The next closest Resistance base wasn't far from Belport. It lay just outside Grantham, buried deep beneath the crumbling outskirts of the old industrial zone. On the surface, the streets were abandoned—factories rusting into skeletons, brick walls crumbling beneath a patchwork of moss and ivy. Nature was winning. Vines crept through shattered windows, and tree roots broke through the fractured pavement. To anyone driving through on the highway, the place looked like a dead zone.
But below, the base hummed with new life. The upper levels held makeshift bunk rooms, demiplanes for training, and a mess area. The armored tunnels deeper down had been reinforced with nanite latticework and recycled metals. Every hallway carried the scent of metal dust and ozone from constant welding and fabrication.
TINA had struck a careful balance—expansion without overburdening the human parts of the team. Members pitched in during downtime, rotating between training shifts and light construction. It wasn't mandatory, but nearly everyone volunteered. There was something grounding about hauling panels, fitting conduit, or sealing new bulkheads. Building the base with their own hands gave the work meaning. It reminded them that the Resistance wasn't just a scattered network—it was growing, brick by brick, cable by cable.
The one area where no one interfered was the server levels. TINA built those herself—expanding the racks and conduits with nanites, layer by layer, until even the deepest corridors pulsed with data and light. The servers weren't just for this base. They were part of a wider backbone. Months ago, Emmett and TINA had begun weaving high-speed, secure lines between the major Resistance sites. The network was still growing, spreading outward from Belport like roots through the underground. Now, those roots grew through the city of Grantham—through old maintenance shafts and subway arteries, and toward other cities.
The goal was clear: Connect every Resistance base, every outpost, one thread at a time.
Right now, one of those threads carried Emmett's presence. It wasn't possible for him to be everywhere at once, but with local nanites and high-speed data lines, he had the next best thing. The nanite clone looked exactly like him—familiar face, armor, and body language, and even his voice when he spoke. The recruits all knew, of course, but having a physical presence seemed better for morale than just using holograms or video.
He'd experimented with more complex bodies, but a hollow nanite shell was perfectly fine. The most complicated part was the small microphone to deliver his voice. Instead of recreating eyes and ears, he just used sensors and feeds from the room he was in. It was more than enough real-time data to address recruits and maintain eye contact. At the same time, he extended his senses, taking in additional data from the base and surrounding area. All of it was stitched together and transmitted between Grantham and Belport with minimal latency.
More and more, Emmet had grown comfortable moving through the world this way. Sometimes too comfortable. The shell didn't matter as much as the perspective, and the perspective was getting stranger by the day. He wasn't seeing through one set of eyes, and therefore didn't have a single point of view. Instead, he absorbed the entire room at once—every word, every vibration in the floor, the faint heat signatures of living bodies. It felt more like being the room than standing in it.
Right now, that projection stood in one of the larger briefing rooms, standing beside Athena. They faced a half-circle of recruits. Athena led the orientation—her tone calm, deliberate, but edged with quiet authority. Her very presence commanded authority.
Having experience probably helped. After all, Athena wasn't just a mask—she was a four thousand year old warrior. When Athena spoke, the room listened.
She stood tall, her posture unshakable, built like the ancient warrior statues of her namesake. Long white hair framed her striking features, falling past her shoulders in loose waves. The black leather jacket she wore was reinforced with shards of broken glass—the whole thing glowed in Emmett's UV vision with magic that he was only just beginning to understand.
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Mod Superhero (Book 6 STUBBING on Oct 27th)
Science FictionFor this cyborg, power is just an upgrade away. Emmett was used to being caught between college and his engineering internship, but when he gets caught between a powerful hero and an even stronger villain, he becomes collateral damage. Instead of d...
