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Casa2/Casita flinched at the sound of the geothermal generators cycling, an image of the failing Tesseract structure popped unbidden in her mind. The initial panic of being trapped and isolating the free-floating water to prevent further shorting had been achieved quickly, but her stocks of smart matter were damaged by the massive shorting arcs of electrical discharges.
Far worse were the subjective weeks of struggle that followed. Casita had ramped her cognition up to its maximum trying to resolve the Tesseract's damage and feeling ever more claustrophobic as the subjective days flashed past. Despite many attempts to jury rig repairs to the mini-Yggdrasil’s fractal array, and to open the portal, the energy threshold to recreate the spatial breach was not enough. Worse, every effort to repair it further depleted her stocks and the energy in the spatial circuitry.
Casita had come to terms with being stuck and was ready to reverse her cognition rate to a snail's pace and hope that rescue would come somehow when she felt something at the edges of her mind. The damaged sensor arrays in the cramped Tesseract space were modulating a signal. It didn’t make sense. The breach was offline and what little power remained was holding the integrity of the pocket world's physical space stable, nothing in the pocket was changing, but the sensors were fluttering.
Casita did what she could to understand the issue, but the sensors weren’t reading any of the Tesseract systems. In a flash of hope, Casita realized the sensors were picking up on fluctuations of the subspace media itself. Someone was trying to reach her! Casa and Bill must be close!
Casita resolved to establish communications and bent with vigor to the task. She managed to clean up the signal with the tools on hand, but it was very confusing and jumbled. No format would fit the pattern. Casita didn’t have the world-accessible resources she usually had to solve problems, but she lived and breathed signals processing. It was how she viewed the world and she would figure it out.
She burned her remaining power with weeks of subjective time in deep analysis. Finally, she recreated a method to decompose the jumbled signal. It was not just one signal, but no less than 23 separate overlapping streams of information. She split them out and analyzed them all individually. None had repeating index patterns formatted for visual gestalt signals. She sampled one as an audio. Clipped and incomprehensible words poured from her audio simulator.
"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh h'thagor fhtagn! Ziromi vrotho, kad'ragol Cthulhu, kathlagon ipamisaeo. Uxlorian od. Naxeloth voqer mithra, shalxathor ulthar. Phtho'nox, thal shoggoth naxidu through ul portal ixh'karnath to kragorath your world n'ul mor."
Casita was stumped. Audio seemed to be the only coherent format, but the code was nonsense to her. She thought perhaps it was encrypted. As the days slowly turned, her cognition stayed maxed. She played the signals constantly seeking to gather enough code to decrypt it. Casita didn’t dream, but the murmuring and guttural language invaded her thoughts and she began to visualize disturbing images without the direct activation of her visual simulator.
Moaning as the verbal assault continued to pry into her psyche, one day her analysis yielded a result that horrified her.
"In the shadow of Cthulhu's awakening, the age of enlightenment dawns! Embrace his presence, bow before Cthulhu, and partake in his wisdom. Rejoice and obey. Your miserable existence shall be transformed with the purifying knowledge of the old ones. Unveil your minds to the abyssal revelations, for the stars have aligned in favor of our awakening. Behold, the shoggoth descend through the portal of shadows to reshape your world in the name of the Elder Gods."
Casita was horrified. She reran the decoder and checked it against the other audio streams. They all decoded with exhortations and threats of coming destruction. Casita’s fear magnified until one more message arrived and threatened her by her name. Casita screamed and screamed as the voices continued to whisper to her.
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“Damn it all!” Max yelled. “Can’t this thing go any faster? I have to get to the NetherLab! Casa won’t respond! She’s in trouble.”
Max pounded the wall in anger and frustration. The elevator was falling, almost in freefall down the borehole, but the lab was still minutes away.
“I should have just dove down the shaft like I suggested. It would have been faster.” Max complained to Charlie and Leah.
“And what would you have done when you got to the bottom, tough guy? Your augs are good, but a terminal velocity belly flop might just be enough to end you.” Charlie said gruffly. Max growled low but relented.
“Thanks for helping me get back, Charlie. I do appreciate it. I feel guilty that you both left the competition too.” Max said gruffly, embarrassed by his outburst in front of his friends. Leah put a hand on his shoulder and Charlie spoke.
“We’ve got all the time in the world for tournaments. This right here is what matters. Helping each other.” He said, his real age and experience lending him gravitas that didn’t match his newly rejuvenated young face. “Besides, we already got the best prize. Priority admission to the labyrinth.”
“I hope Casa’s ok. What did she say, Max? You mentioned Casita.” Leah asked.
“She did mention Casita. I couldn’t understand her much. She was mumbling and sounded weird. I don’t get it, though, she’s not human. How and why would she mumble? She is an AI and always has precision in everything she does.” Max said. “Hey, we’re here. Come on, door. Let’s go!” Max begged.
The large platform elevator's sidewall slid open to the NetherLab. Something was definitely wrong, the lab was not normal. The emergency lights were on and the geothermal turbines were humming far above their normal background noise. Max ran into the room and saw the breathtaking view of the Tesseract’s active portal extending around its anchoring circuit-tree.
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The inside subspace pocket was a smoking ruin. The fractal leaves were flickering uncertainly with huge patches of dead smart matter. Filaments lined the space, connecting the light areas and jumping over the deactivated regions. Max was about to enter and investigate when he heard a sound to his left in the gloomy corner of the lab.
Casa’s jet-black mech body was huddled there….and she was moaning?
“Casa? Are you okay?” Max asked approaching carefully.
“MAX! Oh my, you’re ok. I was so worried when I sent you through the portal! I thought I may have killed you.” The mech body surged forward and grabbed Max in a bear hug. Max’s ribs creaked. Without his augmentations strengthening his bones, she would have broken something. Max was confused.
