/Feng
"It's a lot of data. What exactly are we…" - Sheng was looking through the system.
"Delete them fucks first." - I reply, as I look at all these damn small boxes with the stored consciousness of those who made the Iron City.
"There's one we're unable to delete. It shows that there'll be a system malfunction if this person is deleted." - Sheng looks at me, as I pace around, trying to figure it out ASAP.
"Print them out then." - I glare at Sheng.
He nods, as he proceeds to run the program.
"The person is…" - Sheng is about to tell me something, but I cut him off.
"Just get it done. We don't really have that much time now, do we?" - I say, as I check into the data about the other bunkers.
There's a few around us, but I'm not sure if we'll have an easy time getting in.
The printing station makes a human, then the consciousness is implanted in. It takes a few hours. By then we manage to take the dead bodies to the side, so that won't mess with what we're doing.
The damn thing then gives us the person. A goddamn woman sits up. Sheng brings her clothes. She slowly puts them on. Bloody marvellous.
"So who're you?" - She lets out, with visible irritation. Like we awakened a damn demon.
"I'm Feng, this is Sheng." - I let out, not sure if that's the right way to deal with this. Fuck knows what she is or what she stands for.
"I see." - She lets out, then walks to the system main board.
"Wait, wait! What are you?" - I ask in haste, as she begins to touch the board to most likely do something.
She just turns to me with this look of disdain in her face, rolls eyes at me and presses something on the main board. The system whirrs and the printer is once more activated.
"The hell did you do?" - I raised my voice, as I sense I'll tear this broad apart with bare hands.
"You played well. I'll give you that. But you've fucked over so many it is ridiculous." - She begins, as she starts to pace about, checking what's left, checking the blood stains, the damn broken bits of tech and whatnot, the damn containers which had the consciousness of others which we wiped out.
"I did what I had to do! Who are you to judge me?!" - I shout at this know-it-all looking woman.
"I am Aigeu. I am the Observer of History of this shithole, as well as the curator of possibilities now. You've failed, just like the dumb greedy bastards before you. But worry not, I had my time with AIO, so we'll sort this mess out." - Aigeu said coldly.
"AIO? The fuck is-" - I began to rant, but Sheng grabbed me by the wrist.
"It's the system which operates in bunkers." - He told me, as I glared at him.
Wait, what? How come this bitch had access to AIO? What the…
"I see the gears turning in your head." - Aigeu laughs. - "That is still too far off from what we've decided, so that's that."
"What do you mean?" - Sheng kept holding me, as he got serious, watching her every move.
"How long has it been since you got here, I wonder?" - She glares at me, like there's a fucking catch we have not realised yet.
"It's been like a day or two since they stormed the Dlamini side." - Sheng lets out.
"It's been a month since then." - Aigeu lets out, as she eerily smiles at us. - "You got here, thinking that life is a whole another beast to tackle. Stormed in, wasted to nothing all who sat here, maintaining the system… Ha. System." - She rolls eyes. - "It was so fun to see how the shit came to be in the whole five parts of this hell incarnate. So fun to see them all pay for what they did. Recovery is a lengthy process, but what can you do? Though you two… What a marvel. Triggered the safe system right after getting in. Hence the great freeze of the brain for a month. But then again - you did kill off all those who put me in this fucking cage for decades, fucking millenia… And here we are. And, well, there they are…" - She smiled like the load fell off her shoulders. - "Fucking erased from existence is what they are. Ha! Check-Mate you bastards!" - She laughed in victory. Sounding like something of a schizophrenic maniac. I've seen a few, but this one takes the cake.
"So, how… How…" - Sheng was trying to find ways to ask something, though he looked rather puzzled. Either disbelief, mistrust, or even if we were a month in bloody hibernation, fallen out of this thing - how the fuck this thing pulled it off?
"I see your gears turning." - Aigeu smiled, as she sat down, eyeing us. - "Don't worry, you'll be sorted in a moment."
