I checked the stats and found that the new configuration was now using only about half of the overall processing power of Bast’s secondary node cluster. This was not only due to overall optimization which was significant but in how Iris controls the overall processing queue.

  I reran the simulation model for the run using the new stats from Bast’s optimization. She passed with flying colors. I smiled to myself relieved that she would now be at her best and would be there watching my back.

  Before I disconnected I gave Iris an encryption key. She and everything here was Magi optimized. If Alex or anyone could study her control system it might cause a war in itself. The optimizations alone were a prize but Iris would be a prize worth killing for.

  Satisfied on the work overall I allowed myself to drift back into the real world to let Bast know she could move again. The work had taken about six hours and I was feeling beat. I had about two hours and I hoped they could be used for sleep.

  I opened my eyes and disconnected my omni jack. It slithered back up my wrist sheath slowly as I looked over to Bast. “How’re you feeling?” I asked as I moved my leg and gave her a gentle nudge with my toe. She opened her eyes and sat up in a fluid graceful motion.

  She looked around the room and stretched turning one way then the other with no concern for her small thin top that had stopped serving a purpose two stretches ago. I looked away having caught the first eye full and not wishing to press my luck. I will say what I did see has only added to her beauty in my eyes.

  She slid off the bed and adjusted herself without notice and acted like something was wrong but she couldn’t figure out what it was. “Bast? How are you feeling?” I asked again and she turned to lock eyes with me and said with a bit of anger in her voice. “What in the hell did you do?”

  Case Entry 56

  I rose from the chair in stun silence. My mind raced through every upgrade and decision I had made during the optimization. It had all checked out. Her performance should have been boosted.

  Bast stood there looking at me. Her anger slowly turned to confusion. I stumbled to speak, finding my mouth not wanting to move. Slowly I managed to say. “Everything checked out. I don’t know what could have gone wrong.”

  “I don’t think anything is wrong.” Bast said, now looking flustered and a bit embarrassed. “It’s just different. My arms are moving on their own. I always had to keep track of them in my head. But now they are like an extension of me. I can just control them. It’s weird.” She said, looking at her arms and moving them in subtle patterns to watch them track.

  I let out a breath and sat back down. I was too tired for this. “Well, how is everything else?” I asked, taking a moment to stretch and starting to lose myself in the simple relief of the action.

  Bast took a few paces around the room. She threw a kick and a series of punches into the open air and recovered. A broad grin started to appear on her lips and she did it again but faster. After her third or fourth set all embarrassment was lost as she revelled in her new strength.

  “Unbelievable.” She said through a deep intake of breath. “I can’t believe it. It’s like, wait, was this always the max potential of my cyberware?” She asked, turning to look at me.

  I locked eyes with her silvery gaze and smiled. “If Alex knew how to write software, then it’s possible. But I did more than just optimize your control software. I rebuilt it completely from the ground up.” I said, not choosing to go into great detail.

  “I can tell, my H.U.D. looks different. More elegant but really different. And you found a way to boost my speed. I’m way faster than before.” She said, demonstrating another round of kicks and punches.

  “That was easy. You had wired reflexes level two installed. I just updated the firmware to bring it up to match.” I said, reaching up and scratching my head. “It’s a common tactic by Street Docs. They’ll install the level two system downgraded to run at level one. Then charge you full price when you want to upgrade. Saves them time and they get to bill you twice.”

  “What a ripoff.” Bast said, looking thoroughly disgusted. “They get you coming and going I guess. Wait, what the hell is this?” She said, looking slightly confused but staring off to my left. “What is Iris?”

  I had been about to answer when Bast let out a little scream before covering her mouth with at least four of her hands. “Breck, there’s this chick talking to me inside my head. It’s really creeping me out.”

  I let out a laugh and shook my head. It was just so damned girly of her to be utterly cute. Bast just looked at me like she wanted me to die right then and there. I calmed down after a moment, still shaking my head.

  “Bast, meet Iris, your new combat A.I.. Iris is the master controller of all your implants. She has been trained to intuit what you need and to provide you with support in combat. She is based on my own combat A.I..” I said, looking a bit smug.

  “Oh, hello Iris.” Bast said to no one. “I look forward to getting to know you better.” She said. I watched as Bast smiled and laughed a little as she listened to her new partner. I let out a long yawn and Bast turned those silver pools my direction.

  “I bet you’re tired.” She said. I nodded as a way of reply. She looked to the bed and in a single motion was already crawling across it. She fell onto it and turned to face the wall away from me. One of her hands padded the space next to her. “Breck, could you stay with me for awhile? I don’t want to be alone.” She said softly, almost shyly.

  I smiled and stood up and moved over to the bed and lay down next to her on my back. No sooner had I started to get comfortable than I felt one of Bast’s hands reach across me and grab my hand. She pulled my arm around her causing me to roll to my side and spoon with her. She held my hand interlaced within hers.

  We lay there a moment before Bast spoke. “Thank you.” She whispered and I let my head slide until it touched the back of hers. She smelled wonderfully of gunpowder, machine oil and sweat. Laying there with her was the most relaxed I had been since I was a child. And before I could contemplate it further I fell asleep.

