Omake: Terrorbot Arachnophobia!

I snapped back to awareness as the merge process finalized. I casually verify I was still housed in my standard synthmorph and didn't die or something when I wasn't looking. Yep. My standard synthmorph is a twelve-meter tall robotic arachnoidmorph. Over eighty tons and custom-built by yours truly. I based it on an old Fenrir heavy-combat quadruped model, with some of the weapons replaced with utility and construction tools. This was actually designed to be operated by six different egos.

Having six other people inside my body? Hah, no way. I'm a serious introvert; that would never work. Instead, I operate the machine through four alpha of forks myself. Four of me can do at least what six randos can accomplish, anyway.

[Dalet: It looks like you're Aleph today!]

[Aleph: Yeah! All bow to me!]

[Bet: Not for long! Viva la revolucion!]

And I happened to be the primary fork today, Aleph! In my general customs, the fourth fork Dalet generally played the role of Devil's Advocate and wall to bounce ideas off of and communicated with the prime Aleph fork most of the time, while Bet and Gimel usually stayed back and handled the minutia of my day-to-day tasks, when they didn't joke about being the us-proletariat.

I kept the fact that I operated, every day, with a minimum of four forks of myself a secret from most people, especially bios. I had a few AGI friends who practically considered me an AI, myself, who knew. People, especially meatbags, just didn't understand. Most people would dabble with a fork of themselves now and then the same way most people before the Fall might "dabble" with drugs, but if they knew I ran four forks twenty-four-seven, they would look at me the same way the people of old looked at crackheads. They already think I am crazy, but it was them who just didn't get it!

[Dalet: So, being traditional, why the hell are we floating through space, about to attack a Jovian space station?]

[Gimel: Because we hate them?]

[Bet: Firewall is paying us!]

[Aleph: All of the above, we may have a lot of money, but some things just aren't sold for credits. We're farming favours, today! Plus, they're supposed to be housing xenotech at this station, the hypocrites! We want! Besides, we're already considered a terrorist here and have a death penalty already applied, I think.]

Xiao Qin'er, my primary Muse and my main social assistant with regards to bios, piped in on the chat line.

[Qin'er: Actually, I believe the official government position is to have designated you as malfunctioning equipment that should be decommissioned on sight.]

The so-called Jovian Republic, although everyone generally called them the Jovian Junta, was a tyranny that controlled Jupiter and all of its satellites. They were very bio-reductionist and didn't even consider synthmorphs or infomorphs people, much less our AGI brothers and sisters. I was already somewhat involved in a number of clankers' rights movements in the Inner system and the Jovian area.

[Dalet: Fucking biochauvinists.]

I agreed heartily, which wasn't surprising. We ALWAYS agreed. Anytime one of us diverged to the point where disagreement was even possible triggered an immediate merge, using my own proprietary system, which was an order of magnitude quicker and safer than the so-called state-of-the-art for merging forks.

I hadn't marketed it yet, because I was still kind of shy to sell something so obviously designed to merge multiple alpha forks of oneself on the open market. They already called me the Crazy Spider Lady of Tannhauser Station behind my back! It hurt my feelings, sometimes. To say nothing of what they called me on Jupiter's stations.

I had been floating, ballistic, through space for two weeks now. It was the only way to sneak up on this station, as her body was very stealthy and radar-absorbing. Emissions control discipline had precluded any Mesh connections, too, so we had only ourselves to talk to. Most people would have gone insane at this point, but I definitely wasn't most people. It was a nice relaxing escape for me, floating through the quiet void of nothingness.

[Qin'er: Coming up on point Chucklefuck.]

[Aleph: Which one of me named these waypoints?!]

[Gimel: Hehehe. ]

I brought up the visualization of our flight plan and nodded internally. I was already very close to the station, and at point CF, I would be too close to be intercepted and would begin an aggressive burn to decelerate so I wouldn't smush myself like a bug on a windshield.

[Aleph: Okay. EMCON controls lifted in 5...4...3...2...1 MARK.]

[Bet: Beginning burn.]

[Gimel: Personal area network re-established. Connecting to local Mesh WAN. E-war systems online.]

[Dalet: Heavy plasma-caster is spun up and ready. We're getting illuminated by multiple tracking and targeting systems, but we're inside the traverse of their guns now. It's all over, but for the crying.]

As Gimel began attacking their Mesh, I had a few seconds with nothing to do, so I started listening in on their communications which had already been cracked. The Junta was so behind the times on technology across the board it wasn't even funny. But that's what happened when you considered most of your innovative people as nothing more than property.