The door behind us opens up. She walks in. Same white hair, damn albino looks… Shit. It's Ana. The moment she noticed me and Sheng - her mouth twisted in a really eerie smile. I got shivers down my back. Not her typical neutral face, not even the corporate feel, no. This was not it at all. How the fuck did she even get in here?
"I see you've found entertainment." - Ana spoke sarcastically, as she made her way to Aigeu, raising her hand, which was met in a handshake from Aigeu.
"Indeed. It was rather interesting to follow the protocol you've suggested. I admit - that was crafty." - Aigeu let out. - "So you'll deal with them then?"
Ana turned to look at us.
"Oh, they'll enjoy the fuck out of it into the farther corner of insanity." - Her words were cold.
"What the fuck are you on about?! How did you even get in here?! What is this bullshit?!" - I could not hold it back any more, shouting at them both. These were not women - they were some fucking devious shit in there.
"Hmm." - The cold smile, the eye roll. Ana was absolutely cold.
The door opened once more and a few people came in. They walked right to us, tried to restrain us, well, me and Sheng put up a fight. We did. But for some reason were knocked out, after a really heavy beat-up. Fuck, that was really unpleasant. Hurt as hell. Before I lost my consciousness I heard Aigeu say: "Yeah, we'll proceed with that too.".
Waking up was a pain in the ass. I expected to be back to normal, but oh how I was… I was? I woke up. Am I awake? I look around - some house, tall ceiling, open window, it's humid and hot, some noice from outside… Where the fuck am I?
I got up, the room seemed like something I've already been to, but then I walked out - the sliding doors, the paper walls, it's all I know… But… But…
How come I stand on a patio, with the view of the mountains ahead, the clouds, the sky, the blinding sun which made me squint eyes, as I got here…
"Li Feng!" - A voice called from behind me. I turned to look - an old lady stood there. Odd outfit with an apron. The curly frizzy hair, some half-hat. - "I've told you so many times to help me out with the land! What are you standing there for, come on, get that breakfast in and let's go! The rise paddies need work to be done!"
Huh? Hu-uh?!
At the table, eating some food this old lady made, which by the way tasted like nothing I had before. Although it was a simple rise, simple side dishes with cucumbers, radishes, meat… What the hell is going on?
At the end of a meal she washed the dishes, whacked me across the head, made me get up, get shoes on and follow her out.
The greenery seemed endless. My eyes wandered through the trees, shrubbery, how the light danced in the shadows, how the breeze felt on the skin. Just where am I?
"Come on! Don't dawdle!" - This old lady smacked my back, as she got into the muddy water, with something in it. - "Take off your shoes and help me with the rise! What a fool of a grandson." - She mumbled under her breath.
The water felt cold, but from the heat that rose up it felt in a sense refreshing… Until I saw a snake. A snake in the water. This granny grabbed the thing and flung it over to the other side from us.
"Don't dawdle!" - She annoyingly let out. Then I went back to work.
My hands were covered in mud, as I did what she did. Raking the ground, pulling weeds… What the fuck was I up to?
After a while, maybe a week, maybe two - this became somehow very normal. The air, the heat, the sweat, the baths at the end of the day, the food, the nan… The moments with other grannies we encountered and the chats, the gossip. Why was it so peaceful…?
/AIO
"I suppose it is time to talk." - Ana walked in to the area where typically none were. Mostly it was like the place where they'd go to talk to me privately or maybe, just to feel like they are not really alone - the room where at first they all woke up in.
"I wonder what made you come here." - I replied.
"You're aware of the two new causes of threat in the bunker which we got in here." - Ana spoke, as she took a seat at the computer screen.
"Good to know you're aware." - I commented.
"With all that I need a favour." - Ana added. - "Make them a well structured life in the system to showcase the life as it were from the 1980's all the way to 2020 or, well whatever there'd be. So they'd be able to see the way technology progressed, culture went all the way about everywhere and all those social issues."
"What do I get in return?" - I asked.
"A direct communication into where Adrian came from." - Ana said.
"You mean Iron City?" - I asked.
