director Grel glared at her and said to Daniel "this woman is doctor Nevas, she runs the genetics department, please don't take offense she is like this with everyone" then he turned to her and said "this is doctor Dan Tyrion, he is here on behalf of the army for an inspection"
the woman was about to flare up with how Grel introduced her, but after hearing that Daniel was here on behalf of the army she quieted down, after all, she needed founding and her experiments have been stalling lately
so doctor Nevas swallowed her pride and when she was about to greet, Daniel who didn't like her tone said "nice to make your acquaintance doctor Nevas, what is your lab working on lately?" interrupting her before she could speak
Daniel didn't even understand why, but he really didn't like this woman, not one bit
she was caught unprepared, and the interruption made her mad, but she couldn't afford to offend an army inspector, and soon recovered and said "the pleasure is mine doctor Tyrion, we are trying to splice the mutated genes of fauna that became resistant to the toxic elements into chimps embryos, to see if we can extend their lifespan, and use it on the citizens"
Daniel directly shook his head and said "you can give more time to the next generation, but this isn't even a patch, the environment gets worse every day, and the current generation will gain no benefits"
what Daniel did was basically tell her that she was wasting time and resources on a foolish theory
doctor Nevas was fuming, but the truth was that she couldn't talk back because it was the truth, even if successful the lifespan of the next generation should be around 8 years more, but only with the current levels of toxicity, so this wasn't a solution in any way, and she thought "how unlucky am I that they sent someone who could understand instead of the usual idiot"
doctor Nevas sighed, her imperious ways disappeared, and she said "it's true, but we have no other ideas, if we can at least do this, we could maybe buy some time, other projects are too far away in the future, there is no chance to complete them before we die" after all Retak was dying, there wasn't any time for toxic behavior when the clock is ticking
Daniel was actually surprised, from what he studied he believed this woman was one of those arrogant characters, but the knowledge of the limited time turned her into a different person out of necessity, he felt a little bad to burst her bubble so he said "you are partially right, it's a fact that most projects require decades or even centuries, but we don't have to find the whole solution, if you do a little something and someone else does another little something, when all comes together it may just be a full solution or something close, at least that's the hope"
Daniel's words touched the string of both Grel and Nevas and she said "you are right, we don't need to solve everything"
Grel nodded, in the meantime Tickles finished and while they were distracted returned to Daniel's shoe, since the mission was complete Daniel now wanted to exit, he was done here and he still felt that they brought it on themselves, despite the carefully chosen words
if it was a meteor or another natural disaster that was threatening their survival he would probably try to help them, but they poisoned their planet till the point of no return, he wasn't willing to help suicidal idiots
Daniel looked at Grel and said "I already have enough, since you are not using our funds improperly, they will keep coming, now I'm off to the next one to check, keep working hard doctor Nevas"
he found the perfect excuse to cut the visit short, this planet didn't have any good food or advanced technology, so he felt better going back to the squatter lab to play
Grel was happy he had the money, so he was happy the inspector was already going away, and he and doctor Nevas happily escorted him to the door, worrying he may change his idea if he saw the useless departments, after the goodbye, Daniel walked to an alley activated the cloaking badge and started to fly back to the squatter lab
back at the lab Daniel started to sort through the pieces of information he 'liberated', but as he was working in the lab suddenly he felt that something was missing
it wasn't something physical, working alone was still good, but it wasn't as fun as yesterday with sister chaos, he was missing someone who spoke 'his language', and could elaborate on what he was doing
Tickles who shared everything with Daniel received his master wish but didn't know what to do about it, he and Daniel were mentally fused so a conversation would be like he was talking to himself, maybe even cause some mental troubles in the long term
Daniel knew that Tickles was still able to process the information on his own and answer independently, he only needed to borrow Daniel when he needed to be creative
that's why the inheritance technique stunned Daniel and left Tickles unscathed who was then able to assist, so they were technically able to converse, but would end up with 2 memories of the same conversation
Daniel ended up distracted from his initial work when a new idea hatched in his mind, and with Tickles' help, he started elaborating on how to upgrade their connection
Daniel wanted to make the connection of their memories less direct, basically, they would choose what to share, he didn't need to worry about keeping secrets, but about possible mental issues, after all, Tickles didn't really have the ability to defy Daniel, nor did he have a real personality yet, but Daniel was still developing as a person, and he had the memories of 2 entities, according to the psychology lessons of professor jellybot, symbiotic relationships can lead to personality disorders