  I felt a gentle rocking that stirred me from my slumber. I blinked my eyes open to see Bast hovering over me rocking me awake. “It’s time. Gotta get up. Come on you big lump it’s time to get up.” She said in a low tone as she continued to rock me awake.

  “I’m awake.” I said slowly blinking my eyes before bringing a hand over to rub them. Satisfied Bast moved sliding off the bed to her feet. I pushed myself up onto my hands before moving into a sitting position.

  Bast’s eyed me from a sidelong glance as if to really check if I was as I said awake. She walked over to two bundles and effortlessly grabbed one and tossed it on the bed. “We got presents from an Angel. It’s almost like Christmas in those old holo vids. I wonder why it was called christmas? I mean what was with all the gift giving?” She said curiously as she picked up the second bundle and dumped it out onto the bed.

  I blinked a few more times and coughed clearing my throat. “It was a religious holiday that was commercialized to get people to buy stuff they didn’t need for people who didn’t appreciate it.” I said taking a deep breath and moving off the bed.

  Bast watched me as I moved around the bed to the bathroom. “Weird holiday.” She said as I stepped into the small room and closed the door. I first used the toilet feeling deeply relieved as I felt the pressure on my bladder lessen. I took the time to review the progress of the new A.I. shell. Everything was green across the board. It was ready to be merged with Anubis. I took a deep breath as I shook twice and confirmed that I wanted to proceed.

  I stripped everything off and turned on the shower letting the hot water build up before brushing my teeth with one of the provided disposable toothbrushes. I saw a new progress bar appear in my view. It was slowly ticking up to five percent before stalling.

  The process was going to take a little time. Once the update was applied the motes would have Anubis rerun all its stored combat data against the new protocols. Once that was done the progress bar would reach a hundred percent and I would get to see how it had changed my partner.

  I stepped into the shower letting the hot water rinse away the rest of my fatigue. I lathered up and rinsed off enjoying the clean feeling. I turned off the shower and towelled off grabbing one of the robes that hung on the hook and draped it around me.

  Opening the door I strode out tying off my robe allowing my mind a chance to focus and get into the game. I walked past Bast who had diligently laid out all her kit on half of the king size bed. She was diligently looking over each piece making sure she had what she needed.

  She looked up at me and smiled as she noticed that I had blindly grabbed the pink bathrobe. Whatever, I was man enough to admit I rock it. I reached down and grabbed my bag and placed it in front of me. I opened the top and peered inside.

  The first thing I saw was a piece of paper. I removed it and examined it. Written in beautiful scrawling handwriting read. “Breck, I asked Angel to include some personal items you left in my care some years ago. I hope that they will bring you luck in your heroes quest. Don’t die, I wouldn’t forgive you if you did. Libby.”

  I placed the letter off to the side and reached in to remove the included items. I found a pair of faded blue Lucky brand tactical deam jeans, a burgundy colored dress shirt with under armor, and a pair of dark blue boxer-briefs. It was the outfit I wore the last time we had been together.

  I had left it with her before my last mission as a Runner. A mission that had required a heavier bit of kit. I hadn’t even known that she had kept them. I repressed the tears I felt forming. Normally I would have let it fall but I needed to keep my head in the game.

  I sniffed and continued laying out the rest of the bag. Bast finished with her gear, took up a change of panties and an undershirt and went into the bathroom. With her gone I grabbed the boxer-briefs and slipped them on. They still fit. I followed it up with the jeans and the dress shirt. I left the shirt untucked and rolled up the sleeves to mid bicep. I didn’t want them to get in the way.

  The clothing was armored and would stop standard handgun rounds. I picked up my leather jacket and examined it but discarded it. It had taken far more abuse than I realized and I couldn’t trust it would do its job.

  I finished off by putting on the fresh pair of socks that was included and put my boots back on. It’s important on a run to wear footwear you’re familiar with. If your footing is off your game will be off.

  I grabbed my gun belt and laid it out front of me. I uncliped the ammo pouches and utility kit and put them off to the side. I took out my Taurus and inspected it. It needed a cleaning. I removed the splat rounds and broke open a quick clean kit Angel had included just for me.

  I plunged the barrel with an oxygenated compound designed to break up carbon and clean it out. It was followed up with another plunge brush that pushed out the goop and polished the barrel rifling. Then a quick spray of degreaser and a solid wipe down before applying oil back to the hammer and trigger assembly.

  Satisfied that my Taurus was ready to fight. I turned my attention to the ammo I had selected for this fight. I still had two speed loads of splat rounds with four speed loads of subsonic lead points. Angel had provided me with another two kits of four speed loads each of hollow points. And another kit of four speed loads of bolts.

  Bolt rounds were the ultimate expression of ‘I want you to die, horribly’. The round was a miniature grenade designed to explode only after penetrating flesh. It was a byproduct of the Corp war. Someone looking for ideas on how to better kill humans grifted the idea off of some old tabletop wargame.

