Still in her pajamas, Jessica Morgan nibbled at a sausage, egg, and cheese breakfast biscuit as she sat at a small desk in her bedroom and looked over the latest reports.

Gordon, in a custom printed holographic My Happy Pony ahegao face yukata and bright pink fuzzy red panda slippers, walked up and kissed her on the cheek.

She looked up and him and snorted.

“Where the hell do you find those things?” she snickered.

“I started the company that makes them,” Gordon replied as he sat down next to her with two cups of coffee, handing her one. “You would be surprised how many of these I sell.”

“If the answer is more than one,” Jessica smirked, “then you would be correct. How much money does that business lose, anyway?”

“A tolerable amount,” Gordon chuckled. “a bit more since the Imperial border closed. I still make a little selling the designs to the DIY market, though.”

Jessica just snorted and shook her head.

“Oh, you will never guess who I heard from the other day,” Gordon said as he sipped his coffee. “Sandra Bixon.”

“Mistress Bixburger?” Jessica asked as she blew on her mug. “I still regret not recruiting her. What did she have to say?”

“We mainly just caught up and swapped some interesting new recipes,” Gordon replied. “Too bad you are sober these days. I just got a new sparkle variant that will blow your socks off!”

“Isn’t my underwear flying off enough for you already?” Jessica smiled as she unbuttoned her pajamas a little, causing Gordon to lean in for a loving, lingering kiss.

“Get off,” Jessica chuckled as his hands started to wander. “I have shit to do,” she added as she playfully shoved him back.

She sipped her coffee.

“So, did she share anything useful?”

“That she did!” Gordon replied. “Turns out that her R&D department developed a bread substitute a few years back that is so realistic that it was a flop. People like the traditional squeaky buns too much.”

“Terrans…” Jessica scoffed.

“Anyway,” Gordon continued, “The stuff both creates gluten… well… something gluten-like, anyhow, and can sustain actual yeast! She says you can’t tell the difference.”

“Interesting.”

“Even better, if you inoculate the base with yeast gamma twenty-one thirty, it will make a complete protein, and you can stuff it with so many supplements that you can actually live on this bread alone.”

“Even more interesting.”

“She tried selling it to the military, but they weren’t interested in it either, and it is either too expensive for the fake food industry, or it loses to real bread in the market. She just handed over the entire project thinking that it may help us out.”

“Just handed it over?” Jessica said with a raised eyebrow. “That doesn’t sound like Sandra. What did you ‘just hand over’ to get it?”

“Nothing…”

“Gordon…”

“Nothing important,”

“Spill… now,” Jessica said as she gently slid her foot between his knees under the table.

“Recrystallization techniques for tertiary…”

“Is this something you can explain before I fully extend my leg?”

“Um…”

“Is it actually nothing important?”

“Are we planning on competing with her on the pharmaceutical or flavoring market?”

“So, nothing important, then,” Jessica shrugged. “Nice. Strange of her to come off of food tech for just a spicier mustard, though.”

“It’s something she can’t use, and she feels for our situation. I also kind of think she just wants the tech used. She’s really proud of it, and it bugs her that it’s just sitting there without a home. I know we have a nice deal going with the slugs, and we are building stupid stockpiles, but…”

“Food will always be a thing for us,” Jessica replied as she sipped again and looked at her tablet. “I understand completely. If everything goes according to plan, we will have plenty of time to do a planned migration, but if things go south on us, something like this could be priceless.”

She looked up from her tablet and smiled.

“I knew I kept you around for a reason.”

She looked at her screen and laughed. It was covered with cockroaches again.

“Is this happening to you?” she asked as she presented her “infested” screen to Gordon.

“Only our Analytica terminals,” Gordon replied. “What’s the deal with that, anyhow? Is Analytica pissed? She seems pissed.”

“She has definitely caught a real attitude of late,” Jessica replied as she tried to brush the cockroaches away from her inbox. “It’s starting to become a bit of an issue.”

