Chapter 278: The System and the Curious

His eyes shifted toward the corner of the interface.

There, he saw three projects he was at least somewhat familiar with.

HELIX.

DAEDALUS.

And VULCAN.

Yes, VULCAN.

Tyrus had never worked directly with the other domains, but the Shearman family had enough connections that certain names eventually reached them, no matter how secretive the projects were supposed to be.

He opened HELIX first.

There was more information than he expected.

Records he had given Hans himself were already there, along with recovered material from other facilities.

Botanical experiments. Subject data. Biological studies. Fragments from laboratories Tyrus had never personally visited.

At first, it looked complete. Then Tyrus noticed how the System was treating it.

"This... this doesn’t make sense."

His expression slowly changed.

The System wasn’t treating Project HELIX as a completed body of knowledge. It was treating it as source material.

Tyrus opened another section and then another.

The records were being checked against one another, compared with recovered evidence and connected to things outside HELIX itself.

Even information Tyrus would have considered established was still being treated as something that could be corrected, expanded or replaced if better evidence appeared.

To the System, HELIX was evidence.

Tyrus shook his head.

"No..."

He browsed through more of the archive.

There were even a few experiments and subjects Tyrus himself remembered encountering years ago. Yet the System kept trying to piece something larger together from all of it.

And it wasn’t limited to HELIX.

DAEDALUS and VULCAN were being treated the same way—as fragments.

Pieces of something incomplete.

"Project HELIX came from the biological side of what we recovered from that spacecraft’s technological remains..."

Tyrus furrowed his brows.

"Don’t tell me... Hans’s System came from the same place?"

He stared at the interface.

The pieces almost connected.

There was something there. Something buried much farther back in HELIX’s history that he couldn’t properly remember at the moment.

His heart started beating faster again.

But before he could think about it any further, the recovery room door opened.

"Doctor Shearman."

Reechard stepped inside with a smile.

"I presume you have... now awakened from your sleep."

"This is a very interesting awakening indeed."

As if he had already practiced it, Tyrus dismissed the panel and looked toward Reechard.

Reechard set a pile of clothes beside him.

"System-issued clothing, specifically prepared for the Doctor. I hope this will satisfy you."

"Heh. At this point, I don’t think anything here could disappoint me."

Tyrus changed into them and looked himself over, waiting for something unusual to happen.

"Is that it? Nothing?"

Reechard shrugged.

"They clean themselves automatically, Doctor. You don’t have to worry about them becoming... dirty."

"And if the hem gets torn?"

"Then we’ll replace it."

Tyrus raised a brow.

"I presume the Commander will... purchase another one for me?"

"Precisely. Although I would advise you not to tear too many."

"I am more careful than that, Reechard."

"Shall we meet the Commander now, then?"

"Lead the way, friend."

As they walked, Tyrus inspected the virtual interface some more.

A small map occupied the bottom-right corner of his vision. It wasn’t the entire Radar network Hans could access, but it showed the nearby markers the System allowed him to see.

Blue. Green. And one gold marker belonging to Hans himself.

As they crossed the corridor, Hans and Dianne exited through the other room.

"Doctor."

Tyrus paused.

He looked at Hans very differently now.

No wonder this guy had access to all of those materials. No wonder he could conquer Grefort City as if it was just another place waiting to be taken.

No wonder his army felt so absurdly powerful.

It was all because of this.

"Shall I call you commander, or lord from now?"

"Call me whatever makes you comfortable."

"Then I’ll keep calling you Commander." Tyrus chuckled.

"So how did the integration go?"

"Exciting. Painful. And at the end of it all, very surprising. What I’m seeing now... is very shocking in all manners."

"There’s more to that where it came from in the near future."

There will be indeed. Tyrus raised a brow but kept that thought to himself.

"So what will happen now, Commander?"

"I’ll be nominating you as the Research Director of this Tech Center. Are you willing to take the position, Doctor?"

"Do you even have to ask that?" Tyrus rolled his eyes.

------

[ Research Director Nomination Received ]

[ Tech Center #1 ]

[ Candidate ]

Tyrus Shearman

Begin Research Director Appointment?

[ Yes ] [ No ]

------

Tyrus didn’t waste time and selected Yes.

The entire facility suddenly hummed.

His virtual panel went static for a moment before thin blue lines spread along its edges.

------

[ Research Director Appointment Accepted ]

[ Candidate Eligibility ]

Confirmed

[ Registering Research Director ]

Tyrus Shearman

[ Tech Center #1 ]

------

A deeper hum passed through the Tech Center.

Several systems that had remained unavailable to him came online almost at once. New sections appeared throughout his interface while access restrictions disappeared one after another.

It lasted only for a few moments.

------

[ Research Director Appointment Complete ]

[ Tech Center #1 ]

Research Director: Tyrus Shearman

[ Core Research Slot ]

Active

------

"Appointment complete. Welcome, Director Tyrus Shearman."

A large amount of information opened within his interface. Not scientific knowledge, nor answers handed directly into his mind.

It was the Tech Center itself.

Its laboratories, archives, research systems, available controls, personnel functions and the authority now belonging to him as its Research Director.

Tyrus slowly scrolled through it.

There was much more here than he expected.

"We have a few interesting options here, Commander. Which one shall we go for first?"

Hans was already looking through the same research options on his own interface.

"Well then, Director. Which one do you suggest?"

Tyrus looked through the choices again.

There were several that interested him for very different reasons, but one stood out immediately.

"The Radar."

"What a quick decision. I thought you would leave something like that to Kordula herself."

"Commander, you already have a Radar facility. Or dozens of them. Improving something you already possess is much more useful than chasing after something we may not even be ready to use yet."

Tyrus opened the option.

"And besides, there is no reason to wait for her. I, with my research assistants here, should be more than enough for that task."

------

[ Research Path: Advanced Radar Network ]

[ Research ID ]BLD-NATIVE-RADAR-I

[ Base Research Cost ]

500,000 Gold

[ Base Research Time ]

5,000 minutes

[ Requirements ]

Tech Center

Physical Radar Facility

Accredited Research Director

------

"Five hundred thousand."

Tyrus looked at the cost, then toward Hans. "Will this not be a problem, Commander? Research is very costly, and I still have little understanding of how valuable this Gold of yours actually is."

"Don’t think too much about that, Tyrus. I’ll handle the money, and you," Hans paused, "bring me the technological upgrades we all want."

"Are you sure? You’re quite generous, if I may say."

"First time?"

"Not the first, but certainly a lasting impression."

"Then we’ll deal with this first."

Tyrus selected the Advanced Radar Network and sent the research request to Hans.

------

[ Research Request Received ]

[ Advanced Radar Network ]

[ Research Director ]Tyrus Shearman

[ Awaiting Commander Authorization ]

------

Hans accepted the request before looking back at Tyrus.

"I was actually quite sure you’d choose this one instead."

Hans’s finger hovered over another option.

It belonged to HELIX. Unlike the Radar upgrade, however, the research path was still incomplete. Too many gaps still had to be recovered, reconstructed or worked around somehow.

Tyrus looked through it for a moment before returning to the Radar option.

"I’d like to settle on the basics first, Commander. HELIX can wait. The System may have given me familiarity with all of this, but practical experience is still practical experience."

"That makes me a little more confident that nothing will go wrong with the research."

"If something does go wrong, Commander," Tyrus stepped closer, "then perhaps I was never meant to be a Research Director in the first place."