Defection (MentalModel!Brothers and OC)

Chapter 14

"And since I didn't have a fleet, it may benefit me to wander around the waters for a while. With the Atlantic Fleet minding their own little island, I practically had the run of most of the area," I watched the droning Mental Model of the Tirpitz pace back and forth within the bridge of the Scharnhorst, sitting comfortably in the captain's chair while resting my chin on the palm of my left hand. He had jumped over while we were underway, stating that curiosity drove the move and had proceeded to talk about various different topics until he brought up Bismarck. Ever since, the Mental Model had felt the need to explain everything that he had done up until he rammed his sister ship in the fight only two days ago.

"It was fun for a few weeks until I realized that she had labeled me as 'defective' on the Network, and I wanted to prove that just because I wanted a little bit of time to myself didn't mean that I was rebelling against what the Admiralty Code dictated," He promptly sat down on the floor, crossing his legs and facing me with a quizzical expression on his face, "Do you understand what I mean?"

"Not really. We're not bound to orders like the Fleet of Fog, but there are some people who do have an urge to go do something outside of their normal routine," I took in a short breath as I leaned back in the chair, "It sounds like you just took a vacation and were kicked out because of it."

"'Vacation' -- an extended period of leisure and recreation, especially one spent away from home or in traveling," His eyes flared red for a moment, spouting the word and its definition just like a dictionary. The glow faded just as quickly as it arrived, his focus back on me, "Yeah, that sounds accurate for my actions. So, ever since that I was considered 'defective', I've done everything I can to interrupt whatever Bismarck is planning. You should've seen their faces when I rammed into them! It was a nice change of pace to see the anger and surprise that I've always been wanting to see her show."

His wording caught my attention, "Their faces?"

"The two Mental Models aboard the ship," He leaned back, supporting some of his weight on his hands.

"The Bismarck has two Mental Models?"

"...yeah, as does the Tirpitz."

I blinked in surprise.

"I thought that all Fog ships had one Model...why do you and Bismarck have two, and where is the other one?"

Tirpitz sighed as he closed his eyes, the silence only encompassing a few seconds before he looked back at me, "We're capital ships, some of the largest ships within the Fleet of Fog. The amount of processing power that kind of size needs would overload a single Mental Model, so it's divided up between two Union Cores. From what I can pull from the Network, there's only five of us that have two Mental Models: Nagato, Mutsu, Yamato, Bismarck, and myself."

I went through my own knowledge of the ships mentioned, recognizing that some were sister-ships to others listed. Bismarck and Tirpitz were sister-ships when they were built, Nagato and Mutsu were the same class, and Yamato's sister ship was...

"What about Musashi? Does she have two Mental Models?"

Tirpitz went quiet, a pensive look crossing his face as I heard some movement next to me, looking over to see Scharnhorst moving to look outside the bridge. The silence was thick in the bridge, my mind starting to wonder if I should've even mentioned the ship at all.

"Musashi has a skilled human crew aboard, enabling her to operate with only one Mental Model," Scharnhorst finally broke the silence as he placed his hands against the window ledge, leaning against it a little as his brow furrowed in his reflection, "Since the crew is operating most of the basic functions she needs to operate, this leaves her with more processing power. We're not sure of her full capabilities, but there's word that some ships within her theater are achieving feats far beyond their ship class."