King of All I Survey
Chapter 96: Just Be Yourself, Unless you Can Be Superman...

Chapter 96: Just Be Yourself, Unless you Can Be Superman...

As you requested, I constructed several different simulacrums so that we can operate without risking being recognized. However, there is no reason that each body cannot be used by either you or myself, or anyone else you designate.

"Really? That sounds a little weird, but I guess it makes sense. Hey, can these things eat?"

Yes, I thought it might be required in certain situations. They can eat and drink as a normal person. I even built in taste receptors and a ’full feeling’ when the stomach is nearing capacity. In fact, the bodies will metabolize some food to maintain living tissues so eating is a necessity in extended situations, say two weeks or more without returning to the base for direct infusion which will be done while they are in storage. They also use oxygen from breathing, but can go extended periods without it, if required.

"So, like I can walk on the bottom of a lake? Do they float or sink like a stone?"

I have designed them to be similarly buoyant to a human body, but the operator can adjust this manually by adjusting the amount of air contained in the ’lungs’. For floating, just take a deep breath before entering the water and hold it for as long as needed. For sinking, exhale all the air, again for as long as needed. The bodies can filter oxygen from water or other oxygen-poor environments in the amounts required to preserve the living tissue indefinitely.

I smiled, "These are kind of like superheroes. Add fish telepathy and I could be Aquaman! Wait a minute, can you reach into fish brains and communicate like you do with me?"

Yes and no. I can influence neural activity with a transceiver near enough to the subject, but fish don’t have much reasoning power or any ability to comprehend language of any sort. I could make them afraid or unafraid, I could make them hungry or perhaps ignore a food source or things at that level. Because their brains are even more limited than those of humans, the stronger the intervention, the more likely it would be to cause damage.

"What about whales and dolphins, though? They have huge brains, and even language, right?" The possibilities were flooding through my imagination.

In theory, I have not undertaken a direct investigation of cetacean brains to determine their capacity, but judging by human records and observations, it should be a possibility. Though I suspect language capabilities are rudimentary and multi-step complex instructions might have significant limitations.

"I CAN be Aquaman! What about hand-eye coordination?"

Whales don’t have hands...

I scowled. "Don’t be a smart-ass, I mean for the simulacrums. Can I be Hawk-eye, too? Like super accurate with a bow and arrow?"

Yes, I can use my own processing to augment your real-time targeting and time capabilities... as well as agility in general. You’ll also find the simulacrums have a pre-set limiter on strength to make them human-equivalent, but this can be adjusted or removed. Their full strength is significantly higher than a human of the same size.

"And bullet-proof? Well, we have shield rings for that... If they can fly, Joe... tell me I can be Superman!"

Flight is not built-in... With the field created by the shield-ring, however... Yes, because of the multidimensional nature of the shield ring barrier, I can address the... I’ll say particles, of the field. Which means I can change their properties, including their present location in space and time. By making continuous very small adjustments to all of the particles in the shield’s field, I can move it and the body inside, relative to the ground. The body inside would experience acceleration effects and could be bruised or damaged by sudden impact with the shield itself, if sudden very rapid positional changes were made?

"Yeah, yeah, I see how that would work... That’s a lot of particles though, Joe. You can handle that much processing?"

Yes.

"I can be Superman! Except there’s no such thing as Kryptonite! Even better!"

Remember the shields are not completely invulnerable...

"Yeah, no problem. I’ll just try to avoid being hit with nuclear missiles and stuff like that..." Then something he said triggered another thought.

"Joe, you can address the properties of the particles in the shield...? even if you didn’t create the shield...? that’s how the Galactic Union’s advanced missiles work, isn’t it? You move the shield around them into a state where they have no physical presence while they pass through the defensive shield. Oh, that’s just using the shield as a LITV... But the defending AI could resist and change them back... or you could just change the shield’s field itself to be useless if you overpower the other AI’s control.... Or damage the AI first, then it can’t control the shields... My head hurts just trying to work out the basic physics of these interactions. Wait a minute! There’s a gap in the physics you taught me!" Sudden realization hit me. "That’s the piece that the Galactic Union refuses to license because it reveals how to create and defeat their most advanced weaponry!"

I can’t comment on that. Perhaps you should work directly with your Corbomite Project Team when it is fully assembled.

"Yes... Dang it, Joe, I forgot the important thing. I can be Superman! How would it work, would you monitor my thoughts to control where I wanted to fly? Or translate and relay commands to the fish and dolphins?"

Essentially, yes. As you adjust to the interfaces, it would seem like you are controlling the flight or communication directly. Just willing yourself to move in a vertical direction at a certain rate of speed, as naturally as deciding to walk toward something. After a while, you won’t even have to think about it, you can, but you can let reflexes handle it the same way. You don’t have to carefully plan all the movements that make up walking from here to there.

"Wait a second, Joe. Am I already Superman? If flying is a function of the shield, then just by wearing a shield ring, I can already do all that..." I imagined myself rising up six inches off the floor. My body lifted six inches off the floor! "Holy Cow! I am already Superman!"

I think that name is already trademarked. You’ll have to choose your own superhero name if you think you need one.

"I need to test this out! Joe transfer me into that one." I pointed at one of the adult bodies, not the one that looked like grown-up me, but one of the generic looking ones I had commissioned for undercover work.