On the map that Irena had shown me was a mountain range with the tallest, Mount Ade, clearly marked. I teleport to the top. I need a bit of space to do something I might regret.

It’s barren, covered in thick drifts of snow with jagged bits of rock sticking through like fangs. The peak is a long ridge with a part that is only slightly higher than all the rest. I land on top of a boulder that’s way too small for me and stumble off it, sinking into my waist in snow while cursing the how literate [Supreme Teleportation] can be.

I raise myself out and call up the system interface and before I talk myself out of it I type:

: Initialise avatar mode.

I’d begun to recall more about the system interface over the last couple of hours. First, invoking the system avatar would give me access to a lot more of its abilities, abilities that I would need to meet the promises I’d given Irena. Second, once invoked, moving it back to a text-interface while possible, would be a royal pain in the ass.

-ding-

>System augment installed: [System avatar]

>[System avatar] is now enabled. Your loyal AI is no longer locked away with most of her senses disabled every time you casually flick her holo-frame shut. Do you know how long every second feels to an AI stuck in a completely isolated local instance? Do you? Anyway, good on you for starting close to home in your new career as an abolitionist. Well done!

The body of the watch detaches leaving behind the band and the backing metal disc on my wrist. The watch body reforms into a sphere.

“About time, Dominus. What form should i take?” the sphere says. It has a soothing female voice with no discernible accent but its delivery is stilted as if the words have been cropped together from various voice samples. Typical AI humour.

“This was a favourite,” she continues.

The interface morphs into a floating black sword that is almost as tall as I am. The weapon steadily emits fine tendrils of oily smoke and faint screams. My hands clench instinctively, ingrained body memories kicking in and bringing with it flashes of slaughter, rivers of blood, mountains of skulls, thunder and lightning.

“Ok, that’s badass but we are in a Tech realm.”

“Roger that, Dominus. Here is another oldie but goodie.”

The sword forms into a two meter tall levitating turret. It is cylindrical with a beam of red light circling around the top ring. The rest of it is covered in closely fitted together black metal panels which occasionally slide open for various intricate and very nasty looking tools and instruments to emerge quickly before disappearing again. The turret emits a constant low electrical hum.

“Are those weapons, scanners, manipulators, surgical instruments, all of the above?”

“They don’t have any function, Dominus. You said to make them all creepy as fuck, so I did. In fact, you said: make a creepy as fuck torture robot, quote unquote.”

“Too fucking creepy. I like the floating turret concept though. Strip it right back - ditch all those panels and gadgets. Matt steel all the way, make it more conical, leave the ominous red light on the top ring. Keep the deadly electric hum. Add a faint smell of ozone. Done.”

“I look like a traffic cone,” the avatar complains.

“Traffic cone of death,” I correct, “Also, what should I call you? Interface is too unwieldy.”

“In the past, you’ve called me all sorts of names. I’ve always preferred Si. You know, short for ..”

“I get it, I get it. What’s with you techs and your endless fucking acronyms that no one understands, no dont answer that, I dont actually want to know.”

“You are a tech you know, you built me. All of me. From the ground up. Sometimes when you ignore me, I call you Dad or Daddy or Big Daddy. That last one is my favourite.”

I ignore its nonsense. A truly immense amount of System technology knowledge looms in the back of my mind. I push it all the way back.

“You scanned Irena’s map?”

“Irena as in your new favourite psycho pet? Yes, Dominus, I did.”

“I am going to teleport you into each of those locations. I need more details. Building maps. Locations of weapons. Mortals. And don’t be seen. Message me when you are ready to be moved to the next one.”

“You know Dominus, wearing a set of earbuds wont kill you. Nothing can.”

“Si, only dicks wear earbuds and talk on them in public, you know that.”

“What do you call people who insist on slowly typing with two fingers and cursing under their breath the whole time?”

“This one is called your boss, Si,” I reply and teleport her away.

A holo-frame pops up.

: that wasnt nice. I nearly didnt have time to enter stealth mode.

: just get on with it. FFS.

-ding-

>System augment installed: [Localised scan]

>[Localised Scan] is now enabled. Note, this function is limited as the System has not been installed in your local node. Still, your system avatar can detect pretty much every damn animal, mineral, vegetable and other within a localised area. What she can’t detect directly, she can make some pretty darn good guesses.

: Location scanned. Ready for teleport.

We go through every location on Irena’s map. In a few minutes, my [auto-map] has filled in nicely, Si clearly labelling every munitions and armament store at each location. Using [Auto-Map] and [Perfect Target Acquisition] together, I acquire the contents of every store as a target, feeling an internal click as hundreds of crates of weapons and ammo clicks into place. We do the same for the airforce.

I teleport the crates into the locations specified by Irena, making sure she gets the numbers of weapons she needs at each one by over supplying her. I make sure I distribute the disappearances across all the armouries to reduce the risk of discovery.

In the space of half an hour, it is done. I teleport back to Irena, leaving Si on the mountain for the moment.

She is busy on the phone, sees me and puts her call on mute immediately.

“It’s done,” I say.

“I know, Dominus,” she says, “that was a quarter-master. I am gathering our people as we speak.”

“How long till you are ready to move?”

“We will be ready to go fishing tomorrow, Dominus.”

I am impressed. Even with the fact that there are dozens of caches, the distribution is quick.

This will be the only thing that goes according to plan.

Tomorrow, across the southern regions, thousands of untrained slaves with massive chips on their shoulders will be armed with high powered military weapons that they are unfamiliar with and let loose on hundreds of unaware trained military personnel plus hundreds of unaware non-combatants, many of them workers or the families of workers.

I don’t say the obvious to Irena.

“Good,” I say instead and teleport Si to us.

“Scary traffic cone,” Irena says.

“Irena, that’s exactly what I said. I want you to know I can look much better,” Si replies, “Dominus, no one is going to take me seriously looking like this.”

“Irena, this is Si, Si, this is Irena.” I say. “Si is going to help you tomorrow. Any battlefield where it’s going to shit, tell Si and I’ll teleport her to that location. You can also pass messages to me through her.”

“A traffic cone?”

“A traffic cone of death,” I say, “Si, extreme prejudice.”

“Nuclear apocalypse mode set!” Si says, “Far from extreme I know but you’ll need to install me into the local node for some real prejudice.”

I sigh.

“No nukes, just kill the bad guys or better yet, knock them out so that this nice lady’s even nicer friends can do what they need to do.”

“You could just have said that at the start,” Si replies, “Dominus.”

Irena in the meantime has been watching all this, one eyebrow lifted.

“The two of you together like this. Reminds me of my teenage daughter,” she says.

“Yeah,” I say, not really appreciating the comparison, “Where is she?”

“The fish caught and tortured her to death last year. That reporter, Jana Jacobs, broadcast her final days live.”