The ECC, Engineering Control Center, was completely empty, except for a figure reclining in the seat at the main console. Eskandal had requested the engineers on that shift to go and inspect several weapons systems on Valhalla’s upper front deck. She wanted to be alone for an hour, while she kept monitoring all the energy levels and their fluctuations.

In front of her was a large projected screen and a dozen smaller ones around her. She interacted with great precision and speed with all of them with slight movements of her eyes and hands. She considered herself a multitasker, able to manage, monitor and develop solutions at the same time. In one of the screenings, she had a status update of one of the last virtual simulations she had done of Luis’ symbiote. The boy was still unconscious, recovering from his serious injuries, so she could not examine him properly. That didn’t mean she couldn’t analyze all the data possible thanks to the records she had obtained with the Gungnir. Somehow, Luis, or his symbiote, had managed to transfer a lot of information when they had called him or, rather, summoned him.

The symbiote, despite being physically inside Luis’ body and mind, appeared to be fully integrated into the Gungnir. It was as if it was a spirit, divided into two different bodies. She couldn’t help but think of what Luis had told them of his visions about Fenrir, the ancient wolf that the Boreans had brought with them after the Great Exile. She had had long discussions with Alexandra about it, but they had not come to any conclusions about the repercussions of Luis’s visions. She had several hypotheses, but she didn’t have enough data to be able to share them. She hated theorizing without having the backing of numbers on her side. What was certain to her was that the Great Father Odin had managed to go beyond what anyone had believed to make the development and production of the Gungnir, Valhalla and that symbiote viable. Everything had to be connected.

Eskandal sighed as she stretched. She was wearing her engineering suit, but without most of the accessories she used to equip when she had to repair something. She focused on the symbiote’s energy yield during Luis’ combat with the jotun and then against all hekkar predators. It was obvious that the boy had pushed it to the limit. At first, he had managed to make an efficient and balanced use of energy, but at a certain point there was an increase in consumption that did not stop. Perhaps the trigger had been to discover that Heimdall had died? She had never seen him before. In fact, as far as she was concerned, he had been nothing more than a legend until his body was rescued and she discovered the truth. What was clear was that, after seeing him dead, Luis lost his self-control, although thanks to that he reached unthinkable levels of destruction. The problem, as he could see in the graphs, was that this tactic was suicidal if he had to face so many enemies.

And yet there he was, when all the energy had been exhausted. When the nano fusion reactors of his cells looked like they would be unable to produce more energy. It was at that moment that something happened. There was a very high peak in the graph. One that also triggered Luis’ brain activity beyond all possible register. Neither she nor Alexandra had been able to find an answer. Only Luis could explain it to her, but he was still unconscious. Whatever it was, it caused the symbiote to concentrate an abysmal amount of energy in a fraction of a second. Enough so that Luis could execute the predator Alpha and finish him off. Just in time, since after doing so all the systems collapsed. She still didn’t believe that Luis hadn’t automatically died at that moment.

He hadn’t. He had collapsed. Just to see the Gungnir arrive, stopping right next to him, and then opening fire over the predators that were going to tear him apart. Yes, it was obvious that the symbiote had a quantum bond with the Gungnir. It was one thing to have managed to summon it, but quite another to get it to act autonomously and open fire on enemy targets. Someone had to be controlling it, whether it was Luis subconsciously or the symbiote itself. She didn’t know, but she had to find out. It was certainly a very important capability to consider in the future.

Another of the main qualities of the symbiote was that it was completely integrated into the body of its host, Luis. And it was at a level that was not only cellular, but almost subatomic. That was to the point of being able to create his own fusion reactors to produce energy on an abysmal scale, using only the organic nutrients provided by Luis. That was why Luis felt so exhausted when he used it for a long time. She still remembered how the boy stormed the kitchen of the main dining room every time he finished his training with his armor on. He then had the ability to project prismatic objects of energy, such as a shield or a blade. Not to mention the powerful energy cannon, which had given them a good scare an eternity ago.

She had to make a deep diagnosis of the Gungnir again. She had to figure out what level of integration Luis’s symbiote had with it, if they were really different entities. She harbored more and more doubts and felt how one of her crazy theories was gaining strength inside her. One of those that she would have automatically discarded under normal conditions because she considered them crazy. She couldn’t do that anymore. She had learned very well that when the Great Father was involved, the impossible was, in fact, more than possible.