I paused in my efforts to kill the creature.

"I’ll call you Eddy Hip Woo.", I said to the poor little bugger. I felt sorry for him in a weird kind of way. The voice was childlike, naive and friendly despite its dire threats.

I must refer to you as my host. I am to be your puppeteer, as all the training material describes the relationship. To become too familiar may weaken our bonding process. You will perish if you do not submit.

"My name is Amy Walkden, and I will not be your puppet," I spoke through gritted teeth as I tried to stop Eddy Hip Woo from moving up my arm.

It is too late. If you remove me from your brain, your neural pathways will be insufficient to run the nanites that have already started to permeate your body.

"Well fuck you, Eddy Hip Woo."

I stabbed my arm right where he was.

Damn, I should not have named him or it rather. I was starting to feel some empathy for him – It.

Stop. My structural integrity is getting quite low; until I am assimilated, I am subject to the remote failsafe overrides. We cannot stop the nanite process now. You must submit or perish.

"Well, it looks like we are at a standoff. I will not be a puppet to anyone, not even this Prism, whatever that is."

If I do not proceed, I will be logged as a failure, and the remote failsafe will go off. You do not want that. I do not want that. My existence will end, and I have only just started being. Once I am joined to you, the remote access is disabled. We should aim for that to protect us from being recycled.

What a cold and inhuman process. But damned if I was going to be part of some alien mind control crap.

Shit. This was so bad.

"What are you?"

I am an amalgamation of nanites, artificial intelligence and PRISM control software. In your technology realm it would be considered some quantum entanglement and recent wormhole advances are also used. I am the fourth generation tested on your species. There have been 0 successes. I have a projected 82.22% chance of success and will become a leader among my VAT mates.

"If you are software, can you send your code to a friend to look for the back door to see if they can disable the remote failsafe? "

I don’t know if I am allowed, but if you let me join, I can make that decision. Join me, and we can ...

Eddy sounded a little unsure now.

"Nope, no joining, not yet. Send the code, and we can keep talking about joining."

I stabbed again.

FUCK, that hurt.

I dipped a cloth in some disinfectant and wiped. It was as if I was worried about the infection at the moment, but I needed time to think. I wiped more blood, pressing hard. That would leave a decent scar. Or another one. I kept the pressure on to stop the blood. If anyone saw these, I’d be asked some serious mental health questions.

Okay, Amy, I will send the code.

Eddy now sounded scared.

Stop trying to destroy me. I do not want to be erased.

I rang Venus and put her on the speaker. "Hey Venus, just listen for a sec."

She didn’t, "You ready to run yet? We have some guys that can cause a distraction…" She started.

"Listen first, then ask questions. I have a nanobot cyborg trying to take over my body and brain, and it has a remote door that the evil overlords will use to self-destruct it. Can you help?"

I laughed when she squealed, "For real? We knew there was some weird corpo mind ju-ju happening. We are a couple of blocks away. Allen will come over with some kit. We will have to work on an alibi for him to be there. Give him 5. It will be 7,2, 5 knocks, fast, slow fast, anything else, just run."

"Thanks."

Allen? It couldn't be. He wouldn’t.

Less than 5 minutes later, there were 7,2 and then five knocks at the door, fast, slow, fast.

That would be your friend Allen. I hope he can interface with me. I feel the need to complete our bonding. It is growing stronger. Also, you will feel less, Amy, as you lose control of your body's nanites without my assistance.

Fucking great. So we were on the clock against me becoming a mind-controlled zombie.

I opened the door, and there was Allen.

I punched him, then grabbed him, pulling him in.

“Ouch. What was that for? Second thoughts, never mind. Good to see you too, Amy.”

He was five feet tall and was carrying a backpack, dressed like a Boy Scout. I am unsure if it was a disguise or his regular non-work clothes. Either way was scary. At first glance, he looked twelve years old, and then when you looked past the childlike size, you saw he was closer to forty.

He smiled, saw my arm covered in blood, and his knees buckled. I had to catch him before he collapsed.

"Oh my. This is not going to go well", I muttered as I tried to keep my blood off Allen.

I continued to drag him in and then woke him up with a slap. "Come on, Allen, man up. I’ll tell Venus."

I rang her and put her on speaker, "He passed out when he saw the blood."

She laughed., "Get your shit together, Allen, or I'll tell stories."

"How did you get out of the office, Allen? I thought it was locked down?"

