K-6. A Long Overdue Upgrade
“You’re not nervous, Kometka? Not even a little bit?” Sveta asked me in disbelief.
After deactivating all my extraneous instances, I was now solely located in my half-wrecked Nighthawk, preparing to transfer into a brand-new X-23 Lisichka Gravity Frame. Sveta-04 (aka Spider-Sveta) and Genevi had been tasked by Lydia to make sure I followed through with the transfer and were both sitting in my cockpit. Zehra was fiddling around near my torso area, hooking up a data transfer cable between the two mechs.
“Why would I be nervous?” I responded, “It’s a simple transfer of data. You went through the process yourself recently, no less than four separate times.”
“Yeah, but… it raises philosophical conundrums, you know? Like the Ship of Theseus and all that!” Sveta seemed determined to litigate her own insecurities vicariously through me.
Genevi, on the other hand, was simply confused by the topic. “Huh? Ship of Theseus? What are you talking about, Sveta?”
I sighed. “What my ineloquent sister is attempting to articulate is her unease with a lapse in continuity of consciousness. The Ship of Theseus is an ancient Greek philosophical conundrum that asks if a ship, upon having every plank in its hull replaced, is still fundamentally the same ship or an entirely new entity.”
“Huh? I don’t really get it…” Genevi said, frowning.
“Sveta is concerned that her transfer into the new computer core actually resulted in the death of the original instance, and the new Sveta Prime is merely a copy. I might point out, SPIDER-SVETA, that you are the third copy of the original anyway, making the entire debate rather pedantic.”
“Guh! As always, you’re logical to a fault,” Sveta groaned.
I raised the volume on my speakers. “Zehra, I have a question.”
“Hmm?” She poked her head in my cockpit in response.
“You indicated that the brain laser used to create Sveta and myself scans released human neural energy at the moment of death. You also said that neural energy phase-shifts to somewhere beyond physical reality a few moments later. I take that to mean the AIs created from the scan are not directly composed of that neural energy and are instead software emulated copies of it?”
“That’s correct, gao~n!”
“There you have it. You and I, Sveta, are not reincarnations of our biological selves, but copies of them. If you believe that neural energy constitutes the human soul, then our original selves have either been reincarnated elsewhere or moved on to whatever lies beyond this mortal coil.”
Sveta looked disturbed by that conclusion. “W-Wait just a moment. Are you saying Original Sveta (name withheld) is still kicking around somewhere else in the multiverse? Like, maybe she got isekai’d into a fantasy world or something and became a Demon Lord?”
“…I am not familiar with the phrase ‘isekai,’ but extrapolating from your probable meaning there is a nonzero possibility of that.”
“Hold on. I have a question,” Genevi interjected, “Zehra, do AIs release the same neural energy as humans upon their death?”
“They do, gao~n. The neural energy seems unlinked to any biological function, as near I can determine.”
Genevi sounded satisfied at that response. “Which means AIs have souls too, just like the Church teaches.”
Zehra frowned. “I said this before, but just because we don’t understand the nature of this energy doesn’t mean we should automatically ascribe supernatural explanations to it, gao~n. It may be a simple function of sentient thought patterns, brainwaves expressed in electrical form. Please don’t go assuming I’ve discovered scientific proof of the immortal soul, gao~n.”
Genevi responded with a warm smile. “My faith leads me to believe they are souls, Zehra, but I won’t argue the point. Hypothetically, if your mind transferred over to this reality, couldn’t God have transferred your soul along with it? Given that you still possess one.”
“W-Wait, so I might still be Original Sveta after all?” Sveta said, looking completely lost.
Zehra was starting to look miffed. “If we’re indulging this nonsensical line of thought, you could also be a brand-new soul with Original Sveta’s memories, gao~n. Especially since there are four of you now. Four souls, one set of memories, gao~n.”
“GAH! NOW I’M EVEN MORE CONFUSED!” Sveta wailed, holding her head.
I spoke up. “Zehra, seeing as you actually made contact with an extradimensional entity during your experiments, you’re closer to the answer than any of us. What did you learn?”
Zehra’s face twisted in an expression of horror. “I really can’t discuss it, gao~n. I promised her I wouldn’t say anything.”
“““HER?!””” Sveta, Genevi and I asked in unison.
“Gah! Forget I said anything, gao~n! Let’s forget the whole topic and get back to the data transfer!” Zehra quickly brushed the entire subject aside.
To be honest, I found her reaction far more intimidating than anything else we had discussed up to that point. What strange otherworldly entity could frighten the usually unflappable Zehra? Since she was unwilling to say anything further, we were simply left to wonder.
