Research

Leela and Zhou's Place
Undisclosed Location
3-31 YC 116 09:34

Leela had somehow managed to sleep, despite the crisis.  The floor of the living room, slick black marble, was still wet in the spot where Evil Ry had stood, rain dripping from his long black coat, dagger held to Zhou's throat.  She had slept because she knew that she needed to.  In crisis mode, Leela could prioritize and isolate her emotional self for the sake of finding a solution.  She was finding this to be more than the usual challenge in the current situation.  Her first love and her new one were both in peril, and she might be the key to saving or damning both of them.  No pressure.

Within moments of waking, she had finished her most bare bones hygiene regimen and made her way to the room she generally thought of as her "study."  The room was perpetually dark, illuminated only by the glow of numerous computer screens.  A persistent hum of electricity gave the room a strange resonance that most people found extremely unsettling.  To Leela, this room was more like home than anywhere else she had ever been.  She had been engineered for this, after all. 

In front of the impressive array of displays, a single black chair sat, cushioned and comfortable, but also outfitted with an intravenous feeding system that would keep her both hydrated and nutritionally balanced for the duration of her research.  There was also an emergency stimulant system that she could use to inject a stream of high quality stimulants into her bloodstream if she became too tired to focus.  She sat down in the chair and began her work.

If her search were a simple one for unclassified or commonplace information, she'd have simply utilized the massive skills library and compendium of capsuleer knowledge to rapidly gain the information she sought.  However, despite a rather extensive knowledge in the basic workings of cloning technology, infomorph psychology, cybernetics, fluid router networks, quantum entanglement, and so on, the precise question before her was a bit beyond the mundane.  She needed information that would not be so widely available, nor would it likely be so simple.  She had a theory, but she needed something more solid to go on.  Further, she needed a better understanding of the entity known as "Red."  She would cross that bridge eventually.  She knew that delving into that rabbit hole meant a visit to Cerra Manor and a likely unpleasant conversation with Shalee Lianne, who may or may not be helpful, depending on the day.

Leela's mind began to draw a diagram of the interconnected technological trees she would need to explore.  Holographic technology, specifically those wired into stationary or possibly even mobile frames.  Clone neuro-scanning and transmit technology that engaged upon clone death and ways it could possibly be accessed for the purposes of live transmit (arguably the most important piece of the puzzle).  Cybernetic implantation and spontaneous mutation/adaptation of host neurological cells and/or psychological remapping of neural pathways in the locus of the cybernetic implants with emphasis on the hostile repurposing of those implants by the host's gray matter.  The potentiality of utilizing fluid router communications equipment to transmit live brain scans faster-than-light and in real time.  Finally, how to generate a psychological schism event such that the two embedded Ryven personas could become truly separate and exist in two "bodies."  So, re-invent the most significant scientific and technological achievements of the last century or so. 

She didn't have to add the most important item on the list.  It was always there, underneath the rest, etched into the fabric of every inchoate scheme or rambling stream of hypotheticals.  She must isolate the Evil Ryven.  She must isolate him, remove him from the mostly good Ryven, create the illusion that the Evil Ry was free and able to operate as he might wish, and then trap him.  Then, when he's trapped, Leela would serve him his just desserts.  Leela smiled unconsciously, her lips curling in what a casual observer would have found to be a disturbing, even sadistic, grin.  In the past, Ryven had always been the one to get his hands dirty.  This time, it was her turn, and she wasn't going to be holding back.