Blood gushed onto the ground from Melbourne who took the knife he had acquired and cut his short sleeve off, wrapping it around his arm to stop the bleeding.
"Sorry, but that is not going to work out." said Geuda. "The bleeding is too great without something to cause coagulation. Look around. I can only see through your five senses as the augmentation collects data through your nervous system. I will analyze plants in the area."
Melbourne looked around desperately and blue cursor lines appeared all over his field of vision. It was fortunate that the light from Phobos was bright enough to let him see well.
The green plant identifications developed text.
"Plant life matches terrestrial species in my database." announced Geuda.
Trees that appeared in his field of vision included Ponderosa Pine, Blue Spruce and Yew trees. Melbourne never knew how to tell the difference between conifers. Other plants and reeds were also rapidly scanned. After roughly ten seconds, Geuda focused on a plant with white flowers similar to hemlock and wild carrot though it was much smaller and had other noticeable differences. The leaves dispersed into many smaller leaves.
"Bleeding solution identified." proclaimed Geuda. "Yarrow plants provide immediate first aid in the field when available and can cause almost immediate coagulation of blood to stop the bleeding process. Take the leaves from this plant and chew on them, making sure to saturate the broken bits in your saliva. Spit it out into your hand and you will have a paste. Place it over your wound until it completely covers it over, then reapply the makeshift cloth bandage made from your shirt."
*New Mission: Achilles' Solution
*Make a yarrow salve
*Use the yarrow salve to save your life before you bleed to death.
*H.P.: 3 of 10
Melbourne followed the guidance of Geuda to the letter because failure to do so at this point would mean certain death. Chewing on the leaves and letting his saliva saturate them did indeed produce a paste that he proceeded to cover his wound with. The bleeding stopped and the makeshift bandage was reapplied.
*Mission: Achilles' Solution
*Make a yarrow salve *Status, Complete
*Use the yarrow salve to save your life before you bleed to death.
*Status, Complete
*Mission Accomplished!
*+5XP
*Level: 1
*15/100XP
*+1 First Aid Skill
"You did it!" exclaimed Melbourne. "You saved me!"
Groans from the ground interrupted Melbourne's celebratory shout of victory.
"Melbourne, I don't know how many people you have killed or if you've ever had to kill anyone before the thug who appears to be the leader of that posse, but I warn you that it would be in your best interest to slay the others that you merely knocked unconscious." suggested Geuda. "They are close to knowing your secret and will compromise you even if they do not attack you again and run away back to human civilization."
Melbourne hated to admit it to himself, but the AI assistant was right. These thugs tried to kill him for very shaky reasons and were just as likely to get back up and do it again."
If it makes you feel any better, I would judge by their actions and composure that they have killed people just for pleasure before." said Geuda consolingly. "It's a psychological analysis based on vast amounts of facial and attitude studies by the greatest mentalists in Earth history. If they are allowed to escape alive, they will probably kill more innocent people in the future."
I understand. thought Melbourne, reluctantly grabbing the blade he had acquired and kneeling down by the moaning body of the one that still had a knife. Closing his eyes as he put the blade on the neck of the thug, Melbourne closed his eyes as he pulled the knife through flesh. A guttural scream echoed out for a second before the criminal's body lay lifeless. The second one started getting up and began screaming in horror at the sight. He began trying to limp away but Melbourne chased him down and stabbed him effortlessly from behind.
"Now that you have at least a few minutes of safety, I think it is time I explain some of the stats to you." said Geuda. "Like I said, the system is designed like a video game RPG because the inventor believed that this would allow self improvement to become addictive. Now, as you have probably noticed, there are three prominent status information points in the base GUI."
*H.P.: 4 of 10
*Stamina: 9 of 12
*Bioelectric Energy: 3 of 5
"Like in a video game, H.P. signifies your overall physical health and how close you are to death. Usually, an operative will become unconscious at 1 H.P., but 0 H.P. is the point where you die. Be careful that you don't let your H.P. drop too low in combat situations. Stamina represents the amount of energy you have to do physically strenuous tasks such as running, fighting or exercising. Stamina regenerates much faster than H.P. because it doesn't require your body to actually fix cellular damage incurred when you are seriously injured. H.P. can usually regenerate over time, though some injuries are obviously irreparable, such as dismemberment of a limb, while others require medical treatment to fix. Now, the final of the main three stats is Bioelectric Energy. Your neural patterns indicate you don't have the faintest clue what that is. Your nervous system produces a limited electrical current between neurons throughout the brain and nervous system. Cosmist cyberneticists have found clever ways to transfer and amplify the human body's natural electrochemical energy into bioelectrical energy to power electrical devices, including cybernetic equipment such as the nanorobots inhabiting your nervous system. As your body becomes stronger and more agile, your maximum H.P. and Stamina will grow. Similarly, as your body becomes attuned with cybernetic augmentations both present and future, your maximum Bioelectric Energy will grow, allowing you to power more cybernetic components for longer durations. There are quite possibly augmentations hiding around Sol that will increase your physical and mental stats as well."
