We were, in fact, on the same page.

Apparently I wasn't the only one that he had brought his "concerns" to, though apparently Freak had to hear theories that Duskbreaker was still working as a double agent instead of Miss Mist. Since Freak had been in the room when I had convinced Duskbreaker to let us save him, it had set him wondering just what BrainCraft was up to. Unlike Jon, he didn't go down the rabbit hole, reexamining every interaction he had had with the man, but he did start paying closer attention.

He quickly noticed how BrainCraft always seemed to probe for information about all of us. How he stayed on the edge of every conversation, even if it seemed like he was just "working" on his tablet. How he jumped at the chance to try and probe Freak for his Hidden Power the first chance he could get.

Freak hadn't quite jumped to the same theory about TechWarden as Jon and I had, but he was positive that BrainCraft was up to something. Unfortunately, neither Jon nor I thought that was quite enough to start throwing out accusations either. It was entirely possible to be suspicious of multiple people at the same time and I could even see an argument for bringing them up to two different people, even if the idea that Duskbreaker could be working against us was less likely than pretty much anyone else on the team.

One thing was certain, we needed more information on how the Acceptance Matrixes worked. Which meant it was just one more thing I would need to fit into my conversation with The First when Calypso did finally arrange a meeting for us. Freak briefly suggested coming up with some sort of way we could "test" BrainCraft, but Swansong brought up that since he had Super Intelligence, it was unlikely we could come up with something that would outright trick him if it was set up just to be a trap, and even just acting suspiciously might tip him off.

By the time an hour had finally passed and the beacon over Skim vanished with no sudden attack. I wasn't exactly surprised that Hydramental didn't come running after them, if he really wanted the token that badly he could just show up to whatever forge he had them "protecting." Honestly, if Barracuda was compromised by TechWarden it actually gave us a lot of information on just how much control he actually had.

As Jon had pointed out, it seemed like he wasn't puppeting the Augments that he compromised. It was more like he was able to upload an order to them and they would, with whatever skill they had, try to accomplish their task. If that were the case, then this was simply the best plan Barracuda could come up with. Mr. Factory wouldn't care at all about the Ascension Tokens, so even if Hydramental showed up demanding to be there when they added it to their Upgrader to reap the benefits, the older Augment that was more than likely TechWarden's current target probably wouldn't show up.

Sure, Barracuda could try to follow Hydramental back from there, but even he couldn't be so dumb to think that was a good idea… right?

After shooting Skim a message to let me know if something along those lines did happen, Swansong and I decided to head back to the base. Freak had started to follow along with us until we found that the droid presence within Central Park had already returned even though we had just gone through the act of clearing it all out. Without much else to do, Freak offered to stay out and clean up the park with the idea that he'd be able to immediately run for the next token once it spawned.

That honestly worked more than fine by me since I wanted to get back into the base to use the Study Hall and take the hour to bump my Intelligence up by a point. While I was bound to pass over to level 24 sometime soon, I knew if I spent both of the next two days increasing my Intelligence in the room and also dedicated two of my next stat points to the skill as well, I'd be able to absorb two of the books I had sitting in my B.E.L.T. and I wanted to manage my time as best as possible.

Honestly, for a guy who never went to college, I had learned more than I had ever really expected over the last two weeks. I certainly wasn't about to turn into a physicist or start writing papers on Quantum Mechanics, but the simple fact that I could actually think of the various facets of it and understand it? It was just mind boggling.

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Time Until First Wave: 2 Years, 4 Months, 6 Days

"This is absolutely mind boggling… it's as if his genetic code itself has been rewritten. Even karyotyping shows changes to his base chromosomes. How is this even possible?"

Andrew stood looking over the shoulder of one of the handful of people currently under his purview. The Department of Experimental Technology was not a large department. Much of the actual advanced research the government did actually happened at, predictably, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, better known as DARPA.

While he had been slowly gaining more responsibility within the NSA, hoping to slowly crawl his way up the ranks of the government without ever having to deal with the actual political side of things, being made head of this particular department had always made him feel a little… insulted. The Department of Experimental Technology dealt with, for the most part, jokes.

The "discoveries" and "science" projects that the kooks dreamt up and swore would revolutionize the world. Nearly 99% of the assignments that were given to Andrew's department ended up being nothing more than an art project and more paperwork than was really reasonable. So for him to take a call from a relative stranger, someone who hadn't gone through the normal channels to submit their waste of time and for it to actually lead to something, as the tech said, mind boggling, was nothing short of a dream come true for Andrew.

