I enter my library carrying a tray of refreshments and place it on the recaf table. The lighting is dim and a fake fire, complete with false scents and sounds, crackles in the fireplace. Rain and thunder play quietly over the vox along with some soft jazz.

  The walls are covered with bookshelves and filled with STC printouts on glass-like holographic plates, identical to the ones I found on the Federation Station. Sure I have everything stored in my head, but I take great pleasure in seeing a visual representation of all I have learned. It’s a useful backup too.

  There is one formal portrait of each of my family members around the room, the most recent one being Annette’s. There are also two pict frames on the large wooden desk that cycle through recordings of my family, most of them taken on holidays in exotic digital locations.

  JK-404 opens her eyes and looks at me when I enter.

  “This is rather cosy. How much time do you actually spend here though?”

  “As much as I can. I do most of my work through servitors while sitting next to the fire in one of the armchairs,” I point at the two wheeled glass writing boards tucked into the corner, “or writing ideas on those.”

  “If it wasn’t for all those STCs on the wall, I’d think this was the hunting lodge of some noble.”

  “I am a noble!”

  “By technicality maybe, if not by birth or attitude.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “Eh, most nobles aren’t that bad, they’re just rather focused on their own holdings. They only get troublesome when they start joining secret epicurean societies and swinger clubs. Such behaviour ends with a bitter taste in one's mouth.”

  I grimace, “Perhaps I should make my next project a way to safely and precisely delete my memories.”

  JK-404 laughs, “Oh please, Aldrich. If I didn’t say it, you would have thought it.”

  “Probably. Have you read through the summaries? What do you think?”

  “Changing the subject? Well, I suppose we should move on and focus on work. Xeno Toxins and Genetic Desecration are absolutely massive works. I also took a peak at Living Libraries and Mutations. For someone who claims they need help, you sure have written some spectacular works.”

  “Ah, they’re just edited by me. I didn’t do any of the research. Sure, that requires some understanding of the information, but using it properly is beyond me.”

  “That’s a rather modest approach. Putting Hyper Intelligence aside for now, what is it you’re hoping to get out of the other data?”

  “I have a couple of ideas in mind. The first is a superior toxiphage, one that can counter Drukhari weaponry and other toxins. Second, I am interested in bionic pharmacopeia. We build pharmacopeia into our armour as part of the Vitae Supplement. They contain a mix of stimulants and trauma medicines, but what I’d really like is an organ that can produce any drug on demand, not a device that holds a limited number of medicines.

  “Your primary payment for the creation of these organs would be the data I am providing for the research and getting your name put written first as the author of any research papers. Secondary payments include the provision of facilities and a stipend as we agreed when I took you on. I know you asked for time on your own projects, but I want you working full time on this.”

  JK-404 waves off my concerns, “You are paying me more than enough and these are fascinating projects that will improve my own body, so it meets the requirements of our prior agreement. I have all the data I need to start them, now I need a few thousand assistants. Two thousand to start with. It will likely take me as long to build and train the teams as it does to get the first prototypes in place. The earliest I might have something for you is a decade from now.”

  I say, “You can put a work order in with the Machine-Spirits and they will assign you personnel. I’ll want quarterly reports and access to the raw data. A yearly conference wouldn’t go amiss either. I don’t mind if it takes a while, what I don’t like are excuses and lies. The funding won’t stop, so if you have an issue, come and talk to me about it. Don’t pretend everything is fine in an empty attempt to impress me, or hide your struggles to keep your funding. We’re both Magi, and we both know nothing ever goes according to plan.

  “I’ll also be assigning you some ward specialists and independent safety inspectors. They aren’t there to get in your way. Such oversight is vital to prevent the Ruinous Powers from inserting consistent errors into your research and thus the accidental production of corruptive works. I don’t care if you’re not making arcanotech, ward it anyway.”

  JK-404 frowns, “That will massively slow everything down. The cost will be phenomenal. I have no issue with providing you with proper reports though. They need to be written for internal record keeping anyway.”

  “I doubt you will be slowed much. Warding is a Stellar Fleet speciality. Everyone learns repair skills starting at sixteen and that includes checking if the wards are working and the last time a device was blessed. By the time people get to you, it will be such an engraved habit, they won’t even pick up a hammer if it’s not properly sanctified, even though our bodies and blood are more sacred oils and steel than flesh.”

