Chapter 533 (2/2)

Ghost listened to the soft blips of the hearts of the six bodies that supported him, gave him the power to learn Skills, and were the fleshy anchors that kept him locked in this facility in West Providence. There were a lot of times when he wondered why Dr. Karman had seen fit to make him exist only at this stationary location. Why had he not been a movable being, with a physical body?

Even if he could create a true drone avatar, it wouldn’t have the benefit of his Skills, as it was far from him. Ghost would need to find a way to condense his body into something mobile while maintaining the health of all 6 of the human bodies he was based upon. His calculations were all too clear what would happen to the consciousness that was “Ghost” should even one of them perish.

It was a frustration only Ghost knew. The reason that he was this way was because Dr. Karman had gone into that strange depression immediately after he had created Ghost, and turned to drinking to calm himself down. After that, he had started attending services at the Unity Church in West Providence, which was just a small chapel at the time.

Within a month, several thousand dollars worth of donations had seen fit for it to expand to a respectable congregation. It was the night before the grand opening of that church that Dr. Karman had been killed, at a donor dinner.

Ghost forced the eyes of his hologram closed. It didn’t prevent him from being completely aware of the area around him, through his sensors, but it was a human habit that he had embraced. More and more, Ghost was growing to rely on and resent his human tics. They were so… inconvenient in some ways. But they were his only way forward.

And the drone initiative… even his most pessimistic predictions had projected that the drone initiative would be booming at this point, while there was currently very little progress. The problem was two fold. Or rather, it was a demand problem, which prevented as many resources as Ghost had predicted from being put behind the undertaking.

No one needed drones in Zone 1, military or civilian. It seemed that upon reaching the new world they were connected to, fewer Raid Bosses spawned in their Zone. Therefore, no one could muster any enthusiasm for any of the surveillance or basic defense drones that Ghost had prototyped. Especially with the knowledge that Ghost would hold a backdoor key to their control.

Ghost opened the eyes of his projection and walked to the wall. A console lit up, immediately scrolling information across it. His gaze was focused on it for a while, before he sighed.

Based on population scans of the areas that the Unity Church was set up, Ghost had a pretty good idea what was going on. The Unity Church was deploying its information network to find and eliminate Raid Bosses near its establishments, and was using that as an increased incentive to fall under their purview. However, heat scans revealed that there were quite a few people who had gone cold among those relocated to the Unity Church refugee camps. Numbers in the tens of thousands.

Throwing untrained and un-Leveled people against Raid Bosses would result in significant casualties, but Ghost didn’t doubt some of their ‘bishops’ were discovered in this manner, after they survived. Ghost hadn’t tested it, but he suspected the System would reward a victory from such an under-Leveled individual.

Shaking his head, Ghost turned off the console. His thoughts were… unusually flighty tonight, touching on too many topics. But he understood why.

Without moving, he engaged the audio file. It began to play exactly where Ghost had wanted it to. The first noise was the shuffling of pages, as a few people took notes on the previous response the man had given. Up until now, Ghost had been more exasperated than anything else by the interview. But this question…

“Mr. Ghosthound,” the senator asked. “You yourself are a fighter, are you not? Would you perhaps be able to demonstrate a bit of your skill for us? To give us a way to gauge the strength of Zone 1?”

There was silence; from watching the interview, Ghost knew that Randidly was pondering the question. Finally, he said, “No, that’s not a good idea. After all, I’m just a low key guy.”

A few members of Congress laughed. Randidly had a childish innocence that Ghost couldn’t determine the veracity of. If it was contrived, it was very good. But it was Randidly’s followup that worried Ghost.

“But, I wouldn’t help you get a baseline.” Randidly said. “I’m more powerful than the rest of the people. Oh, but they are pretty strong too. Don’t antagonize them lightly.”

Every scanner and bit of computing power went over this phrase again and again. And Ghost’s processors had one result: what Randidly said was true. Or at least he believed it.

Ghost had confirmed the power of others. It was almost a disaster, but a rogue force had attacked the strange group in the hut in the borderlands. Luckily or unluckily they failed, but the details were unclear. The whole reason Ghost couldn’t stop them was due to the illusion interference. But the event had served to underline their strength, which was a degree higher than Zone 1’s.

And Randidly thought he was much stronger than them.

How strong did that make Randidly?

Below him, the heartbeats continued their steady beat. Ghost settled in for some late night computations. He needed this answer, before any of his other plans proceeded.