Killer Cyborg
Cyrgan persuaded me to put on a headset and go into cyberspace with him. He needed me to question an encrypted program he has found hidden inside Kitten's cyborg memory. He can't do the questioning himself, so he says, because he has to keep tight control over the program once we take it out of its box. Begrudgingly I agreed. Cyrgan asked me to get a photo of the program once it is opened, which I did. At first I appeared as myself, interrogating it and then Cyrgan made me appear as Kitten, lost and with forgotten memory, asking his help. He told us he had instructed Katha to let (Kitten) live, before he sussed that I wasn't actually her, when he tried to hack me.
Cyrgan recognised the photograph of the encrypted persona locked inside Kitten's subconciousness implant as James Morgan, a major player, the designer of all these androids, high up in the echelons of Gemini. He lives on Mars where Katha has come from.
Cyrgan recognised the photograph of the encrypted persona locked inside Kitten's subconciousness implant as James Morgan, a major player, the designer of all these androids, high up in the echelons of Gemini. He lives on Mars where Katha has come from.
I jacked out because I found all this confusing and upsetting and difficult to deal with. Before I had time to de-stress, ISP cops were knocking the door. Cyrgan had given me his gun when he took Katha's weapons and it seemed natural, with the cops busting the door down and seeing all these remains of cyborg killing machines laying around all over the place, to start shooting first before they could retire us.
The ISP cops move too fast, they're cyber-augmented and my meat-nerve-reflexes can't compete. Before the cops could react, our front window went through and both of them were nailed by a sniper.
With a single leap Cyrgan wrestled me to the floor behind the sofa, while Katha number two came bouncing into the room through the window having finished off the ISP cops. I hit panic-fear response again just like last time I encountered Katha except for now, I had learned to see her as just a machine, nothing to be too scared of. For sure she can kill me before I can blink but she hadn't done that already, so while she and Cyrgan talked about how Katha required something from us, I figured we had a bigger bartering chip here than I would have guessed.
My adrenaline became clarity, that creepy, emotionless, mathematical strategic headspace that has recently developed through stress peak from the seed of my streetwalk mindset; detachment from body while punter does whatever. I told Katha in no uncertain terms where the ground lay now that she has killed two ISP cops and is asking us for help. Just simply to screw her I told her Cyrgan might already have deleted the file she needs, enjoying rubbing it in. This bitch bust my foot up last time we met and I was lucky to hop away from it.
Katha began as a cyborg but she went too far. Now 'it' is just a robot, emotionless killer with no redeeming features; totally out for itself, killing to achieve those ends. It deserves to feel hatred and fear, if this is the only near-human emotion left in it, then something better than nothing, than a machine mindlessly dealing death. No not mindless; Katha is cruel. Last time we met she enjoyed toying with her prey. So now the tables have turned; I wanted her to feel remorse, and suffering, and to kneel at my street-grime encrusted bare feet and lick them for a few short glory seconds before she punched my head in like she did last time.
My adrenaline became clarity, that creepy, emotionless, mathematical strategic headspace that has recently developed through stress peak from the seed of my streetwalk mindset; detachment from body while punter does whatever. I told Katha in no uncertain terms where the ground lay now that she has killed two ISP cops and is asking us for help. Just simply to screw her I told her Cyrgan might already have deleted the file she needs, enjoying rubbing it in. This bitch bust my foot up last time we met and I was lucky to hop away from it.
Katha began as a cyborg but she went too far. Now 'it' is just a robot, emotionless killer with no redeeming features; totally out for itself, killing to achieve those ends. It deserves to feel hatred and fear, if this is the only near-human emotion left in it, then something better than nothing, than a machine mindlessly dealing death. No not mindless; Katha is cruel. Last time we met she enjoyed toying with her prey. So now the tables have turned; I wanted her to feel remorse, and suffering, and to kneel at my street-grime encrusted bare feet and lick them for a few short glory seconds before she punched my head in like she did last time.
Only she didn't. Instead she eyed me shrewdly as she realised I am Cyrgans agent now, and she will have to go through me before any deals are done. Katha had a car downstairs and the two of them, Katha two and Cyrgan, lugged Kitten and Katha one, still offline, into it with their technologically expanded musclature, before any more ISP showed up. The cops are from Gemini Corp who own InSilico. Katha took us to the spaceport because using the beam for direct travel to Mars is too dangerous given who we are and what we are mucked up in. She needs to get back there with the persona encrypted into Kitten, so she has got a freighter on the week-haul at standby. Space travel the good old fashioned way.
At the spaceport I delayed things. I was still in screw mode, grilling Katha for any sign of human response, and I was having reservations about the whole trip. A week alone with Cyrgan hacking these droids and he will be able to extract the info from them, no worries about that. But it would leave me locked in a box with Katha for conversation and that idea is something I am having trouble with.
Standing at this junction place, listening to the background sounds of rain and tannoy glitching incomprehensible and oscilating synthetic fem-tones, I took a deep breath and looked at my options.
These guys are cyborgs of varying degrees. Katha is pretty much all gone, pure machine now. Cyr still has some humanity in him, he still enjoys sex and he appears to care about me. We debate philosophy, he teaches me. While being the ultimate techno-head, implanted and chipped; he looks up to me as a symbol of humanity, in a world where that is an increasingly rare commodity. At least he helps me feel it is a commodity and not something to be ashamed of compared with the upgraded castes. What is the nature of Human?
Survival response, gut instinct; to stay InSilico, set myself up legitimately as a dancer as I had planned thanks to Cyrgans encouragement to get me to stop hooking. Go directly to Gemini and sell out Cyrgan and Katha, to clear my own name, perhaps make some money in the process. Put in a good word for Cyrgan because he is the expert in hacking this particular systm and they would likely employ him rather than kill him.
Suicide bid, follow the thoughts these guys are pushing onto me and go with their flow; continue getting chased by Gemini soldiers and cyborg assassins until they kill us. The data retrieval really has nothing to do with me. Technology creeps me out. Cyborgs creep me out. Don't want to end up like them.
Romantic answer; go with Cyrgen.
Head Heart and Guts.
What would you do?
I kissed Cyr for the last time and I told him he has a sleeping persona inside of him that he doesn't know about, who I slept with already. And I walked away.
On the other side of the door I planned my next move; go tell Gemini everything. And then, it was a blur of emotion and tears. I was back in Cyr's arms. We were striding. The ship was in. We both said a lot of meaningless and forgotten gush and we kissed again. In retrospect, this is where I fucked up.
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