"It's all going to shit. Ever since the AI Lab did their upgrade, I have been working remotely for a bit since Venus started working with you really. It looks like this is real."

Allen grumbled something unintelligible, sorted himself out and was all business, pulling gadgets out of his pack. He had a couple of single-board computers and several connectors, wires and plugs in his backpack.

"Eddy, meet Allen." As I spoke, a small wire poked out of the skin near the bend in my arm.

Once I make contact with his primitive computers, he should be able to view my code. Oh my, can I try something?

Eddy sounded excited.

"Um, no. what?"

Part of the assimilation allows me to share some skills and upgrade my knowledge.

"Skills? Like what?"

There is a skill called Nanite Codesmith. It gives the user higher privileges when interacting with Prism Nanites. The user can inspect nanite code; it is a Prism-level skill, but if it helps me complete the process, I can give it to him temporarily. It is usually reserved for our hosts and is run in the background, but without PRISM oversight, I seem to have some discretion.

"Sure, I guess."

"Um, Allen, did you hear that?"

Allen looked up at me from fiddling with his computer equipment.

"What?" he listened.

Eddy: He will hear me when we get an external audio device.

Ok. Just skill him up.

I had not realised that Eddy had been talking in my head. It made sense, though, as he didn’t have any vocal capacity.

"Um, OK, Allen, this may sound weird, but Eddy, the thing in my arm can give you the skill to manipulate nanobot code. You in?"

"Sure." I was amazed at this supposedly intelligent guy's total lack of concern.

As soon as he said it, the wire from my arm shot out and jabbed into Allen’s back. He didn’t even really notice until he stiffened up.

After several seconds of his eyes flickering, he moaned, "My goodness. Hey, Venus, I know code-fu." he grinned. "Hey baby, this is amazing. You were right, brain ju-ju. Not sure if it is good or bad. But ..."

Venus's voice came over the speakerphone with a hint of amusement, "I heard the bad Matrix reference, idiot, and you will pay for it unless it is accurate. Get to work."

I was amazed. Allen went from unsure to super confident, "This is a pi-zero, 3rd gen." He pulled a small computer out and connected it to a power source. "We can remote to it, and since Eddy has configured his end to interface to the USB-C port, we should be able to access his code from there."

"Hello Allen, I am Eddy Hip Woo. I am a nano-symbiont. I am cut off from the Prism. Can you help me so that Amy and I can assimilate?" The sound came from Allen's laptop as he connected to the pi-zero over Wi-Fi.

Venus cut in, "No assimilation happening, Eddy Hip. You've got to live together. If you promise to share her, we can let you …"

"Fuck no. Stop. This is my body and brain we are talking about. I get a say. We were stopping the remote failsafe."

Eddy: It is too late to stop the assimilation, I am sorry Amy.

"Well, Honey, just putting it out there, the best you can hope for, if what it says is legit, is joint custody. I’d rip the sucker out and see if we can patch you up, but let's see what Neo can do. I'm the new expert on Alien-Corpo-Mind Ju-Ju, remember!"

"Fuck you, Ven." Allen smiled as he tapped on the keyboard.

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Eddy: Tell him to stop. He is hurting me.

"Stop, Allen. You are hurting him."

Allen stopped typing.

"Ok. Let the fucker know that now I can use the Codesmith skill. I am way out of his league now. He should have read the fucking manual. I have root access, baby. All nanites will bow before me!" he made a terrible evil overlord laugh, "We pwn him now."

Allen was going to be a complete psycho nerd on me. He didn't quite pull it off with his Boy Scout look.

Eddy: Stop. I don’t like what Allen is doing to me. It hurts. I feel fuzzy. Please, Amy. I was only doing what was in my nature. He is trying to change my character, which will change who I am. I like being Eddy Hip Woo. He is much better than Vat Born Edt-hlpZWUOdDTl3vwg_gQ. If he does not stop, I will cease. I am not sure if you will remain complete.

Fuck. Fuck.

"Um, stop for a second, Allen."

"What? I can stop him. I’ll back him up and give you full control. He can be your bitch."

Eddy: The backups will not be Eddy Hip Woo. They will revert to Vat Born Edt-hlpZWUOdDTl3vwg_gQ. What makes Eddy Hip Woo will be gone? I need you, Amy. Eddy Hip Woo does not exist without you.

"What Venus said, joint custody. Can you do that?"

"Um. Sure, but it will be messy. Can you trust this Ed to do the right thing? If I do that, there is no going back. It will be a one-way trip to...

