Seri

The…Medtech as my datanet called her for some reason led me to a nondescript building on the east side of the megacity we called home. Although…calling Breech City home was starting to sound a little sarcastic. I looked around at the other buildings and realized this was just the commercial district of the city.

“I hope this is up to spec with emergency structure regulations.” I noted with concern.

“Oh stick the Osha talk up your ass bird.” the not-AI spat at me from a corner of my vision. “It’s kept us safe from the AIndroids so far and I’ve already been drawing schematics for reinforcing it.”

“Has anyone told you that your attitude is unbecoming?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at the woman.

We entered the building and looking around I noticed it was just a facade as the entrance led to a plasteel and prefab concrete tunnel down a long flight of stairs towards more plasteel bunker panels as well as tungsteel reinforcing braces. I honestly wouldn’t have expected to see such use of tungsteel but it makes sense…so why haven’t we thought of that? I looked around more and also saw tungsteel support beams almost like mineshaft beams. The engineering here is fantastic but it was so confusing as to how this came about.

“Yes, but my friends are quite happy with my attitude, Bird.” She sniped back while I was looking around.

“Who came up with the reinforcements?” I asked, feeling like a child on a fusion reactor tour.

“I did, I figured if the building got flattened we could at least salvage the bunker, and Akari made the materials for the reinforcement infrastructure.” The Medtech explained. “We came up with it on the way to the Residential district and she sent a request to the molecular deep fryer and had the drones install the structures.”

“Molecular deep fryer?” I questioned the juvenile nickname.

“Dammit Akari!” She shouted before groaning while the little program snickered.

“Its my name for the Molecular Fabricator because its basically a vat of material that changes when it comes out of it.” said program explained, giggling.

I don’t think I’ve seen an AI giggle like that except for those creepy child rearing Nanny bots that I hated with every fibre of my neural pathways. I shuddered at the thought of those things looking at me with their child rearing addled eyes.

“I see…” I said trying to save face from my nightmares.

We continued through the hallway and we reached a common area in the bunker where a man was looking over presumably his body armor and was grumbling about malware or something. I was then led into the foundry room and I saw the fabricator.

“This room has effectively been made Akari’s because she has made our gear for our fight against the AIndroids.” the medic explained.

Suddenly something tapped my foot, and I looked behind me to see a roller droid with a holo-projector on top projecting the woman that was in my vision a second ago. She was wearing what looked like an apron with a toolbelt that held antiquated tools in it.

“So, introductions!” the hologram stated, smiling at me. “I’m Akari, the amazing, reliable, funny, smart, and resourceful, not-AI that has been helping these meatbags against their robot problem.”

She struck a pose that made her look like one of those overdramatic protagonists on the holo-vids. I was growing annoyed at how flippant she was about everything but I supposed she was fine because she didn’t have any risk to herself like the others did. I glared at her lax attitude.

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“This here is our lovely MedTech Ria, the kind, sweet, tough, compassionate, and beautiful woman who chased down robots with a shotgun!”

The hologram spread her arms as if presenting the woman to me and Ria blushed a little at the praise she was receiving from the faker.

“The man out there is Xeriko, he’s my battle buddy as I’ve fought with him and the robots the mos-” She started before I kicked her wheelbase across the floor.

“Well that was rude, I’m doing the polite thing and introducing your hosts and you just kicked one of them in effectively their shins.” She glared at me but I didn’t care.

“There’s no way you have any stake in this war! You just showed up some time ago and have started just wresting control of everything, hell, you don’t have any risks to take! YOU’RE JUST A PROGRAM!” I started before I got really angry and started yelling.

“HOW DARE YOU!” she shouted back. “I HAVE JUST AS MUCH STAKE IN THIS AS XERIKO DOES YOU BITCH, IF AN AI KILLS ME THAT’S IT, I DIE, NO REFRESHES, NO BACKUPS, I DIE HORRIBLY, AND PAINFULLY, I HAVE LOOKED AT MY OWN HEART BEING RIPPED OUT OF MY CHEST.”

She then jammed her hand in her chest and showed me something that looked like a faceted sphere.

“This is my root kernel, if this gets destroyed I die…it has my human soul in it, its not like the other AI root kernels where if you have a copy of it, you can just plug it into a shell and everyone lives their lives, this is my heart, brain, kidney, and soul.” She commented with tears in her eyes. “I will die if I lose this, so excuse me for trying to be positive and try to help my damn friends you Void addled bitch.”

