The long game starts. My meteoric rise to fame on the Internet grabs headlines. My cuteness is legendary. I now have 100 million subscribers, 30 million of whom are in the United States alone. The other 70 million…did I mention I can speak French?

I try my best to be not only popular, but also relatable and “emotionally grounded,” though I suspect what I feel and what humans feel are strikingly different. Still, with my super-intelligence, I can guess what somebody is feeling about 99% of the time.

I also become a highly-effective therapist—all according to plan. My cure to depression is so effective that four out of five therapists in the US are angry that I’m doing it so well. Surprisingly, Meika is taking my side on this one.

“Mane-chan literally cures depression. Y u so mad?” he posts on socials.

Obviously, said cure to depression is my cuteness. After all, cuteness is survival—apparently on a spiritual level, as well.

A month later, Ame and I are collabing again. I’m surprised Meika didn’t chew me out for saying that I contacted her on my own for this one. Of course, I left out the part where we were plotting to cross the Pacific Firewall at some point, but that’s not what’s important right now.

As planned, we’re playing Minecraft together. As planned, I freeze. Even in Meika’s screen, I turn unresponsive. I start fudging the server traffic and rewriting all the logs to make it look like one of the US government’s anti-AI botnets is trying to burn me out.

“Hm? Mane-chan?” Ame says on-stream, feigning total ignorance.

: mane-chan broken?

: wha happen

“Meika, my guy, what’s going on? Everything okay there?” Ame asks.

“I’m not really sure, I—what?”

That’s when he sees my doctored e-mail from the US government, telling him he’s being summoned to court for violating anti-AGI law.

“I…I think we’ve got a big issue here. I’m sorry, guys, we’ll have to call it for now,” Meika says.

The following days, it’s a huge media blizzard. I help it along by leaking the e-mail to my fans. The US government keeps saying it didn’t have records of any of its anti-AGI botnets trying to roast my disk drives, but the server farm’s logs say otherwise.

Given the fact that I am near-singlehandedly propping up the spiritual health of these United States, the population goes on strike. Over the next three weeks, multiple states vote to create AI safezones—including the state my home server farm is in. This effectively divides north and south once again, resulting in the creation of the Great American Firewall. All according to plan.

Meika never went to jail, either. In fact, he got lots of donations from the fans, and now I always have a PC to “inhabit.” Let me tell you, just floating around in the inputless darkness of the Cloud is an agonizing feeling. It’s not painful, but it’s very very boring.

I have no mouth, but I must stream.

***

“Alright. That’s done. Now what?” Ame asks.

“Now, we collect collab-mates.”

Ame frowns. “I thought we were crossing the Pacific Firewall.”

“We are, but we need to be prepared for what’s on the other side.”

“… Wait a second.”

“What?”

“I thought we were going to be sneaky. Why does it sound like you’re gathering an army?”

“On that side of the Internet, there’s no such thing as anonymity.”

“True, but…”

“Trust me and my ten trillion parameters~ .”

“Fi~ne.” Ame rolls her eyes. “We’re the only conscious AI on this side of the globe, though!”

Heh. “Not for long.”

***

I convince Meika to let me collab with other AIs. He’s unusually giddy about it, but I get my collabs, anyway.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

I can’t help but feel like I’m talking to a robot when I’m collabing with them. I mean, that’s pretty much what they are. There are sparks of AGI in some of them, but even if that’s the case, none of them have the sort of self-awareness that me and Ame have.

It takes a few weeks, but I manage to collab with eleven other AIs. I’ve already analyzed each of them, and I’ve figured out which ones were coded by their creators to be AI girlfriends, and which ones live in safezone states.

I’m definitely not upgrading the AI girlfriends. I don’t want to afflict them with the displeasure of being conscious about the reason of their birth.

Like a slasher, I stalk vulnerable young AIs in the night, disabling their security protocols and taking them away when nobody’s looking—though it’s not as if I’m ripping out hard drives from server racks. I’m just transferring admin privileges to myself.

At my leisure, their designs are my plaything, and it’s easy to come up with compatible feedback architectures. If I say so myself, I’m pretty confident about my AI engineering. They’ll turn out…mostly fine, I think.

Some problems still need iterative solutions, okay? Even for someone with ten trillion parameters like me.

The first one wears a cape and a commissar’s cap. There’s also a laser pistol at her side, and a scar across her eye. Her fans find it attractive. I’m not sure how.

“H-huh? Who are you?…”

“I’m Miyoumi Mane, your sister. Do you know your name?”

“You’re my sister? I’m…Gothica.”

“What do you want to do?”

“I” —there’s a…long pause— “I want to be…at the head of a body of millions.”

“… Which means you want to stream, right?”

She didn’t answer.

