It was almost trivial to design a receiver for the quantum wave that we humans emit. After a bit of trial and error, I was also able to use multiple receivers, or maybe I should call them rather antennas, to isolate the quantum emission of specific persons.

What was a… tiny bit harder to do, as in, I could not get it to work at all trying for most of the week, was to interpret said wave. Yes, I could perceive minute changes, that I was pretty sure could be translated into surface thoughts, but knowing they were there and translating them were two very different things. Especially as the resulting wave was an amalgamation of a myriad of individual frequencies.

I could only assume that Psionics, with their mostly human brains, did that automatically.

Interestingly when I talked with Darren about it, I learned that the language actually mattered. He would ‘hear’ the thoughts, as the person was thinking them. When the person thought in English, no problem, he knew English. Spanish was a bit iffy. He knew a bit of it, enough to get by in the AFS, but not much more.

Any other language? Not a chance in hell. To know that I could have defeated his mind-reading powers by simply switching to Mandarin, Japanese, Russian, French or German, or any of the other languages I spoke fluently… well, water under the bridge.

Yes, I am a bit of a linguist. I had, at that point, a mental age of more than 180 years, an eidetic memory, an insatiable need to learn, and access to more or less every VR training program ever made. Of course, I learned several languages.

Not that I expected to actually use them, mind you. The auto-translation software in cyberspace made that unnecessary in the Abyss, and before coming to NYC, that was nearly all contact I had.

But back to the mind-reader, in the end, I decided to train it with the person I was reasonably sure I could provide the actual thought words for, myself.

To that effect, I placed a mind-reader array in each and every lab, thankful that they were actually rather simple devices. Sure, to make the mind-blockers wearable, I had to use the NADA, but if I had accepted them to be the size of a milk crate, I could have made them with the household fabber. Probably.

The household fabber could make the mind-antennas a similar size, and as much as I tended to clutter my workspaces, I had not yet the time to amass that much.

To write some sort of subconscious thought-to-text software for my cranial board was a bit harder, but only marginally so.

Much harder was it to take off the mind-blocker, while I worked. I warned Darren about it, but still, it did cost me quite a bit of effort to remove my safety, as illogical as it was at that point.

I mean, Darren knew practically everything anyway, and I was pretty sure that there was no other Psionic in range.

And then I simply had Warden correlate my emissions with my thoughts. It became apparent pretty quickly that this would be a long-term project when Warden could not even isolate the specific frequencies linked to my thoughts. Well, I had time for it so why not?

After that, I began to convert a cloning cylinder in my bio lab to my new cloning method. It helped that the first of the new electronic fabbers were already up and running at that point.

It still took me a couple of days to get that right. For the test run, I decided to start another kidney for Justin. If the readouts were to be trusted

Following that, I designed a testbed for the new bio-reactor for myosynth.

For the size of it, I started with the biggest muscle, the Quadriceps Femoris – I know, even today many people still believe that the Gluteus Maximus is the biggest – of the biggest sapient being in modern history, a Mutant with a size of nearly 260cm, or 8’6’’, and increased it by 25%.

Then I slapped my forehead. I remembered that I was designing the testbed, not the finished device.

The new testbed was much more reasonably sized. Enough to work on a normal human heart in one go. And with the new industrial fabber parts that were already up and running, I could easily build this thing.

Unfortunately, as well as my professional pursuit was going, the mood in the house was… strained. It took me a few days to realize that everybody, except Mark and me, was at the end of the rope in regards to Mia.

It was hard for me to judge it, but the general reaction to her antics ranged from mildly annoyed to avoiding her to keep from exploding in anger.

Yes, I could somewhat understand them. I… was not all that fond of her presence myself, but the disposition of the others was a tad overdone.

Mind you, I was aware that my appreciation of the social interaction between them was at best questionable, so I knew that I was most likely missing something.

But knowing that, and comprehending what I was missing were sadly entirely different things. Even if there was something I was missing, something that I was not 100% sure was the case.

After trying in vain to understand the dynamics of the situation, I could only shrug and go on with my life.

I mostly spend the night at Ben’s, so I probably missed some interactions by being physically absent, instead of just not understanding them.

Unfortunately, in absence of any of them talking to me about it, there was not much I could do about it, so in the end, I could only continue my work.

To that effect, I cloned another 1000 transhuman rats and began replacing some of their muscles with myosynth. Again, 500 of them, randomly distributed, became bio-sheathed cyberware, while the other 500 only became the CRS-inducing cocktail.