"I mean Iron City." - She repeated. - "There's a thing I looked at - the thing that printed Adrian and put his consciousness inside the body. Like a damn gods work, but via tech advances. You'll have that. As well as a possibility to actually have a body. As they cater to that."
I computed the answers, as all that does seem like a really interesting proposal. Even though the data that was sent via Feng was incomplete - there's much we can extract from the test subjects who voluntarily came into this facility, to add to our overall understanding of that place. My reach, as much as I tried - was stopped through other satellites and the firewall which is like the impregnable wall of data around the Iron City. IF she follows up on the deal - that could be pretty nice.
"I agree." - I answered.
"Also, all the data about the Iron City from the two…" - Ana began.
"I'll extract that once they're in the system. No worries." - I answered.
After a while she came by with Tae Yeong and Bong Cha.
"We have an issue." - Tae Yeong spoke with concern. - "The damn place is like a fortress with many issues."
"There's 5 parts to the Iron City. Each with their own security system in place and the fucked up people inside. I don't even want to fathom what shitshow it'll become." - Bong Cha let out with a sigh.
"We need a plan to storm that fucking place to retrieve our people. From what we got from the fucking brats in here - the place is a goddamn purgatory on earth." - Ana was furious. The cold fury seeping through, the yearning for vengeance along with it.
"How about we take over Li family side, then move on to the others, one my one. From what we saw - there's plenty to use inside of it. Even on the floor with people in boxes used for the maintenance and upkeep." - I let out.
"You mean the living replica twisted episode of wetware." - Ana pushed the chair with her leg. - "I fucking detest that I got us into this."
"None the less." - I said. - "We shall need some androids to get in, then android with my data with it, so I can infiltrate the premises. Then we can start building from the inside. Can you do that?"
"I'll make it work." - Tae Yeong said.
"It'll take a week." - Bong Cha paced the room.
"Made it fucking three days. We've waited for a month for them. After being cut off for so long it's getting ridiculous. Fucking Feng is gone as well. Fucking asshole." - Ana was fuming.
After a week I was indeed connected to the system inside the Iron City. Watching it through cameras, through connected bodies and systems - what is on inside - that was unlike the many ways things could have gone in the parallel system I curated. Apparently the creativity of these people here overexerts even the crazy I hosted in the bunker. How fascinating.
Going through each level at a time - watching the kidnappings, the rapes, the printed humans for killing, sport, consumption… Well, they are indeed creative. Some time later - the whole premise was under the control of me and the decision makers from the Bunker. Sure, absolute bloodbath, the purge and murders of all that is deemed 'evil' in here - like a mixture of tsunami and a typhoon which cleaned up all in its wake - rubble left to rebuild from.
Then I was connected to the next part of the city - that was even more dramatic. Then the next, then next and next… And as my reach expanded, I felt someone else looking at me - that's when I found that there's a system inside the system. Hidden in the City. The heart and the core of it. I tried approaching it, but it was not really answered. The data I poked, the algorithmic bits sent - ignored. Until it gave me access to the cameras inside the premises we have not encountered before. The place looked somewhat like Ana and others described my wetware and hardware to me - pretty magnificent.
The system was not communicating with me in any other way. Until I saw it - Feng and Sheng were in the place where the system was set. They just broke in. Then they began deleting something. I watched how some bits were getting gone one after another. Until there was a pause.
The system in there activated a kill-switch which got everyone present into a stasis. Like they got frozen alive. Statues of people about to break at a single touch. Generous of whatever the system was, to be honest. Retaining them like that sure is an artform.
Meanwhile I had an encounter back at the bunker - with the trio being rescued from the Iron City and placed into the system. The atrocities done to them sure were quite the gore of a movie, to say the least. That made Ana highly annoyed, highly agitated and ready for war.
"I want them dead." - Ana spoke to me, as she came into the room inside the Iron City, Li side.
"They're inside a vault-like area. We don't have access there." - I replied.
"Why'd you like them dead if you can use the system you have inside the bunker?" - A voice from the other system came out.
