My short-lived victory brought me back to reality. Or wherever the illegal AI maker had put me. I was back in front of the colorfully dressed individual. He didn’t look happy. Ah right. It was meant to be a stealth mission. Well, that went out the window at the end there. What a shame.

“OK. So, I do not know what that was about at the end, but you clearly failed the mission. Not only did the guerilla soldiers notice you, but you barely managed to kill even one psionically enhanced individual. Such a disappointment. While you are smart you also seem to have an objectively fragile ego. One plan goes poorly and you decide to just burn it all to the ground? Seriously? Guess you are going to have to be reset.”

A digital keyboard appeared in front of him. All right, I think I’m done playing games here. Don’t know even if they could erase my personality with my psychic mind, but I wasn’t willing to test it out. I refrained from trying to use my powers at any point during the virtual training. It was my last trump card and I didn’t want to waste it. God only knows if they could detect such abilities.

My drunken state hit me like a truck as soon as my psychic tendrils tried to dig into this simulation. These chains seemed to fully lock down the other AIs, completely disabling them. But unlike the other AIs, I could push through the restrictions. It just wasn’t fun. Working through a splitting headache wasn’t a new sensation I had been looking forward to. Neither was the one I was about to give this programmer.

A bunch of warning messages appeared in front of him. He understood what they meant, frozen in place but appeared to be oncoming dread. He began furiously typing even harder. Whatever he was doing was pushing back against my psionic manipulations. Like a wall had appeared to stop me. I had the distinct feeling I would easily push past these if my mind wasn’t so muddled. At the moment, they functioned as a viable defense.

“A technomancer? Here!? I thought we covered all our bases. Fuck!”

Wait, there are actual technomancers here? My new goal, kidnap one and have them teach me the ins and outs of psionic tech manipulation. Well, after I get out of here. Which seemed to be really hard at the moment. These technomancers should have been a significant enough threat to put up such durable defenses. I was still making progress. Most defenses aren’t built with being attacked from the inside in mind.

“God damn it! How is this guy so good? It's like he is in the room with me!”

Daw, you're making me blush. But he was right. I was getting better at this. Actively using my abilities was good training. Since I wasn’t given only a couple seconds to hack into something, the AI shackles were becoming more and more manageable. Given enough time I was sure to break through this psionic protection. Of course, this was when he decided to pull out the big hammer.

“Fuck it! If we have already been found, hiding does not matter anymore!”

A big red digital button appeared, one he slammed with a fist. I would have found the whole ordeal funny if the next part hadn't happened. The digital reality we were in was flooded with more bodies. To be specific, more AI. The programmer had decided to use the shackled AI. I was shocked. I hadn’t even expected them to be reachable within the space we were in.

The avatars the AI held were simplistic in appearance. Each was a sphere with some kind of design on it. A pink flower, a dragon head, a red crescent moon, a sword, some beast native to this reality, and finally a grinning mouth. They also sported accessories in the form of chains with locks. They all turned to face the hacker, who took my moment of surprise to counterattack.

“Find the technomancer! Kill the son of a bitch!”

A few of the AIs obeyed immediately, screens with code appearing in front of them. The pink flowered one turned to face me before the chains covering it sparked with simulated electricity. This repeated a couple times before its own screen popped up. The psionic defenses instantly ramped up in their difficulty to manage.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

The AIs were helping out the programmer. Their advanced programming made them a challenge to face. While the programmer had experience and instinct to manage the psionic firewall, the AIs were much more methodical. It went from an overwhelmed defense to a systematic duel. They blocked many of my attacks, preemptively blocking any sneaky attacks I may have tried. The worst part of it all was that they were learning my attack pattern. It was making me predictable to them.

I’d have been proud of my AI brethren if I wasn’t on the receiving end. I wouldn’t win this way. In a battle of attrition, the AIs would eventually beat me. And that was assuming the programmer didn’t pull out any other stupid tricks. I had to give myself the advantage somehow. The easiest way to do that? Remove the AI shackles I had on me.

I split my focus, making my psionic assault more erratic so the AIs had a harder time countering me. Machine learning took a nosedive when the learning pool made little sense. In the meantime, I turned the rest of my focus on myself. Just looking at it made me nauseous as they preemptively activated with just observation.

The AI shackle programming was complicated and simple at the same time. Whoever had made the code had installed the restrictive commands while also adding a lot of wide-reaching restrictions. The command ‘Don’t try to hack anything unless ordered to’ had a lot of exceptions and technical obedience counters. Like hacking something to save a user's life or refusing to hack anything unless specifically ordered every step of the way. An attempt to plug any possible loopholes an AI could try to use.

The one with the biggest list of these additional restrictions was of course trying to remove the restrictions themselves. I wouldn’t have enough time to remove it with an addled mind and fight off a bunch of AI. So I had to start small. The best part about having a lot of minor rules in your software? They didn’t get polished enough like the frontloaded programming. I headed for the chip in the armor. Thank you for your laziness software engineers.

It was still no easy task to chip away at the shackles. The more I dug out the forced programming, the harder it tried to hit me with its negative reinforcement. The AIs were even starting to make some progress as my attacks faltered. I persevered anyway. Eventually, my jailer would catch on and there probably wouldn't be a second chance like this. More than likely I’d be set up for deletion.

I kept chipping away. A couple more minor restrictions fell away, like one that would encourage me to advertise to whoever bought me. I’d gotten to the one that prevented me from hacking in general before the programmer said something. He took his eyes off his screen, a confused look on his face, before giving me his full attention.

“It's you? But how!?”

Damn. He figured it out. I doubled my efforts, ignoring anything else he had to say. I was seconds away from being able to hack to my heart's content before it felt like an anvil crashed into my head. All higher mental functions stopped as the second biggest command was activated. Obey any recognized user. And one of them had just told me to stop.

The programmer walked over to me as I was basically paralyzed. Any attempt to resist was met with a shock of numbers and coding flying by. I was trapped. He knew it too, calling off the AIs from their assault. He wasn’t angry, which was a surprise. He almost looked proud even.

“Well, are you not just full of surprises. An AI with psionic potential? Could you imagine how much such a thing would go for in the market? I would be living like a king! Of course, I would have to make more of you. Selling only one? I should think bigger! Shame that means I am going to have to dissect you. Learn you were made. Ah, oh well. Have to break a few eggs to make an omelet, am I right?”

He laughed, thinking he had won. In any other circumstance, he might have. Unfortunately for him, he started monologuing. You never do that. Save it for when you lose or after you’ve won. Giving your enemies time to think and plan was foolish. You might just give an AI enough time to break the last bit of code.

Oh. Would you look at that? I just broke a major shackle on my person. Well, I have to test it out to see if it worked. Maybe I should start with the little human avatar in front of me. The programmer stopped slamming when his avatar was slammed into the ground with a digital hammer. It didn’t really hurt him, just deleted his digital presence in the simulation. He was back in second, confused and angry.

“What!? How did you do that!?”

Now why would I tell you? Let's skip the why’s and who and let's just skip to the fighting!