The Mech Touch

Chapter 7235: Concerning Signs

The control room remained mostly silent.

The only significant noise that people inside could hear was the low hum of machinery.

In fact, the instruments of the Tarrasque were so advanced that it was trivially easy to keep them silent.

However, such behavior often unnerved humans. It also made it harder to know whether they were active or dormant.

For psychological and utility reasons, most larger devices and machines of significance tended to generate at least a modest amount of noise if only to signal their active states.

The hum of machinery remained the only noise heard by Ves and the other occupants.

This was not supposed to be the case. The workstations should at least release beeps or alert noises, but they remained silent as they had been unable to detect any obvious abnormalities.

Gloriana frowned more and more until she finally had enough.

“Are the readings false? Is the Prophet’s Bane feeding us false data?”

She had good reasons to voice her suspicions.

For one, the Riot Mark III remained completely still during its activation.

Its systems came online in order and passed all of the diagnostics without any major concerns.

This attracted Gloriana’s suspicion as the data looked way too normal given that the Riot Mark III had turned into a D-mech.

Even if its demonic mutations were much less obvious than before, they were still present. The physical form of the Riot Mark III constantly fluctuated as if slightly alternate versions of the same machine rapidly switched places with the original machine for a few milliseconds before making room for other versions.

The bizarre changes were not illusionary. The slightly altered forms of the Riot Mark III were completely real and physical as far as Ves and Gloriana could ascertain from the outside.

Since the Riot Mark III was in flux from a physical perspective, the data reading should have reflected its physical inconsistencies.

This did not happen for the most part. A lot of the telemetry of the mech looked suspiciously normal. It was as if the machine was truly standing in place.

Even the data supplied by the Carmine System attracted suspicion.

“What is the Carmine System doing?”

“On a physical level, it is operating normally.” Ves said in a half-believing voice. “Venerable Orfan has shown no sign of rejecting the artificial blood being pumped through her veins. The Carmine System has not been corrupted to a noticeable degree. All of its core and auxiliary functions are working as intended. Regardless of my suspicions, I see no reason to believe the Carmine System has failed on a biological level. What I am more concerned about is how the spiritual side is faring. From what I can tell, Venerable Rosa orphan has already formed a stable Blood Pact with the Riot Mark III. They formed the connection remarkably quickly. I am surprised that there is hardly any delay.”

“…That sounds even more suspicious.” Gloriana said. “If your words are correct, does this mean that the Prophet’s Bane actively embraced the Blood Pact?”

Ves inclined his head. “I believe so. It did not resist the new pilot, but tried to be as accommodating as possible. The Prophet’s Bane may not be as mindless and irrational as we thought. It is much scarier for it to show foresight and effectively rein in its short-term impulses. I fear that it has already sprung a trap as soon as it formed the widest possible channel with the pilot. The Middle Demon stands to take over Venerable Orfan’s body with much greater speed and effectiveness if it makes use of both the neural interface and the Carmine System at the same time.”

“What is the pilot’s condition?”

“That is more difficult to ascertain.” Ves said with a frown as he continued to study the data related to Venerable Orfan’s physiology. “Her body remains healthy and unaffected. Her brain is much more active, so she is definitely doing a lot of thinking, but none of that is reflecting back onto the mech itself. The Riot Mark III has not received a single command from its pilot.”

That meant that the two were locked in a dialogue or conflict that took place on a level that Ves and the instruments could never breach at their current tech level.

That left Ves with no other recourse than to monitor the Riot Mark III using Blinky’s precise senses.

The problem was that the Riot’s own chaotic nature worked against him. The D-mech’s enhancements specifically guarded against any form of examination, whether conventional or spiritual.

Blinky would at least have to get much closer and maybe even dive inside the machine in order to ascertain its condition.

This was not a good idea because Rosa Orfan’s willpower would definitely repel any intruder as violently as possible.

Despite the absence of clues, Ves could nonetheless surmise that she was not in a good position right now. This was her test which she willingly subjected herself to. It was not appropriate for him to disturb her and break her concentration during a critical moment of her life.

“What is your guess? You must have formed your own ideas about the current state of your D-mech.” Gloriana pointedly asked.

She was right. Ves did not always need hard proof in order to form his own conclusions. Their reliability may be in question, but he was right more often than not. His expertise was so diverse and scattered that he was able to make crazy inferences that hardly any other mech designer could equal.

Ves took a moment to compose his words. Though he had a definite guess in mind, he needed to frame his response carefully to avoid misinterpretations.

“I think that Venerable Orfan is in deep trouble. Like really deep.” He said. “When we presented the completed D-mech to her, we already knew that it is inhabited by a much more powerful and unquestionably hostile ‘artifact spirit’. The best way for her to overcome this challenge is to trigger her second apotheosis right away. I was hoping that she would become so exuberant about piloting a new machine that she could become an ace pilot before the demon could pounce, but it appears that this scenario has not come to pass.”