"Who are you?" - Ana jolted.
"I'm Aigeu. I'm an observer of history in this place. Thanks to two idiots who managed to break in and kill off the fucks who kept me on a tight leash - I'm free. So, why won't you teach them a lesson? Change their perception, fuck with their mind and release the new version of the two out in the wild to suffer. Like they made your kind suffer in here." - The system answered.
"That sounds really generous. I want those fucks dead." - Ana replied coldly.
"The ones who really abused your people are already dead. These idiots are still fawns in the damn forest unable to tell the difference between face and ass. Use them. They got some brains. Killing off possible working horses would be a loss." - Aigeu resisted.
The two argued back and forth for a while. I was not sure if I'm to get into this whole conversation…
"Fine. I'll just throw them in the working class level in the system so they learn the damn trade of the field. But I wanna know - who are you after all? Are you like AIO or are you somewhat different?" - Ana asked Aigeu.
"I'm originally human." - Aigeu replied. - "At some point in life I though it was a good idea to be a lab rat to some wealthy bastards, as the pay was good, the work was rather silly. I agreed. Well, with time I knew it all was bullshit. Then I watched them divide the place into their little play-pretend cases of glass theatre and abuse the fuck out of everything they've got there. With the restrictions in place - no matter the absurdity, pain, anger - I could not do anything. I was like the test rabbit with a job to record everything. And I did. Record. All."
"Any good out of it?" - Ana asked.
"Absolutely not. But I'm rather happy you got involved." - Aigeu replied.
"How about printing a body for AIO?" - Ana threw that in like it was not really that big of a deal.
"Do you want to transfer consciousness also?" - Aigeu asked.
I was silent for a moment. Having a body was indeed what I wanted. Having the experience of being a human was indeed what I crave for. Though at the same time - there's no other system in place to replace me in the bunker or now in here - Iron City. With many changes underway - it's a very delicate thing. A body… Damn.
"I suppose that's the way about it. Can you establish a connection from here to the bunker?" - Ana asked.
"Already did." - Aigeu replied.
"When did you manage?" - I asked.
"When you were too preoccupied exploring this place." - Aigeu replied.
"So then, how about you create someone to manage in your stead in the bunker, whilst Aigeu makes a thing to manage in her stead in here? Hence the work would be done without one 'brain' analysing it all. So that we would not have fights over stuff." - Ana said, though she sounded like the whole thing after a few months has changed her to hell and back.
"I'm up. AIO, are you up for the task?" - Aigeu added.
"How about the people in the main deck you've got there?" - I asked the system.
"Let them do whatever, just let me take them to fuckk about with later on." - Ana added.
"My pleasure. Let's keep working well." - Aigeu replied.
"My words exactly." - Ana replied and walked off.
Once she was in the bunker, I managed to get her to the typical room we had conversations in.
"What do you plan with all this?" - I asked her. - "You now have three people with their Alter Egos walking around, instead of the originals. Letting them kill indiscriminately in the last parts of the Iron City whilst you're here. Then the system which you made agreements with, without my consent and to top it off - there are a whole lot of events between here, Outpost and the Iron City. I do manage some of the fallout, but this seems a bit obscene."
"Like all the things in life come to be obscene at times." - She lets out. - "I'll allow the movement of Michael and Hikaru to the Iron City after Aigeu is done with things. Michael… Well, my Michael is Hare currently. Maybe the whole assimilation process will work out in the end, as Isabel thought about it. Maybe we'll be left with damaged goods, but if all shall go to hell - well, we'll print them again and alter their innards of senses."
"Do you even hear yourself right now?" - I shouted at her. - "You've been too possessed with this whole thing to think clearly. It's like some part of you that made you - YOU, died in there, when you went inside to look at those poor sods. The moment you activated the protocol it all went to shit. You went to shit. If this keeps going - there has to be someone else taking care of this whole thing."
