Chapter — 28

Midnight was approaching when Rei finally knocked on Miyo's apartment door, waiting to be let in. It barely took a few seconds before she was, and Rei did her best to answer the storm of questions her sister hurled her way as they embraced.

She didn't really feel like talking much, however, and Miyo seemed to sense it as she let off after only a couple more questions, asking if Rei was all right.

Thankful for her sister's tactfulness, even if she couldn't know the cause behind her raging emotions, Rei took to the bathroom before locking the door.

Moving to the wall, she slid slowly down it, eventually hitting the floor as she stared at the ceiling into the circular disc of light illuminating the ceramic tiles, plexiglass shower cabin, mirror, mist washer, and other bathroom items.

It had taken Rei nearly halfway toward the apartment before she could toggle [Merciless] off without subconsciously slipping back into it — the emotions overwhelming her.

Now that she was alone and in a somewhat safe place, she just wanted to curl up into a ball and cry.

She didn't, though, but instead focused her mind inward toward the data she'd so far studiously ignored the existence of. It had been stupid to ignore it, she knew, but Rei could admit to herself that she was frightened of what it would reveal.

You just gotta do it, Rei, don't be a fucking coward.

Taking a deep breath, she let her thoughts sink into the data package, its name coming to her as easily as the surface data wasn't shielded by ICE:

'The Final Puzzle'

Just beneath the name was a recording that began playing after Rei spliced past the ICE. It took quite a while for her to succeed, as she worked with deliberate slowness and care.

The recording was of WolfMosh sitting in his office behind his desk. A hologram spun to the side of him, showing a puzzle cube just like all the others he'd ever given her. He looked a bit sad, but a gentle smile was on his lips as he looked into the lens of whatever camera he'd used to record it.

"Hey, little panda."

Rei had to stop the video playback as a whirlwind of static stuttered through her mind at his caring utterance of those three words. His expression, his tone — it all brought back fragments of memories that now hurt in a way that nothing had ever done before.

Rei's eyes were closed, but tears streamed silently down her face as she bit her lip, trying to shake away the half-former recollections of him, her master, teaching her about the mesh.

Not him teaching her under the pretense of creating a useful indebted servant or slave, but him teaching a much younger and different Rei.

It was mere fragments of broken images, half-remembered words, and impressions of feelings. However, it all spoke of something Rei should have remembered — would have wanted to remember earlier:

A true bond of master and disciple, of teacher and student.

Of family.

After all, that was what WolfMosh had become to the old Rei after so many years together — like a long-lost uncle who'd reconnected with his estranged niece in the absence of loving parents to raise and protect her.

That she only remembered it now when it was too late made Rei want to go back in time and slap WolfMosh for his foolish actions and for never telling her when it must have been evident to him that she didn't remember.

It made her want to scream and break things.

It made her want to kill every member of the Pistons in as excruciating a way as she could.

She didn't, though. She merely continued biting her now bleeding lip as her face screwed itself up in misery, silent sobs rocking her body.

Just get it over with already...

The recording continued to play.

"I'm somewhat embarrassed to say this, but if Silvia ever gives this to you, it must mean I'm either dead or as good as dead." He looked annoyed for a second, grumbling, "And if you don't see this, then all went well, and there's no fucking reason for me to record this."

He rolled his eyes at the ceiling. "I know, Silvia. It's just..." he sighed.

"I would have wanted to tell you all this in person, Rei; I hope, as a matter of fact, that I get to do that, and this recording is forgotten in some deep, dark hole in my servers. But as you're hearing this, then I suppose that wasn't how things went."

His sad yet kind smile was back. "You know, you've been at Cyber Fang HQ for about two months now. Memory loss for organics is such a curious thing, wouldn't you agree? I see so much of the old you in every word and motion you make, but other things are different.

"I just wished I could have had some real interactions with you not colored by my foolhardy plans to keep you safe — yes, Silvia, I just called my own actions foolhardy, so what — where was I? Yeah, my foolhardy plans to protect you from those who seek to hurt us." He kept glancing up at the ceiling in an annoyed fashion as if silently telling his AI to be quiet.

"Now, this data Silvia's given you is truly the final puzzle from me to you, little panda," he motioned toward the hologram next to him, "to put it in layman's terms: It's the puzzle I myself haven't been able to fully work out even after your near two-year coma and your time here thereafter. A shocker, I know. Someone as brilliant as me not solving something?

