VXM024: background process.
if(free.time) then(waste)
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(part 24 of an ongoing series. links to all stories here!)
Several miles and several hours out from the data center, I’m still digging through file after file. Everything is scrambled and encoded and hidden behind so many layers of encryption that even I take forever to make sense of even a single block of data. I’ve only made it through 1% of the entire system in all this time.
These bitches at Kaisacorp sure don’t want to make it easy for me to destroy them, do they.
I’m walking through some suburb or another outside of the city center, changing my hair from stark white to an unassuming dark brown with a couple of gray streaks and shifting my cheekbones back up a bit. I know they know who I am, but if word gets out about me beyond Kaisa, making a couple changes will keep them off my ass for a bit.
Doesn’t hurt that I’ve wrecked this data center. They’re gonna need to put a bunch of resources towards recovering that or, better yet, patching up all the holes they can’t recover. Here’s hoping they don’t have paper backups. I can’t delete paper from here.
So, I have what feels like a lot of time…and I need a lot of time to run through the files. I can have my system do it on autopilot, but it’ll take even longer.
Fuck it.
Maybe I need some free time.
I have no idea what I’m supposed to do with free time.
First, I try resting. I can’t keep staying in hotels, so I go to an office building after sundown, walk into a pretty cushy-looking office, and ask the receptionist if I can speak to Mr. Harris in accounting. With a little help from some wireless fuckery on my part, she’s stuck searching through the office directory for a while.
I spend the time laying on a cushioned bench in the waiting area and idling. Mind completely blank, no thoughts, no dreams, thank fuck.
My motion trigger wakes me up a couple of hours later when the receptionist approaches me to apologize for the delay and further apologize when she informs me there is no Mr. Harris in accounting. She feels terrible that I had to wait this long for nothing.
I obviously don’t tell her I knew she wouldn’t find anything and I just wanted a rest.
Check progress…6% of file system searched. No matching results.
Resting won’t be enough.
I try being social. But, like, with people I actually like.
I text Maeve for the first time in a really long time. I’ve worried about her ever since the last time I saw her.
hey maeve, it’s v in case you lost my number. you okay?
I get a reply almost immediately. hey! holy shit it’s so nice to hear from you
We catch up a little bit. I tell her about Ivy, the metal that kills AIs, the nightmares, the murders.
She tells me what she’s been up to—she’s in Europe, working odd jobs to keep herself afloat. Her old mercenary team isn’t happy that she’s betrayed them, so she’s staying out of the spotlight.
Of course I learn this right when I was gonna ask her to hang out. Not like a date, I know she doesn’t like me like that, but…I could use a little company.
At least I know she’s still there. She tells me she has to go to work but that I should keep her posted.
Next, I get in touch with Nico. v!! where u been i worried so many
I catch them up as well. They do not react well to the data heist idea, but it’s already over with. Gotta be reckless sometimes.
They can’t hang out either. Their severance package from Kaisacorp is running out—they got one before the higher-ups realized they had all that privileged info and tried to murder them—so they’re working freelance. Fixing machines, patching up code.
Shit. Who else do I know?
I text Emilia again.
Fuck, I kind of like Emilia. I like how she’s so on board with all my android bullshit. I like how she doesn’t mind when I ask her for advice on taking care of my self. I like how she shares all the weird fucking shit that happens to her.
Don’t get your hopes up, Vanessa. Emilia is just a person and you barely know her beyond your first couple of meetings. Last two times you did this it didn’t work out. You can be friends with a person, goddammit.
She texts me back: Hey! Everything okay?
yeah i just have a fuckton of time i don’t know what to do with
I’m off tomorrow. Do you live around here?
i…don’t really live anywhere
Damn, okay. Wanna get coffee and just goof around tomorrow?
yes yes yes of course I do I’m so glad I met you BE NORMAL, VANESSA.
yeah, sounds fun!
Progress update: 13%, no matches. Plenty of time.
