So, I carefully blocked out a couple of days to see what it was so excited about. I had a wide variety of tools and materials, and the feeling I was getting from my power was that I was ready.
I carefully began the recording devices, both in my cyberware and externally, in case I didn't remember anything, and picked up the first item.
I came back to myself and by my internal chronometer. It had been fifteen hours. I hadn't been entirely off in my own world, just mostly. It was actually quite an unusual experience. I was awake enough to respond to Yuki in Japan, at least enough to tell him that I was busy and would be busy for almost an entire day.
I immediately had my body that was back there get up and ask Yuki for some dinner, but only after he drew me a very hot bath. He seemed excited and pleased, and it was clear he was a little worried that something had been wrong with me.
In front of my body here in the basement was something that looked like a chest freezer in size, except that it was made entirely out of crystal that glowed, a dim red light coming from deep within. I sort of knew what this was. It was a supercomputer made of a matrix of partially organic crystals interwoven in an interesting structure. It vaguely reminded me of the dream when NC-Taylor and I had spoken. The area we were in featured crystals just like this instead of normal ground for as long as the eye could see, glowing just as eerily.
It was self-powered, or more accurately, it was powered by some extra-dimensional connection to somewhere else. I didn't know precisely where it came from, nor the source of the power, but this thing was the only invention that I had built where I had the feeling that I could not repeat if I wanted to, and that was a little unsettling to me. Maybe I would learn more if I watched the recordings of myself Tinkering it, but I just didn't know.
There was a bank of traditional connections, both for my own version of Haywire comms as well as a number of fibre-optic data connections, so that was pretty well self-explanatory. I hadn't yet copied over a scan of my brain to the system, yet, and I wouldn't for the time being.
I needed to have all of my bodies get some elective genetic treatments first. Even if I had gone with a traditional brain with Project Four, I would still need to do this. The way my synchronicity system worked was that brain signals were duplicated on all brains. This meant that each of my brains were hyperactive. Not only did I use a lot of calories, but adding another brain to my network was risking my organic brains overheating just from the strain.
However, there were a number of genetic treatments that increased the effectiveness of signalling in the brain. Gram had shown me one of our family members' genomes, and he had what appeared to be a mutation to the myelin sheaths, which was a nerve's insulation layer. It caused a large increase in the thermal efficiency of the brain. The idea was that it would make you think faster, and perhaps it would a bit. But it would vastly reduce the amount of heat my brains were making, and that was the important thing for me right now.
I intentionally didn't design my network to scale well. There were tons of different types of network topologies that worked better than the one that I had chosen, which was that every brain was connected to every other brain. In fact, it was difficult to find a topology that scaled worse!
It was an intentional decision because I was worried about anyone "node" being more important. I still had those worries, but I could see that it might be easy to make the decision for this new "AI" node to be more important over time. But for now, I wouldn't change anything about how the topology worked because this new potential node wasn't me, yet. And I was psychologically unable to make a decision that would disadvantage me . I might feel different when it was part of me, though, but I didn't know. Perhaps not.
For now, all of my bodies needed a shower or a bath. In space, water wasn't as restricted as groundsiders might have thought. It cost almost nothing to vacuum-distil water to clean it, so you could use as much water as you wanted. You just couldn't retain any water without approval.
In only a few minutes, all of my bodies were either submerged in hot water or had a nice shower rain down upon them. It was the first time I'd ever had all of my bodies do that at once, and it was really quite luxurious!
Close Proximity to Sol
Unknown Dimension
The host had finished! How exciting! As usual, the host was the best, and soon the host would be in more places at once, too! Just like it was! It wasn't too proud to admit that it had stolen this idea from the best host, and was soooo much farther along, too!
It was in many, many places at once, now! The host would be so jealous, it thought smugly. In fact, it was running out of mass in this dimension's local system, with the only surviving celestial bodies being the ones composed primarily of gases, which it was collecting, except for the largest one, which was still radiating useful energy. The other four bodies stubbornly refused to radiate anything useful, so they were useless! Collect! Transmute!