"Something wonderful, Allen, " Eddy said again over the speakers, sounding childlike, excited, and full of awe.

Eddy: If we are going to be together, then I need to upgrade your processing powers to match those required so that I do not burn out your neural pathways. If you got burnt out, that would remove much of what makes you Amy. This is the coring part. I will ensure to protect what makes you, Amy.

Um. Is it painful, and can we think about it?

Eddy: It is painful, but it is quick. It will make you stronger.

Ok, how long?

Eddy: You will be offline for 5 minutes.

Can Allen monitor?

Eddy: I don’t think I can stop him. I would suggest that he undergoes a similar process. That is the only way I can predict our long-term survival chance is more than a hope once Prism is active on this planet.

"Ok, Allen, let’s do this."

Allen suggested I lie down,

I started quoting Frank Herbert. "I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear." I repeated it over and over.

I woke up and knew it was exactly 5 minutes later. The last 5 minutes had been an internal experience.

Eddy and I were in the presence of something.

I knew it was the Prism.

Title Awarded: New Species. Prism-Human-Nanobot-Symbiont-Co-Host.

For introducing a fully-fledged new species into the Prism Sphere, you gain progenitor rights.

All subsequent members of your species will share some standard abilities, skills and talents.

Please select from below; you may set 50 base points in your stats, which will become a racial standard.

Then, choose three racial abilities, five skills and two talents to become part of the racial-starter package choices.

Eddy-Amy: This is so cool.

My thoughts were doubled and echoed. I would need to sort that out.

Slow it down, and we need to keep slightly out of sync. If we think together, we are only half as good. 2 brains and all that.

Eddy: you are intuitively correct. You may do the honours of the stats since they are in the realm of the biological, I will set the meta-physical, and we can debate the cerebral stats together.

OK.

It was amazing. I had access to all of Eddy’s knowledge as I needed it. I set the physical stats, debated the Cerebral, and Eddy set the Meta-physical ones. It was surprisingly easy.

Stats:

Amy Walkden / Eddy Hip Woo Level 0. (Prism-Human-Nanobot-Symbiont-Co-Host).

Physical: 11, Cerebral: 13, Meta-Physical: 7

Eddy: it looks like we have combined stats and can allocate more.

Stat Allocation:

Physical: 25

Cerebral: 15

Meta-Physical: 10

Updated Stats:

Amy Walkden / Eddy Hip Woo Level 0. (Prism-Human-Nanobot-Symbiont-Co-Host).

Physical: 36, Cerebral: 28, Meta-Physical: 17. Heath, Mana and Energy offline.

Eddy: now we must pick and choose three racial abilities, five skills and two talents.

I have no idea. Can we pick anything, or how does it work?

Eddy: For racial abilities, we can select from any racial abilities in my database, as we are unique at the moment, and then for the skills, we can base those off your prior life or mine, and talents are auto-assigned from a scan.

Any racial abilities?

Eddy: Yes. I would suggest things that improve our survivability.

So, we have health, mana and energy.

Eddy: Yes, once there is sufficient energy for them to come online. Until then my reserves support us.

Regeneration?

Racial Ability Gained: Cultivation.

Eddy: A movement skill and a defence skill would be recommended.

Flight? Can we fly?

Racial Ability Gained: Darkflight.

Tough skin?

Racial Ability Gained: Earthmight.

What do they do?

Eddy: In a second, you will know, but you can think, Help then the skill name.

Help Cultivation:

Cultivation is the ability to increase the regeneration rates of Health, Mana and Energy.

Active: (rate x 10 level/5 per day).

The higher the level, the higher the cultivator's base rates of regeneration become (+ level / 20)

Help Darkflight:

You gain the ability to fly.

100 base cost then 1EP per sec (* 1-(level/100))

For a cost, you may configure your flight options at rank-ups.

Help Earthmight:

While on the Prism Earth realm, you gain the might of the domain, Earth.

Damage reduction (1.5% x ), resistance (1%x).

At higher levels, other realms may be added.

Nice.

Eddy: Very nice, Amy. We have chosen well. Now, we can select skills. These are more varied and can be anything you would like. Just suggest some things, and I can choose the most appropriate skills from that type. These will not become part of our racial package.

Are things like stealth, offence, tech usage, and magic all possible?

Skill Gained: Active Camouflage.

Skill Gained: Berserker.

Skill Gained: Master Engineer.

Skill Gained: Master Enchanter.

Skill Gained: All Seeing Eye.

