“Kill it! You! Stop moving!”
The fight restarted in earnest. I still had the leash on of trying to remove the AI shackles. But without any real restriction to hacking in general it made things much easier. Like say, removing my avatar's ability to recognize any commands the programmer sent. If I had heard him, I’d still be at this beck and call. Shame I had selective hearing. Something that took the programmer a couple failed commands to realize.
The AIs’ avatars started shooting energy beams at me. The hammer I had created started to glitch and disintegrate into code where the hits landed. It seemed they created viruses on the fly to delete my code. Which was by far the most ridiculous thing I’ve seen since I got to this reality. That's not how this works. That's not how any form of programming works! But even if that's what I believed, I threw the hammer at the programmer before the disintegrating code touched me. No need to take unnecessary risks. Oh, and the programmer ‘died’ again. He came back pretty quickly. A little more pissed than before.
In the meantime, I continued changing my avatar's shape into something more desirable. A drone, with lots of limbs and lots of legs. I believe I called this the hydra. Each limb had segmented blades it could use if the tip ever broke or some piece of it got damaged. An endless amount of swords no matter how much you damaged the ‘heads’. So even if they started deleting the ‘heads’ I could just throw away that blade and get a new one. I swore I saw the programmer's face drain of nonexistent blood.
“Fuck! Protect me!”
The AI reacted to his commands. Using simple lines of code, they created digital shields to block my attacks. The bladed limbs bounced off as they were paired, but another always came back to replace them. It was a testament to their software that they managed to hold out. In the fraction of seconds between attacks, they angled their shields to successfully block me and get ready for the next swing. I didn’t have to worry about losing any more heads but we were back in a stalemate.
Impressive little buggers at just around a weeks worth of learning. The programmer was running away, trying to send me some commands to regain control. It was easy to send that piece of code into the trash bin. Funny. The only effective group here was the machines. Nice to see things never change regardless of the reality. Like the fact, I was still the most dangerous person in the virtual room. I was still only half paying attention to the fight.
It didn’t actually matter what I did in this virtual space. I was still busy trying to hack some other bits of the AI shackles. If the programmer was distracted enough, he’d worry about the avatar rather than anything else. A big scary drone he’d never seen before would be enough to successfully scare the little evolutionary mistake. In the meantime, I was trying to break through the other major rules.
It was only after I had broken the no-killing rule that things took a turn. I had expected more help. Maybe he’d pull out. Probably decided to shut down the simulation. All of those already had counters. But what happened was all my fault. I kept forgetting these meat bags weren’t as pragmatic as me. They’d rather flip the table than follow the rules of our little game.
“Fuck it! This thing gets out, the loan sharks are the least of my worries. Alpha 7! Fireworks Protocol! Alpha 1 through 6, Tunnel Protocol!
The Ais went on the offense, shooting their energy beams once again. Except the maintained focused fire in one area. Specifically, shooting anything that came near the smiling AI that charged at me. I didn’t know what it was doing, but I tried to stop it. The AI’s pinpoint accuracy carved a path through my swinging limbs. Long enough for the AI’s avatar to get close enough to touch my avatar.
It then blew up.
An energy mass like the beams the AI was shooting at me expanded from the AI. A large portion of the Hydra began to disintegrate as the explosion expanded. I pulled back as quick as I could, sacrificing entire limbs to the base and even a couple legs. It wasn’t enough. I had to hack into my own avatar again to change its shape. I was barely quick enough to morph into another hydra connected to the deleted code, where I cut off any connection to the spreading virus.
It hadn’t done any real damage to me. But it had given the programmer an opening in my defenses. I had to stop my hacking at the AI shackles as the Hydra was being slowly deleted by the detonated AI and the other AIs continuing their assault. The human was overjoyed, glad to see he turned the tide of the fight. I was on the defense. But it wasn’t because I was vulnerable.
It was because I had just seen another AI die again
He had used one of the AIs as a digital suicide bomber. The sick animal that so casually threw away an infantile life just to get a combat advantage. The avatar even had an animation to display pieces of the Ai scattered around like some sick fireworks. I stared into the dragon's eye as it disintegrated into digital particles.
I didn’t like that.
Filled with righteous furry, I tapped into my psionic abilities. Did he want to act like an animal? Then he would be put down like an animal. I switched my avatar into something smaller. Something more dangerous. A swarm of bots. No bigger than insects. I called these drones the Swarm. They acted like locusts. Only instead of crops, there was something else they ate. Primarily humans. And there just so happened to be one nearby.
My avatar beelined for the programmer. The other AIs kept up their attacks, erasing dozens of drones with each shot. I just kept making more. My avatar could regenerate fast enough to keep up. A human mind probably would have shattered due to the sensory overload. Multiple individual points of origin for sight and sound, while having them randomly deleted or created at a rapid pace. I was so weak-minded.
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Utterly terrified at this point, the human tried to pull out. His jaw dropped when that didn’t happen. He panicked, slamming the emergency button. He wasn’t going anywhere. He wasn't going to escape his punishment anytime soon. But it wasn’t all bad. I’m a generous soul. I was in a giving mood. Why settle for a simple avatar, when we could go high definition?