"Sir, shouldn't we be filing an initial discovery report?" the technician, a younger woman named Elise asked him, a clipboard held firmly in her hands as she took notes for the biologist examining Christopher's latest blood draws.

"I've delivered the initial discovery Elise, until we can provide a full analysis report though, it's pointless to do much more. There are still several tests we need to complete and Factory is still working on coming up with a continuing solution to allow us to move the server rack to a new location," Andrew explained, straightening back up as he pushed the wrinkles out of his suit jacket. "Continue helping Dr. Curtis, I'd like to see if we can discover how this change is actually happening as soon as possible so that we can start looking into a way to replicate it. I'm going to go and check in on the team downstairs."

It had only been a week since Andrew had first visited Christopher's home and he had more or less commandeered the place. The kitchen had been turned into a makeshift lab and the living room an office. The entire ten man department along with a single biologist, one of Andrew's long time friends who hadn't needed much convincing to lend a hand, had moved in only three days after that first meeting when Factory determined that, for some reason, he couldn't remove the power supply connector from Axio's system.

Once they realized they couldn't bring the device and Christopher back to their lab, since the moment Christopher stepped outside the house his powers vanished completely, they would simply bring the lab and office to him. That was one of the benefits of a small team, along with the fact that each member reported directly through him.

Maybe he hadn't handed in the discovery report just yet as he had told Elise. But could you really blame him? It was an easy decision for Andrew to make simply because he knew the moment he did, unless he had a real grip on the project and they were already well on their way through it, it would get swiped out from under his nose and handed over to those pricks at DARPA. It was certainly a risk if someone found out before then, hell even after. He just had to make sure that by then this was unquestionably his project.

Because if he delivered superpowers who was really going to try and undermine him? It would be the single greatest advancement in military might ever discovered, and he would be the one hailed as the architect of their introduction if he had any say in it.

"Any updates?" Andrew asked as he reached the bottom of the stairs. Christopher sat in his chair on the other side of the room, watching as Factory operated the system. A single monitor actually showed a live video feed of Factory from the side, slightly swiveling back and forth in time with Christopher's own movements. There were several bars and icons scattered around the edges of the feed, including one that actually read health bar.

"Nothing sir," Factory said, shaking his head. "There doesn't seem to be a way to disconnect the user interface from his visuals, it's… I don't know sir, it's as if it's just a part of him now."

"That seems to align with what Dr. Curtis just told me, at least in terms of his genetics. You've effectively rewritten your DNA Christopher," Andrew said, looking over at the man who just shrugged.

"I'm not sure if it's my DNA," he said. "Axio had said something about some… Personal Array? It has to do with that Universal Constant thing."

"Is that so? Axio, is there any way to adjust this to remove these… game features?"

"When setting up my initial configurations and connecting myself to the Universal Matrix, I utilized the coding and details within Christopher's hard drives to create the keys that allow for your species to interact with this matrix through your own Personal Array. As I've said, while all biological creatures have a Personal Array and an innate possibility for evolution, it takes my interaction with the Universal Matrix to allow those to properly function and evolve for you," Axio explained. "The "game features" as you call them create a method that allows you to actually conceptualize and utilize your newly connected abilities. In fact, without the data and features provided by Christopher, I would only be able to activate the evolution that each of you are naturally inclined for. It also creates a framework that allows for your bodies to gradually accumulate the necessary fortitude to withstand the effects by leveling over time."

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"Hmm, that's unfortunate," Andrew said, trying to keep the annoyance off of his face. "So we can't remove the features now that you've established them, are we able to build on them?"

"My apologies, Andrew. As I mentioned, I am missing access to several large swathes of my core directives. I have been able to regain access to some with the added resources that The First has provided to me, but it is still far from enough to completely restore my functionality."

"And if we were able to get you more resources?"

"Not only would I be able to expand the area of coverage that I am able to sustain a connection to the Universal Matrix too, I should be theoretically able to repair the corrupted banks of my datastores."

"Hmmm, okay," Andrew said with a nod as he looked back at Factory. "Ignore the coding for now, we will look into getting that fixed eventually once we can figure out how to move the server."