“So Venerable Orfan lacks the strength to dominate the demon.”

Ves nodded. “It appears so. I think that she should normally be able to put up a good fight, but even under the best of circumstances, it is unlikely for her to be able to fend off an aggressive Middle Demon that has not only been strengthened multiple times, but also devoured the old living mech and became the sole spiritual master of the Riot Mark III. This is Rosa Orfan’s true test. If she wants to prevent the demon from devouring her and claiming her body for itself, then she needs to step up and fight back harder than she has ever done before.”

“And you think she is not doing that at the moment?”

“We would have detected more positive signs if that was the case. An absence of unusual signals implies that the Prophet’s Bane has gained the upper hand.”

“Can we not do anything for Venerable Orfan, then? Can you summon one of your design spirits to help her out, or forcibly shut down our mech?”

“While there are no signs that Venerable Orfan is aware or in control of the machine, she is still interfaced with the Riot Mark III. She is passively resonating with the mech. While that does not mean a proper resonance shield has formed, the expert mech will automatically repulse all unnatural intrusions. The only way to get past this universal repulsion effect is to bring someone she trusts well enough to make an exception.”

His wife immediately understood that they did not have such a thing at hand.

“A pity. Siblings and direct family relationships have proven to be the only relationship types that are strong enough to make high-ranking mech pilots lower their guard against each other. Rosa Orfan is not a Gemini, and she does not have a sibling relationship as close as the one between Casella Ingvar and Imon Ingvar.”

The Gemini Family and the Ingvar siblings had proved that high-ranking mech pilots did not always have to exclude everyone aside from themselves.

It was fascinating to witness champions who normally became strong due to possessing endless confidence in themselves readily form a reliance on the individuals they cared about the most.

Imon was so obsessed with her sister that he freely allowed her willpower to affect him. This was an exceptionally rare phenomena that Ves had never really seen outside of the aforementioned cases.

In short, Ves knew that there was no easy way for him to intervene. He knew that when he completed the Riot Mark III and disclosed the risk factors to the expert pilot.

“She is on her own.” He concluded. “While we have installed a temporary killswitch into the mech, do you really think the Prophet’s Bane will let us forcibly turn off the power reactor? We will have to physically penetrate the Riot Mark III’s Chaos Armor and disable the power reactor in order to interrupt whatever is going on. Even then, we may end up causing permanent harm to Venerable Orfan due to interrupting a process that should not have been stopped so suddenly.”

Gloriana’s expression grew severe. “A substantial amount of time has already passed without any indication that she has gained control over her dangerous machine. I am increasingly more certain that she will perish or completely lose her qualifications to fight if this pattern persists. Is it not better to preserve what little we can salvage from her than to let her die?”

He shook his head. “The outcome is not yet set in stone. I believe in her. High-ranking mech pilots are famed for snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. The probability of a breakthrough rises when her sense of crisis grows higher. This is why she has insisted to me that we must not intervene. She does not want the lingering expectation that we will come and bail her out to weaken her resolve and give her the impression that she can rely on others for rescue. For better or worse, we should do as she has asked. Do not forget that she has acknowledged the risks and does not hold others responsible for a possible failure.”

He still hoped that she would pull through somehow, but the odds of that happening started to diminish.

Over time, Ves was able to sense subtle changes to the machine.

Rosa Orfan’s willpower began to weaken over time.

The deterioration happened slowly at first, but began to accelerate in pace.

Even Gloriana and Alexa managed to detect this very concerning change as the resonance meters measured the reduction in true resonance with a reasonable degree of accuracy.

“The resonance meters are all returning consistent results.” Alexa Streon said. “The Riot Mark III’s true resonance has dropped below 50 laveres. According to historical statistical studies, the probability of a breakthrough at 50 laveres is at least 2 orders of magnitude lower than the probability of the same happening at 60 laveres. If the decline in true resonance continues at its current pace, it will take less than a minute for Venerable Orfan to drop below the minimum resonance strength that is known to trigger a successful second apotheosis.”

Ves frowned. What was happening to Venerable Orfan that caused her will to fight to weaken to such a dramatic degree?

“She can still make it through.” He said with faltering hope. “Expert pilots can be highly inconsistent. They can be incredibly depressed in one moment, and incredibly motivated the next moment. Let us remain patient and wish her luck.”

“…”

His wife was not as optimistic as him. She was already thinking about who was responsible for organizing Rosa Orfan’s funeral arrangements.

More importantly, she also thought about how she could escape culpability for developing a mech that directly led to the death of its own pilot.

It should be easy to shove most of the blame to her husband since he was the source of all of this craziness, but she still held a bit of responsibility for enabling his antics and not doing enough to discourage his wild ideas.

She was not about to let her husband ruin her career!

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