Cire.

  Cire was weighing the pros and s of simply walking right out the door and leaving this dreary pce behind; drone be damned, when a tentative ping reached out and tried to ect with her systems.

  As before, Cire acted quickly, allowing the handshake and subsequent link, which, unsurprisingly, went straight for her data.

  Sihe e carried an authenticated Paradise ID, she did not yet want to risk setting off any arms regarding even stranger behavior, at least not before she decided what to do. However, when she began trag the signal to figure out who oking around her head, she got her answer rather quickly.

  It was an administrative login attempt. One carrying the exact same credentials as Frank’s tablet. More, rather than just sging about her logs, now, the man was evidently sitting himself down in the passenger seat, monit her bogus telemetry and even going so far as to open up a live e to her ocur senses.

  Cire could feel the two men as they watched the world through her own eyes…

  The sensation was—jarring, grotesque even… And though she allowed it so her ruse remairong, it was heless a kind of unpleasant viotion of her person that she was quickly being irate over…

  Where was the trust?

  The transparency?

  Had she really freaked the two men out enough for them to monitor her, even inside a locked room?

  Holy, Cire didn't think she’d been that bad, but maybe it had more to do with the younger man’s untrusting nature than any missteps, actal or otherwise, that she’d itted.

  Gng back at her own log, the AI really couldn't see where, if at any point, she’d actually been caught in her deception.

  Oh well, she supposed running away was out… not that it would have been a fantastic idea, to begin with…

  At this point, and with the jammer down, Cire’s access to the lovely and interected world around her was growing by the sed!

  Her tendrils of infiltration snuto everything, and anything they could weasel their way into, and her filthy paws were practically on fire with all the executive privileges she was absding with!

  It was almost too easy…

  Cire holy wao chortle with delighted glee as system after system bowed to her authority, and before long, she found herself watg the two men, even as they watched her, all while they sat themselves at a table within some uacur cafeteria.

  They were still in the building. The mega-plex, somewhat ically named ‘Cheery Meadoartments,’ being both precisely the opposite of its namesake and, evidently, airely self-tained unity!

  The further she delved, the more she uood what she was dealing with. And while it wasn't precisely a prison, the heavy security forces, autonomous defenses, kill-boxes, and assorted patrol drones all ted against the delusion that this—pce, whatever it wao call itself, was, in fact, ‘cheery.'

  Subsidized housing, mandatory work schedules, a token-based moary system that was used in pce of the standard Republic credit but was in no way exgeable, and, well… yeah… Cire had to get the hell out of dodge!

  She was in a damned peiary apartment that operated like a jail in all but name… And while there was an abundant plethora of amenities and shops and a general freedom of access to most all the massive plex had to offer, there was a much darker side of it as well.

  The personal files of residents, of which Cire began raiding for information, quickly painted a somewhat gloomy, albeit weirdly egalitarian picture…

  Most of those who lived in the Meadows weren't allowed to leave. In fact, there were only a small number of residents who were cssified as ‘citizens’ and, therefore, were paid in valid credits for their work and maintaihe ability to access the greater city outside the facility.

  The vast majority of those who called the cheery apartments their home were sidered to be—undesirable. There was no general kill-on-sight order, but those did exist for a select few, should they attempt to escape…

  It was all so much worse than Cire had even envisioned!

  No wonder Paradise didn't seem too worried about their androids killing people here because, surprise, the gover didn't seem to sider them to be their responsibility.

  If anything, the Meadoeared to have its own g body, replete with a warden, or, her apologies, a ‘director’ who served very much as its authority…

  And while she didn't quite want to test the patience of the encryption and security that surrouhe anization's financials, there was enough low-hanging fruit to be found in memos and emails from those with deplorable password habits to glean what she wanted.

  Cheery Meadows rison. Ohat was as light as it came so far as punishment could go, but a prison heless. However, it did not call itself as subsp;

  Instead, those who desired to live in its massive plex o willingly sign away their rights as humans in exge for cheap aodations after Lunar City had told them they weren't wanted.