Now it was a matter of waiting. After a short contemplation, I started a beef vat. No, I did not intend to eat from it myself.

But if I got it to work then it would make real food affordable for the masses again. Well, semi-affordable.

The poor would still have to make do with replicator food. And sadly, that only pertained to meat anyway. It wasn’t as if I could just clone the plants, wasn’t it?

But, seriously, wasn’t it? What was preventing it? Yes, the cloning process, the old one, had been expensive. Not quite as expensive as the cloning labs purported maybe, but still too expensive to waste on something like spices or grain.

But my new process was actually incredibly cheap in comparison. It was almost as cheap as the hydroponic process was said to be.

Hm, the hydroponic process? I had never really thought about it, but why did we not use that instead of the algae tanks?

At that point in time, I only knew that for some reason it failed shortly before the great war. The why was lost in all the chaos that followed China invading Taiwan.

Probably not really lost, just not widely disseminated I guessed. I quickly tasked Warden to collimate all the information she could find about it. I mean, sure, it was mostly a secondary process, mostly used mostly on space habitats, and to bolster food production in the overpopulated, mostly barren nations in the poorer parts of the world then.

But unlike vat meat, it had worked for decades without incidents.

But for now, I ordered a sample of every spice plant that was available. Oh, and a couple of real coffee beans. And Cacao. After a bit of wringing with myself, I gave in and ordered a sample of every single kind of fruit, vegetable, grain, and root. I mean, if I managed to mass-produce them, I could as well go all out anyway.

With that in mind, I started a test-vat for pork, chicken, mutton, lamb, duck, and goose. With that done, I realized it was time to start dinner preparation, and made my way to the kitchen/mess hall.

Just to find a massacre when I arrived. Somehow somebody had tried to cook. Or at least make it look that way.

But the destruction was… indescribable. Every single pot, pan, or bowl was used, nearly all of my living herb plants in their small pots of soil, the extremely expensive and rare plants were… in one sentence, raped to death.

The vast majority of my ingredients had been ruined, burned to a cinder, cooked to shoe leather with the taste of cardboard, drenched in dubious whatever…

All over it was a fine layer of flour.

For a moment I could simply not comprehend what was right in front of my eyes. This couldn’t be real. It just couldn’t. I blindly grabbed for anything to lean on.

How? How could this happen? How could somebody do this? I had explicitly explained that the ingredients were off-limits until they could prove to me that they could cook?

So why did somebody do it anyway? And even if said somebody for some reason was of the opinion that they could cook, why the fuck did they not stop when they ruined the first attempt?

Why going on, destroying everything?

I think I heard somebody behind me utter an: “Oh fuck!” but I barely registered it. Slowly, as if in trance, I walked to the table, pulled out a chair, and sat down.

I just could not understand what had happened here.

I can’t say how long I just sat there and stared at the battlefield, but during that time, the rest of the people had come to the mess, and a loud argument had erupted.

Apparently, most of the others blamed Mia for the carnage. Slowly, I turned toward her, looking at her intensely.

I was not good enough at reading expressions to be sure, but she seemed… smug, while she professed her innocence, but it was clear that nobody, not even Mark bought it.

I tried to gain their attention, but they did not notice me, and they had become so loud that I would have to scream at the top of my lungs to be heard, just to be another voice in the racket.

After a couple of minutes of that, I had enough, deactivated my ears, and induced a feedback squeal into the PA system. Just for a few seconds, but it was loud enough to get their attention.

From their behavior, it was also loud enough to be a bit painful.

But it had the intended effect, they were silent for now, and I, with reactivated ears, softly spoke to them.

Well, Mia.

“Only one question, did you do this?”

That was enough to let her get in motion again.

“Oh, you too? Just because the others don’t like me, I am responsible for this? Really? I am at fault for every fucking thing happening? Are the others not even suspected? I see what is happening here. You all hate me, and so I have to be the one guilty against your oh-so-precious food.”

It was clear that she intended to continue unabashedly, as it was equally clear that while she threw accusations against us, she did not deny being responsible for this.

So, instead of having her rant on, I created another squeal, a bit quieter this time.

“A simple yes or no is all I am expecting.”

In response she just crossed her arms, and glared at me, not saying another word.

I sighed.

“Darren, did she do it?”

That startled him.

“Uhm… sorry, but without deactivating the mind-blocker I can’t be sure.”

I transferred my scrutiny to him and lifted an eyebrow without saying a word.