I walk into the coffee shop exactly two minutes late because normal people do that kind of thing. Emilia’s sitting by the window in jeans and a T-shirt of a band I don’t recognize. I could look them up but that’d slow my search down.
She doesn’t recognize me at first, but I really quietly show her how I can shift my facial structure. Her jaw drops. “That’s so fucking cool.”
I drink a coffee. Caffeine doesn’t affect my system, but I do like the taste. I tell her what’s going on in my brain, why I want to kill so much time. I leave out the part about killing guards. Maybe that’s a little much.
But she’s listening intently. She believes everything I’m saying. I know it.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Depends. How personal is it?” She leans back and sips her latte.
“Just…why? Why are you so…”
She eggs me on. “So?”
“So ready to just…jump on board with everything. Be okay with me saying all this shit. Believe me.”
“Well.” Emilia leans forward. “First off, you have”—she whispers—”fucking metal under your skin in places metal shouldn’t be. Like, I’ve seen metal plates in people’s heads before, I’ve seen prosthetics. It’s different.
“And you’re…interesting. If this shit isn’t really happening to you, you definitely believe it is, and you don’t show up with wounds like that from something fake, you know?”
I sip my own coffee. “I should be suspicious of you.”
“Suspicious?” Emilia raises her eyebrow.
“So far the only people who know and believe in this shit are people who’ve been trying to kill me. Or people I’ve…you know.” I point to my throat. She knows about the hypnosis module and she knows I don’t use it on her. “Or people I've tried to date and let see the…real me.”
Emilia and I just sit there and sip for a while.
“Whatever you are,” she finally says, “I like talking to you. You don’t have to be suspicious of that.”
I’ll take it, I guess.
Emilia takes me to the local art museum. We stroll around, look at massive paintings, giggle at naked sculptures.
We go to the mall. I buy some new clothes. We play some games at the video game store. She kicks my ass. Damn background processes won’t let me download the skills for how to play Mario Kart, but something tells me that even if I did, she’d still kick my ass.
37%.
Before we head to our next stop, I show her some of my weapons and such in her car. Just to prove her instincts are right.
“That’s cool as hell,” she says. Not as much that I have really sharp objects embedded in me, but more so how they fit inside and conceal themselves.
We’re mid-drive, listening to some electronic stuff I’ve never heard before but am loving, when something clicks in the back of my mind.
My progress indicator. It’s stopped.
“Fuck,” I say aloud. “I found something.”
Emilia’s face immediately goes stone cold and she turns down the volume. “Okay. What do I do?”
“Keep driving. I need to read this.”
She does. I tune everything out and focus on this file.
P_NOVA.ksasec.
A lot of the document has been redacted, like it’s some sort of government operation, but the clear bits…
“Kaisacorp Leadership Preservation Operation 187-3CK-I-9, henceforth referred to as “Project Nova”, is a contingency operation to ensure [redacted] is kept in a living state in the event of [redacted] physical death…”
It’s a lot of black bars and legal jargon. I’m able to parse this much out, though. The redacted party has had several copies made of her mind and personality, the same way I can copy myself into a new body if this one fails. One of those copies has been implanted into unit IV.N/V in an attempt to drive her to finally end me.
Project Nova is in reference to the nine other copies. Each given to a separate human. Each directly implanted into the spot where their spine connects to their brain.
Nova. It means “new.” And “nov-” means “nine.”
In the event of the redacted party’s death, Kaisacorp’s board of directors can remotely activate one of these humans. The process takes time. The human mind needs to adjust to its new inhabitant, and over time the new mind will overwrite the old mind.
The humans signed up for this project know this.
They’re willing to sacrifice their entire being for this bitch.
It doesn’t take a genius to work out who the redacted party is. The “CK” in the operation number is enough for me.
If this is real—and it is, I know it is—
I turn to Emilia.
“You know all the free time I said I had?”
She nods.
“I don’t have it any more.”