"Because her entire system is capable of absorbing the shock of a bad landing without a scratch. It might hurt, but she's got control over her pain receptors. You don't, even with what you've been working on for yourself," you broke off as Mary chuckled.
"I finished it, actually." She told you, and you stopped abruptly in mid-air. "Why do you think I asked to do this today?" You'd thought she was still months away from completing it. "Iris' upgrades helped." She said, as if that explained everything.
"Oh." It did, actually. Iris' upgrades, as given testimony by the young AI rocketing in circles around the sky, had done more than surpassing all expectations. Mary had, it seemed, been able to use some of their monumental shattering of the envelope to finally complete the nanomaterial skin project she'd been working on in her own time over the last several years. "How close to your projections did you get?" You asked.
"Passed them." Mary's grin was that of the proverbial cat that had gotten the cream. She touched one of the silvery circlets at her wrists, one that you'd not really noticed. "They're part of the reservoirs. My glasses are one too, and my clothes are seeded with it. They provide the link to my flight system and the glasses give me a display. It's how I knew that the software was finished calibrating."
"What about the rest of the system? I know you designed it to help protect you-"
"I designed it to try and mimic your Aegis, Mandy." She corrected, smiling slightly as she cut you off. "I've not matched it, I never expected to, but I've come a lot closer that I thought was possible before we started building Iris' shell. Her body is responsible for…a lot of this being possible."
"Something else to thank her for," you murmured as you both continued to climb, and she nodded, smiling fondly.
"Are you talking about me?" The object of your fondness dropped down into speaking distance, her eyes dancing with sheer joy. "You've both got those funny expressions you get whenever you talk about me." She paused, cocking her head. "Or I guess it could be the other thirteen percent of the time, but I can't see how that would be a topic of conversation right now."
"For your information, we were." Mary said, floating across towards your daughter with a suddenly quite dangerous smile. "Now what's this 'other thirteen percent' about, my dear?" Iris' eyes flew wide and she mouthed 'help' as Mary closed in. You weren't insane enough to try and get in Mary's way, however, and you knew she wouldn't do anything too bad. Watching them chatter, Iris trying to deflect and Mary having none of it, let you consider the absurdity of where their conversation was taking place. And more importantly, how.
When you'd committed to the new upgrades to Iris' frame, you'd known Mary had… ideas. She'd wanted to take the technology further, but buried in that commitment to protect her daughter had been a spark of the furious curiosity that made her such a brilliant scientist. Iris' body was utterly unique, and that was true even now, as the advancements she saw her work leading towards had made constructing another one something of a waste of time. If Iris had wanted another, that probably would have been different, but she didn't. So, she'd focused her work on bringing the first set of upgrades forward, and then used those developments to piggyback her own project into full functionality. At least that's what she'd just told you.
Avatar: 91 + 42 + 35 = 168
Government support: 89 + 21 + 26 = 136. 168 + 136 = 304 + 277 = 581/300
With the government's help, Mary had been able to build on the work you'd done the year before exactly as the three of you had planned, and then some. The largest change was a considerable alteration to her frame's structure, with almost the entire shell now being made up of a new version of highly adaptive nanomaterial. One of your greatest concerns when you'd given Iris a physical form had been the durability of it, and the performance upgrades the two of you had poured into it over the last year and a half had been heavily focused on increasing that. In this, you'd surpassed yourselves: Iris' skin could now 'harden' into the same non-standard composite that was used for naval hull plating, and her nanomass could supplement its thickness with ease. When fully extended, a process that took less time than it took to blink, the shell would be able to stand up to everything smaller than strategic munitions or outright naval weaponry. Not quite a match for your Aegis, as Mary had said, but far closer than you'd thought possible a handful of years ago.
But the changes didn't stop there. Part of the redesign had made Iris as capable of complex construction as any fabber, and you honestly weren't sure if that was heartening or terrifying. The construction library at her fingertips was extensive. On a happier note, related modifications had expanded her cosmetic nanosculpt features and would let her properly simulate growth at a rate currently pegged to human normal. That had been one of her requests, together with a vastly expanded set of sensory reaction sets that she could use at leisure. You'd given her both.
None of that explained how you were all up here, though, a full twenty meters above your new home. That was the fault of a final piece of Mary's genius; a set of miniaturised Fifth Secret gravity manipulators integrated into your daughter's frame. Properly configured, they could create a low-intensity shield similar in application to those commonly used by starships. On a less practical note, although Iris probably disagreed with that assessment, they also meant that she could fly.
She'd had the upgrades for a week, and had been begging you to teach her how to use this final system, but Mary had asked you to wait until you were both free. Little had you known that she'd had her own surprise to unveil. She'd worked out a way to copy that system… and more.
Mary's Tinkering: 92 + 35 + 15 (Daughter of Secrets) + 31 (Iris 'mother must only have the best!') = 173 + 152 (Avatar + Support synergy at half) = 325/300. Just please kill me now.
If you weren't mistaken, what Mary was wearing had the same capabilities as Iris' outer skin, supplemented by reservoirs that could strengthen it or add additional layers to reduce and safely distribute impact force or other effects that simple strength wouldn't be able to handle. You'd have to ask about fabricator capacity. The idea of Mary walking around with the ability to flash-forge a micro-disruptor was… surprisingly less worrying then you'd thought it would be. She knew the dangers of those weapons, she'd been involved in designing their prototypes. If you could trust her to do that, you could trust her with one.