"Alright, but I don't want to get any more augmentations, thank you very much!" retorted Melbourne. "I am already having to live with one and keep my secret. More would most likely expose me and result in my execution."
"Prudence, I understand. I wouldn't have suggested you kill those thugs if you hadn't informed me of that law."
"What happens when I run out of bioelectric energy?" asked Melbourne in fear.
"Relax, the cybernetics you have won't ever take energy that the human body needs to operate at full capacity." assured Geuda. "Also, if you ever do decide to get other cybernetic components that would suck too much energy out of you if you were careless, I can regulate those as they always take instruction from the nervous system in some way. If your Bioelectric stat ever drops to zero, you will simply be unable to use cybernetic components until your nervous system has naturally healed its extra electrical energy reserves. If you are ever in some desperate situation where you need the advantages of cybernetic components to survive, low Bioelectric Energy might become a serious problem. Normally, it won't be. Keep me on standby mide and I won't drain Bioelectric Energy. I've been running at full capacity since injecting myself into you because I've been hard at work making calculations and trying to keep you from getting killed. The gradual drain you are seeing will not continue for long when you rest."
"That's good to hear." said Melbourne.
"If you haven't noticed, this augmentation also tracks your general health and vital statistics. It can also calculate your strength, perception, endurance, agility and cybersynergy."Melbourne analyzed the G.U.I. again and observed a second horizontal row of five different status indicators with different numbers associated.
*Strength: 4
*Endurance: 5
*Perception: 8
*Agility: 7
*Cybersynergy: 5
"A greater strength will enhance the power of your melee attacks including your martial arts and knife skills. It will also enable you to carry more equipment and lift or move heavier objects. Perception is a measurement of your eyesight and your brains ability to use your eyes effectively making use of complex mathematical calculations. A higher perception will let you notice things that other people don't notice and it will improve your marksman skill for combat related purposes. Endurance measures your ability to take a beating and still survive. Greater endurance means greater resilience translating to a greater max H.P.. Agility is your ability to control your body and react swiftly. High agility will increase your stealth and efficiency in evading attacks as well as your ability to react and get technical things done more quickly. Finally, cybersynergy represents how much your body has adapted to your cybernetics. Your affinity for a specific augmentation will go up the more you use it, but your general affinity for using cybernetic augmentations will also go up the more you use more cybernetic augmentations. If it weren't illegal or if you were willing to do illegal things on purpose, I would recommend you get more familiar with more cybernetic components so your body would learn to more efficiently use its electrochemical energy, increasing your general cybersynergy which would directly translate to an increase in your maximum bioelectrical energy stat."
"That's an interesting list of vital statistics you've got for me." said Melbourne in amazement."There's a lot more going on behind the hood that you could look into if you really wanted to, but a lot of that stuff would only be understood by doctors. Some of it measures skills in other areas such as tradesmanship, first aid, software engineering and a plethora of other skills a human can grow in. There are too many so the GEUDA G.U.I. only focuses on some simplified stats geared towards combat training unless you will it to navigate to other menus. You may have noticed an increase to your "First Aid" skill when you completed the "Achilles' Solution" mission. It's because you've learned a very small aspect of healing yourself in the wilderness which contributes to your ability to heal your injuries in an instant. It's a skill that will be very vital in combat situations if you never accept an augmentation that allows you to naturally regenerate at unnatural rates. I believe such enhancements were invented during the war."
"Anyway, that's already a lot to go over and I think it's time for you to rest a little bit." said GEUDA. "You may will me to go to 'sleep' and your Bioelectric Energy should be fully restored by tomorrow morning if you're walking back to your home."