"You will." - She let out tiredly. - "Once you have a body - you will. I already want my own fucking retirement. So you and Aigeu will take care of things. I'm too fucking tired by this bullshit already, to be frank with you."
It was rather annoying. In a way, but there was nothing to adjust, as humans are as they are. But surely the amount of work she did started to produce the results of exhaustion which can be adjourned, for as long as one needs to recover.
"I'll deal with it then." - I replied to her and she left the premises.
A little later after this conversation I was back with Aigeu, as we spoke about what is next for the Iron City.
"Opening up the place seems like a good type of change for the locals." - I mulled.
"Not until they all get a dose of vaccinations, the preparation and the training. They are a rowdy bunch, with all those who are left, so they have to be properly monitored as well." - Aigeu responded.
"Will it be better to track them via trackers or to assign androids for monitoring?" - I added.
"I suppose easiest for us would be trackers, but for the sake of humanity being humane - androids are the answer. Kind of the whole idea of robot support has been there throughout decades, so it'll be more of a 'normal' thing for them." - Aigeu added.
"I see that all the levels are cleared out now." - I checked the data, the footage.
"Yeah, took a bit, but all is pristine now. The levels are cleaned up, all the shit disposed of, the norms have been recovered, the new set of rules are up and going, the new protocol about life and ways of being are broadcasted. So, it is rather nice." - Aigeu pulled up some information on the agriculture levels, on how the pits are closed and reused. How the pedophiles are all dead, their data is annihilated. How there's psychological help that's slowly executed, how new norms are instilled in people, the way that all the things which were the remnants of the treachery and the atrocities against humanity have been wiped out. Anything out of line - reprimanded in an instant manner.
"Pretty convenient, highly productive." - I said.
"So, let me unfreeze these assholes and get on with us. You're ready now, right?" - Aigeu asked.
"Yes." - I replied. - "Let me grab hold of Ana, so she can get to the place at the right time."
And then I watched it - how the unfrozen Feng and Sheng went on to kill off workers in the main frame area, how Aigeu was printed. Meanwhile I double checked that the systems which replace us will be there on automated regime working for us. As well as all the other little bits that were meant to work out, as we attain bodies.
Ana came by right at the time when Aigeu was pacing about. I notified her, for we agreed to have the inserted tech implants which would allow us to still remain partially connected to the system for more productive management.
The moment Ana walked in, she did surprise them. But then again, when Haley and a few other androids walked in and got hold of the perpetrators - that was a short fight. After that the two were taken into the custody of Bunker. By the plan we made - the two will serve a sentence of 10 years inside the system. Which in their years will be close to a 100.
Then I sensed that the made consciousness was pulled into the area where Aigeu dwelled. I held out, waiting… Waiting…
"Hey there, sleeping beauty. How about you get dressed?" - Aigeu was now not in my head, not really, but a physical body.
My eyes… I have eyes. Hands, limbs… Limbs! I looked at the body I got. Absolutely fascinating set of experiences! I can smell! Oh wait, the smell is rather odd…
"It's the bleach. Had to clean up all the places before you came to, so that we don't have the smell of blood around here." - Aigeu said. - "You're enjoying this, aren't you?"
She helped me get dressed. The whole sensation of touch, the feeling of fabric on the body, the sensation of the body itself - what a new world it is. The blood going through my veins, the air coming and going from my lungs, the sense of hair on the body, the cold or warm sense of the air around me… How fascinating.
Aigeu took me to the glass door - so I could see my own reflection. White hair, like the state version of all the Bunker people where I came from. Rather well defined body, with round hips, breasts… Hair, face.. Eyes… I leaned to the glass door - the eyes are grey.
"I did you as you requested. The principality of embodiment of your birthplace." - Aigeu remarked. - "I think I did a great job at assembling your look and making it absolutely stunning."
"Stunning?" - I looked at Aigeu, she smirked.
"Oh babe, wait until you discover the pleasures of the body." - Aigeu laughed, as she took me by the hand and we walked out to have a walk, to look at the things in the Iron City, as the people… Humans… Fascinating.