The Mech Touch novel Chapter 7235

Chapter 7235: Concerning Signs

The control room remained mostly silent.

The only significant noise that people inside could hear was the low hum of machinery.

In fact, the instruments of the Tarrasque were so advanced that it was trivially easy to keep them silent.

However, such behavior often unnerved humans. It also made it harder to know whether they were active or dormant.

For psychological and utility reasons, most larger devices and machines of significance tended to generate at least a modest amount of noise if only to signal their active states.

The hum of machinery remained the only noise heard by Ves and the other occupants.

This was not supposed to be the case. The workstations should at least release beeps or alert noises, but they remained silent as they had been unable to detect any obvious abnormalities.

Gloriana frowned more and more until she finally had enough.

“Are the readings false? Is the Prophet’s Bane feeding us false data?”

She had good reasons to voice her suspicions.

For one, the Riot Mark III remained completely still during its activation.

Its systems came online in order and passed all of the diagnostics without any major concerns.

This attracted Gloriana’s suspicion as the data looked way too normal given that the Riot Mark III had turned into a D-mech.

Even if its demonic mutations were much less obvious than before, they were still present. The physical form of the Riot Mark III constantly fluctuated as if slightly alternate versions of the same machine rapidly switched places with the original machine for a few milliseconds before making room for other versions.

The bizarre changes were not illusionary. The slightly altered forms of the Riot Mark III were completely real and physical as far as Ves and Gloriana could ascertain from the outside.

Since the Riot Mark III was in flux from a physical perspective, the data reading should have reflected its physical inconsistencies.

This did not happen for the most part. A lot of the telemetry of the mech looked suspiciously normal. It was as if the machine was truly standing in place.

Even the data supplied by the Carmine System attracted suspicion.

“What is the Carmine System doing?”

“On a physical level, it is operating normally.” Ves said in a half-believing voice. “Venerable Orfan has shown no sign of rejecting the artificial blood being pumped through her veins. The Carmine System has not been corrupted to a noticeable degree. All of its core and auxiliary functions are working as intended. Regardless of my suspicions, I see no reason to believe the Carmine System has failed on a biological level. What I am more concerned about is how the spiritual side is faring. From what I can tell, Venerable Rosa orphan has already formed a stable Blood Pact with the Riot Mark III. They formed the connection remarkably quickly. I am surprised that there is hardly any delay.”

“…That sounds even more suspicious.” Gloriana said. “If your words are correct, does this mean that the Prophet’s Bane actively embraced the Blood Pact?”

Ves inclined his head. “I believe so. It did not resist the new pilot, but tried to be as accommodating as possible. The Prophet’s Bane may not be as mindless and irrational as we thought. It is much scarier for it to show foresight and effectively rein in its short-term impulses. I fear that it has already sprung a trap as soon as it formed the widest possible channel with the pilot. The Middle Demon stands to take over Venerable Orfan’s body with much greater speed and effectiveness if it makes use of both the neural interface and the Carmine System at the same time.”

“What is the pilot’s condition?”

“That is more difficult to ascertain.” Ves said with a frown as he continued to study the data related to Venerable Orfan’s physiology. “Her body remains healthy and unaffected. Her brain is much more active, so she is definitely doing a lot of thinking, but none of that is reflecting back onto the mech itself. The Riot Mark III has not received a single command from its pilot.”

That meant that the two were locked in a dialogue or conflict that took place on a level that Ves and the instruments could never breach at their current tech level.

That left Ves with no other recourse than to monitor the Riot Mark III using Blinky’s precise senses.

The problem was that the Riot’s own chaotic nature worked against him. The D-mech’s enhancements specifically guarded against any form of examination, whether conventional or spiritual.

Blinky would at least have to get much closer and maybe even dive inside the machine in order to ascertain its condition.

This was not a good idea because Rosa Orfan’s willpower would definitely repel any intruder as violently as possible.

Despite the absence of clues, Ves could nonetheless surmise that she was not in a good position right now. This was her test which she willingly subjected herself to. It was not appropriate for him to disturb her and break her concentration during a critical moment of her life.

“What is your guess? You must have formed your own ideas about the current state of your D-mech.” Gloriana pointedly asked.

She was right. Ves did not always need hard proof in order to form his own conclusions. Their reliability may be in question, but he was right more often than not. His expertise was so diverse and scattered that he was able to make crazy inferences that hardly any other mech designer could equal.

He still hoped that she would pull through somehow, but the odds of that happening started to diminish.

Over time, Ves was able to sense subtle changes to the machine.

Rosa Orfan’s willpower began to weaken over time.

The deterioration happened slowly at first, but began to accelerate in pace.

Even Gloriana and Alexa managed to detect this very concerning change as the resonance meters measured the reduction in true resonance with a reasonable degree of accuracy.

“The resonance meters are all returning consistent results.” Alexa Streon said. “The Riot Mark III’s true resonance has dropped below 50 laveres. According to historical statistical studies, the probability of a breakthrough at 50 laveres is at least 2 orders of magnitude lower than the probability of the same happening at 60 laveres. If the decline in true resonance continues at its current pace, it will take less than a minute for Venerable Orfan to drop below the minimum resonance strength that is known to trigger a successful second apotheosis.”

Ves frowned. What was happening to Venerable Orfan that caused her will to fight to weaken to such a dramatic degree?

“She can still make it through.” He said with faltering hope. “Expert pilots can be highly inconsistent. They can be incredibly depressed in one moment, and incredibly motivated the next moment. Let us remain patient and wish her luck.”

“…”

His wife was not as optimistic as him. She was already thinking about who was responsible for organizing Rosa Orfan’s funeral arrangements.

More importantly, she also thought about how she could escape culpability for developing a mech that directly led to the death of its own pilot.

It should be easy to shove most of the blame to her husband since he was the source of all of this craziness, but she still held a bit of responsibility for enabling his antics and not doing enough to discourage his wild ideas.

She was not about to let her husband ruin her career!

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