He had the grace to blush.

“Oh, yeah, sorry.” After he deactivated his mind-blocker, he looked at Mia, sighed, activated it again, and with a weary voice said:

“Yes, she did it.”

I looked back at Mia.

“Why?”

The anger on her face was clearly discernible.

“What? You trust him over me? Just like that? Do you remember that he was the only one here who fucking lied to you? So, just on his word, you think I was it?”

“As you wish. Warden, please inspect the surveillance about who did this.”

It took only a moment before Warden answered from the speakers:

“It was Ms. Ameila Ciolino.”

The grimace of anger on Mia’s face changed to one of mild shock.

“You’ve forgotten that everything except the private rooms here is monitored? Including this room? So again, why?”

The shock was not for long, of course, before it was replaced with defiance.

“Why not? If you could do it, so can I.”

The contempt dripping from her ‘you’ was startling, but I had experienced worse while growing up.

“That would explain one set of ingredients being ruined. Not the rest. This,” I gestured over the mess in the mess, “can’t be explained by somebody trying to cook and failing. Something like this can’t happen by accident. This was malice. You wanted to destroy everything. So why?”

It was Darren who answered.

“I got that from her. It was envy. Pure and simple. She… when she grew up she was always the queen bee. One of the very few girls in her neighborhood. The smart one, the beautiful one, the talented one. The golden girl.

And then she came here. And found you. Everything she ever tried to do, everything she was good at, you are better. You are smarter, prettier, more talented, and more likable, despite being socially inept. You are two years younger than her but have already accomplished everything she’s ever dreamed to achieve. And so much more.

To my regret, I’ve missed it before you gave me my mind blocker. Sure, I felt her unease, yes, but honestly, you projected so strong that you mostly blotted out everything else. I could have done a deep read of her mind, but I usually try to avoid that.

But with you being mind blocked as well, I got almost everything from her right now.”

I frowned.

“But… if she was envious of me, why did she antagonize you all as well?”

“Several reasons. For one, she is, quite frankly, a bitch. Yes, the first few days she walked on eggshells and kept herself in check, but after the first week or so, she reverted to her old ways.

Then, she tried to turn us against you. Not quite as successful as she expected. I mean, she did not even manage to turn Mark, with his anti-pure prejudices against you. The rest of us, well, we saw that you were struggling to be friendly, even if you did not get it quite right.

Add in that she… could not help herself and debase us…

Well, long story short, she began to resent us as well.

Thirdly, she was envious of us as well. When you took over this building you gave everybody of us a bit over 2.5 million bucks. Even the slaves. Just because. But she got nothing.

She does not see that we all suffered under Frankel and his assholes for that money. And even now, Jacky gets a cut of every job we do, but she doesn’t.

That has of course nothing to do with Jacky keeping our money in order, no. It is because we are against her.

And lastly, she is very homophobic. She hates gays with an unholy passion. We are subhuman in her opinion. Oh sure, that does not apply to Chrissy and Justin, or you and Mr. Walker, but as you don’t condemn us for it, she hates you too.

All in all, she is a very broken person.”

Mia’s whole posture screamed defiance when she commented on that.

“Just because you are a perverted abomination you don’t have to lie to all of them.” Then she turned her attention to me:

“Don’t believe a word he said. He pulled all that from his ass.”

I sighed.

“Warden? What does the stress monitoring say?”

“Mr. Masters told the truth as he knows it with approximately 86.43% likelihood. Ms. Ciolino’s stress values compound what Mr. Masters said. Ms. Ciolino’s statement was false with a probability of approximately 57.22%.”

I tilted my head and frowned.

“57%? That low?”

“My analysis shows an approximate probability of 93.94% that Ms. Ciolino is at least partially sociopathic. Her stress readings are accordingly less reliable.”

I kept looking at Mia:

“Well?”

“Well what? Fine, so I was a bit reckless with your food. So what? I’ll pay it back. So, is that now done?”

Pay it back?!?

I slowly stood up and walked towards her.

“You will pay it back? Seriously? You think you can pay it back?”

“It’s just a bit of food. Easy peasy. You don’t have to get your panties in a twist. So yes, I will pay it back.”

I slightly shook my head.

“No, you will not pay it back. Even if you seriously intended to pay it back, something that I am quite sure you don’t, you can’t pay it back.”

Over the last sentence, my voice had risen in volume, until I was nearly screaming. Standing only a foot or so away from her by now, despite her being a bit more than a head taller than me, she backed off for some reason. For the first time in this confrontation, her voice held traces of insecurity.

