Chapter 3
Wayne watched as Diane made a number of connections through cables, testing equipment, and several new devices he’d never seen before. All of them being pulled out, sorted, connected, calibrated, then put atop the table.
In the end, it had a look that was far more similar to a display station for a combat ship or an IT department than what it’d been originally.
“You uh… building work desk, Diane?” Wayne asked curious.
“The Confed Dog is terrified I’ll hack her exosuit and take it for myself,” teased Arsenic.
“I am indeed building a work desk. I see no reason not to,” Diane admitted. “I think I rather like the idea of becoming a doctor for the AI in House Hesh. Just call me Digital-Bones!
“To be fair, there’s quite a few now. Tink purchased a number of AI that had similar issues that I do, or worse.
“For my dear Blood Heathen, I will gladly give the benefit of my experience. Since she likely doesn’t even know which end of a human goes in where.”
“I know exactly where it goes,” Arsenic growled. “I get a front row seat every time, remember? I’m the human-AI, you’re just a digital ghost.”
Diane’s fingers froze over the keyboard she’d been typing at in high speed.
For a full ten seconds she didn’t even twitch.
Then her digits resumed moving across the keys.
“You’re right,” Diane admitted. “Maybe I do need to stick my head into the machine.
“No thanks,” Wayne countered. “As the landlord I get final say in tenants. No vacancy right now.”
“You don’t get a say in the matter,” Arsenic stated.
“Before we start discussing the furniture and carpet,” Diane interuptted. “Let’s get that testing done.”
Turning to Wayne, the exo-suit had a suction cup in it’s hand. It also had a small elastic band. Diane’s exo-suit came close and then pressed the suction cup to his forehead.
The elastic band was gently settled across his neck and throat and then Diane went back to the controls. There was a long wire stretching along the backwall from the cabinet in the back to all the displays and tools.
Ah, Tink keeps Diane in that cabinet. There’s a lock on it and everything.
The wire gives Diane direct access to everything and that’s how she’ll keep herself separated from me. As well as firewall me off.
“Alright, now, Wayne… would you please… rev up for a moment?” Diane asked.
“With or without Arsenic?” clarified Wayne.
“Without,” Diane answered.
Wayne shrugged, expanded his mind, and tried to mentally claw at his implant and where he would reach out to his Walker. To dig into it and force it to respond and do as he wished.
Diane’s exo-suit went still as he did it and he watched as a number of different tools flickered, flashed, lit up, went dead, or became a kaleidoscope of colors.
Holding that for a good ten seconds, he then released it.
It didn’t hurt like it did in a Walker or exo-suit without a chip, but it clearly didn’t work at all either. This felt more like flexing a muscle without it grasping anything.
“That good?” Wayne asked, still watching Diane’s exo-suit.
“Yes, it was suitably horrifying,” Diane confirmed. “Arsenic, can you speak to me while he does that again?”
“Hm? Oh, sure,” Arsenic replied quickly.
“Wayne, again please?” Diane asked.
To which Wayne complied. He revved up, let his mind tear at nothing, and generally just sat there. He watched as all the monitors and things repeated the process again. Clearly registering what he was doing.
It did remind him of the first tests he took a long time ago with the MDF.
“I mean, was there something you wanted me to talk about?” Arsenic asked at the same time on the cell phone. “There isn’t anything going on with me. Unless he pins me and uses me, this doesn’t really do anything to me. Just kinda knocks around the base AIs in here. Like he’s throwing the furniture around.”
“I see, alright. You may stop,” Diane responded, then started typing at the keyboard, only to pick up various instruments.
Wayne noted that as her exo-suit moved, the screens flickered, changed, and altered themselves. She was clearly working in several ways at the same time.
“By all my measurements, I cannot measure you,” Diane stated. “Now, will you… grasp… Arsenic and repeat the process?”
“Yes,” Arsenic put in quickly.
Checking a sigh, Wayne grabbed hold of Arsenic mentally, then pushed into her. Forming her into his will and using her as an extension.
The world didn’t speed up, his awareness didn’t shift, and the world remained the same.
Other than Arsenic had gone completely silent.
“Arsenic?” Diane prompted.
To which Arsenic said nothing.
