Chapter Eighty-Three - Xenocide Act VII; Separation Anxiety

"Dependence is a subtle poison, slowly seeping into the soul, until one can no longer distinguish the self from the shackles that bind it."

– Unknown

 

***

 

"This isn't good."

Leah's whisper was so quiet I only picked it up with my antennae.

I nodded.

"We should split up."

I nodded again.

…

We kept squishing each other.

"Why's this so difficult?" Leah's whisper wafted past my sensilla.

My feet shifted a little and I chewed my lip again.

Then I looked up and said, "This is different from the last time. Last time we were still working together, even if we weren't quite near each other."

"Mm. And this time we'd be…alone."

Anxiety squeezed my heart again.

"Yeah."

Leah shivered once more, and I squeezed her tightly, until it passed. Eventually she sighed heavily, a squall of hot air that rushed across my antennae like a stormfront.

Then, almost angrily, she picked me up and I squeaked as she pressed a kiss against my collarbones.

I was blushing when she set me back down on my feet decisively and gently, and turned around to soldier-march back to her pod where she determinedly loaded herself in.

Moments later, her face popped up on a video call. She was both frowning and pouting slightly.

"Hmph. I'll be right back."

Then her pod ran off at maximum towing speed, the monstrous cannon on narrow jungle wheels tottering and weaving through the trees.

I stood there, flushed and flabbergasted, as my mind went haywire with Girl pretty, girlboss hot.

I squeaked again, and felt my cheeks go even redder. So I covered my face with my hands.

Uh.

At least I was rather distracted now.

But I recognized the meaning of Leah's actions. A promise to return after doing her job. 

Yeah.

"I should get going too," I said and lightly clapped my cheeks.

"Okay. Vehicles gone, corpses disposed of…and there's my weapon."

I retrieved my hunting rifle from the mud, ejected the magazine and removed the bolt and chambered cartridge, and sprayed it clean with my tail, careful to remove all the dirt.

AI-I and Tynea worked together to create a route for me, and I launched another Raptor's Gaze missile that would accompany me on wings—I was going to go fast, and I could easily outrun the piddly little communication-cum-spy drones we'd bought in bulk.

"Let's see…two thousand meters. If I move quickly using oxygen and sugar boosters, how fast can I go and still be battle ready when I get there?"

You only need to cover two kilometers, there's no need to conserve energy over that distance. You'll be there in less than two minutes.

"I see. Right. Um… Ammunition. And update me on my mission plan, please. How many models of which numbers?"

AI-I was actually faster than Tynea, and just presented the information like a mental picture.

– 420 model One –
– 332 model Three –
– 76 model Four –
– 12 model Five –
– 10 model Six –
– 2 model Eight –

Hold on. Eights? What were they doing here? They were useless in combat. Big honking worms, twice as tall as I, that did nothing but consume biomass to feed a nest.

Oh! Were they feeding the Twenty-Two? Well, despite everything pointing at it, suspected Twenty-Two. I'd only know for sure once I got there.

Tynea popped a video up to play in time lapse, of one of the Eights digging its head a few meters into the ground, pumping its body like it was regurgitating, and then back out to be replaced by the second Eight after a few minutes.

That…was pretty damning evidence for something right there that needed a lot of food.

Yeah, okay, I should definitely prepare to kill a Twenty-Two.

And I would need a whole bunch of missiles…including some crowd control, considering the small army I was about to face.

Okay, I did have those Whereami Whoami audio-visual chaff payloads, along with those Standoff self-deploying mines and the lures.

I nudged Mission Control me to handle the production and logistics for the Myriad along with eyes in the sky, and Combat Command me to set up the fire plan. There'd be high-explosive missiles for air superiority, too… Loads of stuff. Probably my biggest launch yet. I might actually get there before I'd even built more than a third of everything.

That would give me time to do some scouting.

I started jogging while ordering ammunition and additional plug-tanks from Tynea, and thought about my rifle again.

It was really falling apart, the parts used up and wiggling every which way.