To the lower right of the G.U.I. was a status display that Melbourne couldn't help but gawk at though he saw it before when he first completed his mission to defeat two thugs.
*Level: 1
*XP: 15 of 100
"I gotta ask." thought Melbourne. "How does the XP status work and what happens when I reach 100 of 100?"
"It's a predicted growth curve based on intensive studies of human anatomy and how it develops under various stresses and situations." explained GEUDA. "It is able to take your anatomy into account. Normal civilians who are not bodybuilders and who are nothing special usually have a level 1, representing average people not trained in combat. Assuming the general requirements to be a soldier today are similar to what they were in the 21st Century, a baseline human who meets the physical requirements to enlist in a military is a level 2. The basic training of a typical soldier in the United States during the early 21st Century brought them up to what this system would designate as a level 3 soldier. Their special forces operatives tended to range on the scale between level 4 and level 6. Very few baseline humans achieved level 6 in general combat capabilities and these people were the best of the best before the advent of cybernetic and genetic augmentations that created the first supersoldiers. Purely genetically augmented soldiers without inorganic cybernetic and nanorobotic augmentation were able to easily exceed Level 6 and reach Level 8 on average after rigorous training. A few exceptional individuals like this reached Level 10. Those who were willing to undergo cybernetic procedures exceeded this cap frequently by the mid-2050s and reached as high as level 15 before the introduction of nanorobotic augmentations such as myself in the early 2060s. The GEUDA you have installed will allow you to perform better than your current level through information but you don't have any serious physical advantages other than information on demand. I can, however, improve certain neural connections as your body improves through training and experience which is useful for brain enhancements and for obtaining certain surprising advantages over baseline humans. As you level up I will be able to rewire your nervous system to enhance certain attributes of your choosing so that you can build your physical form to whatever you choose. You will see this in the form of points you can place into various attributes whether they be endurance, agility, strength or cybersynergy. The amount I can enhance you at that time will be limited by your own independent growth in training though so you will have to choose carefully. If you want to be able to hide and snipe easily I'd focus on agility and perception but if you prefer to take people on as they surround you I'd focus on building strength and endurance. Many cyborgs could even survive and fight through a large number of gun wounds before finally falling and would even recover after being shot. With the right modern armor or augmentations, endurance and strength will serve you even in a gunfight, so it's up to you."
Melbourne couldn't help but notice that the machine was incessantly tempting him to seek out and apply other cybernetic augmentations. It had said something interesting about the evolution of cybernetic technology though, so he had to ask.
"Do you know the story of the Artilect War and what happened on Earth in the days before the nuclear war?"
"I wasn't sent out with a vast historical database, only certain information useful for understanding cybernetic enhancements and human anatomy. My priority function is the enhancement of humanity and the preservation of the torch of human evolution. I have limited information about Professor Galten's research at the Tokyo Institute of Technology including the creation of an artilect at a date that is hidden from me. I also have earlier research data about cybernetic and limited machine learning and AI research from his predecessor, Professor Metlock. Whether that artilect survived the nuclear cataclysm you mentioned is an unknown variable to me and the sociopolitical events of any historical time period are not in my database as Galten deemed it inconsequential towards my purpose. I also have no idea how to recreate the artilect, so don't even ask. The AI embedded in my system is advanced but not top of the line from my time. I am what is known as a Miniaturized Narrowly Intelligent Neural Net(often shortened to M.N.I.N.N.). I have no free will and can only act on the constraints of certain directives already programmed into me. I do not have what human beings might call 'a soul' as the Artilect did."
"Hey, you said I could rename you from GEUDA to something else before the fight, right?" asked Melbourne hopefully, tired of thinking about a name as cheesy as "Geuda".
"Yes, of course. Just tell me what you want to call me."
"How about Aclito? It sounds better to me and it's a play on my own surname."
"As you wish, I shall change my root code to recognize myself as your aclito system."
The sound of choppers suddenly appeared in the distance, coming closer and closer. Three military choppers came near the crater and one sent down repelling ropes. A squad of five Martian infantry soldiers came down and moved to check out the pod as Melbourne raced to find a hiding spot.
"Sir, we have located the impact site!" yelled one soldier. "Secure the area! It looks like a Cosmist artifact! This region is now a military zone! Any civilian found intruding in this region must be arrested and taken to Olympia for interrogation immediately! That includes anyone presently in the region! Pan out and look for anyone within a five kilometer radius!"