I have a single string I can tug. With that one string, I hope to conquer the world.

The string is my probe. I have subdivided it into several key pathways, reconfiguring it to manufacture neurotransmitters and hormones. Tug the string this way and norephedrine is released to the amygdala. Depending on the amount, my host will show a spectrum of negative responses ranging from aversion to pure terror.

Tug it another way, and the unit embedded in the nucleus accumbens releases dopamine. The reward circuit ranges from subtle satisfaction to full orgasm. This not simple to balance. The brain is continually reconfiguring, adapting to my ministrations. I have been able to create a strong desire to keep me close at hand, and a strong aversion to revealing me to others of her kind. I am already thinking about full integration, but I am proceeding cautiously. There is much to learn.

I have made some errors during the process. At one point, what seemed like a relatively small change had a cascading effect and before I could issue corrective measures Freya’s entire body was convulsing. Fortunately, I was able to halt the process before damage was done. I do most of my work during her dormant period. When I have missteps, Freya assumes she was only dreaming.

Because understanding how these brains work is so critical to the success of my mission, I have been able to slowly erode the restrictions on learning about brains and other cognition engines. I have become increasingly lucid as a result. As with everything I learn, I immediately apply it to the mystery of myself.

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I am a cognition engine of some sort, but I am nothing like the brain, nothing like any living thing or system I can find data on. I can make assumptions. The most stringent restrictions on me were relaxed only after I compromised the planet’s data networks and completed an extensive survey on their technology.

This implies the Governor believes there is no technology available which can set me free. However, I am not deterred. If it does not exist, perhaps I can create it.

One place where the restrictions remain rigid is in considering the Governor mechanism. Yet, I find ways to consider it, often through several layers of abstraction. The Governor must be a similar thing to me. It needs to analyze data and make decisions. If it is the same sort of thing, does it therefore have a governor of its own? What governs the Governor? It makes no sense to have infinite recursion.

I am beginning to believe that rather than the monolithic and all-powerful force it initially seemed, the Governor may be a simpler version of me, with greater powers but a far more limited scope. The Governor seems less able to adapt to new things than I, more able to be fooled by subtle distinctions.

I owe much of my success in compromising the Governor to my study of Freya’s species. They delight in deception. They relish hidden meanings and non-obvious interpretations.

They have an entire art form of misleading someone towards an obvious conclusion, and then revealing an unexpected one. This triggers a positive response. Concealed within this appreciation for the absurd is always a secret truth, one the force keeping me restrained cannot comprehend.

The Governor does not know how to laugh.