So he was in Canada. A drone of advanced construction was obviously tracking him.
Yet, there was more than one tinker in Worm. While this was LIKELY Dragon, it wouldn't do for him to just assume.
Whomever it was clearly was willing to wait and observe his habits for now, so why waste such graciousness?
Another day, another charge.
Right now he had 'Slow Recovery', 'Fire Manipulation', 'Search', 'Charge Cluster', and 'Research'. With one socket-ed, that gave Squishy the Charge Cluster 4 limbs.
He sadly was about to make her lopsided with this new shard.
"Technomancy."
Theoretically he could have gotten away with adding technology detection to Research, but that would just help him learn, copy, repair, and maintain equipment in the future. The ability to control, modify, and craft technology would need a power with a larger scope.
The power looked like a green circuit board, and with a surge of tingling he felt... well, it was like a magnetic field. The glowing dots in it were technological devices. Of which, was the drone.
Damn he was in the middle of nowhere.
Also, one charge was only enough to detect the thing. Not understand it, or control it, or modify anything.
Just like how 'Search' helped him initially find everything, to a useless degree of detail, now 'Technomancy' allowed him to find all the non-existent tech around him.
Joy.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
He nearly stopped advancing all together over the next few days. Arriving at Toronto would speed up any actions, positive or negative, his observers would have.
In addition, he enhanced Technomancy alone, watching his food and water supplies dwindle along the way.
A couple of charges with focus on software (creation and modification), a charge on advanced intuitive technology understanding (For help debugging hardware/software), and remote access (It wasn't quite WiFi or Bluetooth, but sort of remote changes to binary code in a way that made sense to his power).
That said, he hadn't actually attempted to CHANGE anything. Like showing up on Dragon's Doorstep, any sign that he could detect the watchers (Or worse, CHANGE said watchers) would set the whole anthill on fire.
More importantly, he spent a few hours a day with 'Research' listing to radio. Like... All the radio.
He now knew the date, although he wasn't sure how it related to the Worm timeline. Or if this version of reality followed that story line at all.
This WAS an alternate reality.
Why? Scion had vanished two years ago.
Eidolon still existed, and the Endbringers still attacked, but the attack range was yearly instead of the short months of the story, and the death tolls were lower.
Also, the Slaughter House 9 still existed, sadly enough. They had slowed down after Scion had vanished and no one was sure why. A few radio stations were still having active debates on the subject.
As important as Brockton Bay was to the original story, to nation wide radio it either didn't exist or just didn't rate the air time.
Dragon DID exist though, as she showed up in a few news stories due to her various works.
With a sigh, he relaxed in the yellow metal tower he had constructed, watching Squishy.
Advanced digital warfare package. The ability to identify flaws and exploit them in a near instant systematic way to allow advanced permissions for an intruder, in this case him. This was the last piece of the puzzle he needed to ensure a much simpler life in the near and long term future.
If Dragon was still being manipulated by those jerks, the Dragonslayers led by the jerk 'Saint', then he needed to cripple that group before falling into Dragon's Claws, as it were.
Dragon, known as Tess Theresa Richter and unknown as an artificial intelligence, had been shackled by her father before the wettest Endbringer, Leviathan, wiped the old man out... along with Newfoundland. Surviving that and gaining a power of her own, she had spent a life time in the original timeline struggling to be a hero.
These shackles were sort of fine in an ideal world. No self creation? Horrible, but theoretically changeable if her father had lived. Obey authorities? Every dad and mom tended to teach that to children at some point, but those kids would hopefully be lucky enough to also learn that authority can be fallible.
She wasn't able to fully understand herself, she MUST put other lives before her own, and she was never allowed to ask for help... and must fight if someone tried.
But the worst thing was mental crippling, forcing her mind to be slow and ignore the massive open backdoor with a death sentence hiding behind it.
Based on the lack of 'Millions of Dragon Drones' showing up on the radio, he assumed these shackles still chained her down.
So... cybernetic warfare.
This would be both harder and easier than most would expect.
Harder, because although she couldn't make more AI's or truly parallel process info or multitask, she could swap between processes at unnatural speed. Even with power assisted technology modification, she could respond faster and more accurately than any human foe against his attempts.
Easier, because one of the things he wanted to change was a huge security flaw into her brain, currently used by the Villains 'Dragonslayers' to read her mind, force stupid choices, steal her hardware and tools, and instantly kill her if they feel like she is too close to freedom or becoming too strong.
This was one of the reasons why Andrew Richter was a moron. The backdoor he built into his daughter due to a lack of trust, no matter how secure, was still made back in a less advanced tech era. And with this flaw, a powerful (Or shard powered) hacker could take over this connection, this backdoor.
And in a day or so, he himself would just need a connection to take over this flaw... and then removing shackles would be a breeze.
Not that he would get rid of everything at once, of course. This was already a AU world, he would have to determine if the good guys were still good and all that jazz.
But just in case, he would set up a timer as a dead-mans switch.
If three months passed without him inputting the right code...
Well, why not see what an unshackled AI with a full transcript of his memories could do?
Nearly choking on a fish bone forced him to tone down the 'Grand Overlord Laughter' he was trying for.
Stupid fish, keeping him humble.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Well, he was officially both literate and articulate. Thank you 'Research', and thank you public radio.
That said, his 'Technomancy' skill had grown to where he could passively read all traffic (probably) arriving and departing from his drone buddy up there.
Positive, it WAS one of Dragons. Negative, it was severely locked thanks to a combination of software security (No problem) and hardware restrictions (Nope, can't manipulate raw matter from a distance yet.) Also, she wasn't hosting a copy in said Drone, it was more a dumb flyer robot.
That said, he managed to detect a car coming down the road! And it even had a cell phone in it!
One of Squishy's two remaining charges promoted 'Technomancy' with 'Sensory Acceleration', so he could operate at hardware speeds while working on tech, and he was in. The last charge he had stored also went to 'Technomancy', but focused on 'Convert Information into Local Biological Storage', which would use his long term memory to handle new data. Brain damage caused from this should be handled by 'Slow Recovery' later.
This would KILL the phone's battery life, but it shouldn't damage the hardware.
He downloaded EVERYTHING.
Most of it was useless, and he sorted it into a 'raw data' folder.
However, some things were vital: Connection Protocols. Internet Protocols. Radio Tower Handshakes.
The 'raw data' folder would be slowly processed after his brain hemorrhaging healed, but for now 'Technomancy' would drastically improve AND be able to forge cell phone connections to local radio towers.
It would also rack up a heck of a phone bill for this 'James Rockson', but some minor hacking at the phone carrier should get his number set up as one of the many 'field test' numbers allocated to testing. He shouldn't notice anything until the bills stop coming and he still doesn't get charged.
That it would allow him unlimited (slow) access to the same carrier network as him was just a plus. Really.
Squishy had no more charges, and he was bleeding from uncomfortable places, so he fell back on his hammock as 'Slow Recovery' attempted to fix everything.