The Past, Rewired

[Soban]

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Mac Donagan cast a sharp gaze at the man who had interrupted his tirade. He had never before seen quite so much machinery grafted onto one individual, yet far from appearing impressed, he merely responded in his usual brash manner.

“Ach, so ye’re already here, eh? Grand. I’m Mac Donagan—current administrator o’ Livadia an’ main fleet engineer for Phoenix.”

He half-expected some flicker of disappointment from his new acquaintance, but if there was any, it never showed.

“Aye, maybe a mere ‘fleet engineer’ won’t be much use tae ye, or so it might sound. But I’ve a few tricks up me sleeve, an’ it’s best we dinnae discuss ’em in so public place.”

With that, he began rummaging through his so-called “Engineer’s Suit,” a garment sporting enough pockets to carry half a barge in spare parts. After several seconds of intense searching—punctuated by muttered gibberish—Daniel finally unearthed a compact datapad fitted with a privacy filter. Only someone peering at it closely and head-on could see the display.

“Here we are, lad—so ye’ll have somethin’ tae do while we wait on our drinks. It’s connected tae a private mainframe in Corinth. We’ll head there once we’re done wi’ refreshments. I’ve already loaded it wi’ all the data we’ve got on the subject in question. Ye can upload samples or entire files right here—our Quantum Multiplexors’ll hunt for correlations between that an’ known ciphered data. Take yer time an’ browse as it calculates.”

He placed the datapad on the table and slid it toward Darius.