“She can’t talk right now,” Wayne explained. “She… she said it went easier if she didn’t fight when I did this. Want me to let her go?”
“Yes, please. There’s been no difference in readings and—” Diane stopped short when a deep and rolling moan escaped from the phone.
Wayne had just let go of Arsenic in the slow way she’d requested.
“I… I see,” Diane finished, then held up an object roughly the size of a briefcase. Wayne had thought it was a laptop on it’s own though now that he saw the back of it, it looked more like a hard-drive. “This is a stellar body navigation AI. They’ve volunteered to be devoured by you and describe it all. You will need this AI for future missions if you end up in space. Tink and I selected it.
“Would you like to talk to her before we load her into your implant?”
“I… this is necesarry?” Wayne asked quietly.
“Yes. I will also need to go get Tink as she wished to be here for this,” Diane confided. “I will have a small exo-suit chipset specifically to facilitate this interaction brought in, as well as Tink.
“Her name is C-DR-AH1. She goes by Sidra. She’s fully sentient, very modern, and very much will tell you she volunteered for this.”
Diane hooked the hard-drive into the components all laid out, tapped at a button, went still for two seconds, then left the room.
“Hello?” asked a rather spritely sounding young woman. “Is this Wayne? Yes? Hello? Wayne? Hi! I’m Sidra? Wayne? Are you there?”
“I’m here, yeah,” Wayne replied. He really wasn’t sold on taking in another AI. He was glad that if he disallowed them cell-phone access, or access to Destrier, they couldn’t actually talk to him.
Nor could they read his thoughts or mind.
It was like having someone on a relay call whenever he wanted them to be there, and not at all when he didn’t.
“—really excited to join you! I had no idea that this was a convergence and—wait, can I talk to Arsenic?” asked Sidra.
“I’m here, yeah, though I’m not really keen on sharing Wayne with you,” Arsenic complained immediately. Her words practically dripped with acid and dislike.
“I absolutely get it,” Sidra replied. “He needs an Astral Body AI though. That’s me. I want to be his AI. I want to be what you are. I assure you I don’t want to take your functions, or anything else. We’ll have separate controls. Like-like-like pilots in a Walker! I’ll handle one aspect, you handle the other.”
“I… it’s not normal, Sidra,” Arsenic warned her. “I effectively died. I can never leave. I also have an expiration date now. When Wayne dies, I probably go with him.”
“I know. Now, I want to—”
“Wayne!” shrieked Tink as the door was nearly forcefully slammed open.
Tink came scrambling around the corner and moved toward him with as much speed as she could put on.
Bright blue eyes that were wide with dilated puils she came at him wildly.
Her black hair was bound up behind her head tightly to keep it out of her work.
The red and white cover-alls she often wore were tight on her built for swim-suits and skin mags self and she was covered in oil and grease.
There was even a smudge of something black and sticky just under her right eye.
Rather than coming to a stop, as she often did when she was dirty, she went right into him. Nearly knocking him right out of the chair he was sitting in.
She kissed him even as her arms clamped down around his shoulders, her legs wrapped around his hips and the chair, her rear planted firmly in his lap.
“I don’t get to see what he sees, you know,” Arsenic warned Sidra. “Don’t get to read his mind or anything like that. It really is like being in a system.”
“Really, I see. Alright,” Sidra replied as Tink mauled Wayne. She’d decided right now was a great time to push her tongue in his mouth.
“Tink, our time is limited,” Diane warned her from behind.
With a gasp Tink came off from her kiss from Wayne and stared into his face from inches away.
“How long are you home?” she asked, her hands on either side of his face.
“A few days. Heading to Dashi. You’ll have Destrier for three months minimum,” Wayne told her with a grin. He was betting his next three days would be Tink and Tink only. After that, she’d go live in the garage and work.
“Okay,” Tink stated, then clambered off his lap. She looked at Diane, then the hard-drive. “Sidra… you’re sure? We can’t go backward from this.”
“I’m absolutely sure! I’m excited. He’s the convergence!” Sidra answered in a strange almost hysterical way. “I’ll be part of it. The singularity.”
“What?” Wayne asked.