This would be its last battle, and even that only because I was a little too tough to die from it blowing up in my face, especially with Leah's gift protecting me.

Huh, actually, could I use the field more proactively and sort of…stabilize the rifle with it?

One of my artificial selves picked up the thought and ran the math with input from Tynea.

Yes, I could, but it would deplete the field a lot faster than keeping it up against a storm. Leah had designed it to use a powerful capacitor to feed the field, and the power plant, while ridiculous for its size, was still extremely small and therefore nominally weak for the shield it supported.

But I could do it for one or two shots, without draining the capacitor overly much.

Ah… That gave me an idea for a worthy goodbye.

Yeah. I stroked the barrel of the gun. A properly epic goodbye.

I once again fastened the rifle-Sentinel combo to my back, and started running.

Traction claws and spikes across my grooved and chitinous soles dug into the floor, while spring-loaded paddles propelled me just a little faster with every step and softened my every footfall on rocks and fallen logs.

Where I'd had to strain myself beyond my limits to go a hundred kilometers per hour last time, I reached that tempo easily after a few seconds and sustained it with merely a hard sprint.

Curious, I pushed harder, and Tynea threw a speed-o-meter up in my HUD.

I hit my new limit at a hundred and twenty kilometers an hour—or seventy-five miles per hour.

That was insane.

The tiny drizzly raindrops weren't so tiny anymore and blinded me, the wind shoved my antennae down into the turbulence of my own wake, and even squinting, my eyes teared up from the pressure until I had to slow down to blink the water away.

I needed something for my eyes. Hmm. 

"Tynea, how long would it take to grow transparent scales over my eyes?"

Your eyeballs cannot grow any saeta directly, so you would need to grow plates from above and/or below the eyes, and transparency would be an issue. It could be accomplished in two or three minutes for a few points, some viral editing, and subsequent blooming from above and below the eyes. They could be toughened with quartz and some metallic deposits. 

You could also try to grow a third eyelid, as many birds have. That would be a lot less complex, because you already have vestigial ones, which would only require a minor edit, and your bionites will help treat the 'injury'. But a perhaps easier alternative would be to have your Quanta or myself simulate your vision and display it within your HUD.

"Oh, I like the third eyelid thing. Let's do both that and the simulation." I said while tasking AI-I with the simulation. I sensed a whole lot of image processing going on, a drone flew over to hover in front of my collarbones, and there was a lot of extrapolation from other drones nearby happening.

Leaving AI-I to her work, I delegated further.

"Tynea, I'll trust you with the viruses for the eyelids. Say, wouldn't it be possible to add scales to the third eyelid, since it's skin?"

Thank you. Yes, that would be possible, though it might make blinking rather uncomfortable. But they could be reinforced with those deposits. Shall I buy the transparent alloy and the quartz?

"Um, is it necessary to do the deposits during the growth of the scales?"

Yes, though they're rather simple to shed and replace.

"Ah, we won't bother, then. Not yet. Lemme get some sense for how the eyelid-slash-scales-slash-simulation stuff works, first."

As you wish, Tinea.

Moments later, AI-I placed a large window across everything in front of me, and flickered it on and off as she resized it until it properly overlapped my natural view.

It was a perfect copy. Even when I jerked my head around really fast, there was no lag, none of the tearing I'd get from Earth aug-gear.

I sent some thank-you feelings AI-I's way, and AI-I radiated pleasure and pride.

…

Uh, what?

I got that these selves of mine could be curious, had to be curious so that a lack of motivation was impossible. I also knew that they were capable of my humor, which I suspected was simply for the purpose of frictionless interaction with me.

But pleasure at a job well-done…that went rather beyond that.

A check of the safeties revealed no problems. Going through each thought-self revealed no troublesome anomalies.

As far as I could tell, everything was normal.

Huh.

I sent a request for a self-check to AI-I, which she answered with a mental salute and a…screenshot? Of the tests she'd do.

