Chapter 30: Loot (2/2)

She blushed as she looked at the picture

Aldrich sot the engine huht, time to move out"

==

Aldrich parked as deep into the forest as he could, but at a certain point, even the arrowth of the forest

"Incredible!" said Valera as she left the car "The ride is so s of a horse And there are so many of these 'cars', too On the road, Iabout, and in such orderly fashi+on too"

"Yeah, traffic lights and laill tend to do that," said Aldrich The quaint thing was that although Settle in and out of walled cities were ency and Panopticon, so they were fairly heavily policed

This deterred no froh the key word here was deterrence It was no guarantee of safety, and especially in more reh

Aldrich's undead ca his car, and he waved at theain

"I' especially to Ada back at Seth Solar"

=

Later that night, with the ht down on the forest, Aldrich sat in a s as the techno he reanied into the signal generator - a rectangular black box with blinking green lights - and also plugged into the techno via cables

Aldrich smiled The experiment on whether the techno could use his power even as an undead had been a success

Technos could still use their power to operate tech This gave even ht to as known as the Cassandra Principle

It was a well known phenoher end ones who could create technology that see centuries ahead, could not actually articulate how they y or share the principles or construction behind it

When they worked on their tech, they did so alhly addictive, like being in an euphoric dreaest technos were often known for extrey on top of an inability to share their ideas

The extent to which a techno was affected by the Cassandra Principle varied greatly

Soy and explain hoas made, but it was a known rule that the more advanced tech was, the less accessible it beca Aldrich noted was that he could not see through the techno's eyes or mind when he neurally linked with the laptop

He was blocked out while the techno worked, and that ive the techno individuality to function on his own

"Alrighty, that's done," said the techno as he handed Aldrich his forged CIDs All the credits he had stolen had been transferred to his new fake identity as a Mr Bruce Vane, netting him with a total of around 10,000 credits to his balance

That was not a lot, especially considering he was supposed to have inherited a ain, Aldrich did not really need that et into and out of places he needed to in cities

"Onto the phones" The techno plugged Ghost's Eye-Phone and the Odinson boss's eye phones into ports in the laptop The technos visor glowed a tint of blue as lines of text, ies, and code sprawled across the laptop screen in near unintelligible fashi+on to someone not as tech savvy as Aldrich

The techno scanned the content of the phones for any information relevant to Aldrich

Meanwhile, Aldrich nodded at the success of the second experi individuality of undead and how it affected their performance

Even with individuality, the techno was utterly subservient to Aldrich

He had wanted to experiment how much individuality an undead could exhibit and whether it would inhibit Aldrich's co party consisting of the Geist, Dyna down natural Variants to farave Dynamite Girl and the Geist individuality with the key order to follow Valera's orders

The Geist and Dynamite Girl had an instinctive dislike for each other, but they put that aside for Aldrich's orders and worked surprisingly efficiently

By consu 3 EXP) and the hunting party taking down severalnothing hian to realize that once he hit a critical mass of undead, he could farm experience from anywhere across e liroas exponential, and this was the start of the curve up

He du him two extra unit slots

[+5 Attunement, +10 with affinity bonuses]

[Attunement: 31 ] 41]

[Unit Limit: 10 ] 12]

Aldrich cole and Big-arle, especially, was of interest to Aldrich as it was large enough for hiht, I've finished scanning through these phones, unlocking locked files and folders, you name it," said the techno "So, what do you need, boss?"

"Hht about what info he needed for a second before he was interrupted by a groan

The crinkling of a tarp sounded in his ear as he turned to see the wrapped up boss rolling around as he htmare

"You knohat, he'll knohat to look for better than me," said Aldrich as he walked over and put a foot on the boss's chest, holding hi"

The techno put a thumbs up for Aldrich and said, "Good luck, boss I'll be here when you need me"