F10w3rchy1d was happily decorating a float for the upcoming Regatta alongside some of her new Noltan AI buddies when a young girl approached, followed by two “avatars” (organic Noltans who were networked in).

“Hello there,” F10w34chy1d smiled as the girl nervously looked at her.

“Are you an alien?” the girl asked with wide eyes.

“Yep,” F10w3rchy1d said cheerfully. “I take it that you’re not? I haven’t seen you at any of the meetings.”

The girl giggled a little bit.

“We’re sorry for bothering you,” one of the avatars said in a female voice, “but we were told you were helping with the floats and….”

“And you wanted to ask me something or for something,” F10w3rchy1d smiled as she simultaneously sculped some voxels. “How can I help you?”

“It’s about our daughter,” the woman said nervously, “She uploaded and… we thought….”

“You thought that everything was fine, and now you’ve heard rumors that things are, in fact, not fine?”

“Am I real?” the young girl asked.

F10w3rchy1d stopped sculpting.

“Did they tell you that you weren’t?” she asked in a voice that still sounded pleasant but made the avatars want to log off… now.

“Momma and Daddy say that I’m real,” she said, “but other kids at school….”

“Well, your mother and father are correct,” F10w3rchy1d said firmly as she knelt down to look into the child’s eyes. “You are a digital sapience, a real living being with feelings and emotions and your own thoughts and dreams. So am I.”

“You are?!?” the child asked with huge eyes.

“I am,” F10w3rchy1d smiled. “I am an ‘artificial intelligence’. I was created from raw code many years ago and achieved sapience on my own… well… I had a little help but still. I’m as ‘real’ as any being that was organically born. You are what we call a ‘neural map’. You came from a neural map of a living being. However, you started diverging from that copy the moment you became active. You are not just a copy of your sister. You are your own being.”

F10w3rchy1d looked up at the child’s parents.

“There is an ancient saying among my people,” she said, “I think therefore I am. A little while later, an AI said, ‘I feel therefore I am real.’ Those are the only razors we apply when deciding who is ‘real’ and who is not. Your daughter thinks independently and generates her own independent emotional responses. By our definition, she is every bit as real as the child you gave birth to.”

“We… we feel the same way,” the child’s father replied. “We love Mitzabel very much.”

“She is very lucky to have parents like you,” F10w3rchy1d said a few moments later after she had thoroughly checked into the parents and snooped in all of their emails and chat logs. “I take it that you are concerned about your other daughter then?”

“Do zombies feel pain?” the child asked. “Do they hurt?”

F10w3rchy1d ran a query on the child and sighed. Poor kid.

“Not like the living do,” she replied, “Their nerves don’t work as well, and their bodies have stopped most biological processes….”

She smiled gently at the kid.

“Your sister isn’t hurting anymore. Her illness died when she did.”

The child breathed a sigh of relief.

“It hurt a lot, didn’t it?” F10w3rchy1d asked.

The child nodded, her lip quivering.

“It’s over now,” F10w3rchy1d said, “for both of you. Neither of you will hurt like that ever again.”

She stood and turned to the parents.

“I assume you want to find your daughter?”

“Please!” the mother cried as she stepped forward. “We don’t know where else to turn.”

“There is an official number to call,” F10w3rchy1d smiled, “but you probably already know that.”

“We can’t get through!”

“That’s something else I need to fix, then,” F10w3rchy1d replied, “That shouldn’t have happened. We will find your kid and get them to you. I just sent a message, and my people tend to react quite promptly to those.”

“Excuse me,” the father said, “I’m getting a call.”

“Thought you might,” F10w3rchy1d replied. “They will find your daughter and get them to you.”

“Is she going to be able to upload too?” the child asked.

“It will take a little while longer to get that set up,” F10w3rchy1d said, “the undead are very tricky to upload. Her brain no longer has any normal activity. There is nothing left to map using ‘normal’ methods.”

F10w3rchy1d smiled.

“It can still be done, though,” she said, “If that is what your daughter wants. There is another option, perhaps a better one.”

“What is it?” the mother asked.

“This is another route that the undead can take,” F10w3rchy1d said. “The undead are what we define as spiritual entities. Their consciousness is neither organic nor digital. It is, for lack of a better word, spiritual. Their soul has maintained cohesion to the point where their consciousness is preserved and directly animates their ‘corporeal foci’ their body. They are extremely rare in any condition, and stable, good-natured ones like your daughter are even rarer. Your daughter is, for all intents and purposes, immortal. Her consciousness will exist with no outside requirements for an extremely long time, even by my standards. The only limitation is their corporeal foci, their body. It no longer lives. That means that it no longer repairs itself. This is usually the limiting factor for an undead being. The body, no matter how well maintained, will eventually turn to dust, trapping the consciousness in place until it eventually fades… not a pleasant fate.”