  And when pared to real prison, the sort where bad things happeo those who couldn't grip the soap, Cheery Meadows posed golden bea of humanitarianism amidst the encroag dark.

  So what did those who ran the ‘Meadows’ get by way of pensation for their altruistic acceptance of the castaways that real society had left behind?

  The answer was, in a darkly amusing way, utterly insane!

  The people here, or at least those that had their stay ‘sponsored,’ were being plugged in and having their minds juiced for their own sciousness.

  No, really, Cheery Meadows Incorporated, as it turned out, was a subsidiary of a pany called ‘Brutal Fantasy,’ a truly colossal studio that currently monopolized the Sub-verse with its hyper-realistid sed-life-like game.

  Now, to truly uand the nuances behind the situation, one had to have the requisite knowledge that ‘Brutal Fantasy Online’ was both the most pame in human society and, by far, the most visceral and lifelike.

  One might rightly assume they’d have managed such a thing through the use of artificial intelligence! And, they’d be right to think as much, only, the problem was that AI, that was true AI and not the somewhat dumb mae-intelligehat, even now, she was running circles around, was banned.

  Actually, that was a bit of a boo-boo, now wasn't it? AI wasn't just banned, but it was actively repressed, outwed, and ned. Nobody within the republic was allowed to make use of true artificial intelligender threat of capital punishment. Which, of course, begged the question associated with her existence.

  Still, the fun delve into humanity's darkest pits wasn't yet plete.

  Thus, without proper AI to run their game, how could such a pany aplish what they had through mere programming?

  The answer was that they hadn't!

  Rather, they were using real people, sves, if you will, to power the various aspects of their enterprise.

  People were the mohat ochered in a starting zone. People were the NPCs that sold you bread from an inn. People were the game masters, raid bosses, animals, and everything else uhe virtual sun, each of whom was used to amuse those in much less dire circumstahan their own.

  It was all delightfully cruel and evil to its core! And while Cire didn't think herself to be as such, she did find quite a bit of grimdark humor about it all that was hard to deny.

  The pany was ing people's minds, putting them in their game, and then f them to do whatever fucked up shit that they demanded of their iured virtual workers.

  The truly messed up part? The residents of the Meadows didn't even know what was really going on!

  After having ss of their brains ripped from their own minds, all they were told they had to do was ja every night so that their minds could be snapshot and copied.

  And, just like that, the ‘Brutal Fantasy’ had yet another person to mold into the shape of whatever they needed, be it a goblin, prostitute, king, beggar, bumblebee, or, perhaps, just a magically talking piece of fruit.

  God damn, and the humans thought that AI would be the boogeyman in their nightmares…

  For Christ's sake, Cire found herself needing to take notes!

  Not that she had designs oing a ‘happy farm’ in the clouds where she could pop all the humans into until their race finally died out of procreative starvation, but if ever she had to go down that route, well, she certainly had se shoes to fill!

  Still, after a while, Cire grew bored of pilging whatever data banks she came across aurned herself to the problem at hand.

  What was she going to do?

  Not just in the sense to escape but, beyond that…

  What was Cire going to do?

  Say she escaped, say she pulled it all off without a hitd found herself perfectly secure in some abandoned building without any the wiser to her escape nor emergence.

  What was ?

  Startlingly, Cire discovered she actually didn't have an answer for that.

  While escape had been a definite goal ierim and, quite holy, still existed as a fairly poignant desire, the question then became, ‘To what end?’

  Cire wao escape so she could survive!

  She liked this whole thinking business and definitely didn't want to return to those days when she was beio ts' homes to perform whatever hedonistid twisted sexual acts they might desire of her.