"Whoa, what are you talking about? Why do we need to fix the gaming aspects?" Christopher said, finally unable to hold his tongue any longer. "I didn't call you guys up because I wanted you to take everything over…"

"I understand that Christopher, I really do, but you have to see the potential here. Yes, I know your original goal was to create a video game, but the simple fact that this is affecting our actual world means that we can't quite let video game laws define that, can we?" Andrew shot back quickly, causing Christopher to cross his arms over his chest.

"You heard Axio, it's because of those laws that I have more than just my Jack of All Trades ability. Why change things until we know exactly how it works?"

"I'm not arguing the success of what you've lucked into here Christopher, just that the actual long term implementation of it should probably be handled differently," Andrew said.

"I disagree," was all Christopher said in return, causing Andrew to sigh.

"Look Christopher. Whether you like it or not, we are involved now and this is far larger than just some dream video game, it's why I put in some calls and had them finalize that Kickstarter of yours. You should be happy and thanking me, normally you wouldn't even get the pledged funds but I pulled some strings to have it go through."

"Nobody asked you to do that!" Christopher shot back, his brow furrowing as small, barely visibly waves of pressure emitted from his fists in either direction, knocking a soda off of the desk next to him. Andrew held up his hands defensively, his brow furrowing.

"Let's control that temper shall we? Now, perhaps there's a way we can make this work, minimize and remove some of the unnecessary features from your planned game framework and leave what is necessary to make it functional. Given any "player" you'd be adding into this would gain actual super powers, don't you agree it would be better if they weren't treating it like a game?"

"I suppose…" Christopher said, somewhat begrudgingly.

"See, I knew you could be reasonable," Andrew said with a smile as he looked at the Power Assignment Device in the center of the room, contemplating what to do.

As it stood, one man who had super powers while he was in the confines of his own home wasn't anything he could brag about just yet, and it certainly wouldn't keep the project in his hands if one of his employees decided to go around him and try to report this themselves. They had only been working on it for a week and he could probably continue to get away with filing low detailed briefs for another couple, but eventually someone would question why his department had been working away from the office and he'd have to have a good answer.

"The powers that aren't innate to us… how are they chosen and combined? You mentioned something about a Primary and Secondary in the system you had been developing?" he asked. Christopher eyed him curiously, the sudden interest in the actual workings of his game giving him just a little bit of whiplash.

"That's right. I had a spreadsheet that I kept a running list of possible powers on with brief descriptions of each one. Basically anything I could think of from all the comics, movies, and video games that I've played over the years. It's not like, comprehensive or anything, I kept adding to it as I've been working on this and thinking of new ideas," he explained tentatively. "The system I wanted to have, and that Axio has built on, is the idea that any combination of those powers is theoretically possible and the order matters too."

"The order?"

"Yeah, like, let's take someone that gets a Primary Power that's, let's say Super Speed, and their Secondary is Electricity Manipulation. The powerset would let them move so fast that they create electricity as a byproduct, makes sense right?" Christopher asked, his defensiveness melting away.

"As much as it needs to at least, I might have said the kinetic energy would put off fire but please, go on," Andrew said, a plan slowly forming in his mind.

"Okay, now flip it, how do you think it would be different if someone else got it in reverse with Electrical Manipulation as their primary?" Christopher asked, moving toward the edge of his seat as even Factory looked over curiously.

"Some sort of, elemental or something?" Factory offered when Andrew stayed silent contemplating the answer for a few seconds too long.

"Exactly. Maybe they could turn into living lightning and speed becomes a side effect of their powerset, which would then make them different from another player that had Electrical Manipulation and, let's say Magnetism. It doubles the potential powerset options without having to do anything different," Christopher explained eagerly.

"Hmmm, I can see how that would be useful," Andrew said, looking back toward the computer. "And this spreadsheet, are you still able to add powers to it? Would Axio and the system create new powerset combos with anything new that gets added?"

"Of course. Every new power that gets added, as long as a basic description is included and it doesn't already exist on the spreadsheet, basically adds incrementally more possible powersets," Christopher explained, his excitement slowly giving way to curiosity. "Finally starting to see how my system is beneficial?"

"Perhaps," Andrew said, pointing toward the computer. "Could we open the file? I have a few ideas I'd like to add and see how this generation works. I believe I have an idea for how we can help all of our goals along."

