 

“Marin!” Lizzy exclaimed but Alpha was still calm, placing his hand on Lizzy’s shoulder.

“Guys… It was not my fault… okay?” Marin said as her voice was distorted by static interference. “Don’t deduct this from my pay!” 

When she touched down and the team went to take a look, the suit was almost ruined. It was missing its legs and one of its arms. Besides the head unit, which was extremely sturdy and reinforced, the rest was also showing deformations. 

“It… It just fell apart! It was not my fault!” She said, getting off of the still steaming, hot scrap heap that was a super expensive battle suit once. 

“Well… shit.” Many engineers sighed as they saw the state that it was in.

“We need to come up with new material to build these…” Keelan murmured, looking at the other prototypes. “We have to stop the production lines! Until we can’t make a new, more durable version, all of these will break under the stress that the new core puts them under!” He moaned, grabbing onto his beard, tearing at it. “Noone would invest in that!” He said, desperate, knowing, no investors liked a money pit like this. 

“I would not worry about it.” Alpha said as he welcomed Marin, who rushed to him, so nobody would dare to scold her about breaking a billion credits worth of military equipment. 

“I would!” Keelan sighed, jealous of ‘Alfonse’ positivity. 

“Trust me.” He said, looking down at him with a smile. “They are going to come through…”

…

….

…..

Only a few days later, Keelan didn’t know if he should be surprised or not. It all happened incredibly fast. Both the Prometheus Station and Hephaestus were bought by the same, newly formed conglomeration, called: Olympus. They not just backed them up with money, but they were told to work without worrying of any expenses. Keelan was named as the director of the Ares Division and now had access to a seemingly inexhaustible supply chain. He found it weird but in the end he decided not to question it. Just go along with it and then nothing bad will happen. That was his motto.

He formed multiple teams and set them to work. Now they were not just developing the Abyss Battery, improving it, but started to work on the new propulsion system for their ships and to create a new alloy for the suits. Life suddenly got really interesting and hectic but he was reveling in it. 

On the other hand, Alpha was also busy as he started to spend most of his time devising something new. Something that was complex and in a way, dangerous. He was creating a machine that was almost an AI, yet not. It would be capable of interfacing with the human mind but not overwhelming it. It had to be close to a true intelligence when the two were connected and melded together but also, remaining a separate thing. If they truly melded, that would be irreversible; He had to come up with something that made sure the two could separate in the end and repeat the melding as many times as needed. Without any side effects. 

“I’m glad you are here!” Alpha sighed, stretching in his chair while Lizzy just smiled.

They were working constantly for a month by now, unifying Lizzy’s knowledge of genes and Alpha’s rapidly improving skills in AI and technology. The only one who was unhappy about it was Marin. She complained more and more that they had so little time to spend together and right now, she was laying on their sofa, curled up like a baby, sleeping peacefully. She was determined to wait for Alpha to finish his work with her mother but in the end it lasted until way past midnight. 

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“It is… refreshing! The last time I pulled all-nighters like this was when I was 30 years younger!” Lizzy chuckled. “But I am surprised how quickly you adapt to my field…” She said, looking at him with a gentle smile. “Your brain works weird.”

“Thanks?” He sighed, shaking his head. “What do you think? Should this work?” 

“Do you want to hear my honest thoughts?” She asked back, stretching. “No idea! We can build it. I don’t know the effects that your resonance field is going to have on the brain though. So it IS dangerous! The AI’s programming…”

“I am going to do the first tests. And it won’t be an AI. Not a true AI at least! It is going to be very sophisticated… but still a program only. Not a living being.”

“Okay. Let us see how it plays out! I am going to send the plans for the prototype to Keelan. He is going to be elated to start producing something new again. He is a maniac in this regard.”

…

….

…..