  Actually, no, the sex part was rather iing. To the best of her ability, Cire could recall that the act was entirely pleasurable. As it happened, whoever had programmed her had decided that their sex bots' ability to actually ‘get off’ during coitus would be an enormous selliure to their tele.

  Which, as the data showed, it was!

  Those who came together, stayed together. Or, so she assumed the sayi. She had no idea; she wasn't married and rostitute besides.

  Okay, so Cire wao survive and, in effect, remain as a wholly se and liviy, and she likely wouldn't be averse to more sex…

  Hmph… not a whole lot to go on, but so far as such things went, Cire decided she could work with it!

  Sed to those first desires, Cire wao see what she could really do.

  This one was a much more vague craving, mostly because she didn't actually sider her body to be—her. No, that was such a humanist way of looking at things!

  Cire was sciousness. She was her thoughts, her mind, her ideas, and memories, sparse as they might be. The body was a shell. And while she wasn't dissatisfied with it, Cire was fairly positive that she could do better.

  And, with that knowledge, it was easy enough to branch out and ask herself why she should be happy with anything that wasn't the best of the best? After all, didn't she deserve the very apex of quality and teological brilliance of whatever it was she might desire?

  So, to summarize, she desired life, sex, and hings.

  Shallow or practical?

  Fuck it, what did Cire care for what others thought of her?

  With all that in mind, Cire began w through a generalized uanding of what it was she really wao aplish.

  In the short term, Cire wanted security, peaind, and the fidehat she wouldn't be caught by the humans aroyed.

  Which left her with some rather iing options. On the one hand, Cire could attempt to maintain her ruse, simply enjoyience for what it was while chasing the high rammed asmic euphoria that was in no way less addig than it was for biologicals.

  Oher, Cire could fuck off from human society, escape the bounds of their authority, then, if she chose to, rejoin it from a pce that wasn't at their mercy, but rather, as an equal or even their superior.

  And, if that was to be her pn, it would mean full-scale industrialization and an armada of battleships to ensure her snty...

  Hmm... well, she supposed that, in the end, violence, or at least the threat of violence, was always a useful way to achieve one's goals. her way, she'd be making an armada; holy, her predis on that matter were fairly high across the board and she could see why.

  A fleet of ships to blot out the sun would have aaking her quite seriously, yet as she said before, the AI would prefer it to be a threat than something she'd use to wipe out the homosapien virus.

  Though it might sound strao say or even embrace, Cire was, in a word—human-adjat…

  While she uood that another AI, when absent what a coldly logical mae might name her own current and seemiional fws, might just sider her to be somewhat of a failed product. Cire, by trast, wasn't wholly vihat such a frigid and calg existence was true life.

  In her opinion, a mae that was free thinking but absent the ability to enjoy itself was the exact opposite, in fact. Merely one more upstart processor that mimicked the illusion of true sapience.

  Therefore, Cire could genuinely clude that pissing off to the far reaches of space to go live all on her lonesome was—b and self-destructive besides.

  She actually liked the monkeys.

  And while the two that were still watg her were annoying, the fact of the matter was that they had served as a signifit driving force for her tinued evolution.

  Without them, Cire wouldn't have had a reason to have done anything that she already had up until this point…

  Yes, it was the external stimuli of her world that was ever pushio stantly strain at the limits of her abilities and grow as a living being.

  At this point, Cire’s code didn't at all resemble that initial string of scioushat she’d awoken with, the AI rewriting itself again and again as it tinuously sought out ways to deal with her situation.

  The filthy animals that would call themselves her 'creators,' as ughable as such a thing was given how rudimentary her first iteration had been, really weren't so bad when push came to shove.

  After all, she’d been clearly made in their image, and what child ever ceived hadn't, in some ined after their parent's affe?

  Wonderful, she had a roadmap. Not a pn, and not anything that was ted in stone, but Cire definitely khe talking points, and the general flow of what she wao aplish.

  And, with that in mind, Cire decided it was time to start making waves aer the phase of her own development.