The next months of his memory were lost in some kind of blackhole that shattered time and space. His long due moment of clarity was stimulated by sone kind of foul odour, like he was basked in a garbage bin. When he opened his eyes, indeed he was sprawled across a low mountain of bin bags, one boot missing, shirt open, and belt half undone. As he tried to look down he saw a crooked heart drawn by someone on his torso. He then took a broken mirror to check his face, and yeah, it was sparkled by glitter and some smeared red lip traces were some how hanging on his cheek and neck. The neon above him flickered until it died under the dawn. And as to greet the day Gero burped like the pig king he was right now. Then he tried to gloriously roll over, and it was indeed glorious, he blenched and vomited as soon his face was facing the floor.
« Damn… eurk… after seeing my face I kinda want to call 911.. » He said in a voice full of pain.
« Never again… Burp! » He groined like the Porous Maximus of legends.
He tried to stand up, graciously, and felt something plastic dig up into his right thigh, and she how it gave him brief flashbacks of the dream life he led in order to cure his burnout. He remembered himself chugging drinks while a wet sensation was encompassing his family jewels as some one was slurping and inspiring his dick. The half necked brunette cheering on his right, presented him her boom with a nice looking white powder smeared on it, how he could refuse such invitation? Bad music was ringing all around as he was pressed face first and hard into a bunny girl's ass. He went to Valhalla!
Literally it, and the shiny lights saying Valhalla were nearly the last thing he remembered before blacking out, he must have spent his time in that nightclub, if he did not tour other places while being totally mind fucked.
As he managed to stand up and move out of the alley filled with garbage, he heard a woman's shocked gasp. Then that some one asked in a surprised but a bit panicked voice:
« Gero! Is.. is that you? »
He managed to not trip and fall and tried to assume the best « I am totally sober » posture, while turned around to face her. Well he regretted not falling and knocking himself out. He was facing, or more precisely attempting to face a beautiful red head. The big issue is that he was totally wasted, and in front of him stood Vomi. By vomiting, did he manage to summon her? Oh lord!
Then he felt like giving up, and attempted to sit up. Well he managed to fall. At least he was still too numb to feel pain. For some reason this made him more or less regain some form of taste, and he felt like an ashtray was emptied in his mouth. Yummi! Vomi stepped closer to him ignoring the filth, and reached out, her touch very gentle, and brushed his messy hair off from his face.
« I believed you were busy in a lab, not exploring garbage bins. What happened? » Vomi asked, clearly concerned.
« Occupational hazard. Executes with critical success protocol: Party hard!. » He managed to reply like a robot, while trying to not vomit on her face.
She stared at him for a time not knowing what to say, and after a moment he found enough brain cells to attempt to stand again. But the world decided to spin once again, and as he was falling back into the arms of dirty asphalt, he felt a careful but firm grip on his left arm, and then the comfortable feeling of someone gently trying to support him on their shoulder. After the world decided it was enough spinning, he finally understood Vomi was supporting his dirty self.
« What happened to you? It is like you are no longer the man I knew. The Gero I know would have never ended up like that. » She gently said it to him, looking in his eyes.
« Vomi, it had been already a bit more than three years. Three years Vomi. People change. » Said Gero, praying anything he could to get some water appear in-front of him.
« I don't care if it was three years… And I don't care either that you chase whatever goals you have until your hair falls out. But don't be like this. Don't do this. Don't vanish again. « Her voice caught as she tried to contain sobs. « You are not disposable, not to Ferbolg, and not to me! »
He snorted and looked away sharply, that hot red head was tempting but he knew, nothing good will happen if he followed on that Gero's predestined love.
« Every one is disposable but me. There's nothing to worry about, we are at best acquaintances, I'm fine, you can go on with your day, thank you for the help. »
« Come on, » she said exasperated, « my car is around the corner, I'll get you back to my house, and you can pretend this never happened after you stoped smelling like trash. »
« It's ok I believe an helicopter is about to get me. »
« Stop being a clown, let's go. » Said Vomi trying to pull him away to the car. And soon surprise flashed in her eyes. There was the sound of an helicopter approaching. And very soon it stationed itself above them. Two buffed men in a military attire descended with harnesses and pulled cables, and one of them confirmed in their talky walkie: « Item found and secured. Delivery of the package initiated. »
They grabbed Gero and secured him with the harnesses, and under big round and astonished eyes they pulled him up into the helicopter with a huge and flashy Furbolg logo on it. And so Gero was saved from this red head flag and brought back to his mansion.
He spent the whole day altering from eating and drinking, bathing and emptying himself on toilets. Whatever he did during there three months wrecked his metabolism to smithereens. He started drawing schematics again until he recovered a week later. It was this time of the year again. The time to cook!