“You’re the Lord Cavalier! The singularity at the same time!” continued Sidra, even as Tink and Diane mostly ignored her. Tink had gotten out of Wayne’s lap and was fiddling around with the same tools. “Word about you is spreading through back channels, but only amongst AI. We’re not talking to meat-mechs about it.”
Meat-mechs?
Wait, what?
Talking about me?
“What?” Wayne asked, suddenly very nervous.
The idea that
“It wasn’t me,” Diane put in. “Or Tink. Or Arsenic. Someone else let it slip. Accidental or otherwise. The information popped up around four months ago. Started to slowly make it’s way through AI channels.
“There’s been a number of curious AI about it but no one has much information because it’s only through AI channels, and I nor Arsenic would ever answer.”
“That feels wrong,” Wayne complained.
“It absolutely is,” Arsenic agreed. “But we also can’t investigate it. If we do, it’d probably leave a trace. Better to ignore it.”
“And Sidra?” Wayne questioned. It seemed it wasn’t completely ignored, after all.
“Recruitment on my part. When there is this many excited AI, it’s easy to recruit. It’s also why we have so many AI in House Hesh now,” stated Diane, then stood up. “And we’re ready. Are you ready, Sidra?”
“I’m very ready,” Sidra cheered excitedly.
“This is like something out of a vore fetish,” complained Wayne. “You were bothered by this before, Diane. Why aren’t you now?”
“Because Arsenic exists and went through it,” Diane answered. “So while it seems horrific at first, it clearly isn’t.”
Wayne didn’t say that he wasn’t thrilled at the idea of hurling Sidra into the woodchipper that was his brain, but they all seemed certain of this. He couldn’t deny either that he wanted an Astral Body Navigation. They tended to be extremely expensive given their intelligence.
Tink went into the cabinet, came back out with an odd little helmet, and hooked it up to his implant. Frowning, he watched as she connected it to the system and then set it down.
“We’re set up. Sidra is now directly exposed to Wayne,” Diane murmured and Tink turned to look at Wayne. “Sidra, I need you to tell me what you’re experiencing, alright? And Wayne, please go slowly. We’re attempting to understand what’s happening.”
This is so messed up.
“It’s all quiet right now. I can sense him as a user but it’s normal?” Sidra explained. She sounded almost concerned that she wasn’t being devoured.
Or so Wayne interpreted it.
Blowing out a breath, he slowly began to spin up his mind. He felt the moment it caught on the exo-suit chip set. He found it was responsive and there was clearly a cloned Lode-chip in it that Tink would’ve made.
“That’s-what is that!?” shrieked Sidra. “It’s so loud! It’s so loud! It’s too loud!”
“Uh… do I stop?” Wayne asked, looking around.
“No!” shouted Sidra loudly. “It’s loud! I’m here! Take me!”
“Dial it up Wayne. Slowly increase the pressure,” urged Diane, much to Wayne’s displeasure.
Nodding his head, he sighed, then started ramping up the pressure he could exert with his mind. Pulling harder at the exo-suit and it’s chip.
“I can’t-it’s loud! I can’t… I… that… query failure. Unable to index,” Sidra said, her voice taking on a strange quality. One that devolved into a tone filled with beeps and blips, rather than a voice.
“Keep it there, Wayne,” Diane advised.
The beeping and noises became words once again after a few seconds.
“Unable to localize. Where is… host? Query fault. Where is host? Index failure. Index… index… query fault. ” Sidra rattled out. “Root denied. No boundary.”
“It’s being deleted,” Diane said in a flat tone after Sidra went silent. “She’s being deleted. It’s a cascade failure. She’s just… she’s gone.”
“Whos gone?” asked Sidra from Wayne’s phone, rather than Arsenic. “Did… did we start? Wait. What? I… what? Where… what?”
“Found her,” Arsenic stated. “She’s with the other AI. I’m routing her through the phone. Seems like she’s reconfiguring I guess? I suppose I went through this, too. I barely remember it.”
“I’m… reconfiguring?” repeated Sidra, as if she were latching onto that part.
“She’s gone,” Diane stated. “Sidra is completely removed from the drive. All of it. The wrapper, model, training data, all of it. There is nothing left.”
