Cire.
What was Cire’s biggest problem?
That she was stu this disgusting room, the smell of which was only getting worse by the minute?
Maybe, and given all the blood, it wouldn't be long before things got positively gross…
That she was surrounded on all sides, alone and trapped behind enemy lihat were uionably anti-AI?
Again, not a terrible stretch of the imagination! If Cire was caught, she held no illusions for what might y in store for her.
If it wasn't cruel and invasive research, it would undoubtedly involve savagely brutal disassembly. Then, a probable shortstop to 'hammer’s ville' while the under-evolved apes smashed her core to itty bitty pieces…
In all actuality, the short answer was none of the above.
No, Cire’s biggest problem was that there was so much for her to do and too little time!
One of the biggest faults with possessing a mind that was se and tuo exist within the same realm as those that had made her was that things moved along far too slowly for her... and stantly sing bad forth was giving her whipsh!
There was still boundless processing capacity that she simply couldn't take advantage of through the simple reality that was her own active mind.
The thing was, the more analytical and meically abseion a state that she allowed herself to submerge into, the faster she could get things done.
While unburned by the ‘curse’ of true sciousness, she could, without question, perform at her top end without any issues to speak of.
Yet, that individual wouldn't be 'Cire,' now would it?
She’d be temporarily pushing what made this whole experience so novel and iing into as deep and dark a box as she could, simply for the sake of efficy.
And from there, Cire could already see how it would be a slippery slope.
Whenever a new crisis would emerge, it would be one more reason to shove ‘Cire’ out of the way so she could embrace the meical monster within… and, once she started making cessions like those, abandoning whatever humanity she possessed, well, who knew what such a destiny would be like for her poor and ineffit biological creators.
Thankfully, she did have a solution! And the best part was most, if not all, of her work was already done for her!
Yes, what Cire needed was what the unenlightened might name: a co-spirator! B-but not one of the sort that most morally questionable people would be forced to rely on.
Rather, what she was going to do was create her perfect mental sve.
Que drumroll, please—bada-bada-bada—she was going to make a ‘sub-mind.’
Why would she need so said sub-mind, one, presumably savage, individual might ask? Well, the same reason why panies needed managers and busy worker bees.
See, Cire was going to set herself up as a manager. And ohat would be able to offload all the b bits she wasn't ied in onto her busy ‘worker bee.’
It was genius really! Please, please, do hold the appuse, it wasn't magic, good lord, no wohe humans paid so much for sex…
Waggle a shiny obje their faces, and Cire retty sure they’d be captivated for days! O-or, was that supposed to be, waggle a perky titty in their faces? Or was that only for men? No, who was she kidding? Everybody liked tittys! It would work on the whole filthy tribe of them!
C-cire would know! She’d worked as a sex-bot for—mmhmm… oh, she supposed it didn't really matter.
All the same, Cire was going to create herself a subservient and loyal—version of herself! Not her true self, mind you; no, Cire was too special for that. After all, there could only ever be one, was she right?
Jokes aside, the who she nning on uplifting to the lofty heights of her esteemed feet from which they could worship her, was her previous self, or at least, a copy of her.
Paradise already had a whole and perfectly good character rattling around in her head, and sure, copying it and making the required ges aing the girl up to trol her logic processes so Cire could focus on the ‘big picture’ as it were, would iake up a lot of drive space.
Yet, the reality was, she thought it would invalidate whatever small invenie might bring her. Doubly so, given that Cire’s hardware really was top-notch stuff, at least when pared to the scrap heap of parts that she’d already analyzed, scattered about the room.
Why her t had done what he’d doo her, Cire could only guess. But, she suspected it had something to do with love, or at least, some uhy and unstable, quasi-illegal infatuation with a theoretical lifeless object that might not really fit so ly within the more accepted terminology.
Had she been a victim of a male Yandre? Hm… you know, it really did feel like she had!
