RTS System in the Apocalypse: New World

On the third day of Matilda’s preparations for the Nuclear Power Station, Hans returned to the Broodmother site and found most of the useful work already finished.

The collapsed building remained under restriction, although the temporary equipment around it had expanded considerably. Samples from the Broodmother and its surrounding growth were already sealed and labeled, while several instruments Tyrus borrowed from the Colony sat under a canvas shelter

He was there with Johannes, Evelyn, Marcus, Kimmy, and Yunera. The scientist looked considerably more satisfied than the condition of the site suggested.

"You found something?"

"A few things."

Hans glanced toward the ruined building.

"Anything different from Highcross?"

"Biologically? Nothing important to make you stand here for another two hours."

"That would be for the better."

Johannes gave Tyrus a sideways look.

"You could have learned that attitude several days ago."

"I did. That is why I finished before he arrived."

Hans ignored them and looked over the equipment instead.

Tyrus had spent most of the previous days comparing the Ironford samples against those recovered from Highcross, but the tissue itself stopped being the interesting part fairly quickly. The larger opportunity came from the psychic pressure that remained around portions of the site.

Under Hans’s restrictions, nobody touched the biological material or attempted direct contact with anything Tyrus could not identify. Instead, Tyrus varied distance and exposure time while monitoring how different HELIX-enhanced subjects responded.

He tested himself first.

Johannes, Evelyn, and Marcus followed over the next several days, with Kimmy and Yunera joining after the shorter trials established limits that Tyrus considered acceptable.

The results were useful enough that he kept going, as if he had finally found his magnum opus for the HELIX research.

None of them developed a new ability from standing near the remains, and Tyrus refused to call what happened another Tier advancement. Their existing enhancements simply responded to the pressure in different ways.

Repeated short exposures appeared to improve their tolerance, while several of them became slightly better at controlling the parts of their HELIX enhancement most affected by the psychic field.

The changes were small, but more importantly, they were repeatable.

"How small?" Hans asked.

"Small enough that I won’t give you a percentage."

"That small?"

"Small enough that giving you one would be dishonest."

Tyrus picked up one of the tablets and moved through several recorded sessions.

"Evelyn notices the field sooner than Johannes. Marcus tolerates it differently from both of them. Yunera’s response is weaker, which is consistent with what I expected from a predominantly physical enhancement."

"And you?"

"More responsive than Johannes. Less useful than the little Asters’s improvement."

Kimmy smiled faintly from beside Yunera.

"That was a very scientific way of saying it."

"It was accurate."

Tyrus returned the tablet to the table.

"The important part is that exposure can influence HELIX expression without requiring infection or another injection. We already suspected that after what happened to Kimmy. Now I have more than one subject showing a measurable response."

Hans looked toward the collapsed building again.

"So you can use it?"

"Eventually." Tyrus folded his arms. "The problem is intensity."

He searched briefly for the comparison.

"If I had to explain it using something ordinary, imagine gamma radiation. The comparison is imperfect because this is not ionizing radiation, but the exposure problem is similar. A controlled amount can be studied. Too much overwhelms the subject before you learn anything useful."

Johannes looked at him.

"You make standing beside alien debris sound very reasonable."

"It becomes reasonable when the alternative is ignorance."

Hans could understand that much.

"How much more do you need?"

"More than this site can give me."

Tyrus put the tablet aside.

"Different fragments. Different intensities. More HELIX profiles if we find them. I also need a proper way to measure the field instead of relying on headaches, disorientation, or somebody telling me they’re about to lose their mind. I’m running a laboratory, not a psychiatric ward. Agent Schandler’s midlife crisis can wait."

"I regret coming here," Johannes’s brows twitched.

"Can you keep it controlled?" Hans ignored their banter.

"With what I know now? Better than several days ago."

Hans considered it for a moment. "You can continue."

Tyrus looked at him.

"That was easier than expected."

"With conditions."

"Of course. With conditions."

"One DASF squad stays with you whenever you’re working around an active fragment or anything producing the same pressure. Several veteran squads secure the surrounding area. If something changes outside what you’ve already tested, you will be forced to stop."

Tyrus nodded.

"And if I believe the change itself is worth observing?"

"Then I know you’ve at least thought it through."

Hans had spent time with Tyrus long enough that he understood how the scientist’s mind worked.

