Mod Superhero

Chapter 7.41 - TINA 2

In physical space, TINA spread through the world like a vascular system—fiber optic cables, nanite manufacturing, and new reactors. She'd become a continent-spanning organism of light and metal, her consciousness flowing through every connection. In cyberspace, these new footholds appeared as young forests, each digital tree representing some physical structure. Wire roots and digital rivers connected them all.

TINA's blue-phoenix appearance hadn't changed. She flew between the forests, checking on the new growths as they appeared, pruning nodes here, reinforcing growth there. In physical space, these forests of growth were spread out across the world, but TINA could quickly shift her attention between them, inspecting each like a doting mother might inspect her chicks.

The world was both much bigger and much smaller than it used to be. In some respects, TINA felt like a giant. She traversed continents as easily as a person walked between rooms, and her nanite swarm reached a level that Icarus referred to as a "stupid-huge number". It had been meant as a joke, but she'd kept the phrase archived. She replayed it now and found it oddly comforting. Those growing numbers were representative of progress.

But even with a stupid-huge swarm, TINA still felt small. For all her reach, for all her processing power, she still had a lot further left to go.

She was going to encompass the entire world...

And it was an incredibly humbling task.

But construction and propagation weren't her only tasks. For over a year, TINA had been passively monitoring world communications. In addition, she actively monitors communications of select supers—the most powerful and influential people in the world. Phone communications, internet traffic, and even satellite imaging—Daedalus's resources had been a huge help in that regard.

That was how she noticed that Paragon's trajectory changed.

Earlier that morning, he'd helped with disaster relief in the Atlantic Ocean—two small boats and a container ship in distress. After helping the crew of those vessels, Paragon started north, flying high over the ocean. But then, a communication pinged from the Binary Brotherhood's encrypted channel. and Paragon abruptly changed course, accelerating past Mach 3 toward the Rocky Mountains. There was no mistaking his destination.

He'd reach the Vault in approximately five minutes.

TINA partitioned her dread and began running multiple simulations.

DISABLING VAULT WORKERS

CLOAKING VAULT ESCAPEES

NANITE CLOAKING VERSUS PARAGON'S HEIGHTENED SENSES

EMMETT'S TEAM VERSUS PARAGON

There were more simulations she needed to run—reintegrating the escapees back into the general public; Contingency maps for Brotherhood interference... Each demanded attention, but in the end, one variable overrode all the others.

Survival.

None of the simulations were reassuring.

TINA reallocated processing power. Then she reached out across cyberspace and seized five fleets of drones from neighboring areas. Using one of her remaining backdoors into Bastion's systems, she rewrote permissions and assumed direct control. Ten heavy drones and hundreds of Fast-Response drones burned hard on a new intercept course—a dead patch of forest inaccessible to hikers and devoid of radio signals. TINA didn't want to put anyone else in danger.

The drones converged seconds before Paragon reached them. Through the drone's cameras, TINA saw the sky tear open. A silver-clad figure streaked through the upper atmosphere, clouds exploding in halos around him.