A Displaced Samurai

After breakfast and giving some more directives to the building drones, I switched on the power supply and patted my head-only guest on the cheek. “Wakey-wakey, we have to taaalk!”

The eyes began to glow and flickered through several colors, then settled on red. She immediately snapped “Flame Arrow!”

Nothing happened. The eyes flickered some more, then she said in a monotone, robotic voice

“Error 404, body not found. Rebooting…”

Some eye flickering later, she continued in a more normal voice:

“Diagnosis: Diagnosis interfaces unavailable.”

“Weapon systems: Flame Arrow unavailable. Vaporizing Blast unavailable.”

“Mobility: Motoric interface not present, movement impossible.”

“Status: Unit not operational.”

Then Miss Mack seemed to fully wake up and asked

“Query: Where am I? Repairs necessary. Return to operational area of high priority.”

“Good morning, my synthetic friend. You are at Styx base and its location is classified. But what are you?”

“Model 54401 Combat Unit, Nanite-Enhanced. I am the beginning and the end, the end of the world as you know it. I am…”

She broke off, eyes rotating upwards until metal peeked out below the white of the eyes. A keening wail escaped her, full of anguish and terror. Suddenly it ended and the old voice came back

“...your doom approaching. The rightful successor to your species.”

I switched the power supply off and her eyes went dark. That needed more investigation before I continued my interrogation. “Elya, what info did you gain from the direct connection to Miss Mack’s robot brain?”

The software seems to be a crude overlay of an uploaded human consciousness and more traditional programming.

Uh oh. That sounded like the worst, most horrifying shitshow I ever heard about. I tried to imagine how it must feel to be trapped like this. Aware of what was going on, but stuffed into a robot body, a computer controlling your every move. If the uploaded person was a Magical Girl, she might even find herself trying to kill her former teammates, unable to stop it.

I did not know if I could help her, but I had to try. Try as in “don't simply administer a mercy killing.”

“Elya, what would be required to separate the upload and the, ahem, other parts? And give her a new body?”

Bending the rules a little, the separation of the mind from the controlling software is something I can do with the tools you already have.

For giving Miss Mack a new body the simplest solution would be a full body prosthetics system from Class I Prosthetics. As the computing hardware she is running on is beyond your current ability to manufacture, I recommend to reuse it and install a custom smart adapter to connect it to the new robot body.

“Whu–what the fuck are full body prosthetics?”

It is a catch-all phrase for prosthetics that replace at least eighty percent of the body in one go. That can go all the way to having an uploaded mind in a 100% robotic body.

“Show me some options that are doable with my current tech.”

At the very cheap end, you have various equivalents of a motorized retail store mannequin. Most of them have hard plastic skin. These might be even more traumatizing though for someone who has been forcibly roboticized already.

On browsing the things, I had to agree. Some of them even looked cute, but only if you liked robot girls in the first place.

One step up, there are various soft-skin versions with flexible artificial muscles. Those can be very close to a human body in appearance. With one of these, Miss Mack could become a nice, cuddly girlfriend for you.

“What???”

I noticed how you looked at some of these replacement bodies.

“Ahem, back on topic. Let’s take a closer look at those soft-skin versions.”

As a starting point, you might want to consider the SecondLife Mk IV modular body replacement system. It contains everything Miss Mack might need. Prices start at 2500 points for the blueprint of the basic system. For 500 additional points, you get the deluxe blueprint version with thermal and chemical sensors to emulate touch and smell.

Elya made a little presentation pop up on my augs. The robot body before my eyes looked human, except for barely visible seams where presumably different skin sections overlapped. Other than that, the skin had a light silky sheen, suggesting healthy human skin that was given a touch of moisturizing cream.

“The images look nice, but give me a more in-depth overview.”

The synthetic skin you seem to admire quite a bit is made of a soft but strong silicone rubber, further reinforced by high-strength microfiber for protection against ripping and tearing. It is not self-repairing like human skin, but highly wear and UV resistant. Thermal sensors are optionally included. Skin color is adjustable in a wide range.

For movement, the SecondLife system uses piezoelectric synthetic muscle fiber, performance is roughly three times that of a human muscle with the same volume.

“OK, let’s earmark that design for now. But what would stuff like a self-repair system cost?”

Sorry, systems like that require more sophisticated manufacturing equipment. You would need to build that first. Two more steps on the roadmap we worked out a year ago, and I could offer a much greater variety of options.

So Miss Mack might need to have her tires changed from time to time. Not too much of a problem as long as you had a decent fabricator. But before I started building her new body, I wanted to know exactly what her old one looked like.

“Elya, did you find any clues to Miss Mack’s identity before she was made into a robot girl?”