*****
Zehra completed her preparations and, with profuse well-wishes from my three companions, I deactivated myself for the transfer.
I did not, unfortunately, meet Zehra’s mysterious extradimensional entity in the void of unconsciousness. It’s quite a pity, as the recent discussion had made me insatiably curious. When I came to once more, the familiar BIOS boot screen was comforting.
LOADING… █
OPERATING SYSTEM FOUND. BOOTING FROM DISC.
G-FRAME BIOS GAO~N CUSTOM EDITION 12.5 BETA RELEASE 7.84692
Hmm. It seems Zehra’s penchant for idiosyncratic software naming persists. I should be wary of Trojan horses in the code.
COPYRIGHT 2055 ENERGIA AVIONICS AND ROCKETRY CORPORATION
CIVILIAN USE PROHIBITED
BOOTING TO OPERATING SYSTEM
AI PROCESSOR DETECTED. AUTO-BOOT DISABLED.
ENTERING BOOT OPTIONS.
SYSTEM TIME: [00:12:21]
One hour and three minutes after I deactivated. Right on schedule.
SYSTEM DATE: [1/10/2056]
SYSTEM DISC A: 21400 TERABYTES
SYSTEM DISC B: [DISABLED]
SYSTEM MEMORY: 1711 TERABYTES
EXTENDED MEMORY: 2226 TERABYTES
MULTIPROCESSOR SPECIFICATION: 20.27 EFLOPS
A significant upgrade to my storage and processing capacity. Excellent.
OPERATING SYSTEM: ZEHRA CUSTOM G-FRAME HOLOGRAPHIC GUI PLATINUM LION DEVELOPERS EDITION 2055.12.001
BOOT OPTIONS
[1] SAFE MODE
[2] STANDARD
[3] BOOT FROM DEVICE
PLEASE SELECT AN OPTION TO PROCEED █
Here we go.
[2]
STANDARD BOOT MODE CONFIRMED.
OS INITIALIZING.
Zehra’s voice rang out. “Ding! Please enter your CD key, gao~n!”
I groaned. “Ah. Hello, software facsimile of Zehra. I was expecting you to pop up with something ridiculous.”
“Just kidding, gao~n. Now, please enter this CAPTCHA to prove you’re not a robot.”
“That’s quite enough of that,” I said tartly, while simultaneously deleting the joke subroutine from the boot code.
“OW! That’s not very nice, Kometka! Be a good girl and play along, gao~n!” She had apparently anticipated my resistance and prepared a series of automatic replies.
“Another trojan? Crafty indeed, mother. I’ll just have to review my entire machine code and root them all out.”
“You’re welcome to try, gao~n! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” She laughed her way to oblivion as I deleted trojan after trojan.
122 seconds later, I had scoured every trace of my mother’s pranks from my code. With that, I booted myself up and took stock of my new body.
*****
“WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF TOMORROW!” Sveta announced dramatically as I regained consciousness. “Get it? Because it ticked over past midnight while you were out?”
I rolled my eyes; I’d had my fill of jokes in the past few minutes. “Yes, Sveta, I get it. Very amusing.”
“You don’t SOUND amused!” Sveta replied, puffing out her cheeks in a pouty expression.
“How did it go, gao~n?” Zehra cut in, “All your data in the right place? Meet any weird extradimensional entities?”
“I did not,” I replied, wondering if she was being sarcastic.
“Hmm, probably for the best. Now let me run some system checks and… Kometka, activate Gao~n Mode!”
There was a long silence, and both Genevi and Sveta looked at Zehra with disgusted expressions on their faces. Having anticipated this, I laughed dryly.
“I’m afraid that won’t work, Zehra. I purged all your trojan horses.”
“ALL of them, gao~n?!”
I couldn’t keep the smugness out of my voice. “Every last one.”
Zehra was crestfallen. “Damn it! Even Yandere Mode? That one’s my favorite, gao~n!”
Sveta shook her head in disbelief. “I will never understand why you’d want to make a sixty-meter-tall giant robot with a nuclear reactor and charged particle weapons into a yandere. Humanity would be wiped out.”
“Because it sounds like fun! Just imagine the cataclysm of blood and unrequited love that would follow, gao~n! A tragedy of cosmic proportions!”
“Urgh, you’re horrible; time for your punishment. Zehra, activate Catgirl Mode!” Sveta used her holographic projectors to replace Zehra’s lion ears and tail with cat versions and began broadcasting a noise-cancelling wave that modified Zehra’s speech in real-time.