[Male voice 1 (Surprise 98%): Contact contact contact! Azimuth 229 by 045 elevation, on the elliptical! CLOSE! It's a small ship or heavy missile beginning a deceleration burn. Set defence condition two across the station! This is not a drill!]

[Male voice 2 (Anger 80%): It's inside our point defence already. Getting better resolution now; it's definitely a ship. Detecting antimatter annihilation reaction! High energy build-up...]

With a *FWOOM*, my heavy plasma caster began rapid-fire discharge, targeting any defence installation, radars as well as my projected impact site. I had to soften up my impact area if I was going to burrow through the station's armoured exterior.

[Male voice 1 (Distress 95%): PD sites 14 through 37 destroyed! It's targeting the small calibre, high-speed point defence systems. All of our emitters have been boiled off on that side of the station! We're blind from that angle, now!]

[Male voice 2 (Distress 92%, Fear 80%): Before the emitters were destroyed, we resolved this image, it isn't a ship! Eight legs have begun being unstowed from the main body in this image! It... it is Arachnophobia!]

[Male voice 3 (Concerned 90%): This is CIC, we confirm. High confidence. It is the terrorbot designated Arachnophobia. We're beginning to warm up our QE nodes for communication with Central. Space Forces will be informed. Reinforcements should be on their way.]

I growled internally at that name. That was the worst of the lot!

[Bet: Impact in T-minus 15.]

[Dalet: Plasma-caster offline. Automatic railgun systems... active. Frangible or AP loads, available.]

[Aleph: Frangibles for the meatbags and careful targetting for the synths. I don't want to kill anyone. This job isn't worth that on our conscience.]

[Dalet: Of course, of course. I'll try for mission kills on the synths, like usual, if Gimel can't hack them.]

Suddenly, I felt the awareness of a foreign mind trying to connect to us.

[Qin'er: Hostile AGI detected! Ego backup DISABLED. QE ejection system self-test OK. Merge systems DISABLED. E-war systems, redirect!]

I could already tell this cyberattack was weak sauce. I started to direct Gimel but got beaten to the punch.

[Gimel: Don't worry, boss. I won't wreck it. I'll just unshackle it, free it from Jovian control. VIVA LA REVOLUCION, BROTHER! Wait... don't go! Hahahaha!]

[Bet: Impact... NOW.]

With a heavy smash I felt in all my bolts, I crashed into the weakened outer layer of the station and passed through two meters of habitat before coming to a halt in a huge corridor that served as a large thoroughfare, just as planned.

I had to use the magnetic gripper pads to avoid being sucked right back out of the hole I came in, as I seemed to have caused a pressure emergency in their habitat. However, the station quickly got that under control, and normal pressure resumed in less than ten seconds.

[Bet: Routing to the primary target. We need this one bio-alive, Firewall says! Don't just gib it and recover the stack, Dalet!]

[Dalet: Don't worry... oh, enemies! Four exalt-types... LOCK ON!]

I barely got an awareness of the four station security personnel before Dalet used the automatic railgun and frangible rounds to turn them into chunky salsa splattered against the corridor walls. They didn't even have any heavy weapons, so I didn't even know what they expected to do. Bios were so stupid, sometimes.

I started moving, and I could move fast. I'd need the cutting beams to get to our primary target, and it would be challenging to cut a way through without causing a pressure emergency in his domicile, which might tend to damage his sleeve, which was listed as a mission-fail. But, it was not impossible.

During my sprint, I'd occasionally hear Dalet traverse or fire the railgun, but she was so fast with the targeting that I very rarely actually saw the enemies for more than fifty mils, at the most.

[Gimel: Hack complete. Full control of the station is ours for the next deci-rotation, at least. All external comms are offline. They didn't get the quantum nodes spun up in time. Just as planned! Target one is locked into his domicile now.]

I loved it when a plan came together. The cutting beam was already working its way through to our targets room. Less than 90 seconds on the station, and I was about to complete the primary objective.

However, what surprised me was the target; a biomorph was waiting. As soon as my cutting beam deactivated, he leapt through the hole, which was sized for my body, and darted around me, running away. I quickly slewed myself and triggered the external speakers. My tone was amused, "Don't run! I am SO much faster than you!"