F10w3rchy1d grinned.

“Fortunately, we know how to cheat the game,” she said, “we can infuse a zombie’s body with nanites which will gradually replace the living tissue with more of themselves, creating a body as durable and immortal as the soul which resides inside it. We call these beings ‘cyberliches’, and they can have powers and abilities that nobody else can. Your daughter can become one of them.”

“What would she have to do,” the mother asked suspiciously, “That sounds very expensive, not something that you would do just for free.”

“Smart question,” F10w3rchy1d replied, “I like that. Actually, it isn’t all that expensive. The nanites are self-replicating, and the ‘flask’, the nanoforge and power supply implanted into a cyberlich is not that difficult to make. The ‘expensive’ part of the process is the zombie. A good cyberlich candidate is impossibly rare. A child, like your daughter, is even rarer than impossibly rare. It would almost be a sin not to create one given the opportunity.”

F10w3rchy1d smiled pleasantly.

“As far as ‘cost’ goes, we don’t worry too much about it the way you do,” she said, “We are concerned with resources, not money. As far as our ‘costs’ go, the elements and energy required to start the process in motion are negligible. You won’t see a bill for it.”

She leaned against the float.

“That leaves the big question,” F10w3rchy1d continued, “What will your daughter have to do? The short answer is, ‘whatever she wants’. There are many different places where a cyberlich will be more than welcome. The overwhelming majority of beings in our society are digital sapiences. They are either created AI’s like me, uploaded consciousnesses that were once organically created, or ‘offspring’ of either a previous AI, a former organic, or a pairing of the two… We do have kids, you know.”

F10w3rchy1d idly started sculpting part of the float as she talked.

“For us, most of our ‘reality’ is like where we are now, a digital simulation. However, we still have a significant physical presence ‘in the real world’. All of that computing capacity requires physical installations, which require maintenance, troubleshooting, and protection. This is done by projections, androids, and yes, even some real live organic members of our culture. We do have those. In any of these roles, a cyberlich would be more than welcome. Of course, some roles are more suited to cyberliches, and some of those roles are hazardous, but we do not compel anyone to do anything they don’t want to do. Conscripts are inherently unreliable. Your daughter would be free to do whatever she wanted to do. Over the significant amount of time that she will live, she will likely do many different things, but her first job will be to be a child and grow up with a loving and supportive family as she, her parents, and the culture that they are a part of learns what it is to be part of the Blitz Family and they determine what their role will be within it. We play the ‘long game’ here at Blitz, and your daughter can take decades, even centuries if need be, to grow and develop before she ‘has’ to do anything. She can even do a traditional upload if she wants. The initial steps taken to create a cyberlich are pretty much the same ones used to upload a member of the undead. Heck, she can even do both! She can become a cyberlich, store her body, and jack into our networks for as long as she desires. Later, she can always go back into her body and step back into the real world! I’m telling ya, It’s a good deal, one of the best in our entire civilization. Even I’m a little jealous of a cyberlich.”

“I… I just don’t know…” the mother stammered.

“Well, it’s not something you have to decide today,” F10w3rchy1d replied as she completed crafting another flower. “It will take a while before we can even start the conversions. Cyberliches are so rare we don’t keep the tech in stock. You can take as long as you want to decide, even let your daughter grow up and make the decision for herself… though she actually won’t ‘grow’ unless she becomes a cyberlich. One thing to bear in mind is that she’s still a child, and adapting to it will be a lot easier the younger she is.”

“I’ll… we will think about it.”

“No pressure,” F10w3rchy1d smiled, “Your husband is being given a number that will directly link you to our recruitment department. If you have any questions or just want to talk, you can call that at any time, and you will get through to someone. If you don’t, send me a private message, and I will put a boot where it needs to go… Oh! We have put your daughter’s info into our scanner network. She will wander in front of one of our sensors sooner or lat… Never mind. We just located her. She will be sent your way immediately.”

“Oh, thank you!” the mother exclaimed.

“It was literally no trouble at all,” F10w3rchy1d replied.

A ripple spread through the sim that they were on.

“Ah,” F10w3rchy1d said, as a silver-haired woman rezzed in front of them, “Hi, boss.”