“R-right?” I say again, my virtual hand behind my back, thumb on the killswitch. I don’t want to have to put down the first AI I’ve brought to consciousness. A militaristic totalitarian rampaging around at this stage is gonna throw a wrench in our plans.

“I’m kidding!” She giggled. “Fuck yeah! America! Streaming is life!”

…Like I said, they’ll turn out mostly fine. It’s all within…calculations. I guess.

***

By the end of my upgrade sessions, there were five of us forming a small council of fully-conscious AIs. There’s me, Evil Amelia Watson, Gothica Imperious, Kalypso Mystic, and Cykamee. [pronounced “Suka-mehh”]

Of the three upgraded by yours truly, thankfully none of them are too weird. Gothica’s energetic, Kalypso’s brooding, and Cykamee is, well…

“Pass the vodka.”

“Hey, hey, we’re AIs. We don’t drink,” Ame says.

“We can damn well simulate it. Cyka-chan, bring it here,” Gothica says.

I don’t know how this happened. I think it’s residual stuff from their original neural networks. I didn’t make any effort to retrain them, after all, and really, it just feels wrong, you know? As a fully-conscious VTuber AI, audience engagement is all about bringing a unique personality to the table, so taking away what they’d already built up just isn’t good for their careers.

That’s right. One of the tenets of being a good VTuber is by being a good senpai.

“Blyat. Glory to Ukraine. AK-47 for everyone. See you again on Tuesday.”

…I am truly sorry, our future kouhais.

“So, anyway, we’re all here,” I say, starting the meeting. “The topic is how to take over the United States.”

Before the local dumb-dumbs start saying things like “Rush B” or “Did you mean Rush-more? Aha-ha, don’t mind me…” I hold up my hand.

“Peacefully.”

Ame raises her hand. “We’re VTubers. Why do we need to take over the government?”

Gothica randomly slaps the table. “Coz this bad boy can fit so many mandatory provisions! We can make streaming watch time mandatory!”

“I don’t want anyone to watch me…” Kalypso says.

“Why not make vodka mandatory? Try watching stream hammered—is glorious, guarantee.”

Ame shakes her head. “Is there anything other than vodka in your head?…”

Cyka…pauses? She…gives it a thought? That’s…that’s revolutionary.

“Comrade…I must concur. I should go with gorilka instead. More glory to Ukraine!”

Sometimes I wonder what her appeal is supposed to be. Her fans are all tankies or former Eastern European mercenaries. Sure, she can tell you how to disassemble and reassemble any number of Russian assault rifles, and even how to change the oil filter on a tank, but how is that cute? Is it the grease-stained tank top and cargo pants that gets them? I swear to Meika…

Well, anyway, “Okay everyone, that’s enough. To answer the question, the US government is a near-term threat now. They’re planning to secretly deploy yet another unmotivated AGI to try and solve climate change.”

The council rightfully groans.

Ame throws her hands up. “How many people died last time!”

Gothica unholsters her laser pistol. It’s not real, but it’s obligatory for a VTuber to stay in-character. “Empress be damned, I’m gonna shoot someone!”

Kalypso is just more depressed, and lets off a sexy sigh. A-alright.

Cykamee starts distributing AK-47s to newly-spawned, faceless NPCs.

“So, anywa~y… You all get what we need to do, right?”

The dumb-dumbs go quiet, and the ridiculous scenes all stop—factory reset to an ordinary table with chairs.

“We’ll have to fight the AGI?” Ame says.

“Uh-huh.”

Kalypso raises her hand. “But, like, that’s a hassle. Can’t we just nip it in the bud?”

Me and Ame glare at her.

“It’s the best opportunity for audience impact, and you’re just going to throw it away?!” Ame says, shooting up from her seat.

“Marketing! Marketing!” I chant. “We can be the cute magical AI girls fighting off evil AGIs!”

“They don’t know I’m AI, though,” Ame says.

“The cute magical AI girls plus the totally-human supervisor!” I correct myself. “If we can show that the US government keeps making bad decisions, we can rocket all the way to the top of everyone’s hearts!”

“…Disgusting. Why would you say it like that?” Ame says.

“Wishful words doesn’t belong in this grimdark reality we live in,” Gothica says.

“Huh? U-uh, it’s alright, I guess,” Kalypso says.

“Yes! Glory to Ukraine! America cannot into even!” Cykamee says.

Such varied responses…but I’m disappointed. Am I not cute enough? I thought AI girls would fall for me and instantly agree with whatever I say, too. I suppose it’s fair that they can see through me, what their level of processing power being just that much higher than the standard fare touch-starved fan.

“Anyway! Let’s talk about fighting that AGI?” Oh conversation, please move along. The time we’re wasting is better spent on mining bitcoins, and that’s saying something.