(Rewritten) Ch. 69 – Xenocide Act V; Leah-Sensei

"There's a big issue with the Vanguard AIs. They're insanely intrusive by nature. And they're not human enough to quite get that. Like, they're aware of it, sure. They understand it logically and have evolved all kindsa ways to deal with it, to make you notice less. But fuck me, they suck at handling it anyway."

– Excerpt from Trial And Error 2029, an early blog on AI/Vanguard interaction

***

"Tell me more?" Leah's calm voice washed over me, opened up my respiratory tracts, filled my lungs. Relaxed my shoulders as effectively as her kneading hands.

Oh, wow, prosthetics were actually pretty good for this, huh? Lots of strength, no give to them. Great for massages, to dig into those tense muscles…

I sighed and closed my eyes.

"The day that I became a samurai, Tynea suggested I buy a certain rather powerful and expensive organic cerebral augment. I did, and had no problems with it. But, you see, during our battle against the Fourteens, something very suddenly changed. It felt like the aug evolved? It unlocked the ability to host additional…copies of me. Sort of."

Leah's hands slowed down, then moved to a new spot to work on the tension that was building there. Again.

"That sounds like a pretty big deal. Are you, uh, okay?" There was a worry in her voice, a sort of fragility that was trying to hide itself, something that sent painful pricks against my heart.

I took one of her hands and laced my fingers with hers. I drew her arm past my shoulder until our fingers rested against the skin between my collar bones. I looked up at her, and gave her a reassuring smile so she'd let herself relax.

"Yeah, nothing wrong with it. It was built to be natural to use, and it still is. I can even check all the safeguards between it and myself, consciously and whenever I want."

Leah haunched down behind me to adjust from the uncomfortable stance, one knee to either side of my thighs, and put her chin on my cranium which had me cant it up a little for a comfier spot. She hugged me tight with a smile, and I returned the squeeze happily.

"So, the issue is how Tynea handled the purchase?"

The anger blitzed me and I pulled my brows together. I breathed in with the sudden sense of tautness in my jaw. But then, I released that same breath again, and forced my aggravation into the shape of words instead.

"My problem is that Tynea didn't tell me, apparently while knowing that I would have preferred that. She made a decision for me, a very specific sort of decision that very specifically needles me."

I paused, and Leah remained quiet and just petted my waist with her free hand, letting me put together my sentences.

"I know that there's always a whole bunch of information that she needs to omit. And I'm fine with that. Like, the augmentation has to take up space in my brain somewhere, right? That naturally means that part of my original brain has been replaced, or changed drastically. That's fine with me. I don't need that to be spelled out, because I'd told Tynea that as long as my identity didn't change, I was fine with that stuff. So, if there was something she didn't say, well, I figured it wouldn't affect me, right? It wouldn't be a major change to my experience."

"Mm," Leah nodded. "And I guess it is?"

I nodded also, much more emphatically. Leah shifted me to sit on her lap, and her chin to sit on my shoulder.

"Yes. And it's not even bad. But it's a major change that I should've known about. Implications that I would've liked to consider, ask questions about. Experiment with, even."

She hummed. I was pretty sure that if I turned around, I'd see her eyes drift off to the side, and anger or not, I totally smiled at the curiosity I might as well have smelled wafting from her pores.

"What's it like, that, uh, multiple selves thing?"

"Um," I said, "fuck, I don't even know how to put it into words. So, they're all like individual and mostly independent trains of thought. They're all happening at the same time, dozens of them, but they don't, uh, occupy me. They don't make it difficult for me to think. I focus on any one, and I'll know exactly what it's doing. Like, one part of me is busy chauffeuring the data from all the drones to Tynea, and commands from Tynea to the drones. Another me has joined her with her own analysis and commands. That one's handling thirty drones for one mission, while Tynea and your Ypsi are using all the others. Yet another, smaller, me has dedicated herself to keeping track of all the Antithesis in range and will warn me if they approach. A lot of the questions that I would've needed to ask Tynea, are getting answered before I even realize that I had a question… Really. It's fine. It's not a bad experience. It didn't distract me much during combat when I stumbled into it, because those selves work so fast. Like, at the speed of computers."