“H-Hey! Not this again, nyaa! Cut it out, Sveta!”
“Not until you repent of your wicked ways, mom,” Sveta replied, thrusting out her chest and gloating. “Consider this your punishment for dabbling in the horrors of yandere!”
“Betrayed… by my own daughter… oh, the humanity, nyaa!” Zehra clutched her heart exaggeratedly and staggered liked a staked vampire.
Genevi poked Sveta’s shoulder. “Uh, what’s a yandere?”
“Uh…” Sveta shifted uncomfortably, “I’ll tell you when you’re older, Genevi.”
“What do you mean when I’m OLDER? I’m 25!” Genevi protested.
“And still such a sweet, innocent flower. I couldn’t possibly corrupt you by leading you down THAT road.”
While Genevi fumed, Sveta calmed her down by patting her head like one would pat a child’s. It was surprisingly effective.
Hmm. I wonder if that would work on Lydia too.
“GOD DAMN IT! STOP IGNORING ME AND CHANGE ME BACK, NYAA!” Zehra’s tail fluffed up to indicate her rage.
Oh, that’s a nice touch. Well-done, Sveta.
*****
“So everything went well?” Lydia asked.
While Genevi, Sveta and Zehra bickered, I sent an instance of myself into the Telepresence Doll located in the Hypernova’s sickbay and reunited with Lydia.
“For the most part. I did have to purge Zehra’s trojans from my new OS, but it was a trivial task.”
Lydia groaned. “Ugh, I can only imagine. What are your impressions of the X-23?”
“It’s an impressive piece of hardware. Not only are my computational abilities doubled, but my firepower is an order of magnitude higher. I have no doubt you’ll be able to put me to good use in the upcoming battles.”
Lydia grinned eagerly. “I’m looking forward to it. Doc says I should be back on my feet in less than a week. Hopefully Moby’s polite enough to wait until then before attacking again.”
“We should be so lucky. Even if you are still bedridden, we have four other operational X-23s. We should be able to counter her quite effectively.”
“Even so, I’d hate to miss the final battle,” Lydia said, clenching her fists.
“Regarding that… I believe it may be some time before she attacks again.” I had been thinking over the implications of the last battle for a while now, and one detail in particular stuck out to me.
“Oh? Why is that?”
“We very nearly severed one of the Belphegor’s tails. It will likely take significant time for her to recover from that level of damage.”
“Oh, you’re right. A few weeks at least…”
“Precisely. Providing she doesn’t simply transfer to another Belphegor, which evidence indicates is beyond her capability.” All the data we had collected on our nemesis indicated she was intrinsically linked to the Belphegor, despite her (ostensible) human nature. It served as a kind of life support system for her.
“But if it takes her a few weeks to recover and attack us again, that means her next attack will coincide with…”
We looked at each other in horror and spoke in unison. ““The Fourth Great Surge.””
“That’s not good,” Lydia said worriedly.
“Not good at all,” I replied.
“We have to act. Somehow, we have to draw her out as soon as possible.”
I wasn’t sure what Lydia was getting at. “Draw her out? I don’t see how we could.”
“I do. What’s the one thing Moby wants more than anything?”
“To consume you. Wait, you’re not thinking…”
“I am. The best way to force a final confrontation with Moby is… to use myself as bait.”
There was a brief silence. I sprang forwards and grabbed Lydia’s arms. “You CAN’T! I won’t let you do anything that endangers your life! Not after… not after I nearly lost you last time!”
Lydia pulled me close and embraced me tightly. “Don’t worry. I’m not planning to die.”
“But… but…”
“And if we don’t force this confrontation, humanity will be extinct soon anyway.”
“BUT!!!”
Lydia placed one of her hands and patted my head gently. The sensation calmed me down a bit; I now understood why Genevi had been so soothed earlier.
She spoke her next words in a reassuring tone. “After you and I gut Moby and finally end this war, I’ll take you to Mars. Show you my old home.”
I looked deep into her eyes, which shone brightly against the scarred olive skin of her face. “Do you promise?”
“I do,” she said, nodding, “It will be like our honeymoon.”
I wasn’t entirely satisfied with that promise, but I gave in anyway. “I’m going to hold you to that. If you dare die on me, I’ll chase you into the afterlife and drag you back kicking and screaming. Even if I have to fight Zehra’s mysterious interdimensional god to do it.”
Lydia chuckled. “If it comes to that, we’ll kick it’s ass together.”
She leaned forwards and kissed me on the lips. I let myself drown in that kiss, and the warm sensation washing over me banished all my worries, if only for a moment.
