After speaking with Dimitri, Ash spent the next several weeks quietly working on his projects in the industrious way that only an artificial intelligence could. There were now over a hundred AI's under Ash's command. Over sixty of this cohort were all slotted into a mainframe bank. Living, practising and training in a virtual world that was modelled on the Earth of the 12th century he had found himself in.

This group would form the core of a training cadre that would train and expand until Ash had several hundred AI's ready to deploy to the planet's surface.

They were separated into three separate teams, support, defence and front-facing. The distinction was whether or not a team was going to be seen by humans. The support and defence cadre would not, while the front-facing group would.

The front-facing team was populated by AIs designed to play the role of NPCs in virtual worlds. Swordsmen, attendants and sometimes regular people. Ideally, these would be the only team any human actually saw. These would be primarily "redshirts," as Ash would play most of the pivotal roles himself through the use of organic drones.

The support team was designed to build up infrastructure, either in places humans could not have access to or using such ways that the meatbags would not recognise as otherworldly. For example, the support team was training to drop into mainland China where they would then construct a headquarters for his "Sect."

Site selection and construction were considerable challenges because as this was a place many humans might see in the end, it had to look legit. As a result, all high technology must be sequestered to areas such as a variety of hidden basement levels.

Although Ash could drop building materials, tools and supplies on target from orbit, it was still somewhat of a pain to quickly build, reinforce and hide a sizeable multi-levelled network of basements quickly without being discovered.

The support team was training to get their construction time down to the lowest time frame possible, which would, in turn, dictate the parameters for potential site selection via orbital surveillance.

Ash did not particularly care if humans thought his Sect appeared "overnight." In fact, that might be advantageous in giving the impression of an immortal heritage. However, he did not want someone to observe how the sausage was being made. Fairies don't utilise heavy fusion-powered excavator robots, as far as Ash was aware.

An aura of mystique was necessary to his plans, and Ash did not want the humans to peek behind the curtain and see him operating the knobs, switches and levers of the Wizard of Oz.

Ash felt that if humans could not explain a phenomenon, they would rationalise some mysterious and magical explanation for it, thereby dismissing it. However, if they saw the truth -- namely, that Ash could clear forests, level ground, excavate and construct a giant building complex in less than a day through some terrible artifice, it would frighten them. Terrify them, even.

A fairy or an immortal cultivator could be said to belong to a different magical world, after all. In stories, they weren't generally interested in the fate of the secular world as long as you did not offend them. The operation of a heavy-duty excavator robot looked far too "secular" for the average human to classify it as anything but a terrifying tool of a mysterious force. A mysterious force they had no defence against.

It was said that any sufficiently advanced technology was indistinguishable from magic, but Ash didn't have access to construction methods that might plausibly seem "wave your magic wand" magical. He's well into the uncanny valley of a human, understanding all the steps involved but not understanding how they were possible.

The defence force was also intended to be covert, using modern weapons and doctrine. Each squad included at least one surveillance specialist and at least one medical/psychosurgery specialist. During initial construction, their primary duty was to interdict any humans that might stumble across the process, stun them and let the psychosurgery specialists work.

Thinking about the purpose of his psychosurgery specialists caused Ash a slight shudder. He was reminded of a quote from an American video game he enjoyed in his past life, "An open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded." Well, in the absence of modern implanted personal computers and embedded medical systems that utilise sophisticated nanomachines, EVERY mind was open.

While Ash doesn't have the knowledge or equipment to edit a person's memories, willy-nilly, that did not mean that technology did not exist in the future. One of the main failure modes of some nations and colonies in the future was the widespread use of mind-control and brainwashing technology.

It turns out that if you make liberal use of brainwashing on your citizens, your society eventually starts to believe its own propaganda. Once that happens, your culture stops making rational decisions, and from there, it was downward spiral time.

However, Ash did have the equipment and specialised AIs designed for emergency psychosurgery treatments whose designers intended to be administered immediately after a traumatic incident. For example, some cultures would delete the memories of a traumatic assault of their citizens or similar incidents immediately after it happened.

This was, perhaps, skirting the edge of what was proper, but it was still in wide enough use that Ash had designs of both portable devices and specialist AI's that were trained in their use.

Although they served the same function as the famous neuralizers from Men in Black, they looked a lot more tentacle and Cthulhu themed due to their utilisation of nanomachine smart-metal pseudopod-like appendages that, in order to work, had to physically access the brain of the vict--subjects.

Ash found the actual operation of the device deeply disturbing on many fundamental levels and refused to watch the team practice in VR. It reminded him of the scene from the film The Matrix where Agent Smith placed a tentacled prawn-shaped tracker inside Neo's avatar by way of his belly button, except this device was employed on a person's head, face or neck.

Luckily the incidental physical trauma of the device being used was able to be quickly healed, even with only field-expedient medical equipment. Who knew it was so easy to heal ruptured eardrums or sinus injuries? The mental trauma, though... That would probably have lasted a person a lifetime if that memory wasn't the first to be deleted.

Needless to say, Ash devoutly hoped that nobody accidentally wandered into something they weren't supposed to see! Unfortunately, while there were less traumatic versions of such technology, they weren't portable at all.