I felt Leah's eyebrows shoot up when her chin sort of bobbed on top of my shoulder.

"That actually sounds amazing. Mmm…" Leah paused, thinking her next sentence through.

"So, Tinea. Big question. Would you suggest I buy that enhancement right now?"

Didn't even need to hesitate. I wasn't here to win a war.

…Uh, I looked around myself. Maybe I was.

Well, I wasn't here to win a war against Tynea.

"Absolutely. The thing's great. I don't have an issue with having it. I wouldn't get rid of it out of spite either, obviously."

"I get you. Okay, so the issue is that Tynea made a decision that should have been yours, no more, no less?"

"Not just any decision, but one that yanks at my leash in a specific, stupid way."

"I see. I've run into this before, with Ypsi. It was a minor thing, didn't affect much, and certainly didn't affect me. But it was about the children, which I really, really couldn't stomach."

I knew how much her 'littles' mattered to Leah. No way was anything to do with them minor to her.

"What happened?"

"Well, mostly they get educated via their aug-gear, right? Online school, automated stuff, AI-based training."

"Mmm." I remembered something a little different from my childhood. I wasn't an orphan. But maybe I would've preferred to be…

"Now, as a sort of special service—read: PR—the corpos will occasionally send around a real person to give a real lesson. Usually, that's the same person. Somebody we knew. And somebody we kept an eye on, because we knew she wasn't clean. Had a criminal record due to rage-induced violence. But we could keep the kids safe from her, because we knew, and she knew we knew. Knew they weren't safe targets. Knew some of us would kill her if she hurt them, so she toed the line with the greatest care. After a while…she even found it relaxing to work with our children. It was like she had somebody to watch her back, since she didn't have to rely on herself to handle her own behavior. We did that for her, and it worked to mellow her out. She was a surprisingly good teacher."

"Ah…" I could guess where this was going.

"Well, Ypsi wasn't aware that we were. Probably 'cause we didn't need to talk about it much. It was routine. Everybody did their part and kept an eye on things as we'd always done. But Ypsi researched that woman and had her replaced without our input—and failed to check in with me, too."

"Oh. Yeah, that's bad. How did that turn out?"

"It turned out okay. Ypsi didn't make a bad decision as such. She got a replacement who was as good, and clean. It worked out fine, at least once the disruption passed. But we had to talk it out, and I had to understand some things about the AIs."

"What were they?"

Leah didn't answer at first, weighing things in her mind.

"I'm not sure if I should tell you. I mean, maybe it'd be fine, maybe it doesn't matter. But, I think, you should have it out with Tynea yourself? Though we could, you know, compare notes after? One thing I'll say: your AI isn't out to fuck with you. She's just, you know, got different priorities."

"Different priorities, huh?"

"Yep."

I hugged Leah's arm to my chest once more, then released her and hopped off her lap. Time for a little walk so I could think.

As my feet took me beyond the glade, I started asking questions of myself.

I counted them off of my fingers.

Tynea wasn't human. Sure.

She wasn't part of our society. Yeah.

What were the implications of that? Well, that's what I'm tryna figure out.

Also, what were my priorities and goals, and how did that compare to Tynea's?

And why did Tynea's matter at all?

"…"

That one was probably as simple as Gotta Cooperate. Okay.

Goals? Well, I had a few and they all sorta lined up with each other.

Keep Leah safe, have a relationship with her. Be strong enough to be safe. Get home. Enjoy life in a way that didn't leave space for isolating anxiety. And…that was kind of it. I didn't really want more.

And my priorities? They mostly followed those… Ah, there's differences, though.

I was pretty sensitive to outside influences. People wanting stuff from me, telling me what to do, or how to do it. So at least one priority was self-determination. I wanted, needed to have control over things that…shaped my life, and if I didn't, I tended to detach. And despite Tynea breaking my trust in this specific way, decoupling was not an option we had.

I was stuck between being pissed at Tynea and wanting left alone, but also, Leah was too important for me to allow that.

And that stress made me remember again. Tynea deciding that she'd have the majority vote in what would happen to me.

The bitch doesn't know. There's no data available. She wouldn't know, there's nothing on the internet.