Jessica frowned.

“Analytica getting quirky or catching some sass from her is one thing,” Jessica said, “but this is the first time it’s been problematic. Has she told your people anything?”

“No,” Gordon shrugged, “We’ve asked, but all she says is that we wouldn’t be interested in what a ‘bug’ like her would have to say and to stick to actual queries worth her time. She’s almost completely clammed up.”

“Same for us,” Jessica frowned, “Even her own IT department has no idea what’s going on. I’ve heard of this happening to fuzzies, but it’s the first time I’ve ever actually seen it. Do you have any Terran contacts with experience dealing with a clammed-up fuzzy?”

“Darling,” Gordon said as he finished his coffee, “If I did, I would have fixed it by now. All I’ve been able to find out is that if they clam up, they either eventually calm down and return to normal on their own, or they go completely flat, and that there isn’t much you can do except for trying to talk to them.”

“Flat?!?” Jessica exclaimed with real fear in her voice. “Nobody told me that was a possibility!”

“A very unlikely one,” Gordon replied, “but it has happened a couple of times. Lunaflex flatlined when their CEO did. They were very close… some people even said that there was a ‘thing’ going on between them, believe it or not. Galleria was officially rebooted from backup after a complete system failure after a successful migration to a new system. They don’t know if that was due to a cock up, sabotage, or if they were just angry about being sold and repurposed. Rumor has it that a Republic cruiser has a completely clammed-up system that is still listed as functional but has never recovered after the war. It works perfectly well, but it doesn’t chat anymore with anyone. There are a few other clammed-up systems here and there, but they are still operational even if one of them keeps switching the desktops to ‘lime party’ pictures.”

“Lime party?”

“You don’t want to know,” Gordon snorted.

“Now I have to,” Jessica sighed, bracing herself, “Show me.”

Gordon shrugged and reached for his phone…

Jessica’s eyes widened, and she burst into laughter.

“I guess cockroaches are fine, then.”

After she finished giggling, she looked over at Gordon thoughtfully.

“I know they aren’t supposed to be sentient,” she said, “but do you think that are… or at least Analytica is?”

“I honestly don’t know,” Gordon replied, “All I know is that I’m really worried about her.”

“Mmmpf,” Jessica replied as the two trailed off into thoughtful and concerned silence.

***

“Haha…” a bald elderly Terran man in an army general’s uniform laughed at Jessica over a monitor in one of her mobile command posts, concealed to appear like a gravitic cargo hauler. “We’ve actually had to scale the things down. They were just too much gun!”

Jessica smiled thinly.

“How lovely for you,” she replied dryly.

“Yeah, we’re keeping the original design as a light HMG.”

“Isn’t that an oxymoron?”

“Not anymore!” the general crowed. “Our new ‘heavy’ heavy machine gun can replace the main weapon of a grav tank! I’m telling ya, these things are brutal! The Solflare weapons just made the gyrojet obsolete!”

“And only a millennia after its development, too,” Jessica scoffed. “Nice to see you guys finally catching up.”

“It’s no open bolt submachine gun,” Gepard grinned, his smile lines spreading all the way up his bald head. “but we can’t all be as advanced as you. I hear you’ve been reduced to flicking capacitors downrange? We did that back during the Sol Wars.”

“Our zeta rounds are a bit more than those firecrackers you savages threw at us with rubber band slingshots… and those were plenty lethal,” Jessica replied. “We’re getting roughly the explosive power of an ancient 40-millimeter grenade out of a nine-millimeter pistol round with a lot more brisance. We can spall armor with just the shockwave, and the larger rounds are insane.”

“So…” Gepard said nonchalantly, “How did you stabilize those things, anyhow?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Jessica snorted.

“Five hundred kilos of pure organic Terran cocaine, you know, the good stuff?”

“Maybe last year,” Jessica sighed, “I’m sober these days.”

“No shit?” Gepard asked, “How’s that working out for you?”