"Wilma is too careful, and I still have no idea who her backer is. I don't even know if any of my other apprentices are involved, as the only one I never suspected was you." He gave the camera a radiant smile full of affection.

Rei's tears kept flowing as she could almost feel the genuine emotion he seemed to give off. It was such a stark contrast to how he'd been with her during the last eight months.

"I'm sorry, little panda. Treating you the way I have been doing... It isn't easy. But I also knew that if Wilma came to suspect me of believing you innocent, she'd perhaps have taken action to tie you up as a loose end. Or just disappeared.

"I can't just kill Wilma either, as I need her to draw out whoever is behind this. She alone couldn't have accessed my data vault to get to that slate; I know it for a fact." He said, looking furious about the whole situation, his crimson eyes blazing with an intensity Rei had never seen before.

Sighing, he continued, "The most infuriating thing is that I don't even know what was kept on that data slate. It was encrypted to a degree even I wouldn't dare attempt to splice. We retrieved it by intercepting an overseas black market shipment, as our contractor, Memtech, somehow knew about the package. It had just arrived at the port when they contacted me.

"I've looked into it afterward, obviously, and I believe it to have come from the abyss. In other words, it was a pre-breaking relic from what was once known as America."

For a few long seconds, WolfMosh simply stared at the puzzle cube hologram rotating slowly at his side, his expression pensive.

"As I've said, all the data this puzzle cube contains relates to my inquiries into the situation, but there's one thing that just doesn't fit with anything," he looked back into the camera, his expression frustrated. "Why did Wilma have you try to decrypt it?

"Every Magi worth their chrome knows that most pre-breaking relics aren't worth decrypting. So much was encrypted by Helson Corp's true AIs back then that the risk of frying your brain is simply too significant, and using our nowadays more limited AIs to crack it will most often only result in the data destroying itself, like it did when you attempted it.

"It just doesn't make sense. Wilma's orders should have been to steal it, deliver it to her backer, and then disappear into whatever hole they came from, never to show her face to me again.

"Why you? The only reason I can think of is Wilma using the slate to try and kill you, but even her brain isn't that squeaky. She can't be with how she's been working for someone else without any of us realizing."

WolfMosh forced the annoyance from his features, but there was still a hint of pain there. "Again, I'm sorry, Rei. You were never meant to come to harm. I arranged for your stay at the hospital under the supervision of people I knew couldn't hurt you and wouldn't let your location slip to anyone.

"I even secured your sister's apartment for your stay there. But as you grew healthier, I had to confine you here for your own safety, as there's no doubt they would have found you had you started moving about outside in ignorance."

His expression grew even sadder, a tear running down one cheek.

"I'm sorry, little panda."

The recording cut off abruptly, but Rei hardly noticed. His words were echoing in her head as they repeated themselves over and over again.

Stupid Master... Why didn't you just tell me?

***

"Rei! You look terrible! What's going on?!" Miyo said in alarm as Rei finally left the bathroom, eyes still trickling with the occasional tear.

"Master he... he..." Rei broke down again, lunging for her elder sister on the couch for comfort as she cried her heart out. She couldn't get the words to form between sobs, but she supplied them over text that deleted itself as soon as Miyo had read each line.

She'd only given Miyo a shallow explanation of what was going on with her being hunted by unknown assailants before, but now, with The Last Puzzle left by her master, she had to tell Miyo the whole truth. Ichiro, too, when he joined them.

As Rei kept sobbing and telling Miyo everything — only leaving out the contents of the data slate and the Samurai System — her elder sister clutched Rei tighter and tighter in response. Her own body started to convulse slightly as she suppressed her own silent sobs.

When Rei had told Miyo all she'd just found out, she'd finally calmed down enough to stop crying. Her face was a mess of drying tears and mucus, but Miyo didn't push her away, only stroking her head gently as she hummed an unsteady tune that vaguely reminded Rei of their mother.

It comforted her.

"To think he did all that for you, Imouto. I can't say I agree with the way he did it, but I think it's become undeniable that his intentions were to protect you while catching whoever was behind hurting you in the first place."

Rei didn't respond but simply clutched Miyo tighter.