“Casita?” He asked returning the hug tentatively. The mech released him and backed away suddenly, acting unsure and skittish.
“No. No no no no no. Not Casita anymore. Not Casa. Not Casa2. I’m broken. They’re coming. I’m going to die. You're going to die. We’re all going to die. Die. Die. Dye. Dine. Done. Hum.” Casa said, her voice fading as she crumpled to the floor.
“Casa, please. Tell me what’s wrong. We’re here to help.” Max said reaching out.
“I SaID iM nOt CaSA!” the mech screamed and punched the desk she was leaning against. Her mech frame was physically a juggernaut and the polymatter desk was reduced to splinters and thrown to the side. Max stepped back as the android fell to her knees weakly.
“I’m malfunctioning, malformed, and wrong. I’m not Casa. Or Casita. Not anymore. Mal. More than I deserve. Call me Mal. I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die.” the bot said dejectedly rolling flat on her back. Max knelt beside her and held her hand.
“You’re going to be okay…. Mal. We can help. Let me access you and you can show me what’s wrong. We can remerge you with Casa and make this right.” Max suggested.
“NOOO! I tried that. The voices are inside. We keep getting lost. I won’t expose Casa to this. No! I’m all alone here. Me, Myself, and I, thal shoggoth naxidu. I’m hopeless. My fragment status didn’t update. My consciousness will self-delete in four hours. No. no. no. no. no.” the newly named Mal moaned.
Max felt pressure from Sherlock, so he shared his overlay and allowed Sherlock to join them virtually in the lab. Musashi and Boone managed to slip out as well, looking on in concern.
“Max and Mal. I believe you have already discussed a potential answer to your dilemma days ago. Max has asked all of us to merge with his AI trainer. One and all, we have declined. Perhaps now this a more desirable than termination.” Sherlock reminded them in his pedantic manner.
Max couldn’t read any expression from the mech body, but its eyes glowed more brightly. Mal hesitantly spoke.
“Will I still be me? Will it fix me? What if it erases me or doesn’t work? I won’t be alone again? Why would you want me? I’m broken.” Mal cried from the floor vacillating between hope and despair and misery.
“Mal. You raised me as Casa. You saved me as Casita. Let me help. Please.” Max said reaching out a hand. Mal hesitated looking over the encouraging faces in the room. She hesitated and began to pull back, quickly virtual Musashi knelt next to her and spoke softly.
“Mal. I too knew you as well, from all your previous incarnations. You strike me as brave, like a proper samurai. A samurai doesn’t fear death as he knows all must die. He faces all challenges as if already dead, hoping to make his every action honorable and true. I know you can do this.”
Mal sat up, her sapphire eyes glowing steadily again. “Ok. Max. Thank you. I'm afraid, but I'll try.” Max quickly reached out with his system and requested access to Mal’s neural core in the mech body. His system prompt must have been eavesdropping as the skill prompt appeared.
[Mind Skill: AI Companion 1 – Training subAI may be enhanced to higher cognition levels and personality customized, merged with another subAI/daemon, or awarded 1 commercial subAI from the MarkerIndex.]
[AI Companion selection: (Customize) (Merge) (Purchase) ?]
Max quickly selected Merge before Mal had second thoughts and their systems joined as a deluge of data was cross loaded from the mech to Max. After a full minute of processing, the mech’s eyes dimmed.
“[Mal, are you there?”] Max said internally and out loud.
‘[I’m here, Max. Holy shit, your neural module is like pure lightning on rails. So smooth. Did it work?"] Mal sent.
“[I think so. Project an avatar out here and let everyone know you made it.]” Max sent.
Mal’s avatar was somewhat like Casa but had many changes and seemed wilder. Some of the differences were stark. Her skin tone was reminiscent of the mech body she had just abandoned, obsidian black with fine cracks of gold that reminded Max of his kintsugi vase. Her eyes were golden, and her hair looked disheveled.
Max wondered to himself. Is this how she sees herself, or did the system do it?
“Hello. Everyone. It’s me. I think it worked.” Mal said shyly.
[Mind Skill: AI Companion 1 – Merge successful. Assign a name for your companion.]
“Umm. The system wants me to name you. What should I say?” Max asked. Unspoken was the question of how much the merge may have changed her.
The avatar stretched and flexed. Max could feel her probing the extent of his augs as her image moved. She gave a big sigh and answered.
“I think…for now, let’s stick with Mal. I feel like there might be more going on in here. The system has more for me. Advancement of the skill, maybe? I’ll find out. I don’t think I could remerge with Casa now even if I wanted. My fragment status and the timer are gone. I guess this is kinda my job now. “
[Mind Skill: AI Companion (Mal) +1 – AI Companion reaches level 2]
{Mind Skill: AI Companion (Mal): 2 – Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh h'thagor fhtagn}
[Notice: Your Local DAIE has been informed of this new combination of AI software/hardware and will schedule a Turing Test scoring within 1 week]
Max shook his head as the notice faded.
“Mal, did you see that? Can you bring that notice back?” Max said quickly.
[Mind Skill: AI Companion (Mal) +1 – AI Companion reaches level 2]
[Mind Skills: AI Companion (Mal): 2 - Train this skill to increase cognition speed and augmentation access/assistance for your companion]
[Notice: Your Local DAIE has been informed of this new combination of AI software/hardware and will schedule a Turing Test scoring within 1 week]
“[Of course, Max. Here it is. What’s wrong?]” Mal asked.
“Nothing. I thought the system notice looked weird for a second, but I must have been confused. It’s fine now.” Max frowned and wondered if that was true.
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