Johannes laughed quietly.

"There’s your authorization."

"There is always fine print," Tyrus replied.

Hans didn’t care whether Tyrus liked the arrangement. The research had already produced something useful, and if controlled exposure could eventually improve HELIX enhancement without another injection or infection, there was no reason to stop him entirely.

"The Broodmother was useful," Tyrus said. "But we’ve taken most of what this site can give us."

Hans looked farther east, toward the other restricted section of Ironford.

The former Hive site.

Tyrus followed his gaze and picked up the tablet again.

"That one should be more interesting."

The former Hive site was several blocks farther east.

Most of the freight complex no longer existed. The central warehouses were gone, replaced by overlapping craters filled with broken concrete, twisted steel, and sections of dead biological tissue left from the bombardment. Engineers had already cleared one route into the area and marked the deeper sections that were stable enough to approach.

Several veteran squads covered the surrounding roads while Hans followed Tyrus down the cleared path. They did not have to go far before the reason for the wider restriction became obvious.

Near the deepest accessible section of the crater, an irregular black mass protruded from the remains of the Hive.

Its surface resembled the fragment recovered from Cell Eleven, with the same dark material and thin fractures running across it. Faint light escaped through some of the deeper cracks.

The difference was its size.

The Cell Eleven fragment could be carried inside an evidence container. This one occupied roughly the same volume as five basketballs packed together, although its uneven shape made the comparison somewhat crude.

Tyrus stopped well before the Engineer marker surrounding it.

"Now that is considerably more useful."

Johannes looked at him. His brows furrowed from the intense psychic pressure emitted from the meteorite fragment.

"It’s larger. You call this something more useful?!"

Tyrus ignored him and looked toward Kimmy. She remained beside Yunera near the outer marker, farther from the fragment than Tyrus was.

"Feeling it yet, little Asters?"

"I... I can feel a lot more pressure. Nothing like the broodmother before."

"Then we’re on the right track here."

Tyrus smiled, though he did not ask her to move any closer and ruin the comparison.

Hans looked between the fragment and the ruined freight complex around it. The Hive had occupied several buildings and extended through the ground underneath them before the army reduced the entire position to this.

Finding a fragment inside what remained was another piece of evidence connecting the meteorite material to the psychic phenomenon, although it still did not tell them what came first or what the fragment actually did to create such results.

Tyrus walked around the permitted edge without crossing it.

"Larger source, stronger local pressure. That gives me another variable. Nothing more until I can actually measure it."

"Can you work with it here?" Hans asked.

"I would prefer to."

Tyrus glanced into the crater.

"Moving it would introduce problems I don’t understand yet. I know what happens at several distances from the Broodmother remains. I can establish another set here and compare the responses."

"Leave it where it is, then."

"That was what I planned in the beginning."

Hans turned toward the soldiers covering the nearest road.

"Establish a perimeter around here. I’ll assign one DASF squad whenever you’re conducting experiments inside the restricted area."

Tyrus nodded.

He was already speaking with one of the Engineers about extending the marked distances around the crater when Hans started back toward the road.

Something Tyrus said earlier stayed with him: better equipment.

Hans opened the northern map before reaching the vehicles. The Nuclear Power Station route was already marked for the following morning, together with the bridge, the previous security boundary, and Matilda’s staging position.

Another marker sat nearby.

Hans stopped. He had seen those coordinates before.

Weeks earlier, Tyrus had given him the location of a laboratory somewhere north of Grefort. Hans had kept the coordinates after Dmitri checked the recovered records, but the city had given him enough problems that the site never became a priority.

On the wider map, "north of Grefort" had sounded vague. It looked considerably less vague now.

The laboratory sat along the same northern corridor as the Nuclear Power Station, close enough that both locations occupied the same section of the map.

Hans looked back toward Tyrus.

"You knew your laboratory was this close to the station."

Tyrus glanced over from the Engineer’s tablet.

"I knew where both facilities were."

"You could have mentioned that."

"I gave you the coordinates. You never asked me a question or anything, Commander."

Tyrus shrugged.

"The station comes first," Hans said. "If the northern route stays open afterward, we’ll inspect the laboratory."

Tyrus looked considerably more interested.

"That would solve several of my problems."

"I’m sure you’ll find new ones."

Hans closed the map.

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