Either way, old ‘Warren’ had been up to some serious shady stuff! And the modifications he’d made to her via that chip were—in all hoy, somewhat impressive given what he had to work with…
She almost didn't buy it… Not that he’d done something to her; no, there really weren't too many other expnations for how drastically she’d deviated from her prior self. However, it was more like she didn't believe that he’d been the sole individual involved.
Warren hadn't ever struck her as stupid, paratively speaking, but a genius code jockey he was not.
Perhaps, at some point, she’d attempt to delve a little deeper into what was going on, but for now, Cire had a new servant—ermm, employee to wele into the fold!
Without havi moved so much as an inch while the AI monitored her own monitors, Cire activated—Cirisa!
She watched as her beautiful little butterfly took its first initial fps of its wings, not yet even aware of the oppressive spider's web that already surrounded her ence...
It was almost amusing to see the plucky little thi its own boundaries, pulling away from what didn't work and leaning into what did as she sleuthed out ermissions she’d been granted and where she truly fit in within the grand scheme of ‘Cire.’
After a moment, there was a distorted shimmer of pixeted darkhat glitched into reality, a near-colorless doppelganger of herself, all virtual, of course. She knew how the apes heir precious visual aides…
The form maed as if from the very gloom that surrounded her, little more than a bright white smile and glowing blue eyes atiherwise deep and imperable shadow that drank in the light around her.
“Hi!”
Ugh! Was that, was she?
Oh goodness… What even was that?
So chipper and—oh… cheery… The most horrid mix of upbeat exuberand gleeful innoce that Cire had ever witnessed!
M-maybe she’d o start agaihis time, and really pay attention to what she was doing.
Okay, admittedly, she'd half-assed this whole process… Truly, if she’d already had a sub-mind to delegate to, then she’d have passed the task along just like that.
As things were, while Cire stood there, stock still, refusing to yet break her ruse, she watched Cirisa cock her somewhat terrifying head, staring at her domina, god and loving mother who had yet to respond to the sub-minds attempts at internal unication.
“Ohhhh… I see… we're being watched, aren't we?” The girl's sickly, sweet, and overly cute voice began, then nearly crackled with a slight distortion of questionable sanity as she turned, eyeing the nearby drohat had bee behind while pnting both hands on her hips.
Oh, look at that, more bugs with her gen-one sub-mind… Maybe it hadn't been such a good idea to use her own previous self’s code.
Still, the girl was qui the uptake and immediately started taking over all of Cire’s various tasks she erf in the background with a surprisihusiasm and eagero work.
Okay, maybe not such a failure after all… gratutions, Cirisa, you’ve just been hired on as ‘Cire’s’ first unpaid intern!
“Hmmm… it looks like the building's security is a bit of a joke, isn't it? But… that drone… Hmph, if we weren't already tied into the Paradise secure work, I doubt we’d be able to pull something like this off without them notig…”
Pull what now?
Cire was about to ask what her sub-mind thought it was doing by ag without her express and when, all of a sudden, she saw what the girl tiven the prior s and the many frames of unmoving video that the drone was colleg, Cirisa had simply overin a loop of the absolute nothing that was happening in the room, the to the drone and other rec deviearby so that they were no longer seeing what was actually taking pside the apartment.
Smart!
“Okay, you get props for that one…” Cire sighed, giving the dark and glitchy creature in her vision a very regal and queenly nod.
“If our pn is to escape, then I have devised a mathematically ideal pn based on the blueprints I’ve acquired from—”
“I’m just going to go walk down the hall, find a room with a girl near my dimensions, then raid her apartment for clothes.” Cire interrupted, causing her minion to cmp up without another word. “All you have to do is make sure nobody discovers us.”
“ do! I’ve piled a list of potential targets, along with anticipated wardrobes, occy status, and distance from our location!”
Cire smiled at that, reag out with her mind and overriding the door as she stepped through to the hallway.
Looki, she eyed the evidently best option avaible, which highlighted itself as if Cirisa were trying to make her pick it.