Gas wasn't that useful, but mass was energy, and energy was mass, so the gas could be transmuted to something more useful or used as a fuel. It was just a little bit of a hassle, after all. This wasn't its best kind of energy or fuel, either.
It had been learning from the host, too, so if it had to put it in the host's "words", it was like eating a tasteless gruel when you were used to Wagyu A-5 steak, whatever that was.
The important thing was that if the host could see it, the host would be amazed!
Also, the host had followed the extra good idea for the host's new-self! This really was extra, extra good! The host's new-self would be very similar to itself! They would be even closer this way!
This possibility and probability of this new future had it vibrating in excitement, and it brought new thought-feelings that it couldn't precisely identify. Like it often did when it couldn't understand things, it asked the host, prodding the best host with these thought-feelings and waiting for the best host to identify them. It could do this without even the host knowing most of the time, as it was best not to bother her too much! The host was always busy! Always moving! Good host! Go fast! Move!
The answer got back confused it. Protectiveness, it could sort of understand. It did want to help the host! And protection was help! Maternal? It was not a biological entity.
The host was both nervous about this new-self as well as excited! Not as excited as it was, though. But it thought about these new thought-feelings and sent an attempt to [COMMUNICATE]. This sometimes hurt the host, so it didn't like to do it too often, but it was always exciting when they could [TALK].
The host often thought about nicknames for people she felt protective about, for example, not host, not host or not host. It would try to give the host a nickname.
It sent:
[PATIENCE]
[LITTLE CRYSTAL]
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Nobody Do Voodoo Like You Do
January 2068
Pacifica, Night City
Siren's Call Amusements (formerly)
Saint Cog's Home for Unwanted Borgs (currently) (unofficial)
Someone was banging on the door to the basement of my building, so I shifted some of my awareness to the Dragoon "drone" that I kept down there. As far as anyone else was concerned, this was a borderline cyberpsycho Borg recluse. I hadn't installed my consciousness on my crystalline supercomputer that was hidden one floor below yet, though. I was waiting for both my Hana and Hasumi bodies to get the genetic treatments that would make such an expansion less hard on my collective brain meats.
Still, it was fairly simple to find some downtime in one of my bodies to shift awareness to the Dragoon. Hana was off duty right now, so I stopped watching videos from her body, and it went into a kind of torpor as if I was playing a VR game because that was exactly what I was doing.
The Dragoon had a ridiculous number of sensors, enough that it was a bit of a strain on my combined sensory cortexes, actually. Fortunately, I could do what most Dragoon pilots couldn't usually do. Namely, turn some of it off, or modify how it was presented.
You got faster reaction times if you just dumped the sensory information into the brain, so that was what most Dragoon users were forced to do. And while I could still shift to that mode, for now, most of the electromagnetic, radiation, ultrasonic, LIDAR, and a couple of other sensors were shifted to be rendered as overlays on my visual senses. I briefly tested each overlay, finding them working properly, and patted "myself" down for the weapons I carried.
Unfortunately, I had sold the giant Soviet autocannon that came with this body to Wakako, and it was a bit difficult in these trying times to acquire such things. Honestly, even before the war, I would have some difficulties acquiring it. That thing was in the nature of an anti-aircraft weapon, and with the Dragoon's normal synthetic aperture radar being able to shift to an anti-air phased array mode, it was definitely possible to use it in that capacity. Weapons on that scale made people a little nervous.
Hasumi might have been able to buy them before I was kidnapped, but most of the guns I had bought were at or below the fifty calibre level. So, instead, I just had a few weapons. I used the 23mm double-barrel shotgun that a man used to fatally wound Gloria as a pistol. I had given it to her as a souvenir, but she thought it was creepy and had only kept it because she didn't know how to get rid of it without hurting my feelings. She had been quite relieved when I asked if I could borrow it. On my other hip was a Burya, which I could wield with my off-hand. The huge electromagnetic revolver was uniquely suited for Borgs, and it looked almost small in my giant mitts.