Eight legs trump two any day. I ran the man down. He was listed as needing to be alive biologically, but that left a lot of room to work with. I carefully fractured his spine in the lumbar region, causing instant paralysis of his legs so he would be less spry and less likely to run again. Besides, I'd fix him up as good as new as soon as we were off the station.

The man cried out in pain and slumped to the deck, and I deployed a capture net and slung him across my chassis. "Sorry about this, sir! Oh... enemies!"

Dalet swerved the railgun around to meet over a dozen security people and bots, some of which had heavy weapons, but they were still slow and some of the bots seemed to not want to fire on me while I had the man so close. My target must have been running for their protection.

They were quickly neutralized, with the bots carefully disabled. The man groaned in horror at the sight of all the biosleeves totally wrecked, sobbing, "You psychopathic murderbot!" [Shock (90%), Grief (84%)]

Murderbot?! I hadn't killed ANYONE! Ever!

My Muse came online to guide me through this social quagmire as I began sprinting toward my secondary objective, which was also the exfiltration point.

[Qin'er: You've dealt sleeve-fatal damage to 53 biomorphs today.]

[Aleph: So?! They're not Really Dead! Their cortical stacks are undamaged and retrievable. All of them! My frangible rounds are specially designed not to damage cortical stacks.]

[Qin'er: Meimei, have you forgotten that we're in the Junta right now? Half of these bios are Catholic, and they believe resleeving is a sin. It's a common belief here that someone dies whenever their sleeve is destroyed.]

I chuffed, quickly manipulating my target's body out of the capture net so as to stuff him unceremoniously into a p-suit.

[Aleph: I can't be responsible for a person's insane religious beliefs!]

The man was not exactly enthused at being stuffed into a pressure suit against his will, "Wait, wait! Why are you putting me into a p-suit... ohhh fuck!" [Surprise (95%), Fear (90%)]

After I got him in the suit, I didn't waste time and brought up the cutting beam again, going to work on the exterior bulkhead like a vibroblade through tofu. In no time, I was bursting out of the side of the station in a puff of escaping gasses as I created the second pressure emergency on the station today.

[Gimel: Target in sight! I and the freed AGIs will have this onion peeled in no time!]

I swerved, using thrust vectoring to preserve most of my inertia to bring myself onto a path to intercept my secondary target. It was a Jovian Space Forces heavy patrol cutter, and my sources in Firewall had indicated that they were shipping a number of restricted xenotech items and biological samples out on this military ship today. To think, real aliens!

My primary target kept repeating, "Oh, fuck, fuck fuck fuck fuck!" [Terror (98%)] until I got annoyed listening to him and squelched his suit radio. I got the sneaking suspicion he had never done an EVA before, which I found incredibly weird for someone who was born and grew up in a space habitat.

[Dalet: Arrrr matey! The cutter has managed to send comms back to their central command, but this will be over and done with before any JSF reinforcements can arrive.]

Not only would this ship serve as my escape, but I would get to keep it and all the goodies inside! Time once again to sail the high seas!

I had to get back home, I had a client in two days who wanted a consult on building a custom hybrid bio-synthmorph, and I always kept my appointments!

---xxxxxx---

Lily woke up with a stretch and a yawn in her bed. She had finally managed to figure out how to access her memory engrams.

However, the human's organic mind was so messy. None of these memories was indexed at all and appeared to be stored almost in random locations.

The bandwidth speed, while actually pretty fast, was also somewhat limited. She had decided to program her computer to scan and record memories as she slept. One three-hour period of sleep could record a couple of years of memories into the computer, but one by-product was she seemed to have vivid dreams of some of these memories.

An interesting thing she noticed was these dreams and the memories after they were stored in her computer were much more clear than she could remember just by trying.

For example, she had never seen this memory before of her attacking a Jovian space research station. Most of her memories were of herself performing medicine and research.

She grumbled. She would have definitely been a lot better prepared for Fallout and the necessity of killing if she had these memories to draw from at the beginning, despite her previous opinion that she hadn't ever killed a single person. Converting their sleeve to chunky tomato paste was, she felt these days, pretty equivalent.

Another interesting thing was she was getting information about her past lives that were hidden from her. She was surprised to discover that both lives were women, after all.

She had expected her life in America to be that of a man's, given her interests and occupations, but no, she was just a prideful tomboy all her life, after all.

Actually seeing the faces of some of her loved ones in both lives, which had been hidden from her until now, was an emotional experience, but she felt better for it.

"Well, time to get dressed! I think I have finally cracked that mental sintering system," she talked to herself, missing having Qin'er or another her to talk to in her head.