  The .44 magnum was the smallest round capable of firing the horrible things. It is one of the reasons to carry a revolver in an age of plastic guns. It was always meant to be a last resort. But here and now it seemed as if I would need these rounds more than ever. But it still didn’t sit right with me.

  I clipped the ammo kits onto my belt in the order of need. I pushed the bolts to the back. I would only use them in an emergency. It was the lie I needed to tell myself to even clip them on to the belt. I added the kit of subsonics back on as a fall back in case I ran out of everything else.

  I picked up the utility kit and dumped it out. I picked up the kit Angel had provided me with and stuffed what I could from the used one into the fresh. The last kit I clipped on was a first aid pouch. It was mostly stimms and bandages but it would help.

  Lastly I added the grenades I had requested. Two of them, fragmentation, went onto my belt. Two more , flashbangs, slotted into a grenade pouch around my left thigh. The last two, smoke I slotted in front of the frag. Once I had it adjusted I donned my gun belt and attached tension straps to my belt to keep it from falling off. Finally I holstered my Taurus.

  I was feeling ready for a fight. I double checked my ribs. I had taken so many other hits in the last day or so that I had forgotten about them. I had full range of motion with only a little pinching. The molecular machines had done their job and I was in fighting shape.

  My attention was grabbed by the blinking progress bar as it jumped from twenty-eight percent to seventy-five then to hundred. Curious, I checked on my own process management tab and noticed that Anubis had leveraged some of my unused processing power to aid in his training. That was a bit scary but a smart move.

  Shifting into my head space I watched as the last of the new data was integrated; Anubis came online. “Systems check.” I heard reverberate in my mind. “Warning, systems have suffered a ten percent degradation. Trauma implant offline; degradation severe. Combat status, in standby mode.” Anubis checked off for me.

  Anubis spoke again as his power up diagnostics were mostly out of the way. “It has been six years, three months, and fourteen days since last activation. Warning, upgrade detected. Upgrade exceeded seventy-five percent of original code. New A.I. designation required.”

  I blinked a couple of times in shock. The update had been larger than I had realized. Applying it all at once had triggered an identity crisis in my old pal.

  A.I.’s unlike people are all code. If you update them a little at a time they mostly remain who they are as they can integrate the new decision trees over time. That is what feeding them all the data is for, to train them to use it. Then when encountering new situations the A.I. will learn to rely on the new pathways more and more.

  But if you update them with a big enough patch, as I did, it’s too many changes at once. To many new pathways to follow. It isn’t just the new protocols and decision trees but all the updated tools and features that came from the base code update as well.

  The A.I. is forced to try the new features to learn what they can do. Because they have to do this multiple times, several billion or so, it drastically changes the learned behavior. This was why Anubis had to leverage my processing abilities to complete his update. I had forced him to change everything he knew.

  The closest analogy would be to permanently alter memories of a human. And we know how dangerous that can be. Luckily A.I.’s tend to be better equipped to deal with it than we are.

  I thought for a moment and a name came to me. “Osiris.” I confirmed. My A.I. accepted the designation. Instantly my heads up display came alive. I had access to more of myself than anytime in the last six years. It felt like coming home. I knew somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew I was going to need all of my abilities to deal with Tommy.

  I felt the threads of consciousness rejoin and my mind felt whole again. I had Osiris list all my capabilities and one listing caught my eye, the Judgment of Anubis. The title was a bit theatrical but I knew myself and it was a slight needling from my subconscious.

  I selected the system and read over the instructions I had provided myself. In basic parlance the system was integrated into my VR and Hard Light systems. By using a VR or Hard Light weapon and striking a node capable individual I could create a psychosomatic reaction in the target equivalent to the weapon used. Slash with a sword across the stomach the target will feel the cut and their body will express a semblance of the damage received.

  The damage to the body would be painful but not necessarily life threatening, but it would feel that way. This was a weapon that would break the mind before it broke the body. But it was untested, and the belief that the damage was real could be enough to stop the heart or break the mind permanently. I would have to be careful in its use until I understood what it could do.

  I was feeling ready. Bast exited the shower looking clean and fresh rocking a blue robe that engulfed her. I smiled and she shot me a devilish look before stripping it off and started to dawn her own clothing that Angel had provided at my request.

  Leaving Bast to her preparations. I moved out of the room and headed to D.D.’s room. I was granted entry and I moved to her side. I ran a light finger across her bruised and swollen forehead moving some stray hair away. I leaned down and kissed the top of her head gently.

  I toyed with the idea about logging in and talking to her just in case I didn’t come back. But I didn’t want her to worry. Libby would take good care of her should things go south. Perhaps that made me a coward. But I wanted her last memory of me to be of my last visit. A good one she could hold onto.

  I stood up readying myself to go down stairs and marshall the troops when a notification appeared in my visual range. “I love you too dad. Be safe, D.D..” Of course she knew. Libby had probably told her knowing I wouldn’t. It wasn’t a betrayal, she was only looking out after D.D. and I.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44