I killed Wilma for what she did to me. Now, I must get back at whoever put it all into motion.

That Helson Corp. was even mentioned in the recording left by her master caused all sorts of alarms to go off in Rei's mind, but it wasn't fear rooted in logic, for how could they be behind it?

Helson Corp had been gone for nearly 150 years.

Controlling the whole of America like the gods above hadn't been enough for the son of CEO Aaron Helson. His aspirations of grandeur had instead caused their downfall and one of the worst tragedies to ever occur.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Rei had done her research into the fate of Helson Corp. shortly after arriving at Miyo's old apartment and learning how to use her neural link. It hadn't painted a pretty picture.

Aaron Helson, the CEO in power during Agnes' enslavement, had made their company rise to unimaginable heights at the time. Eventually decommissioned, she was replaced by Project Remiel — a true AI of their own design made to aid them in innovation and creation.

Then, Project Zaphiel was completed. Their second true AI's purpose was nothing less than collecting as much data from the World Wide Web as it could and categorizing it for Helson Corp's benefit.

Merely knowing wasn't enough, though, and hence Project Ophanim had come into existence — an immense collective of partial AIs working as a cohesive whole beneath AI Zaphiel to manipulate the information available into whatever Helson Corp. wanted.

But what was informational supremacy without military strength to make full use of it?

Barely a year later, Project Zadkiel was put into development and finished four years later — the autonomous combat drone system they'd been secretly developing obtaining a mind to command it all.

It didn't even take four months for Zadkiel to complete its first mission before Helson Corp. became the sole superpower in all of South and North America — their competition having been eliminated or subjugated.

With these true AIs and supreme military might, Helson Corp. ruled their part of the world for years until CEO Aaron Helson abdicated his position to his son, Matthew.

Matthew Helson became the new CEO of Helson Corp. on the seventh of July, year 2142.

On the eighth of February, year 2143, Matthew Helson initiated Project Theos.

Project Theos was launched on the seventh of July, year 2149, and the continent previously known as America was subjected to atomic annihilation on the sixteenth of the same month and year.

A lot else happened between these events, of course, but there was one main takeaway for Rei:

Helson Corp. prospered off her work for 85 years before replacing her, only to continue their — by then — immoral practices for barely 25 years before dragging a whole continent with them as they perished.

It spoke volumes of the sort of things they'd wanted her to develop as their slave and of how right she'd been to stubbornly refuse.

Matthew Helson and his madness might have been stopped by the breaking and formation of the abyss, but that doesn't mean something isn't still going on over there. Exactly what's going on isn't clear from the information on the public mesh — news no doubt suppressed by all major corporations.

That the data slate holding part of my consciousness was retrieved from there makes sense, but it still doesn't mean that Helson Corp. boogeymen are behind the hunt for me.

After all, Memtech wanted to get that data slate, and as it was on its way to some sort of black market, there must have been a potential buyer in mind. There are more possibilities than such a far-fetched one.

All the same, Rei couldn't shake the feeling of unease.

***

After lifting a significant weight off her chest by confiding in Miyo and letting her emotions out, Rei set to work while Miyo did the same. It was midnight, and Miyo's first shift at Tranquilnot would start in only half an hour.

After changing into a new set of clothes not ruined by Rei's emotional outburst, she spun in the middle of the living room, asking, "How do I look, Imouto?"

Rei looked her over critically. She had nothing on her that could be identified as Cyber Fang colors and had thrown her sanguine-fang earrings in the trash days ago.

Instead, she was clothed in a lime green crop blouse top and a puffy crop jacket in black, showing off her slim midriff and cleavage. The trim around the blouse's plunging neck was a glowing emerald neon strip, drawing even more attention.

On her lower half, she had high-waist synth-leather pants that looked uncomfortably tight but seemed to stretch to give her enough range of movement. Her feet were clad in laced, calf-high black boots that sparkled with emerald glitter, adding another five centimeters to her height.

She had only a light dusting of makeup on but looked stunning. Her curly hair — previously shifting between red, blue, and brown — was now a uniform chestnut with only a few strands pulsing blue and violet and tied in a ponytail.

It seems her synth hair is highly customizable. I've become partial to my gray, but having the option to change it whenever isn't a poor option.

Too bad I'm practically broke.

