"I think you're right about it being a receiver for broadcast energy. Did your ring detect what form the energy took?"
I shake my head. "I was being jammed pretty hard while he was in fighting condition. And it's possible that the presence of the energy was the thing jamming me, so I might not be able to detect it directly at all."
That's awfully convenient, but entirely possible for Earth Bullshit™. Especially if there's any kind of temporal or dimensional crossovers involved.
He looks around, smiling. "I guess it's not something simple like muons, then."
"Muons aren't a problem. Phased, dimensionally exotic muon-like particles, maybe?" I shrug. "There are a few known ways to throw power rings off, and I did what I could to eliminate them as a cause… Which is why I'm here."
Muons, huh? Beyond my science knowledge, but probably elementary stuff for Maltusian tech.
"Thanks for the vote of confidence, but super-advanced biotech isn't something I can reverse engineer in a lunch break. This is going to take some time."
I shrug. "I don't think this is going to be resolved quickly. Let me know if…" I frown. "Ah, as far as you can tell, should having this in a person's blood have any affect on their memory?"
The memory thing is probably something else. GPA Mindwipes to provide a blank-slate person to serve as their agent, most likely.
"It's…" He shakes his head. "Memories are-. Hm." He looks slightly amused. "It used to be I'd say that memories are encoded in the structure of our neural networks, but I suppose I have to take magic into account these days. Perhaps you can shed some light on that for me: where's the line between the brain and the soul?"
Given their nanites are already in him, it's probably easy to reconfigure his memory neurons to whatever they want, or burn them out outright in the case of him being compromised or captured by 'hostiles'..
"For most people or for me?"
"Either. Both, preferably."
Good qualifier, since OL is anything
but factory-standard human.
"For me, as far as I can tell, I do so much of my thinking with the part of me that is orange light, I can literally have my entire body destroyed without it altering my cognition. The only real difference is that I need an arcane medium to exist in."
"What happens if you don't have one?"
Ironic that he doesn't consider that a
problem. Then again, he probably doesn't want to think about the matter...
"I don't experience anything. Or at least, I didn't remember having experienced anything once I got a body again. It might be that what I experienced is so different from normal human existence that I can't process it." I shrug. "Or it might be that without a body I lacked purpose, so only existed in potentia."
Seems logical. Purpose comes from the Spectrum, and that only really exists within a living form, arcane or material.
"And when you do have a medium?"
"I take the form of a flying orange snake. A miniature version of the Ophidian. The problem is that I have no innate way to regain corporeality. Not that I've… Spent a lot of time practicing."
He nods thoughtfully. "And for everyone else?"
To be fair, would you really want to have to try practising being a Spectrum ghost?
"By default, souls lose vitality. There are ways around that: if you're a monotheist the system handles that, but otherwise you need to arrange things ahead of time or there won't be enough 'you' to really experience things. Lord Hades shares a little of the power of Erebos with all of the dead who enter his realm, and from what the inhabitants told me there's a small gap between them dying and them coming to in the Underworld."
And thus a little of themselves is lost. explains the ethereal and forgetful nature of the shades.
"And reincarnation?"
"I didn't ask Lord Hades about the Hellenistic version because it doesn't interest me. But there's no real reason why you can't stick a soul into something new; it's just a bundle of magic energy."
And yes, hellenic faiths
do have a form of Reincarnation:
Metempsychosis.
"But how much is carried over, and how much gets lost with the brain?"
"Souls don't encode memories well. It's more… Patterns of thought and behaviour that get carried over. If you interacted with someone and then much later interacted with their reincarnation, you'd notice the similarities in how they dealt with situations, but they wouldn't know you. At most, they might think that the process of interacting with you felt familiar."
Which is where deja vu comes from, in some part. At least within this sort of metaphysical ecology.
"But patterns of activation are just another part of the brain favoring particular…" He frowns. "Could that be stored on both as a form of redundancy?"
"I'm not sure that the two are as separate as you're implying. I-."
Knowing hypercognitives, he's probably going to poke at the concept a bit, set it aside, then have a moment down the line after everything lines up...
Incoming message from LexCorp.
"I.. have to take this call. If you're really interested in the subject, I suggest asking Aquaman to put you in contact with specialists in Atlantis once we get back into contact."
"I think that I will. Thank you for bringing me this puzzle."
And I don't doubt he's serious about that. He comes across as the sort of man who likes having puzzles to solve, whatever the impact on the world.
I
step out, reappearing
directly above Dakota City. Alva actually managed to become the City Boss when the places was infected with the Anti-Life. Not a lot changed, apparently. I barely remember the animated series Static Shock, but there's a young Virgil Hawkins down there somewhere. I wonder if everything that's happened will prevent the whole 'Bang Babies' thing from occurring? The sensible thing to do would be to just snipe Alva here and now, but…
What if someone
worse takes over, of course?
I don't want to be that person.
"Answer."
Yeah, pre-emptively terminating someone for something they haven't done yet and may never do now is probably just a bit high on the 'Superman wouldn't like that' scale.
A glowing construct of Dr. Cochin appears before me.
"Orange Lantern, I am pleased to report that Enginehead is back with us and has consented to speak with you. Please, come to the laboratory as soon as possible."
Ah, good. One more loose end to tie off.
"Is he alright?"
"A little shaken, but he's in one piece. And there's no spyware in his system; we tested that thoroughly."
I wonder what that would feel like to Enginehead. Something tickling inside his metaphorical brain, whispering to him? Or a sense of someone just sitting over his shoulder,
watching...
I nod, looking for the patterns of desire that mark an enlightened… Oh. I can't see him. Fortunately, I remember what the other scientists look like.
Al
Okay, looks like Cochin isn't retaining
Enlightenment when OL isn't around. Have to wonder if he remembers the shift in his thought patterns and whether he'd try to make it a permanent thing...
2nd May 2013
09:33 GMT -5
right then.
Dr. Cochin has a sharp intake of breath as I appear, but relaxes almost immediately afterwards. Enginehead's duplicate of Lex Luthor's face is on a nearby monitor and the other scientists are triple checking things in the background.
And there he is snapping back to
Enlightened. BE interesting to see OL get curious and look at his desire history within the Honden... See it turn on and off like a switch
"Enginehead, good to see you up and running again."
"Being kidnapped was a novel experience, and one that I hope never to go through again. Likewise, I assumed that my nature would render me impervious to having my mind read."
It's not as easy as simply going through millions of lines of plain-text files, of course. Human brains aren't organised like that, why would his be?
"Are you willing to talk about it?"
"Certainly. That… Anarky is a menace and needs to be stopped."
Picking up a little of Lex's dislike of superhumans, I see. He's got reason to, at least, given the kidnapping.
"What part of LexCorp's operations did he interrogate you about?"
He looks puzzled. "I'm sorry?"
I mean, it is a fair assumption that's why he did it. The kid probably assumes Lex is up to no good
somehow.
"I assume that's what he wanted from you? Or was he just learning about A.I.s in general?"
"Oh, no. Neither. He wanted information on the Justice League."
Oh, boy. Since they're more or less in charge of things right now...