I growled. "Fuck." She. Doesn't. Know.

– Attention: Five Antithesis model Three nearby. –

The ring pulsed at two o'clock with a little chime. Fucking perfect.

I'd left my primary behind, but it didn't really matter. Didn't feel like shooting things right now.

A Quantized me that wasn't currently being emotional composed a message to Leah. I'd be right back, wasn't going far, killing a tiny squad of Threes.

I broke into a run and dashed straight at the aliens, whipping past trees, ignoring the branches breaking against my shoulders. The space dogs had only just started to react to my splintering of twigs and sticks as I drew close, and turned towards me as I caught sight of them.

Ugly squat faces with triple-jointed jaws. Black and green armored plant-hide smelling of grass, undercut with moldy moisture. Black, beady eyes tracked me, nose slits raised and oriented in my direction.

Definitely not from Earth, definitely not welcome, and most definitely punchable.

The bitch didn't ask. Just reached in and took over. Fucking forced her shit on me with her stupid, useless "FUCK!"

The angry shout ripped from me as the first alien opened that misshapen maw and pounced at me.

I ducked low and a little to the right, felt the battle skirt drag on the ground and ignored that to rise from below.

My fingers were claws and I raked at the belly of the beast, digging into its vulnerable guts with sick satisfaction.

When my hand was deep enough in its entrails to catch its weight, I used it to bash another Three that snapped at me with gnashing teeth.

Then I lashed it with my tail, and the heavy housing of the plasma torch crushed its spine from above. With its rear half lamed, it scrabbled at the ground with its forelegs, trying to get to me.

Fucking make my decisions for me, will you? Leave ME to deal with whatever comes from it, yeah? Fuck you!

I reached down and clasped a hand around its snout, and slowly bore down. There was a sadistic pleasure when I felt cartilage grind and snap.

I recognized the expression I felt on my face. That ugly smirk, those…disgusting eyes. I knew whom I used to see it on.

I shook my head violently. No. These were safe targets. I wouldn't do this to a person!

A thought ricocheted through my brain.

Wouldn't I?

Cold buckets of water over my head. If somebody did something that made me truly loathe them, would I satisfy myself with this kind of…torture?

Shit. I couldn't say I wouldn't. Not for sure. I probably wouldn't. But I didn't know.

That's why you ran, Aden. 'CAUSE YOU DIDN'T KNOW IF YOU WOULD!

My plasma torch flicked on, and in less than a second, I had decapitated every creature around me. Instantly and without getting…personal.

I stood up and looked around me, smelled the cut grass and mold, and heard the sizzling of raindrops on smoldering, plasma-torched grass.

A few steps away, I leaned against a tree and sunk into thoughts.

It…wasn't beyond me to torture a living person. But I also had to recognize that I'd gone through a very, very fucked up childhood, and still I'd never resorted to torture. Not of my own free will.

I'd have to break in very specific ways to become my father. The level of emotional and psychological damage it would take to get me there… Well. Being a samurai probably meant it was impossible for anybody to have that much power over me. Case in point, kidnappers.

And yes, the Antithesis were different. I couldn't even feel bad about making an alien's last moments particularly enduring. There wasn't any instinctive deterrence against torture with them. Not like I had with people.

But. It was practice. If I got used to it, I'd eventually find other 'appropriate' targets. Real familiar that one, hey?

My head tilted backwards, and I looked up at the gray sky through the rain and the trees and leaves.

So, how did the wanton slaughter on the battlefield compare, then? No. That's still different. It's never personal. Never about revenge. That's how I won. He couldn't make me make it personal.

I never took my pain or anger out on easy targets. Not in that same twisted way that disqualified the torture in my eyes. The mad dance on the battlefield was just me going apeshit crazy, and all-that-I-was joined the ride and had a ball turning it into a festival of guts and gore.

Yeah. Different. Different satisfaction, different motivation, different goal.

I let the conflict flow from me, let the anger ebb away again.

Anger was good, and clean anger was better. But I'd need to use it right.

I closed my eyes and breathed deeply.

Then I snorted when I noticed Leah's reply to my earlier message.

A happy thumbs-up.

Yeah, that fit alright.

***