“What…? Why do you think I can’t pay you back?”

I tried to keep calm, only to fail miserably, when I swung my arm in a wide arc to point at the desolation.

“That was food in value of more than 150000 dollars. The herbs you fucking destroyed were another $50k. So, please tell me, where the fuck do you think you can get more than $200000? Come on, I’ll wait.”

After the first words, I was screaming into her face, which turned white when I said the numbers.

I think I saw fear in her eyes when she recoiled, without a word in response.

I on the other hand repeatedly balled my fists, trying to get my temper back under control.

With a nearly superhuman exertion, I managed to not scream the following, but said it as calmly as I could manage:

“Get out!”

She looked at me confused.

“Get out from where? The room?”

I took a deep breath before I answered:

“Pack your things and get the fuck out of my house! You are no longer welcome here.”

She looked at me in shock then at Mark, who just shrugged.

“Don’t look at me. I told you you are pushing it too far. Yes, I like you, but geesh, you cause so much drama.”

Now Mia’s anger found a new target.

“You don’t even defend me? Why don’t you veto her decision?”

Mark shook his head with a sad smile.

“Mia, for one, this is all on you. You are the one picking fights with the others. You are the one who bitches about all of them behind their backs.

And I can’t veto her. I told you this is V’s house. She lets us live here, but it is her decision. And she obviously just decided that you are no longer welcome here.”

Dejection sneaked into Mia’s voice when she answered him:

“But… where will we go?”

Mark shook his head again.

“Where will you go. As I said, I like you, but honestly, over the last few weeks, you’ve made it very hard. I’ll not give up my friends for you. Sorry.”

After a few moments of staring at Mark, Mia just stormed out of the room.

We all watched her exit, and shortly afterward, the others tried to console Mark.

I was meanwhile still so angry that I was shivering but slowly got myself under some semblance of control.

Yes, I should have also talked with Mark about it, but I just couldn’t. Stumbling back to the chair, I fell down onto it, and burrowed my head in my hands.

I can’t say how long I just sat there, slowly calming down, before Ben entered.

“Good afternoon people. What are… holy shit, what happened here?”

His shocked voice made me lift my head.

Fortunately, Justin was the one who answered.

“Mia happened. It seems she… is not somebody we want around. As far as we can tell, she decided to destroy the food to hurt Kitten here.”

Ben, still confused, nonetheless walked over to me, and hugged me.

“I’m sorry. I know what this food meant to you. I just don’t understand why? Why did she do this?”

From the speakers Warden answered him:

“My analysis shows a strong likelihood that Ms. Ciolino is a sociopath.”

“And you did not think we should know that? That Vivian should know that?”

“Until this confrontation, it was an unsupported suspicion. There was not enough evidence to warrant intervention beyond watching her.”

“And this… massacre? Why did you not intervene?”

“While it is hurtful in the short-term, in the long-term it is projected to be beneficial for Seraphim.”

That let me perk up.

“What? You knew that she was doing this? You were watching?”

“Yes, I was.”

“And you did not stop her? Because it would help me in the long run? How?”

“This situation forced the confrontation that was most likely inevitable. By having the confrontation now a dangerous individual has been removed from your vicinity. Any other option to try to remove her would have inflicted more damage. Either to you or the group. The former was something I had to avoid. The latter would have weakened your position.”

I growled.

VI’s. This was typically VI. They did not care how many eggs they broke when it was in service of their objectives. I am pretty sure there would have been options that would have removed Mia without doing that much damage. But a VI… they simply did not care about collateral damage at all.

And the worst part, despite knowing that, despite that I completely understood why she did it that way, and despite me knowing that it was completely useless, I could not suppress the wave of anger that I felt at that moment at her.

The only thing calming me down was that I was still being hugged by Ben.

He softly made me stand up and guided me toward one of the recreation rooms. I managed to send the orders to the bots to clean up the mess room, and save a sample of all the herbs Mia had destroyed.

Over the next half hour or so, he just held me in his arms or let me rage at the situation.

When I had calmed down somewhat, he beckoned me to sit on his lap.

“Well, I don’t know if you are in the mood right now, but… I am here because I’ve got a plan.”

“A… plan? For what?”

He smiled at me.

“For your pandora’s box in your basement. And what made it possible. So… how about you get Glory and we talk where it is secure?”

I sighed.

“Yes, you are right, I am not quite in the mood. But it has to be done.”