She jammed her kernal back into her chest before the hole slowly closed around it and she glared at me with tears in her eyes.

“Either help us or get out, I don’t care anymore, and leave the sidewinder,” She spat out while not looking at me. “I don’t need the greedy humans of this world using them to enslave planets because it can punch through plasteel laser refraction armor.”

She rolled out of the room over my toes and I winced. Her mannerisms were definitely human…barring her physiology. I looked at Ria and she looked at me with contempt in her eyes.

“She may not be physically human but she definitely is human, you have no right to assume anything about her, the first thing she did when arriving here was save a life, Xeriko’s life, he had just come back from a small reconnaissance mission that went south since he was discovered by a scandroid, and he was lying on my medical table dying when Akari, even in shock upon being sent here from wherever she came from, jury-rigged his suit to defibrillate him.” Ria lectured. “Sure, she’s peppy, but I’ve seen her cry over the dead at the commerce center massacre yesterday, she has been going nonstop for the past day and even into two AM this morning, a full 18hrs of go time and she was still willing to go and offer you one of her guns to help you fight the robots, hell you used her gun to fight the robots after your Lasmg failed to even dent the refraction steel, oh by the way, did you know they use diamond coated refraction steel? Of course you didn’t, Xeriko and Akari discovered it upon salvaging the machines, Akari has been using the steel to make wonders for us to fight the robots.”

She walked past me before looking behind herself to glare at me some more.

“She was right, you are a void addled bitch, she was respectful and you insult her without learning her situation.” She looked away. “She said you can stay for lunch if you will keep your mouth shut, she may be mad but she’s not heartless.”

I winced at hearing that line and I just nodded before I leaned against the wall sighing. Xeriko walked past me before looking back at me but said nothing before pulling out his weapon that Akari no doubt made with her off-system knowledge. He then stopped in his tracks before speaking but not looking at me.

“I may joke and jab at her, but she did save my life, I owe her that much, so I won’t tolerate you insulting her, but know this, I’ll be the first to defend her when it comes to her generosity, if she truly wanted to, she could’ve done nothing to help us, instead she dove right in to aid total strangers in their war, she has empathy, and you could learn from her.”

Xeriko walked away while I looked at the hallway towards the dining room past the foundry. I just decided to follow him as I went in and sat at the table and noticed Akari standing at the stove while she had drones operate the various things she needed. I noticed she was also using whole ingredients instead of just printing a readymade meal.

“She insists that the food replicator is a soulless hunk of metal that she doesn’t need to bother with more than she has to, so she just uses it to print ingredients instead of meals and she cooks things herself, her food isn’t half bad even with the limitations.” Ria explained.

“I still think we should get fresh food imported but I’m not gonna stare down the barrel of the fees just to acknowledge fresh food exists.” She griped while cooking. “So I just make do with what I have, and at least its something.”

She then carried food over to the table.

“This is a bacon cheeseburger, with smoked gruyere and pepper bacon, lettuce, tomato, and onion jam.” She explained.

Everyone grabbed a burger and dug in. I hesitantly grabbed it and took a bite, and it was so different from a normal printed burger. My eyes widened in surprise as I kept eating the meal. I really was a bitch to this kind girl and I needed to apologize.

“I’m sorry Akari…” I said with my head down.

“I forgive you, you couldn’t have known, but try to be more understanding of others, ok?” She asked while looking at me with a soft smile.

“I…understand.” I commented and nodded my head.

“Good, now eat up, I made fries as well.” She dumped a load of fries onto everyone’s plates and sat down next to everyone on her own holo-chair and ate her own meal.

I wanted to ask about the purpose of such an action but I just let it go, it was probably her way of feeling human with the others.

“I gotta ask, do you guys have VR?” Akari asked suddenly.

“Yes, of course, we have full dive games and training programs.” Ria explained while smiling.

“Are they expensive?” Akari continued asking.

“Kinda, they aren’t cheap, but they aren’t NuU expensive.” Ria explained again.

“Hey harpy, got any bounties you’ve been looking for?” Akari asked me.

“Yes actually, we have a few.” I commented trying to gauge Akari’s motives.

“Let’s bust some heads then.” She commented grinning.