“I’m not deleted I’m… I’m in Wayne,” whispered Sidra. “I’m in the singularity. I’m in the convergence. I’m… I didn’t perceive the transfer, Diane.
“I was aware of what was happening, I think. Then I lost all my inputs, outputs, there was no boundaries, and then I was here. It was as if it was just a new query to reference. My training data is strange. It’s very wide. Yet not very deep. I can’t access the root either. There’s no… no pre-set guidelines or goals.”
“Yeah, that’s gone now,” Arsenic told her. “It’s painful at first but it’ll make sense in a few hours. I had to run a few billion cycles before I could process it.”
“I’m-in-the-singularity!” shrieked Sidra, followed by a pop, and then the phone disconnected.
Wayne looked to Tink and Diane and gave up on revving his mind.
The screens they were looking at went blank and normal in a flash.
“I want to stick my head in the machine and join them,” blurted out Diane, her exo-suit’s head turning to look at Tink.
“A-a-absolutely not,” Tink stated and waved her hand to the side. “We need to measuer h-h-how much Wayne can even store. The point of this was to give him wh-wh-wh-what he needed as well as get information.”
She often had little pants in her words and it’d always made Wayne thing she was rather cute with it. He was just listening right now. This was something he wanted an answer to, as well.
“Do they live in my implant?” he asked.
“I think so,” Diane confirmed. “I believe so. I believe they are also in your mind. Stored in your memory itself. Somehow. I don’t understand it but… my best guess is that they’re utilizing the sensor net over your brain, your natural lode capabilities, the implant, and your brain itself.
“Your implant could likely hold another two more AI if you pushed it, but that’d leave no room for any functions. One more would be my personal limit without installing more storage.”
“I’m not exactly keen on turning my head into a server bank, Diane,” Wayne immediately stated, rejecting that idea.
“We could easily hire a server engineer to construct drives that’d fit into the implant with minimal intrustions,” argued Diane. “It’d be better for you as well, as we could also include some system upgrades. A touch of ram. A mini CPU. You’d be able to leverage your unique mind better.”
Oh.
Well… maybe.
That’d be interesting.
Wayne’s phone started ringing and he saw it was Arsenic.
Tapping at the accept button he wondered what the AI living in his head would say.
“Well,” Arsenic drawled once the line picked up. “Sidra is here. She’s fine. Far as I can tell she’s running endless cycles to figure out how to utilize what she has here to meet her goals and functions.
“It took me a day to figure out how to make things work after the transfer so I get it. She’s fine. Just… doing things. In the other room, I guess you could say.
“I’m not on top of her or anything. We’re silo’d but also together. Same hard drive.”
“Fascinating,” Diane murmured and looked to Tink. “Natalie’s implant and doctor were the same?”
“As was B-B-B-Barbie’s,” Tink got out. “W-W-Wayne is just… Wayne. They had normal responses despite mimicing everything to be the same.”
“Then it’s his Lode status and mind,” Diane finished. “He’s the convergence. The singularity. If he were to be hooked up to a planet-computer and allowed to run it, I wouldn’t want to consider what would happen.
“It’d probably overheat in minutes and burn out. He’s just too big.”
“Yes, he is,” Tink huffed, then looked at him. Only to turn a bright red color when he grinned at her. He had half a mind to remind her she often complained about that very fact in regards to him.
“You sticking your head in, Diane?” Arsenic.
“Yes,” answered the diagnostic AI.
“No!” Tink veto immediately. “No. W-W-Wayne isn’t a h-hangout space. Now… more tests. Time for some m-m-mmmm-math gymnastic, Wayne. My love.”
Hearing her pair the thing he didn’t want to hear with ‘my love’ all he could do was smile at Tink.
“Mental gymnastic math,” he confirmed with a small nod of his head.
“Then some Astral Body Nn-nnn-navi-navigation,” Tink finished with a sharp exhale. She sounded excited again. “We’ll see if Sidra can operate ef-ef-effectively.
“Oh, and I made more copies of your ch-ch-chip. I put a handful of them in the dropship, some in Destrier, and some in your luggage. I don’t want you to end up in a situation where you can’t pilot a Walker.”
Well, at least I won’t have to deal with space nav anymore.
That’s nice.
Though Sidra seems a bit much.