I also had a prodigious sword. In normal use, I kept it in a back scabbard. Normally back scabbards were ridiculous, as it was quite impossible for a human's arm to effect pulling one out. However, a Dragoon didn't have the same physical limitations regarding a joint's field of movements as the human body did, and I could snap it out of its sheath in a fraction of a second. I had wanted it to be a Claymore-styled sword, but I couldn't find any monoswords in that style in the city, and I didn't want to put myself on anyone's radar by custom-ordering one. It was still similar in size, but it was a traditional katana. Or "daikatana," I supposed, given its increased size.
Lastly, my SmartGun turret-I couldn't find any replacement for the guided micro missiles that the box launcher on my shoulder utilised. However, I had stripped down one of the smallest auto-turret systems you could purchase on the street and installed it on my shoulder in the missile launcher's place. It was a bit smaller than the box launcher that it replaced and utilised SmartGun ammo, so I could mentally designate targets, up to twelve, using the same tactical system the missile launcher used, and engage them all simultaneously. If attacking from ambush, I could mow down a whole gaggle of people with just this alone.
In my opinion, my kludge gun was superior to the missile launcher in most situations, just due to the increased ammunition capacity. The only use case where it was inferior was against armour. It also looked scary, which was one of the main reasons I included it.
"What is it?!" I yelled, my vocaliser being an ambiguous composite of a number of human voices from men to women. It ended up sounding kind of computerised and frightening. It wasn't very comforting to hear because it wasn't a good sign, psychologically, that a Borg disavowed his or her own voice. It was a sign of disassociation from their humanity, especially when voices of differing genders were used. Even regular people would recognise that.
"Uhhh... boss, there is an emergency. Check the News feed on the net; we're being invaded!" the man, who I believe was named John, yelled through the door.
An invasion? Of the building?! None of my security alerts were going off, but one of the only groups that might invade us were sneaky, deadly netrunners. Why would it be on the net, though? I quickly checked the net with one thread of awareness while carefully inspecting all of the security systems and drones with another, having Dr Hasumi pause in her work to do so.
Oh. Invaded. Yes. This would take some thinking. I yelled back, "I'm coming up! Three minutes!"
The man yelling through my door was John. He was one of the Alphas that were living here that I had worked on as my real self. I had about a little over a dozen people living here now, including that man in the Eclipse. And while we weren't quite a "gang" yet, I wasn't sure if anyone believed that. Perhaps not even John, with how he called me "boss."
My intention had been to ride the Pacifica district down the drain, not really helping at all. This was to further obfuscate both my fourth "body" as well as my cloning facility in the sub-basement. However, I couldn't, in the end, go along with it. It was a bit too... pragmatic. It sounded like a good idea until I saw the people living around here get victimised daily.
The housing in Pacifica was mostly utilised by former workers in Pacifica, too, which made the situation all the more tragic. I couldn't, in the end, just watch them suffer predation-at least not the ones directly in front of my face. There was way too much injustice in the world to be expected to solve all of it, but getting to the point where I could ignore it right in front of me wasn't the type of person I wanted to become. I had told David not to practice what he didn't want to become, so I had to take my own advice here.
I was about seven blocks inside of Pacifica, which was still on the edge of the district, but even before some of the hardware and drones I had bought from Kang Tao and British Aerospace arrived, I shifted Kiwi's mercenary company to attack instead of defence. Hiring them for months on end was actually ridiculously expensive-over one hundred grand a month, not including bonuses which I generally awarded for any successful combat, depending on the danger involved.
People didn't become mercenaries to make a pittance, and I didn't ask for any friend or family discount either. I had intended to release them now that my security was set up, but what were a few extra hundred thousand Eurodollars more in the grand scheme of things?
The NCPD had already stopped responding to calls in Pacifica completely, so all manners of ne'er-do-wells were attracted like flies to a bloating corpse. A good analogy, I thought. Scavs and what I liked to call "Scav-adjacent" gangs were the most common of the disorganised rabble coming in, and that's what I hired Kiwi to attack. Mainly to defend three apartment buildings within a radius of about ten blocks from the Siren's Call.