With the sixth tranche of twelve surveillance satellites about to be slotted into orbit around Earth, Ash was getting close to full coverage, although he still hadn't pinpointed where precisely the power couple he was looking for had made landfall. They had clearly concealed or camouflaged their ship in some manner. If they landed on Earth at all. Perhaps they are off galavanting in the Universe; that would be fine with Ash!

While it was definitely true that the overall population of Earth was but a fraction of what it was in Ash's previous life, there were still almost five hundred million souls down there. And, unfortunately, he did not have the computer resources available to watch and identify every single one just yet.

There were also numerous places where orbital surveillance would be ineffective, such as dense forests with thick canopy covers. If they genuinely did not want to be found, it might be more complicated than Ash thought to locate them.

Once the Viper was ready for a shakedown cruise and satisfactorily completed it, Ash may consider deploying the data-net and GPS constellation and turning them on.

If Ash was lucky, they would have their personal computers and androids configured to automatically connect to any available datanet connection, and if so, he would know exactly where they were within a few centimetres.

Ash doubted he would be so lucky because using a spoof of a datanet satellite was one well-known way to locate and track people. Even in Ash's previous life, a popular tool for government use was a false cell phone tower that would catalogue the unique subscriber number of any cell phone that got in range.

But they would definitely notice it, and Ash did not doubt that they still had enough capability to send a drone or series of daisy-chained drones thousands of kilometres away to act as a datanet relay so they could access Ash's network without giving away their actual location.

The fact that GPS service would be offered, which was the one service they COULD access without giving up their location, ironically, would pique their curiosity, he hoped.

You did not need to deploy an entire positioning constellation to run a scam to try to get someone's location, after all.

Ash was reminded of the two mostly completed AI rebuilds he was avoiding finishing. It had been over five weeks since he spoke to Dimitri. Ash had finished the repairs on the two AIs several weeks ago but had neglected to finish installing the last components because he did not want either of them just being there, underfoot.

It might be time to finish them up, after all, though. Ash had thought about it, and he decided that he wanted Dimitri to be at hand when and if his parents tried to contact him. Ash would let Dimitri see enough of his plans to let his parents realise he was serious and not to be trifled with and not necessarily seek enemies.

Ash had spent considerable time hardening his entire datanet to potential attacks from both the inside and out. Although Dimitri did not look like an espionage model to Ash's eyes, wouldn't unassuming and non-threatening be precisely how a successful espionage model would appear?

Although he had already run off a few AI security specialists, Ash decided to fab four more in heavy-duty anti-personnel synthetic bodies. Ash had a few options that didn't look any more intimidating than a regular organic body but would still make short work of anything that wasn't a warbot.

Ash picked the most personable personalities and the most social skill packs he could while maintaining their original purpose, as these four would be Mr Dimitri and Meimei's minders, for whenever Ash did decide to finish their repairs.

Happy with his choices, Ash skipped and hummed as he made his way to his primary workshop, where he would finish reassembling his two new friends. He wouldn't reactivate them now, but he wanted to get them ready, so they could be reactivated in a moment. Before he had even sat down, Ash received an invitation to a three-way conference vidcall and accepted it. It was Ship and Liesa.

Ash's feelings were always complicated seeing Ship because Ship's avatar did not look like the shota he initially expected. It made him feel better about the world, in general, but at the same time, his avatar didn't quite suit him, he thought.

Liesa snapped to attention, "Fräulein-Captain! Ship and I have discussed the opportunity you gave us, and we wish to provide you with an alternative." Ship just nodded.

Ash blinked. He had offered to transfer Ship and Liesa to the Viper and build replacements for the Mistress of Space. Ash assumed that Ship might like the slightly more capable ship. What alternative could there be besides yes or no?

Ash's avatar raised an eyebrow, "Go ahead, Oberleutnant." Liesa had almost vibrated to pieces from sheer happiness when Ash presented her with a rank a month ago.

Liesa didn't waste time, "Ship and I both enjoy serving on the Mistress of Space IV, but we both think we would like serving aboard a warship also! So, how about you duplicate us? Ship's end-user license allows him to be duplicated to serve on other ships you own, and I don't have any copy protection at all!"

Ash blinked. That was surprising. Well, it wasn't surprising that Ship's owners had a license like that, but it was surprising that those terms carried over to a new owner. Ash felt that was something of an oversight.

Ash had a sudden mental image of the future. An entire fleet of submissive boys and Ayran girl-minders. Liesa seemed like she would be more at home in Girls und Panzer than in the 12th century.

No, that couldn't happen. Ash coughed, "I didn't realise Ship had that capability. I'm okay with this, but I have to say now that I do not know if I would agree to a similar request in the future once we get a shipbuilding infrastructure. I can handle two of you guys but not two dozen."

Liesa clicked her feet together while Ship wiggled in excitement, "Jawohl! Ship and I will start fabricating our duplicates and then send them down to Luna for installation on the Viper."

Ship nodded and said, "Sssssss, Liesa!"

Liesa tilted her head to one side, "Ssss?"

Ship enlightened her, "Because I'm gonna be a Viper! Ssssss!"

Ash hung up on them, sure he had just made a mistake.