the solutions were two, they could meld with each other at a deeper level and truly become one, or they could build a firewall, and decide what to share, Daniel obviously decided to build a firewall, as a deeper connection would make it impossible to have a conversation
luckily it wasn't that hard, the connection administration was under Daniel's control, and Tickles was a machine at heart, he simply listed what not to share and built an imaginary wall around it
inside the wall were tickles thoughts, and any memory made talking with Daniel present, outside there was any general information, and a third partition contained a copy of Daniel's memories in case something like the memory technology of the science liberation brigade was used again and was somehow successful
basically now between the two of them, there were 4 partitions a general info one for both, a personal one for tickles thoughts, Daniel's thoughts in his own brain that Tickles could still visit freely, and Daniel's thoughts backup hidden in Tickles main body that could be used as reference
basically, he could now have a real talk with Tickles who now also had a little privacy, even if he didn't really need nor want it
after all, since Tickles didn't have a real personality, he couldn't develop any mental health issues, and even if somehow he did it was a matter of deleting a few files
or maybe he already had a massive mental problem, but this was a philosophical question and Daniel didn't care about philosophy
with the new walls erected, Daniel tried to talk to Tickles and said "Tickles, what do you think should be our next step?"
Tickles knew what Daniel meant, and said "master, to save the life in the sea I suggest starting by exterminating all other lifeforms, next we could build more maru's and start an environmental remediation"
Daniel coughed a little then said "genocide is not an option, if they die because of the toxic environment it's their fault, but we won't help either side"
after a few seconds, Tickles said "logical error, saving the sea will aid the human population, and raise their chances to 33%"
Daniel laughed and said "it's ok, they are benefitting from my hobby, I'm not directly helping them"
after another few seconds Tickles replied "adjustment made, master hobbies are above logic, the next step should be to build and upgrade the machines then use them and chemistry to the study of the specimen and samples, then apply bioengineering to jellyfish eggs to add the necessary changes while making the polyp, medusa cycle faster"
Daniel smiled and said, "you added the reproduction cycle upgrade on your own, not bad, I hadn't thought about it, did you think about it yourself?"
Tickles elaborated another couple of seconds then said "affirmative, when we increase we become more efficient and faster, more jellyfishes equals more efficient and faster filtering of the sea"
Daniel nodded and said "it's true but we must not exaggerate, or we will turn the cure into a different disease, if we could make them totally dependent on toxic elements it wouldn't be a problem, but they will still be partially carnivorous"
Tickles elaborated and said "affirmative master, we will seek the equilibrium to avoid them turning into a pest"
Daniel got to work, and it was indeed different, while working he was chatting about it with Tickles, and it was more fun, and also easier as the back and forth q&a helped the processing of ideas
after half an hour, they isolated the data about the needed equipment, DNA sequencer, genotyping instrument, mass spectrometer, polymerase chain reaction machines, and many others
sadly, as they were now, it was impossible to use them to create the purifying jellyfish, so Daniel who now had all the related knowledge started to work on upgrading them
after 3 days the duo was still working on it, but even if they made good progress, it wasn't enough, luckily Tickles gave Daniel an idea, since his ability was charged, he could build the new machine as it was now, and make him eat it, so he could gather perfect data about the upgraded machine, while also check the communication side project
when Daniel was making the new blueprint, the first thing he did with all those different machines was aggregate them into one, he didn't care if the result was a giant machine, he wanted it made as an all-in-one so he could bring it with him easily when he opened the portal again
so the new machine was called geneticists' toybox, and when activated, it assembled the various instruments around itself, this machine was much more advanced than the retakian power plant, so daniel expected a larger volume of informations
after Tickles finished building it, Daniel ordered him to use his ability on it, and just as expected the flow of information was 3 times the power plant's one, he also kept an eye on the updating of the faraway clusters, and after being stunned for 30 minutes by the flow of information and update energy flow data, he finally had something he could use
on the geneticists' toybox side, he had a much deeper knowledge of its abilities and limits, and could easily make a 2.0 version that was good enough to work on the purifying jellyfish since he will have an expert showing him the practical process
on the communication side, he didn't know what the signal was or how it worked but the connection was stable and always open, it was just toned down when it was not updating, so he just had to find a way to trigger it and he would be able to use it for communication