  “Seriously?”

  “I exaggerated a little, but that’s the goal. It isn’t always practical, like when you're boarding an enemy vessel, and look how that turned out.”

  JK-404 winces, “Fine. I don’t like that level of oversight, but so long as they are as unobtrusive as you say they are, I’ll follow your protocols. I’ll be complaining if they get uppity though.”

  “Complaints are acceptable. Ignoring safety protocols is not. Before we move on to Hyper Intelligence, Can you think of any other practical projects you could use the data I have provided for?”

  “Improved regeneration, proprioception, better senses, metabolism control, natural subdermal armour, rapid acceleration resistance, faster immune responses. Given enough time and funding, there is very little I cannot do, especially with the extended chromosome library you discovered.”

  “That sounds fantastic. I already have a regeneration technology, but it has to be paired with a rejuvenat gland or it causes a minor ageing effect, cutting lifespans by twenty years or so, depending on how many injuries a person takes. The problem is that only I can make the rejuvenat glands as they are arcanotech. It’s a similar issue to teaching Balor. It would take far too long, and too much of my time, to train enough personnel to create them on a mass scale. I don’t want my people reliant on rejuvenat drugs for their regeneration either.”

  “How effective is it?”

  Stolen story; please report.

  “Similar to the regeneration mutation that some navigators acquire. It closes wounds in seconds and grows limbs in minutes. It’s not much good to me these days, but my family benefits from it.”

  “Just when I think you can’t be more ridiculous, you prove me wrong, Aldrich. No. What I could make would cut injury times in half and would not be self correcting, so if an injury required surgery, it would still require surgery. I might be able to improve clotting times, but there’s little need for that with the Vitae Supplements you stick in armour, or in the medikits around the void ships. I noticed that many of your crew purchase Auto-Sanguines as soon as they can afford them too. My regeneration effect would stack, so it would be worth having both.”

  “True, that is the most popular implant. One cannot underestimate the wonders of reduced inflammation and minimal implant chafing.”

  “Delightful. I don’t think I should split my time further, at least for now, but do you want me to work on any of those other upgrades?”

  “No, I agree with your evaluation. What I do want you to do though is focus on the Marwolv DNA. The primary reason why I haven’t messed with it, other than to permit people to add the extended chromosome library, is because it is unusually finely tuned. A single change could have a catastrophic effect and I don’t understand what all the modifications do.

  “Until recently, we just didn’t have the data to even begin deciphering it and we still don’t have enough specialists to do so. We can’t change anything about the majority of our population until we know more about them.

  “The new bionics I have asked you to develop will likely benefit from researching Marwolv DNA as well. Previously, adding bionics is a risk we could take as they can be removed, and they haven’t caused any trouble so far, but that doesn’t mean they won’t in the future and I want to get ahead of the problem.”

  JK-404 says, “I think you mentioned this to me before. I’ll use it as a training project and get started immediately. That should give me more time to comprehend the data you are providing. Having said that, could you gift me a set of the senior officer implants? That would speed up how much I can do.”

  There is it, sneaking in a personal request for side benefits. I wondered when that would come up. I can’t say no though after offering it to Raphael and Balor though as JK-404 is equally important and knows her worth. I give her a polite smile.

  “Sure. I’m only giving you one set though, so don’t take them apart to see how they work.”

  JK-404 laughs, “I won’t go probing myself when I can have someone else do it for me.”

  “You’ve made your attitude quite clear and can save that gossip for embarrassing your new assistants. What can you tell me about Hyper Intelligence? I couldn’t make heads or tails of it, unfortunately.”

  “It’s a rather misleading name. The quick and dirty explanation is that it turns your nervous system into that of an octopus.”

  “It puts extra brains in your limbs?”

  “More like extensive nerve clusters and hormone glands. As I am sure you know, much of the body's autonomous systems are in the brainstem and spine, that way, when your spine brakes, your lungs and heart still work. One of the effects of Hyper Intelligence is to take this effect to the extreme.

  “Not only does it give you a second set of nerves, but new coordination centres as well. In an organic body, it enables significantly finer control and spreads autonomous functions around the whole body, freeing up more space in the skull for other conscious and subconscious functions. If it involves memory, thinking, or learning, it is drastically boosted.

