Ria

After our little spitfire AI went off who knows where, it got really quiet. Then it started getting louder as the Molecular Foundry spooled up and the AI started playing a strange song. It was a very synthetic song as she was building...a lot of things actually. The first was a…you know…I have no idea what she was making. One had a cylinder with ten holes in it the width of my thumb, another was like a GX-Las skattr gun with these big canisters hooked onto the sides.

"I present to you The Ravager, and the Perforator!" Akari presents proudly from the foundry speakers.

"What…?" Xeriko and I echo at the same time.

"A very very powerful revolver for our bodysuit wearing mercenary" Akari explained "And a shotgun that can punch through tank armor for our lovely Ria just in case!"

"Revolver…?" Xeriko questioned.

"Shotgun?" I queried.

"Just pick them up! The revolver has a cylinder to hold the bullets, the cylinder revolves around its center axle, and the shotgun fires a cone of lots of small pieces called shot, but for yours its tungsten carbide flechettes." She explained.

I looked through the datanet with my cerebral implant and...there are no entries to anything she said, nothing about tungsten carbide being made into these...bullet things, flechettes, shotgun, revolver, or anything like that.

"You look confused…" Akari observed.

"I just...am having a hard time comprehending what you're saying with my datanet not having any entries on...anything you just said." I say gently to her.

“Let me fix that.” Akari commented cryptically.

I then heard a stepping noise start from the speakers of the foundry then in the background and then in my implant I see...a woman wearing a shirt and pants walking along the bottom of my screen.

“HUH?!” I shouted in surprise at the sight.

“Yep, that’s me!” Akari exclaimed all chipper like.

“This…what the hell…?” I groaned as I tried wrapping my head around what I was looking at.

I was looking at a woman on my cereplant whistle as she pulled files out of her back pocket and placed them in the directory like she was putting groceries away. Its almost like...she really isn’t a regular AI. Like some divine sentient code...an AI angel or...some being of digital knowledge beyond our universe.

"This should help you wrap your head around the concepts of the weapons, I also sent this data to Xeriko"s suit." She explained while I was still mindlessly staring at her.

“Guh huh…?” I babbled unintelligently.

“Are you awake in there? I just got done uploading the data for the revolver and the shotgun into your datanet so you can learn about it.” She explained again while looking at me with her head tilted.

“Of course…No problem.” I said before reading up on the revolver and my shotgun.

“Oh and you’ll want to sync up your shotgun with your implant so you can use its full features.” Akari added while she was walking around my datanet.

“Sure...easy…” I said as my head started spinning.

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This is too much, I can’t comprehend anything anymore. This woman just swoops in and has a solution to solve our problems like they’re nothing. Was she really human as she said, or is she something else?

Realizing I’ve been voided out for way too long I shook my head, and decided to figure out the shotgun that Akari so nicely made for me.

“OK! With your weapons you should be able to find a connection port in the grip of your weapon, so long as that weapon is on your person you will have a count of how many shells or bullets are in the gun at any given moment, as well as a total ammo count on your person.” She started explaining. “With that being said, if you run out of ammo your gun will not fire obviously, and your count numbers will show red, please load 2 bullets or shells into your guns.”

She explains how we load the ammo into our guns and its a lot different from just spooling plasma casters or charging up laser arms. These have a comfortable weight to them even with the heavy ammunition the guns feel light with her choice of material composition. Its fascinating really, the weight feels distributed instead of just the uniform weight of the laser guns or the back heavy plasma casters. This feels right, its heavy in the right places. Just like Akari says I can see a readout on my vision, a 02/00.

“The left set of numbers is the ammo currently nestled in the weapon itself, the right set of numbers is the amount of ammo currently on your person.” She lectured.

A propeller drone comes in holding a plate of what looks like a plate of titanium armor plating.

“This is what would be on a tank in my world, get used to your weapons moving parts and safeties I put in, both physical and cybernetically.” She explained further.

An arrow points to a button overlaying my vision with the words “Kill Switch”.

“Engage the safeties one at a time and try to fire the guns.” She suggested.

Doing just that, hitting the safety button and then trying to fire the gun. The trigger moves a little, but doesn’t move much or fire.

“That’s the physical safety, that’s for storing the weapon here at this base or when not in use in an active firefight” Akari educated.

This is so surreal, I’m holding a weapon designed in another universe all together and its so easy to use.

“Now in case your weapons get confiscated and they somehow figure out these safeties, I put in a kill switch that will lock up the gun, every moving part will seize and become inoperable until you reactivate the weapon yourself.” She says to us.

Activating the kill switch, its just as she says, the weapon makes a thunk sound and it feels less…active in my hands. Then the…magazine I think its called, pops out. Xeriko’s revolver also spits out his bullets and he looks at it dumbfounded.

“That feature is to discourage trying to use the gun making it look like it fell apart to those who don’t know about its use.” Akari explains.

“Wow…” is all I can say to this…strangely beautiful weapon in my hands.

“No joke…this thing is so different to anything we have and yet…it feels nice in my hands.” Xeriko chips in after staying quiet during the lecture.

“Thank you both, now use the guns on this titanium plate, and remember this was used to armor heavy ordinance from my world.” She reminds us.

I deactivate my kill switch and reload my gun with its shells and the magazine. It feels active again in my hands as I aim at my target.

“Gah!” I yelped in surprise when I saw a circle with a dot in the middle appear in front of my vision in the center of my view.

“That’s your reticle, it helps you get a general idea of where you're aiming especially with where your eyes are looking, and it’ll keep you from getting motion sick if you have to run while shooting.” She educated.

Firing the gun at the target causes a gout of fire to leave my gun with a mighty BANG! The result is the titanium plate full of pinholes from my gun and the ground littered with a handful of needles. I looked at my gun in shock, I could punch through that three inch thick titanium armor like it was nothing.

“Satisfied?” Akari asked me with her voice oozing with smug.

“Y-yeah, just…wow…” I gibbered dumbfoundedly.

Xeriko then fires his revolver and falls on his ass with a shouted expletive.

“Whoops… should’ve mentioned the recoil.” Akari groaned and I could hear the embarrassment in her voice.

“That would’ve been very nice to know Bug!” Xeriko shouted at Akari.

“I’m not a bug!” She yelled back indignantly.

“Hey Xeri, check out the plate.” I butted in before they got into a shouting match.

He looked over and saw what I saw, a 3 inch exit hole coming out of the plate.

“Damn…that’s one hell of a hole, and I did that with just one of those bullet things…” He gaped, examining the titanium plate.

“Do you think this will help with your robot problem?” Akari asked hopefully from the speakers of the base.

“This will do nicely actually.” I said with a smile.

“Good, I really want you guys to be safe and I can only do so much from my end…I can’t really do much beyond manipulate tech and computer systems, which is a lot of things but I noticed a ban from AI operated turrets in the datanet after things went tits up so I can’t exactly control those because of the law.” She lamented.

“If you just need a physical ingress point or open connection, we can always attach a cord to the suit so you can jack in Akari, that way you can do your thing on the netscape.” I chipped in.

“Sure, that’ll work, and I’ll be able to be an active participant in the fight against the rogue AI’s…but what I want to know is why the AI’s went coconuts…”

“Coconuts?” I asked very confused.

“Crazy, Malfunctioning, No worky, error 404, et cetera.” She spouted off.

“Oh, well…no one knows for sure but that’s why there’s a ban in place for AI driven weapons, vehicles, and infrastructure." I explained.

“Makes sense, don’t want rogue AI going on a murder happy spree while driving a school bus.” Akari deduced.

“Right, and-” I started before I got an alert on my implant.