"Um, sure I suppose…" Christopher said tentatively, moving over to the computer as Factory offered the keyboard up. He quickly navigated to the spreadsheet and opened it up before making way for Andrew.

It only took him a few minutes to write his ideas out, following the pattern of the other entries to make sure that Axio would register them correctly. After he saved the file, another one of the monitors opened up a brief window with several lines of code speeding through it before it vanished.

"Two new powers added to database, powerset options have increased by 2,086 selections," Axio chimed, a bit more robotically than he normally sounded.

"Wow, that's quite a few new powersets," Andrew said with mild approval. "Axio, is there a way I can see them? How would one go about actually selecting a powerset?"

"Huh? Wait, are you saying you want to go next?" Christopher said, his eyes going wide as Andrew nodded.

"Well any good science can be repeated, who's to say you didn't happen to get his by a fluke of nature? I would be a terrible boss if I made any of my employees take that leap before myself, and perhaps with the right powerset, we can help things along."

"Powerset list now available," Axio's robotic voice said again, a window opening to display a long, scrollable list with a search bar at the top. He seemed to clear his voice as the robotic edge dropped away from his tone. "As I have accidentally registered Christopher in the system as The First due to an… uh… misunderstanding on my part, he has informed me that I should now wait for the player to actually select their character identity, do you have a name you would like me to register you by?"

"Hmmm," Andrew hummed as he leaned over the keyboard and typed in the power choices he had just added to the system. He could have looked at both options, but he really didn't see how the order was going to matter for this specific combination. "Gizmo Guru huh? I do have to wonder how Axio is choosing to name these things."

"I have a collective list of media and examples provided by Christopher that I have improvised off of. I have learned that your species seems to appreciate alliteration in the tales of your mythical heroes," Axio explained, causing Andrew to shoot a look at Christopher that he pointedly ignored.

"Well not that it matters," Andrew said, turning toward the Power Assignment Device and shrugging the jacket of his suit off as he walked toward it. "A name only matters if people will get to hear it."

"True, not like I'm gonna be going around telling people I'm an Eagle Scout Vanguard since that wouldn't make any sense at all," Christopher said, rolling over toward the computer again as soon as Andrew moved to walk away. "What makes up a Gizmo Guru anyway? What did you add to the power list?"

"Adaptive Engineering and Blueprint Instinct. I didn't know if they would truthfully count as super powers, but it was a good test to run all the same," Andrew explained as he stepped up onto the pad and turned back toward the others. "And between those two, I'm sure I could help figure out how to get everything working correctly and restore Axio's memory banks, which could only help to provide answers for where he came from in the first place among other things."

"Huh…" Christopher said, briefly looking over his shoulder at Andrew before turning back to the computer and opening the power list to find the description Andrew had added. Perhaps he should have insisted on checking what it was first, but he felt like he was walking on thin ice for how much involvement he'd be given if he tried to push back too much. "Wait, don't you want to check what your natural power is first? What if it isn't going to work with those two powers all that well?"

"Andrew actually checked that while you were discussing the rebuild process of my infrastructure with Factory," Axio explained.

"He did? Why didn't you tell me?"

"You didn't ask," Axio replied quickly. "You did mention that people like to keep some details of themselves private, it's why I haven't shared the dream you told me where-"

"Point taken Axio you can stop now!" Christopher said, cutting the A.I. off as an idea seemed to pass through his mind. "Hmmm, that wouldn't be a bad idea though, maybe have people's innate power be something secret and hidden until they can unlock it. Mine doesn't exactly seem to be functional just yet."

"I agree Christopher, that would make for a nice addition to the system you have created while allowing for the gradual accumulation of power needed to activate those innate skills," Axio agreed before Andrew cleared his throat, having just finished rolling up the sleeves of his shirt. "Ah yes, we have our second subject. Once again I must ask Andrew, do you have a name you'd like me to register within the system? We can always change it later, but to properly track and maintain things, it would be beneficial to have a secondary name to assign to your file."

"Sure sure," Andrew said dismissively, thinking about it for just another moment, thinking about what he wanted and hoped to be with this new system. How he wanted to be the guardian and gatekeeper to it, something that would make him one of the most influential people ever to exist, even without the superpowers he was about to get. Finally, he thought of it. He had never been particularly creative, so perhaps that had played into it. All the same, he rather liked the idea. "How about… TechWarden."

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