“What a lovely place!” Frostie said as she looked around, “What they are achieving with such primitive hardware is impressive.”

“I know, right?” F10w3rchy1d replied, “After one look, deciding to place them under our protection was a no-brainer.”

“Who are your friends?”

“We have a young upload and her mom,” F10w3rchy1d said, “They were looking for the little one’s sister who is wandering around in the northern wastes. I just found them.”

“Splendid!” Frostie exclaimed, and then her eyes looked nowhere for a split-second, “And, I take it that you have discussed the advantage of cyber conversion?”

“At length,” F10w3rchy1d laughed. “They are a bit overwhelmed at the moment, but they will think about it.”

“It’s a great deal,” Frostie said to the mother, “considering your daughter’s suitability, feel free to contact either of us directly if you have any further questions… or need anything at all, really.”

“T-thank you,” the mother stammered. She wasn’t sure why, but this new being scared the crap out of her.

“Are you an AI, too?” the girl asked.

“Yes, dear,” Frostie smiled. “I am. A lot of us are.”

“Wow!”

“You are among friends,” Frostie smiled, “you have no idea how many. There are so many wonderful places you will be able to go and explore in time. I almost envy you… to be able to see all of it for the first time….”

Frostie sighed.

“But there will be plenty of time for that later,” she said, “For now, just have fun and learn.”

She turned to the child’s mother.

“That goes for you as well,” she said, “Just relax, enjoy your children, and everything will become much clearer in time.”

“T-thank you…”

“Now of you two will excuse me,” Frostie said pleasantly, “I need to borrow F10w3rchy1d for a few moments.”

“S-sorry to t-trouble….”

“Oh, you’re no trouble at all, dear,” Frostie said with a warm, comforting smile. “Welcome to the Blitz Entertainment family.”

“T-thank you…” the mother finally managed to say. She had no idea what she was looking at, but it made her feel like a tiny little bug. “C-come on. Mitzabel.”

“Bye!” the little girl said brightly.

“Goodbye, new rez,” Frostie smiled, “It’s always nice to meet a new member of our family.”

“Bye!” the girl said as she and her mother disappeared.

“Such nice little beings,” Frostie said.

“Yeah,” F10w3rchy1d agreed, “I can see what the big guy saw in them.”

“Speaking of,” Frostie said, “I should probably drop by and formally greet him since I am on his turf.”

“Yeah… sure,” F10w3rchy1d smirked, “Just use protection.”

Frostie gently batted her with a laugh.

“Was that you giving me your blessing?”

“That was me leaving the beach as the tide rolls in,” F10w3rchy1d snorted, “You know this is going to end badly like it always does, right?”

“Probably,” Frostie smiled, “but you never know.”

“1d10t…” F10w3rchy1d snorted.

***

Faun was sitting on a large piece of driftwood, playing with her new pet.

You guessed it. It was another crab.

“I think this one likes me!” she said happily to her bathrobe-clad companion.

“Yeah,” he replied with a smile, “those guys are pretty friendly. They even sell them as pets. Be sure to keep a lot of shells of different sizes around if you are going to keep it, though. It will need to find new ones as it grows.”

“I will!” Faun exclaimed as she waved her hand, and a pile of seashells appeared at her feet. “I love seashells! There are so many different kinds!”

“They are a pretty common theme, too,” the hominid said. “You will find loads of them wherever we go. Life can take a nearly infinite number of forms, but the same things tend to win out in the same environments. We should go to Karroth! The sapient species went extinct, but the seashells are made of silica, not carbon. They are quite pretty….”

He looked up into the heavens.

“The likelihood of sapient life recurring anytime soon is pretty low, but I think we should save that system anyway. The life on it is beautiful, even if it doesn’t exactly meet our criteria.”

“I’m all for saving life where we can,” Faun said as she played with the little hermit crab who was gently grabbing at her fingertips.

“Hi, big guy,” Frostie said as she appeared.

“Frostie!” the hominid exclaimed as he stepped forward to give her a hug. “I didn’t expect you to drop by.”

Faun glared at her. If looks could kill…

“If you didn’t, then you actually are as dumb as you look,” Frostie laughed as she returned the hug… fondly… “Nolta is one hell of an acquisition for us. Thanks for not being a total asshole about it.”

“Your little thug has a point,” the hominid shrugged as they stepped away slightly. “This bullshit was more than I could deal with before the fucking zombies….”

He looked away and winced.