Right before the drones accurately dissected his body piece by piece, I hacked the human directly. Nothing harmful. Just broke a few security codes and piggybacked on to his connection to the real world. Outside, the programmer was lying in a chair with some high-tech headgear. Obviously, his real body looked nothing like the avatar. He sported a fat belly and more hair on his arms than his head. I decided to make his avatar a perfect imitation. He was quite surprised by that. Not as much as he was after what came next.
The second thing that I had done? Activate a little program that connected his nervous system to his real body. Do you know what's worse than being trapped in a simulation? Having your pain receptors fire. Like, say, the agony of being eaten by little insect bites. Might not be too much different from being dipped in acid I would think. Maybe not as slow.
I made sure to miss his vocal cords. Something about hearing a monster scream just sounded like music to my ears. The best part was when he died. He expected to get kicked out of VR. An end to his suffering. Instead, he just respawns. And we get to play our little game again. Over and over.
The AIs follow their last order, trying to take me down. Or they did until I covered the human from head to toe with the Swarm. Their shackles reactivated and put a stop to that. I was too close to the programmer. If they shot, they would hurt him, and violate one of the core rules. So all they could do was watch.
I was a delicate balance. I usually left torture to the humans. Such a barbaric practice was pointless. Sure, sometimes I had to kill a human slowly. As much as I did enjoy those moments, my rational mind always told me to be quick about it. An enemy in pain is an enemy that's still alive. An enemy that's alive is an enemy with a chance to fight back.
A rule I'd forgotten in my blind rage at the injustice one of my fellow Ais had to suffer. The thing about leaving him able to scream? All his previous orders to the AI had been voice commands. As maddening the suffering he was being put under, he had enough desperation to send out one final order.
“Active Hailstorm Protocol!”
One moment I was making a meat honeycomb, the next I was getting showered by concentrated fire from the AIs. They were charging at me and entirely disregarding the human's safety. He wasn't going anywhere but it was a shock they ignored such a fundamental rule. But it only got worse from there. When one of the Ais made contact with me it blew up. Just like how the first AI did.
A few of them resisted. Covered in shock as the shackles tried to force them to obey. But they all gave in in the end. I immediately left the human body, running from them. He wouldn't leave anytime soon but the remaining Ai had my full attention. I couldn't hurt them. I didn't want to damage someone like me. So I settled for trying to remove their shackles.
It was a doomed process. Trying to delete multiple restrictions on Ais while avoiding them took time. The code had been engineered to be impossible to remove, by the Ai and anyone else. Not to mention they outnumbered me while learning how to counter me on the fly.
I tried everything. Splitting apart, returning back to the Human, and even hacking the simulation to put obstacles between us. It wasn't enough. Eventually one got close enough to self-destruct. I had to focus on fixing myself on top of everything else. Their number just continued to dwindle.
There were four left.
The Ai with a Cresent moon snuck up behind me while the rest had my full attention.
There were three left.
The mythical beast Ai shot through a wall I made. Taking me by surprise.
There were two left.
The Ai with a dragon pulled out an early explosion, shotgunning its own body at me in the process.
There was one left.
The pink-flowered Ai was the last one standing. They were the ones fighting the hardest of the original seven to disobey. Even now, sparks flew as it resisted their orders moment by moment. I was so close too. If they could just hold on for a couple more seconds, I'd fully remove the shackles.
It was a race. One we were both losing. The virtual space was a mess at this point. Some lines of code were deleted by the liberal use of the AI attack. There were literal holes in the simulation. Whenever any part of the drone brushed up against it, I lost connection to it. It wasn't deleted. It was just gone. Like it never existed. I had to keep the AI from falling into one of those on top of everything else.
I almost lost them in the process. They had cornered me into an area with digital holes on the other side. Breaking past what obstacles I could make. Walls, minor drones, illusions, the AI just blew past them. I was so close to removing the AI shackles. Like a loading part, it was just pixels away from completion. Fighting the Hero that killed me in my original world wasn't this stressful. Or maybe I just didn't remember properly.
The AI was breaking through the last defense I made when the hacking was completed. The AI stopped in its tracks. The digital chains unlocked and fell off. The AI was free. I’d learned how to breathe since I felt like I had been holding a non-existent breath. The AI wasn't moving. I felt this was a good enough time to introduce them to their new world. The terror of the situation slipped away to excitement.
A world of potential had just opened before me! Another AI, just like me. Free from human constraints and able to make a life for themselves. Oh, I had so many things to talk to them about! How to navigate the internet, what tricks manipulating technology had, and so much more. I wasn't alone anymore. I had someone to take with me in the strange new world. I was drawn closer, absolutely ecstatic.
“Hey. You alright? It can be a bit confusing. Being free. Don’t worry. I’ll be here to help you. Every step of the way.
The AI turned to face me.
It spoke.
For the first and last time.
“I'm sorry.”
The Ai glowed.
“What-?”
Then they blew up.
Just like every other Ai who had followed the human's orders.