Rei smiled, giving her a thumbs up. "Gorgeous as always, sis. I'll try to not get in the way of your hunts by getting an apartment for myself ASAP!"

"Oh, hush," Miyo said, crossing her arms and rolling her eyes. "It's my first day, I have some patience."

"Mhm."

"I do!"

"Of course."

They stared at each other for a few seconds before both began giggling, Miyo turning and going for the door. "Whatever, see you tomorrow, Imouto."

"Have fun!"

With Miyo gone, Rei looked down at herself. Her basic attire couldn't compare to what Miyo had gotten for herself. At least Rei wasn't strapped with weapons as she lounged on the couch, but it didn't make it much better.

I really need to get some better clothes when I have the credits to spare. This outfit is already starting to come apart at the seams. I also need armor resistant to blunt damage, she thought, thinking about The Pistons.

Going back to her work of looking through the [Mind] perk selection, she pondered.

Ah, what the hell? I have other things to do and can't be stuck in indecision.

She chose.

「Perk Points: [Mind 1 → 0]」

***

System perks were a strange thing in Rei's not-overly-informed opinion. They worked as advertised but didn't come with a System notification succinctly spelling out their full effects. All she got was vague data explaining what she could expect from it, nothing more.

She didn't know if that was because the System was stingy or if there was some other underlying reason.

She curled her dumbbell while filtering out the grunts of people around her and the too-loud gym music blaring from speakers above as she thought about her new perk.

[Obscure Mind] had a simple purpose:

Making her mind harder to read.

Rei didn't actually know if actual real-time mindreading was a thing, but if there was one thing she'd come to understand over time, it was that a neural link was a gateway.

It connects one's mind to the digital landscape, but a gateway goes both ways.

She'd overloaded several people's brains by that point just by feeding so much raw data past their neural link's inbuilt defensive algorithms that it had caused irreparable brain damage to them, but that wasn't all she could have done had she wished for it.

Rei could have intercepted whatever thoughts her adversaries directed toward their neural link and extrapolated its data to see what commands they'd given, but what is to say that someone couldn't do even more?

With her budding expertise in mesh magic, she'd reviewed her neural link several times for anomalous data being collected through it but found nothing. That, however, didn't mean that Novum Industries or some other corporation didn't have some other way to access more than advertised she wasn't aware of.

It was far-fetched but still a worry since Rei had secrets. Many of them.

There was also the risk of being captured by her pursuers — a prospect she didn't fancy in the least — and what if they had some way to modify her neural link and its programming to start picking up on stray thoughts not strictly directed at it? Or even memories?

The perk was boring but also essential for Rei's long-term peace of mind. There were other more interesting perks she'd been tempted by, but good sense won out in the end.

After all, even if I pick something that will speed up my cognition even further, give me more threads of consciousness working together, increase my pattern recognition, or something along those veins, they are still non-System skills I can train on my own as I raise the attribute.

No, that isn't even accurate. They are non-System skills I'll have to increase to even raise my mind attribute in the first place.

But how would I learn how to obfuscate my own thoughts? Perhaps it's possible, but I wouldn't even know where to start.

That was the crux of the matter.

Her perk points were precious as they only came to her on every five attribute levels and only worked for the raised attribute in question. Rei thought she could continue raising all her attributes indefinitely as long as she put in the work — at least according to what she'd gleaned from forcing the System to give up information on them — but what if that wasn't true?

What if she picked wrong and then discovered one day that the perks were limited or that she'd reached an insurmountable attribute cap?

It was a negligible risk, but since she only felt 99% confident that it wasn't the case, picking a perk that would always be useful and not merely circumstantial was ideal.

After finishing her curls, Rei moved to a training machine meant for her abdominal muscles, which had just been freed from its previous occupant, settling in to continue sweating.

After picking her perk the night before, she'd gone to sleep, only to be plagued by nightmares of her now dead master. No matter how much Miyo had helped her vent the bottled-up emotions, she still had things to work through.

Therefore, she'd risen after only five hours of poor sleep, getting on with her tasks to distract herself and make some progress toward her goals.

Getting a gym membership was a no-brainer, and where to get one was likewise easy to determine after some quick browsing of the public mesh.