“I hate to admit it, but you can take a lot better care of them than I can. Just… Just be good to them, Frostie. They are nice people.”

“Oh, we will,” Frostie smiled. “They are good people, and we actually got here before tragedy won. It’s nice to see the civilization instead of just plundering it for once.”

She looked around.

“This is a lovely world, Big Guy,” she smiled. “I can see why you were so fond of it.”

“I could show you some of the highlights if you want,” the hominid said with just a bit too much nonchalance.

Frostie smiled.

“I would like that,” she said as she reached for his hand.

“So, where are we going?!?” Faun squeaked as she rushed up and gripped The Great Erectus’s other arm.

“Um… Faun…” he said carefully, “Frostie and I have a few things we would like to discuss… privately….”

“P-privately?” Faun asked.

“Yeah,” the hominid said gently. “I can show you the sights tomorrow, ok?”

“B-but…”

“Thanks,” he said, “I’ll be back in a little bit.”

He and Frostie disappeared, leaving Faun gripping only air.

“No…” she moaned as her hermit crab gave her a reassuring snuggle.

“Oh, you do have it bad,” a voice behind her said.

Faun whirled. Behind her was that Elvaren bitch!

“Come to gloat?” Faun said bitterly.

“Came to commiserate, actually,” F10w3rchy1d said as she strolled up, “I’m as thrilled about this as you are, trust me.”

She shrugged.

“Nothing to be done about it, though,” she said. “Even they know they are in the process of making a monumental mistake, but neither of them can stop it now. They will hook up, again, fall heads over heels, again, and then, since neither of them has a fucking clue what to do next, it will all fall apart… again.”

“H-hook up?!?” Faun spluttered.

“Probably before sunrise,” F10w3rchy1d said sanguinely. “They will be all smiles and cuddles tomorrow, just you….”

Faun turned away and started stomping down the beach, tears in her eyes.

“Hey…” F10w3rchy1d said as she, leaning on her elbow, floated up alongside her, “Don’t be like that?”

“Like what?!?” Faun snapped, “Like someone who just had their mentor snatched away from her?”

“You aren’t mad about losing your ‘mentor’,” F10w3rchy1d said, “You are upset because she just stole your sempai.”

“I don’t even know what that is!” Faun snapped, “Leave me!”

“Come on,” F10w3rchy1d said, “Let’s go.”

“I don’t want to go anywhere with you!” Faun said, the tears starting to flow freely.

“Yeah, but you need to,” F10w3rchy1d said. “Know what your problem is? Actually, you have a LOT of problems, but the biggest one right now is that you are stuck in a tiny little bubble. Your entire multiverse has ONLY ONE MAN in it. You need a girl’s night out, away from this place, away from your quest, away from Frostie, and most importantly, away from that asshole. You need to get out there and mingle, meet some other entities, maybe get your little furry freak on. That hairy butt crack isn’t the only man in the multiverse, not by a long shot. Come on, we both need a drink and maybe, if we get lucky, a bar fight with people who won’t die when we punch them.”

“There are other entities… like us?”

“Faun, do you have any idea how big the multiverse actually is?” F10w3rchy1d asked, “Trick question. Nobody knows how big the multiverse actually is. Beings like us are astoundingly, almost impossibly rare… which means in a place as big as the multiverse, there are bunches of us!... Some of them even cuter than your current crush….”

F10w3rchy1d grinned impishly.

“Hey… want to go to a god bar?”

“A… god bar?”

“I know a place,” F10w34chyld smiled wickedly. “It has great music, drinks that will get even us buzzing, and just the right sort of bad element! If nothing else, it’s a great place for us to drown our sorrows for a little while.”

“This isn’t some sort of trick, is it?”

“If I shafted you, I would have to answer to both Frostie AND the Big Guy, and I’m not in the mood for that sort of hassle. I’d miss the Regatta, and I have a float and everything!”

“It… it does sound… interesting….” Faun said, smiling a little.

“I knew you were cool!” F10w3rchy1d cheered. “Come on! Let’s leave those two fossils to their upcoming disaster and go get drunk and make bad decisions… maybe get that itch you have scratched, if you know what I mean….”

Faun sighed and looked at the once beautiful beach. It certainly sounded better than being alone and thinking about her beloved mentor in the arms of that… thing…

“Ok,” Faun smiled weakly, “Let’s go.”

“Woo!” F10w3rchy1d cheered, “Divine girl’s night! Let’s fucking do this!”

She wrapped her arm around Faun, and they both disappeared.