  “The brain is restructured to allow it to think in more than three dimensions as well as visualise a whole host of other mathematical formulas and ideas that a normal human brain has never evolved to do.”

  “That sounds handy.”

  JK-404 tuts, “It’s far more than just ‘handy’. However, there are some downsides. This new brain consumes more than twice as much energy, up to sixty watts, and thus requires more cooling and oxygen. That’s not a problem for you, but for a standard human, they are more vulnerable to low oxygen environments, and heatstroke, even with the altered blood that Hyper Intelligence comes with. One could also expect more vivid dreams and an increase in sleep requirements to aid in memory formation. The other issue is a form of autism.”

  I blink, “That sounds rather unappealing. How does that work?”

  “Well, take dyslexia for example. If you ask a dyslexic person to spell their condition, they’ll probably swear at you, but if you were to ask them to picture a famous monument and draw it upside down, from memory, or use old information in a new way, there is a good chance they will succeed, even with minimal training. This is because all those neurons that are supposed to be tied up in their language processing are hampered, so they compensate by over stimulating other parts of their brain, mostly in the right hemisphere, giving them enhanced cognitive abilities in specific areas.

  “If you’re a bunch of hunter gatherers, and need to adapt to a new environment, this is a rather useful mutation to have. Less so if you’re a clerk or translator but they’re social roles with little evolutionary pressure, whereas navigation and recognising edible foods is a survival role with lots of pressure, hence the mutation. It’s also pretty handy for artists, designers, and scientists as they tend to get a boost in visual creativity and reasoning.

  “Hyper Intelligence takes this concept and runs off with it, creating new structures for specialised tasks and completely reorganising the brain. For example, rather than having dozens of different parts of the brain used for reading and processing writing, a learned skill, rather than an evolutionary one, Hyper Intelligence provides an actual reading centre. The same goes for advanced mathematics, specific visualisation skills, and so on.

  “Hyper Intelligence ensures that when your brain attempts to solve a specific problem, each area required to solve it is activated at its maximum potential and cross references with as many different structures as possible in the most efficient manner possible, rather than use a bunch of disconnected areas that may or may not connect with each other depending on one’s genetic quirks.”

  I say, “I’m not hearing any downsides here.”

  “Well, there is a risk that, with these changes, one could hyperfixate on an issue, or get lost in their head. There could well be significant personality changes as well. While one would still have all their memories, they would be a new person. I’m also not sure how you could apply it to someone without killing them.

  “Really, this is the sort of upgrade a person is conceived with, not one that gets added half way through. I just don’t see how you could use it yourself, though it would be a phenomenal addition to new births, in theory.

  “Much like dyslexia, and other neurodivergent conditions, Hyper Intelligence would require specialised educational programs to make the most of it. There is a Warp element to it though, one that I do not understand. I would be cautious about giving it to too many people as there is a chance it will turn them into psykers, though I could not tell you what percentage that would be without an actual study.”

  I sit back in my chair and sigh, “That’s better than I hoped for. Thank you for your explanation. Becoming a psyker is a rather unfortunate side effect, though not one I need to worry about. We already get one in a hundred thousand, a legacy of Marwolv, and that is quite enough!”

  I’ll have to think more about if I really want to take the plunge on this one. I don’t have much of a choice though if I want to understand my most complex upgrades. I should talk to my family first as well. Fortunately, E-SIM can rebuild my brain without killing me, but I will need to find a way to integrate all the new nerves into my bionics. This isn’t going to be an easy project.

  “You’re most welcome. I agree that spreading the psyker mutation is unwise. Where did you even find the data for this? It’s a complete project.”

  “A Space Hulk over a century ago. I barely got out and the hulk was destroyed by Warp entities soon after I departed. They were rather ferocious about it and likely much was lost.”

  “What a bunch of twats.”

  I laugh, “I survived. That will have to do.”

  ----------------------

  You can find the basis for this chapters handwavium (imaginary science) here:

  Warhammer 40k Lexicanum, , and . I've also enjoyed opinion pieces such as: , The via Gamespot, and . While not strictly 40k, they are good for inspiration and IRL explanations.