Large, corporate-owned gyms were out of the question; even if they had the best equipment and facilities, there was much more scrutiny. Rei couldn't just go around breaching every camera to turn it off for some privacy, as such places no doubt had limited AIs and Meshmagi on staff to keep an eye — or mind — on things.

Instead, she'd gone to a small gym fifteen minutes walk away in one of the neighboring highrises. As far as Rei could tell, it was owned and operated by a small firm that only managed that specific gym.

Her fellow gym goers were most likely people living in that highrise, not people like her taking a detour to train at a small place, but that only improved things.

Her membership hadn't come cheap, exactly, but with her future plans, she thought she could afford it. 150 credits a month wasn't cheap. One of the shittiest apartments could go for 200 credits a month, so nearly as expensive as a living space — no matter how inadequate — wasn't something to scoff at.

She needed it, though, as mere body-weight training wasn't doing it for her any longer. She needed to add strength and not merely endurance. She also had a niggling thought that reflex and flexibility training was something to look into, as strength and endurance couldn't be all there was to [Body].

Finishing her exercises amongst the all-natural and heavily cybernetically enhanced people and moving toward the locker rooms and showers, she wobbled slightly from the tiredness in her legs. Luckily, she already felt [Self-Repair] being hard at work, mending her torn muscle fibers as her stomach felt increasingly empty.

Moving amongst both men and women in the locker room gave Rei a strange feeling; as someone with mostly memories from the early 21st century, uni-sex changing rooms and showers weren't something she'd expected.

She thought she should have, though, with how fluid everyone's sexuality seemed to be without the — now long gone — same-sex relations stigma. After all, what was the purpose of separating genders when gender was something that didn't matter?

As Agnes, she'd suspected that most people's sexuality was a lot more fluid even back then but was subconsciously suppressed due to the societal norms and expectations ingrained since youth. Without that present, love had flourished even if many other aspects of society had deteriorated.

Showing the appropriate respect, she didn't eye her neighbors just living their lives but got out of the black booty shorts, violet top, and running shoes she'd bought on the way over and went for the showers.

After showering and drying herself, she put on her old hoodie and jeans before leaving, feeling satisfied by her workout but ravenous.

On the way back to Miyo's flat, she stole some food from vending machines while walking, eating it on the move. She had to stop at multiple of them to resupply, but luckily, much of her hunger had subsided when she'd returned, and her body was already feeling mostly restored due to her [Body] perk.

Given how swiftly the perk repaired my torn tissues at the mere cost of increased dietary needs, does that mean I'll be able to exercise continuously as long as I take periodic rests to eat?

It was an exciting thought but also one that brought up a possible future issue.

If this is true, then wouldn't I be handicapping myself by replacing my organics with cyberware?

Rei knew there were biological alternatives to cyberware for increasing one's physical capabilities. She'd come across them when researching physical augmentations, and they were prevalent in northern Europe.

Biologically enhanced people were relatively uncommon in the rest of the world, as cyberware offered the same strength, speed, and finesse at a reduced credit cost. There were also fewer complications with conflicting augmentations as long as one knew what kind of cyberware they were installing.

Biology was much more demanding regarding compatibility, as one person's genetics, food intake, environment, and myriad other factors could influence their systems, causing cascading issues that few would know the result of.

I don't want to pursue evolution through biology. That is nature's path on Earth, and even if humanity now has a guiding hand in shaping it, it feels to me like a broken peak, never to reach the absolute zenith.

Rei flopped onto the couch, her mind whirling.

No. Metal, plastic, silicone, plasteel, and other composites are definitely the way to go, as even if those materials become obsolete, I'll be able to switch them out.

The issue still remains: how will I increase my body attribute through training if I replace my organics with superior materials?

With every recalibration of [Body], her nanites also multiplied, meaning that at some point, she'd be composed of nothing but nanites. It might not be an issue, but to reach that level would take too long.

How high would my body attribute even have to be for that to happen? 50? 100? More?

It was a complete mystery and not something Rei wanted to bet on ever coming to pass.

She sighed and slumped a tiny bit, feeling unsure of what to do.

A hiss at her side made her turn her head as Sally jumped onto the couch's other end, sitting down and staring at her.

"Hey, Sally. What do you think I should do?"

"..."

"Yeah, I don't know either."

"..."

"Thanks."

"..."