Mod Superhero (Book 6 STUBBING on Oct 27th)

Chapter 6.5 - Upgrades, On Hold

MULTIPLE TIMESTAMP ERRORS DETECTED

APPROXIMATELY -2.7.14 PRE-INCIDENT

Holograms and displays overlapped in the control room and in Emmett's HUD. It had taken a few minutes to get used to images crossing from his brain to the real-world and back again, but now Emmett switched between them at a dizzying speed. Some things were just easier to look at on a screen. Others were more intuitive to look at in hologram. And others were easier visualized in his own head.

At the beginning, statistics and data were easier to keep on a monitor, but soon Emmett wouldn't need to visualize things like that anymore. He wouldn't need to see the chemical readout and strength of two materials side-by-side. He wouldn't need to watch the simulation of stress tests to compare them.

Emmett tried not to think about it too deeply. He was developing an entirely new sense.

Proprioception was the name for the sense of where the human body was in space. It was the way that Emmett could touch his nose with his eyes closed, or know where his limbs were in the dark. It had taken some time after his accident on Champion street, but he'd extended the same sense to where his prosthetic limbs and whip were in space.

Soon, data and analysis would come intuitively to him—just like he could communicate thoughts back and forth with TINA. Soon, he'd been able to tell data apart as easily as his two hands in the dark.

Was that how Dr. Venture's knack worked? Venture could process and make sense of data far faster than any human or super should be able to. It wasn't that his brain was any faster than normal—he was processing things on a subconscious level.

An intuitive sense for data...

"You're getting distracted again."

TINA's words brought Emmett back to the moment. A part of him reveled in developing this new sense, but that wasn't his goal right now. Developing this new sense was a byproduct of his goal—not the goal itself.

"And yes. I believe that is how Dr. Venture's knack works. To borrow the phrase, he has a sixth sense for data processing."

"Is that your theory or his?"

"That is my theory. ...Dr. Venture never examined his own power."

Emmett almost asked why that was, but he felt a gentle nudge from TINA, like a parent trying to keep their child on task.

"Congratulations on developing another superpower."

Emmett chuckled. "...Don't tell McGuire."

Emmett took a breath and returned to the task at hand.

The overlapping waltz of real and virtual displays started again. Among them were a new skeleton and new muscle fibers and ligaments. None of the designs were particularly complex. Most of the materials were from exosuit designs. Changing his bones and tissues wasn't hard—nanites could do all that. The main issue was adapting the materials for use in the human body.

Adapting any one piece of the puzzle wasn't difficult, but fitting them all together was... frustrating.

Emmett had already reinforced his bones with a metal lattice. Replacing them completely meant he needed to do something with his bone marrow. Blood cells were made in bone marrow. So, if he wanted to replace his bones, he had to completely replace his blood, too.

Again, that wasn't particularly difficult, but the complexity just kept growing. Changing one thing caused a cascade of other problems down the line.

Now that Emmett could coat himself in nanites and use them as ablative armor, he effectively had Class 4 durability. He'd been able to tank direct punches from Lock, and the armor had only gotten stronger with additional testing. But that wasn't enough.