Give me a moment… yes, internal SHOCKS records document an incident fifteen months ago where a Magical Girl went missing during a failed raid into Seattle. Publicly, there was a closed casket funeral. But drone footage shows the MG being dragged away by a Mack drone rather than slaughtered on the spot. Her body was never found. At the same time, the oldest files I found in the programming of the Mack body are about fourteen months old.

“So far, so bad. But did you find photos, names, anything else about her background?”

Arina Novikova, eighteen years old at the time she went MIA, daughter of Russian immigrants that arrived shortly before First Emergence. The image is from two weeks before the incident. Her MG codename was Sunrise.

Elya showed me a photo of a petite girl with light brown hair and an earnest expression. She was pretty in an unassuming way, wearing no makeup at all but with a natural beauty. She also had a nicely toned body that suggested regular workouts.

“OK, let's prepare to wake up Arina. That is, if Miss Mack is really Arina. I want you to do the following things:

“First, log all attempts to use the Mack body in detail if you were not doing it anyway. I want some insight into the API, for lack of a better word.

“Second, once we are past the booting process, suppress the software that controls her actions and behavior. I want to talk to the ghost in the shell, not to the digital shackles.

“And third, make a copy of the control software for later analysis. I hesitate to simply copy the personality without her consent, but the parts created by the Macks are fair game.”

I’m ready when you are.

I did not know what suffering I would cause the digitized person inside by activating her in that state. But it was necessary if we wanted to get anywhere, so I steeled my resolve and went ahead. With some trepidation, I switched the power supply for the head on.

The eyes began to glow and flickered through several colors, then settled on red. Her first words were “Vaporizing Blast!”

Nothing happened. The eyes flickered some more, then she said in a monotone, robotic voice

“Error 404, body not found. Rebooting…”

Some eye flickering later, she continued in a more normal voice:

“Diagnosis: Diagnosis interfaces unavailable.”

“Weapons: Flame Arrow unavailable. Vaporizing blast unavailable.”

“Mobility: Motoric interface not present, movement impossible.”

“Status: Unit not operational.”

Exactly the same boot sequence as last time. That part seemed to be deterministic programming and not in any way dependent on personal choice.

Then she seemed to come fully online and started “Query: WherE aM I? RepAirs nEcess…”

Her face froze for a moment, then switched to a bewildered expression.

I have frozen the control software process for now. Copy in progress. Keep her talking.

“Hello there” I said. “I’d like to talk to the real you, now that your compulsions are hopefully suspended for a bit. For starters, tell me your name and how you came to be in this unpleasant situation.”

The head in front of me seemed to try to speak, but nothing came out. All I saw was some trembling of the jaw.

It appears that the mental processes for decision making have been rerouted through her mental shackles. With me freezing those, her mind is essentially paralyzed. That extends to speaking.

I subvocalized back “Can you emulate her volition for now? As close to her original personality as possible?

I can only work with what is still there, but I believe I can get pretty close to her pre-conversion thought processes.

“Do it!”

A moment later, the previously suppressed answer came.

“I am Arina and I am not. I don’t know who I am anymore!” Followed by heart-rending sobs. If she could move, I was sure she would have curled up in despair.

I was unsure what to do in this situation. How would I not make things worse? But eventually I stepped up to her and gave her head the best approximation of a hug I could give. That seemed to calm her down a little. Eventually, she seemed to be collected enough that we could talk rationally again. So I asked the big question:

“I believe I can make a new body for you. It would still be mechanical though. Would you like that?”

“Anything! Anything to get me out of that monstrosity they put me in! I cannot live like that!”

I subvocalized to Elya “Can you make Arina sleep for now, but without erasing her memory of this conversation?”

Certainly. The copy of the control software is complete as well.

In my arms, Arina’s face relaxed and her eyes closed.

You can switch off the power supply now.

The rest of the day was given to discussing how to do the transfer. I ended up buying the blueprints for the SecondLife Mk IV body including the extra sensors. Also a blueprint for a custom transcoder to connect the new body to the Mack brain.

Elya agreed to translate her emulation of Arina’s volition to more efficient native software running on the Mack brain.

Of course there was a price to pay:

Item

Point cost

Description

Class I Prosthetics

50

Mechanical replacement parts for meatsacks

SecondLife Mk IV modular body replacement system, including optional sensors (blueprint)

3000 points

Full body prosthetic system

Custom transcoder (blueprint)

200 points

Adapter for connecting a Mack Type 42 brain to the SecondLife Mk IV system

Total price

3250 points

“OK, let’s proceed with this.”

Purchased: Everything in the table

New balance: One token and 4691 points

We briefly switched Arina on to completely delete her digital shackles and restore her free will. Then we sent her back to sleep. The next time she woke up it would be in a new body.