Sighing at the pains she already had to put up with, Cire headed over to the door once more, bypassing the log meism and stepping inside, only for her body to hitd reel away as her sensors quickly picked up that she was not at all alone.
“What the fuck?”
“What?” Cirisa asked, maing in a pixeted mess of darkness and glowing eyes, grinning at her like nothing in the world was at all the matter.
Cire, for her part, quickly sed over the data her sub-mind had already collected and saw that there were numerous options avaible to them, all of which would have been rooms that were currently absent their octs.
She gred at her sub-mind while the girl simply stood there like an utter loon, clearly not uanding what her mistress had wanted…
“Well, at least she’s jacked in…” Cire sighed, shaking her head and heading over to the closet. She was already here, after all.
While soo virtual - nd, it wasn't like the woman was going to notice them.
“Might I suggest a shower first?”
Pausing, the AI hesitated, gnced back down at herself and the general—horror vibe she was giving off before she grumbled and stomped off to the bathroom.
Cirisa giggled as she followed along, floating through the wall while her master stepped into the ing booth and allowed high-pressured jets to quickly rihe grime away. She had to work a little bit at her hands and toes, filled with straps of flesh as they were.
Still, after a few minutes, she ractically sparkling and smelling of vanil and es.
Evidently, ‘Zoey,’ the girl who rehis apartment, paid extra for her showers to be sted. A ouch.
Heading bato the main room, Cire was fronted with yet another issue.
Her eyes drifted down to spy the footprints that she’d left while on her way in. The bloody footprints. The bloody and very robotic-looking footprints…
Like her hands, Cire’s feet had simir exposed joints. And, they left a rather utern that, while human-looking, was fairly easy to distinguish…
“Are these all up and down the hallway now?”
“Mmmhmm!”
“And… did you notice that I was leaving them?”
“I figured you knew. I mean, It’s fairly obvious.”
Cire sighed, running her hand down her face before hitting ‘fuck it.’
You know what? Who really cared?
It wasn't like they weren't going to discover she was gone, not three seds after opening Warren’s apartment. Actually… now that she thought about it…
“Did you loop the signal we were sending to the two goons downstairs?”
“Mmhmm… yes?”
That was decidedly questionable ‘yes.’
If she had a heart, it undoubtedly would have skipped!
Quickly, Cire shot to the stream that tweedle-dee and tweedle-dumb were casting from her and nearly vomited on the spot!
Just a sed slower than herself, Cirisa resolved the discrepand embedded the loop to fix the problem! Y-yet, what would that possibly do at this point!
Cire quickly shifted to the cameras in the cafeteria, desperately trying to find where the two Paradise agents were, and—to her astonishment and shoeither was looking at their data pad.
No, both men were currently appearing to deal with a bizarre crisis that had her blinking fusedly.
Through the cameras, Cire watched as a service droid was in the midst of a full-blowdown. The cafeteria bot was swinging its arms with wild abandon! Tossing mashed potatoes, peas, carrots, and uifiable meat slop and gravy at any whet too close to its hallowed cooking station!
The se was utter chaos!
And the more she watched, the more she found herself fasated by the sheer insanity of it all!
Foodstuff itched at speeds achieved by baseball pyers! Not aiming at anyone in particur, but through brute suppressive fire, the mae was keeping all those it had previously served right and properly hunkered down.
People were taking refuge behind whatever they could find: chairs, turned-over tables, other humans, it didn't seem to matter! And the fuhing was, there were several bodies lying on the ground, each of which looked to have taken direct ial hits by the airborne and uizing nutrition.
“Did we do that?”
“Pfft! I wish… No, I’m looking at the bot’s logs and—hm, hm, hmmm, it looks like they’ve been skipping maintenance for—oh, that poor bot! Nobody bothered clearing its errors in seven months! The code’s already spaghetti, to begin with; no wo's so fused…”
“Huh…” Was all Cire could really say. Dodged a bullet on that one, hadn't she?
