Better Gardening 7 (Patreon)

Commissioned by Kejmur

Better Gardening

Chapter 7

-VB-

A second guardian.

I had to agree with Mana on that. Even if Narco was great, he was but one guardian who was not equipped to handle anything more than a few wild beasts.

It would be great to have another friend who would look out for me, and if necessary, someone I could ride to run away on should there be a need to run away quickly. Again, Narco’s great! I loved Narco!

But he was a crocodile at the end of the day, and there was only so much stuff a crocodile could do.

“... I agree with you,” I said to Mana as I stood up and turned to face her. “However, I don’t think having another guardian will give me that much of a protection if I don’t know how to protect myself.”

I steeled myself.

“Mana, I want my memories back.”

She grimaced.

“Station administrators for the NLS projects are not supposed to have memories from their prior life…” she replied, and I grimaced. “However, considering the circumstances that we are in, I … think we can bend the rules a little for your protection.”

I blinked. “You’d do that?”

“Of course,” she replied with a soft smile. “I am your friend and assistant. If what you require to better protect yourself so that you can better seed life across the galaxy, then it is my duty to support you in all that you do.” But then she also took a firm glare. “However, if you begin to chase after the events of your previous life and abandon your role as a station administrator…”

“I won’t,” I replied.

“Many have said so before. You must remember that whatever you think right now, unless you spend more time than your previous life, the larger memory pool of your previous life will always override your current self.”

I thought about that.

I… I didn’t realize what getting my memories would mean.

It was clear to me even before that I was kind of like a newborn. Sure, I could talk, reason, and even have preferences, but all of that paled in comparison to decades of social interaction, personal achievements, and any tragedies that I obviously have had. I don’t think the current me will survive as it is.

…

Would this be death of me? Of this current me? Subsumed under the vast memories of a man who lived decades before arriving here? Someone who was, according to the files, at least fifty years old?

But I from the past believed that I could do this job. That regardless of the difficulties I could do it.

But I couldn’t, not without the old me.

“Mana, can you perform a quick and dirty NCE calculation?” I asked her.

She blinked.

NCE Calculation, short for Networked Cause-and-Effect Calculation, was a form of arcanotechnology that allowed one to derive the likelihood of a future occuring by inputting as much data as a NCE Calculator could take. Normally, NCE Calculations were limited to interactions with under ten thousand individuals within one indirect interaction extension; if I and Mana were primary parties, then whatever government function Mana communicated with would be the indirect interaction extension, ie someone who could influence or even directly change the actions of the primary parties involved.

Even then, NCE results were never certain.

Worse, it required computing power that even the likes of the glitterworlds could not perform one involving more than a million people. There were exactly three networks that was capable of conducting calculations for entire star clusters, but those were highly guarded and secretive about the results they got. And they fielded entire fleets to guard themselves, so no one was getting access to those.

Or so the databank said about some of the technologies, including NCE, that glitterworlds had access to.

“I can,” she replied.

“Capacity?”

“One thousand.”

I bit and played with my lips as I thought about the best way to partition that.

“How many entities have access to dimensional portal tech?”

“As an overarching organizations? Officially, over four hundred government agencies across multiple galaxies. Unofficially, no one knows but it is estimated to be under one thousand organizations.”

I groaned.

“Okay. Umm. Then let’s make two calculations. Base one on my current self and the second on my old self.”

“Alright, administrator.”

“And assign ten to potential bad actors within the government, another ten outside of it and with access to the dimensional portal tech. Assign three from each group as opposed to me.”

“... That seems a lot of opposition,” she said even as she did so on a screen in the control room.

“I’m just high balling it. Now, can you assign one hundred as good actors and agents that want to put an end to the bad and rogue actors.”

“And then?”

“Calculate the chance that I will survive the next year. Ready?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Go.”

The station’s lights dimmed as the powerful computers within the station took up as much power as the station culd provide. Even then, there was a slowly filling bar that said the estimation for the results would take ten hours.

Mana was also down and out for the count.

With a sigh, I sat down and picked up a battery powered tablet to see all of the data and reports from the planet below and of the new migrants. There should be enough data to keep me occupied for that long at the very least.

-VB-

I woke up to a ping and grumbled as I rolled out of my bed.

I looked at the clock.

… Oh, the time was up.

There was a flicker and one of the tablets I’ve been reading from before falling asleep lit up.

“Daniel? Are you awake?”

“I am,” I croaked. “How are you?”

“A little frayed,” she replied with a shrug. “But I have the results.”

“... And?”

“As you are right now, your survival rate is…”

I gulped.

“93%.”

I frowned. “What were the highest contributing factors from the 7%?”

Mana sighed. “The highest of the 7% that led to your death was indeed the organization that you ran into at 2%.”

I blinked. “Only 2%?”

“Yes.”

“And others?”

“The second highest was ‘dying by unintentionally interacting with hostile locals from another dimension’ at 1.5%.”

I blinked again. “Huh.”

“Yes.”

“And with my old memories…?”

“99% chance of survival. Your memories would more or less ensure that all hostile actions taken against you have less than 0.1% chance of success.”

“That’s good, right?”

“Yes. This is … reasonably enough to unlock the ‘wiped’ memories.”

“Good. How do we do that?”

“For that, we need access to a special device, but even with the station’s nanofabricators, that will take weeks to accomplish.”

“Ah.” I clicked my tongue. “... I guess we should get that second guardian?”

“Yes, but I must warn you that all guardians after the first must be one that you create yourself.”

“Wait, what? They aren’t assigned me like Narco?”

“They are not.”

“... Do they have to be animals like Narco?”

“They do.”

“Alright. How do I ‘make’ my guardian?”

“That is something we have available right now.”

-VB-

The Modification Chamber was a short name for a room with the means to alter any creature, humans included.

According to the “Dummy’s Guide to Modification Chamber,” yes, this meant that one could “theoretically make a docile and well-trained cyborg laser eyes T-Rex” or a creature that was “very close in apeparance to blue eyes white dragon.”

“I recommend an elephant.”

I turned to look at Mana after I got in front of the control console.

“An elephant?”

“Yes. It is similar to the mammoths that you took scan of, but it is generally smarter, closer to humans in natural longevity, has a genetic structure that allows it to be modified rather heavily, and there are already templates for cyborg elephants.”

I looked it up on the console computer and it was right there.

“You know what?” I said after looking at one particular schematic that allowed an elephant to act as a mobile fortress. “I’ll take up your advice on it. I think elephants are cool.”