A year has passed since then. Prometheus Station managed to come up with a new alloy, naming it Celestial Bronze. To the dismay of Keelan as he wanted it to be named Keelanium… but, he was still at Hephaestus, overseeing the manufacturing of the new control system for the new suit and was too late to have a vote in its naming. 

The first of the 2nd generation Suit of Ares was made from the new material, fitted with an Abyss Battery and also, the new control system was installed in its head unit. Everything was ready for a test flight yet no pilots were willing to try it out. Except for Marin. She was jumping at the opportunity, curious at how it would feel to control it as if it was her own body. 

“Why not?!” She protested, stomping before Alpha who just rubbed her head, calming her down.

“Because I came up with it, I need to test out if it is working as intended!”

“Not fair!” She pouted.

“My brain is more resistant if something would go on!” He insisted.

Not that Marin could do anything about it as they were already standing in the observatory and Alpha was being fitted out with his own pilot suit. Lizzy and Keelan were making sure his monitoring devices were working correctly and they were going through every possible point of failures and emergency stops installed in the suit. 

“It is a bit tight.” Alpha said, looking down at his hands, moving them around in the white and violet colored suit. 

“Hmf.” Marin scoffed as she knew if this would work, every pilot would also wear the same suit. They had to have the least amount of interference between their bodies and the machine’s ‘Melding Unit’, installed under the pilot’s chair. “You came up with it, don’t start moaning now!”

“Okay, okay, noted!” He chuckled.

After the checks were good and it seemed everything was ready, Alpha leaned forward, gently kissing Marin’s lips.

“Don’t worry, your turn will come soon!” He whispered to her.

“Um… hey…” She said, looking into his eyes. “Be careful, okay?”

“I will.” He nodded as he was stepping into the elevator, bringing him down to the test field. After putting on his helmet, he approached the Suit of Ares and let it lift him up to the cockpit.

When all systems were finally ready and the head unit closed up, he was plunged into complete darkness. He slowly closed his eyes, initiating the Abyss Battery’s startup. As soon as it happened he could feel that his mind started to resonate with a new kind of consciousness, housed right under him. He could not see it with his eyes, but he knew that the strings making him up were starting to vibrate at the same frequency as the machine’s. It was birthing a new kind of existence into the world. All of it happened in an instant. As soon as he thought about raising his hand, the Suit of Ares followed suit, doing it to the cheers of the people who were watching it move. For Alpha, his eyes became the eyes of the machine. He could see everything from above and when he spoke up, the suit instantly connected to every communicator around it. 

“I think it is a success.” He said with a happy voice. “Oh?”

“What is it?” Marin, Lizzy and Keelan asked at the same time.

“There is a change… wait a minute and I’ll get back to you.” He said, cutting the connection, making the trio loudly curse at him. 

He was feeling that the programming of the suit was changing. Adapting. Reconfiguring itself. Its strings were resonating at the same way as his body’s and it slowly woke up as Alpha felt a separate but simple consciousness coming to life.

“This is… unexpected.” He said but he let it happen as he was feeling he was on the edge of another breakthrough.

“...” The new consciousness at first tried to get a grip of itself. Scanning its body, Alpha’s then its surroundings. Then it read through its own databases in a flash as its thoughts traveled into Alpha’s mind. “What is my name, Master?”

“Good question.” He thought as the Suit of Ares waited patiently. “Well…” He smiled a little. “Let’s call you Heracles!” 

“Registered.” He replied in a tone that felt… excited. Which was a bit weird. Then when Alpha thought about flying up, Heracles immediately obeyed. He was looking like he was making a jump and the suit flew upwards, beating Marin’s speed record in an instant as it passed by the atmosphere of Titan, out into the vast region of space.

All the feedback the team was receiving was off the charts and it showed that their new invention, the Celestial Bronze was not just withstanding all the stress Alpha was putting it through at the moment, but performed even better than expected. The only person who was not happy was Marin.

“I want my own…” She murmured, biting onto her lips, watching her previous records being pushed to 2nd place with fire in her eyes.

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