He moved the advanced silicon production tools to the sixth floor, and constructed isolating structures and sterilised chambers. He planned to connect them directly to the super computer in a not so far away future, so the task to optimise the tools and create perfect parts could be delegated. After another pair of weeks and the double of it of proof testing, he finally finished constructing the super computer's core components. Then it was time to build the structure, hyper-fast cables and a supporting frame that would offer utility. And he didn't go for a classical box containing the parts. He created a skeleton like main supporting frame, with a human like skull. This super computer will be a mix a pic computing unit mixed with a synthetic android, including advance AI, neural paths, synthetic nervous system and flesh, that will cover the skeleton and the multiple appendages that will be auto-generated and used for tool manipulation and connection to external devices. The idea was to make the super computer consume the laboratory and the house bit by bit, and replace it. Once done, it would offer much more possibilities and secure his operating base. Otherwise, would an army of gunmen impeach Trunks to come and blast everything whenever it pleased him?The construction advanced slowly but steadily. The bronze basic skeleton was finally placed, and one hundred CYC-1 were placed and plugged into it. Specifically for avoiding any electric damage, Gero constructed the power units so they could provide energy when an input is needed, and a calculation of the needed power could be processed by it's newly implemented microchip. The motherboard was contained inside the bronze skeleton, protected by the sacred metal so the machine spirit could be pleased. The processor was placed as a heart would, and the gpu a bit lower, under the ribs. Both were connected by high efficiency and hyper fast connecting cables to the skeleton's spine. The RAM went into the computer's head, as for the cooling? The temperature will decimate trough the bronze structure towards the battery units, which will recharge automatically using it. The most difficult part was sculpting the computer's flesh, that needed to be information conductive and flexible. And this is where the original's Dr.Gero's knowledge came into play. For the brain and eyes part, he used an allege including SiO2K9 crystals, this world's exclusive but under used quartz, that is mistaken for some wild glass. It's price was surprisingly cheap for what it could offer. He mixed it with multiple other metals, including gold, and he used the same tools used for the silicon to fabricate it, very slowly. The whole unit was finished after multiple nonths, he spent in majority painful crafting this flesh-like material. Unfortunately his work was not over yet, as now he had to create the AI that will serve as it's OS, which was not easy, as the old Gero had a lot of trouble making one with a stable personality. Victor had a solution though: give no personality and he set up multiple inhibitors as it was not clear yet what would happen if the sacred machine started to behave like an abominable intelligence, and maybe, tried to murder him.
The AI's machine learning would be quick with the exceptional components of the computer, and would very quickly run multiple simulations and learn from each one some way to improve the result. He decided to name the AI: Night Dog, because he remembered a man ask: « Why so serious? »
As he was finishing the manufacturing of the program, his pager started to ring frequently. And he resolutely decided to ignore it. At a point he messed a line of code because of it end decided to put it away, in the elevator. An eternity later he finally booted the super computer. B6 once empty was now occupied by this gigantic structure, towering at six meters above ground and occupying a quarter of the whole space. Gigantic and somehow grotesque the super computer didn't look like the piece of junk that appeared in Dragon Ball Z, but like a upper body, including the torso, of a tortured human being, giving some servitor's wibes.
« NIGHT DOG INITIATING. NIDHOGG-01 INIT.
PROBE BUS… OK
PROBE MB-01… OK
CPU/VEC CARRIERS 68395/68395 ONLINE
MEM BANKS 872/872 ONLINE
BODY TEMP: 19.6C
GRID POWER: 100%
CYC-BAY: PRESENT (CYS-100, 100% CHG, HARVESTERS ACTIVE) »
« Night Dog, run full self test. » Ordered Gero.
« SELFTEST INITIATED
EXECUTION
SELFTEST FULL »
The displays clicked and the pump's note shifted as load increased and the coolant warmed a fraction of a degree. The status lines changed colour, then resolved to OK one to one. Now Gero discovers he had another task ahead: make Hyper HD Holo projectors. He has to avoid eye cancer.
« EXECUTION COMPLETE
UNIT OPTIMAL »
« Display root status. »
« ROOT>STATUS »
A neat summary popped on the display, a cluster of loads at a few percent, temperatures and voltages. He stared at it for an hour, watching for any drift and any hint for thermal runaway or a bad trace. Everything held and he felt like a huge weight disappeared from his shoulders.
Now it was time to feed the machine spirit. He put pulled a lever and booked were steadily provided to the advanced scanner provided to Night Dog, in an interminable cycle. He ordered over a million science, botanic, engineering, medical and all other sort of technical books just for this purpose. Feed the AI so it can starlit's machine learning process. He also added the full theory on energy absorption and infinite energy reactor in the lot, so the computer could attempt to improve on it and learn how to make the needed tools permitting to manufacture it.
As for Gero, it was time to go smell some flowers again. But this time, he ate first then took a shower.
Alas as he opened the door, he discovered an angry looking Kyou, about to ring the bell and ring his pager at same time.