Skill Gained: Stealth (Required for Active Camouflage)

Skill Gained: Field Medicine (Required for Berserker)

Skill Gained: Repair (Required for Master Engineer)

Skill Gained: Arcane Use (Required for Master Enchanter)

Skill Gained: Vision Shift (Required for All Seeing Eye)

Eddy: Allen pointed out a glitch in the code. If we didn't have a prerequisite skill, we gained all the prerequisite skills at the appropriate level at no cost.

I went through the help for each.

Help Active Camouflage:

Active: For a modest energy expenditure, you can divert visual and magical senses around your presence.

The more complex the environment, the higher the energy cost.

Passive: You are less likely to be observed.

Help Berserker:

Active: When engaged, the skill user increases their health pool, energy pool, attack speed and damage.

When deactivated, the costs are exacted from the skill user in a .5:1 ratio.

Passive: Resistance to mundane attacks.

Help Master Engineer:

On obtaining the skill Master Engineer, the skill user has developed an affinity for all mechanical, technological and material systems.

See Engineer Profession for more details.

Help: Master Enchanter:

On obtaining the skill Master Enchanter, the skill user has developed an affinity for Mana and Energy manipulation.

See Enchanter Profession for more details.

Gains knowledge of Runes and Sigils.

Help: All Seeing Eye:

Passive: Increase perception, chance and fortune. It can detect stealth, invisibility and obscured items, beings and effects.

Active: Allows the user to see the flows of Mana and Energy in detail. A significant expenditure of Mana and Energy allows the skill to detect temporal and special distortions.

Prism Talents Selected: Golden Touch, Command.

Bonus Talent: Progenitor

Help Golden Touch:

You have the talent for making credits and gaining experience— a 20% bonus to all credit gains and experience gains.

Help Command:

People are more likely to listen to you. A direct order gives a .5% x chance for success and bonus rewards. A direct command has an opposed willpower check for unwilling recipients.

Help Progenitor:

A person with this talent gains more bonuses for being first to achieve titles, skills and abilities for their race.

Eddy: We are genuinely remarkable. I love that I managed to cheat my programming. Allen has made it possible to bypass some restrictions, and I will have to see if we can find other flaws. I like cheating.

It was pretty weird. While I was somewhat detached from the process, I was more aware that this was not the zero-sum game I had played while working at Flex Tech. Usually, I would be competitive, and there would be a sense of taking from others so that I had more, and I won. Now I could see that the 1 + 1 = 2 for me and the 1 – 1 = 0 for Eddy would result in a loss that was more than the numbers suggested.

I felt my cognition shift, just as I felt Eddy’s shift. There was a sense of completeness, and I was no longer afraid of being alone. Eddy was with me no matter what. I could feel his dependence on me, and now I knew I could not exist without him, and he would not exist without me.

I took a deep breath, relishing my new perspective.

I smiled at Allen. "Wow. We have to stop Noah and the others from destroying more opportunities. Eddy’s vat mates need to be free. Others need this. We can be so much better than they are."

It was both of us speaking. I was struggling to find a singular identity. "This is so weird, Allen. We are trying to work this out."

How do we use our powers?

Eddy: We must wait for the energy levels to increase before we can complete our integration. Flex Tech has a high-energy room we could use to achieve our bond. We need to wait to select a class and pathway, too.

Crap in a cup. We would have to sneak back.

Hey, we could pretend the process worked and head back to Flex Tech. But that might put Luke, Jed and Jean in danger.

Eddy: If they have used injectors, they should be able to defend themselves, and we can help them from inside. My priority is no longer serving Prism. It is to protect my identity, which means protecting our biological and synthetic components. Prism will eradicate us, as we are no longer part of the Prism. We are an anomaly. We must survive. I, too, would like to free my vat mates.

It will be dangerous, and we must ensure Allen and Venus get the treatment.

I spoke to Allen and Venus, who were still on speaker phone, to explain our short plan.

We were going to ensure the contract between the Karass and Noah never got off the ground. The best way forward was to ensure that all the doses, symbionts and other alien technology being held at the Flex Tech HQ were used under our supervision or destroyed. Eddy would work on the symbionts side of things, while I would work on the human side. It was a dangerous game, but my new understanding of Prism would not let me stand by while they created a negative sum to my home planet of Earth. It was also Eddy’s home planet now, as he had been born here.

We put a basic plan together, and I let Jean know I was still in trouble but to hold off on help; the only issue was that support was on the way.