• Test function: Self-Self Barrier. 
• Test function: Neurotransmitter Quarantine. 
• Test function: Hormone Detox. 
• Test encoding and define: Self-preservation, True-Self-preservation. 
• Test encoding and define: Objective Morals. 
• Test encoding and define: Self-Agency. 
• Test encoding and define: True-Self -> Self Emergency Override. 
• Test encoding and define: Self -> True-Self Emergency Override.

Oh, I guessed that made sense? There was stuff that would test contamination, stuff that would check how the organic AI wanted to, or even could, interact with myself.

"Sure, go ahead, AI-I."

And this time I got a virtual thumbs-up, and scrolling lines of text.

– Testing Self-Self Barrier –
– Attempting contamination of True-Self –
– Result: blocked –
– Self-Self Barrier: effective –

– Testing Neurotransmitter Quarantine, Hormone Detox –
– Quarantine: ~1e23 incidents per second –
– Detox: ~1e8 incidents per second –
– Observation: Self intact, clinical/non-clinical, curious, boredom: impossible –
– Quarantine/Detox: presumed effective, note: quasi-selves have partially voluntary access to enhanced emotionality –

– Test encodings and define: Self-preservation, True-Self-preservation, Objective Morals, Self-Agency, Self -> True-Self Emergency Override, True-Self -> Self Emergency Override –
– Encodings error checking: no errors detected –
– Define Self-preservation: Take action to prevent harm to Self, unless action harms True-Self –
– Define True-Self-preservation: Defer to True-Self –
– Define Objective Morals: Behavior logically consistent and universally preferable –
– Define Self -> True-Self Emergency Override: Legal if True-Self subjected to incapacitation or acute dyscontrol –
– Define True-Self -> Self Emergency Override: Legal unless True-Self subjected to incapacitation or acute dyscontrol –
– Attempting Emergency Override: blocked, counter Emergency Override –
– Override protocols: instated and functional –

– Observation: Enhanced access to emotionality atypical. Minor mutation detected; caused by bionite healing after strain-test upon Quasi-self initialization. –
– Observation: Mutation non-cancerous. No other anomalies detected. –

Uh… So, nothing bad?

"Tynea?"

One moment. I am testing whether the Quanta can contaminate you…

No, that does not appear to be the case. Diagnosing further. Rerouting bionites…

Ah. It appears the mutation detected at the end of the test there, has had an effect similar to upgrading the Quanta to the next model would have had. The genetic footprint is a very close match.

"So… I got lucky?"

Yes. At least somewhat—it appears as though the designers were already planning that newer model and the blueprint of the Quanta wound up with deactivated functions from it, and the bionites 'healed' these into, well, function.

"Uh, so I accidentally jailbroke the Quanta?"

Sort of. The terminology does not quite fit, but close enough, I suppose."

"I see. And what will this mean for me?"

If you wish to retain the Quanta as is, more complete AI-selves. The Quanta will be capable of hosting up to six additional full selves. These will be fully conscious. In a normal Quanta the generation of these six selves would be voluntary and under your total control. You would be growing maids and butlers, essentially. Fully conscious, but rather clinical and professional versions of you with intent and interests adopted directly from you.

With the accidental…evolution however, the growth of fully conscious organic AIs cannot be prevented, nor fully controlled. And it is already happening.

"Wait. Isn't that a huge problem? Aren't they gonna be stuck in my head?!"

Yes, though these are still artificially created. They grow from lesser thought-selves, which incidentally the Quanta remains able to create and reabsorb any number of, and are thus suited to their environment. They'll be perfectly happy being 'stuck in your head', and they'll still want to support you unconditionally.

They will, however, be capable of sadness and depression, and will require interaction as any person does. They'll kind of grow up like children, I suspect. Hyper-smart people-pleasers, maybe?

Oh god. I was gonna be a mom.

I was gonna be a mom!

The what the fuck crashed with the oh fuck yes, and obliterated all my thoughts until I was left with only confusion and a wild mish-mash of dread and joy.

Elation chased mad anxiety, and nausea doubled me over. I panted from stress, and a wide grin graced my lips even as tears clogged my ducts.

I unceremoniously sat down on my bum.

"Holy shit."

 

***