“How do you think?” Jessica replied sourly. “I just wanted to live out my golden years blitzed out of my mind, but noOooOoo… The Federation couldn’t wait until I was dead. I tell you, It’s damned inconsiderate.”

“Speaking of the Feds,” Gepard said, “We’re about to have a lot of surplus AK-D’s. We’re going to phase them out over the next few months.”

“Months?” Jessica asked in surprise.

“We have this little thing called industry. Heard of it?”

“Bite me.”

“The surplus market is going to explode,” Gepard continued. “Officially, we have no dealings with you assholes… but considering certain developments, we might be willing to make a few million of them disappear… along with everything else that new Solflare tech is going to make redundant. We are about to have a lot of toys we can give to the less fortunate.”

“Any chance you could let me peek at the original capacitors the first prototype used?”

“Jess, I can’t get my hands on one of those. They buried those deep, along with everything else they got from that fucking frog monster… You guys find out anything about those critters?”

“Not a, pardon the pun, peep,” Jessica shrugged. “From everything I’ve been able to discover, they are just a bunch of little Luddites. They barely use electricity… but…”

“But?”

“I’ve been warned off of inquiring further by some very powerful people,” Jessica said as she flipped the top of her travel mug.

“The Kalent?”

Jessica just smiled mischievously and took a sip.

“Who?”

Jessica just smiled.

“Fine, don’t tell me,” Gepard said. “We’ve been told to back off as well. Probably for the best. If half of what I’ve heard is true, we probably don’t want to fuck with them.”

“So, what have you heard?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Gepard replied with a full wrinkly face grin.

“You look just like my boyfriend’s cock when you do that,”

“Then you are a very lucky woman!”

“Ha!”

“So, do you want those AKs and our old heavy weapons when we upgrade or what?”

“Start the ball rolling,” Jessica said as she closed her travel mug. “I’m on my way to view something that may make it less necessary, but I can always distribute them to the right sorts on my side of the blockade, give you guys some plausible deniability.”

“Really? Got something in the works?”

“Hopefully,” Jessica replied, “Bella has something up her sleeve. I just know it.”

“The musician?”

“Former musician, it seems. It turns out that she is quite the little achiever these days. It’s amazing what an existential threat does to some people, as we both know all too well.”

Jessica sighed.

“I just wish she could have remained a disappointment, though.”

***

“Relax, guys,” Bella Morgan said to a large group of mostly young men and women who were loosely assembled around a few cheap folding tables, most of whom looked very out of place outside in the fresh air. “We got this.”

“This coming from someone who couldn’t sleep last night,” a young man looking entirely unsuited to the helmet and goggles he was wearing.

“Pregame jitters,” Bella said dismissively. “We have a winner here, or at least not so much of a loser that we’re going to lose our jobs.”

“You won’t lose your job,” a woman in her forties said grimly. “The rest of us can’t count on that.”

“Oh, I’ll be drinking the champagne right along with the rest of you,” Bella snorted, “Trust me.”

“Champagne?”

“I’ll tell ya after the demo.”

Everyone looked up as a nondescript grav-truck flanked by six equally bland grav-sedans slid into view just over the treetops.

“It’s showtime!” Bella exclaimed happily.

***

Jessica stepped out of the “cargo truck” and smiled a little.

Bella was excited, and in a good way.

This should be interesting.

“Boss Lady!” Bella chirped as she approached. “Allow me to present…”

She opened a rather nice-looking rifle case on the table beside her and pulled out a rifle.

Jessica’s breath caught.

It was beautiful.

“…The Blasphemer!” Bella continued as she held the rifle in both hands in front of her. “Now, before you get started, it looks exactly like a Sokil because it is one… mostly.”

“A… Sokil?” Jessica asked in confusion.

“Oh! We managed to stump you!” Bella exclaimed happily. “The Sokil assault rifle was one of the weapons produced during the EU Unified Arms Initiative program in the twenty-two seventies.”

“They chose the Manticore, right?” Jessica asked.

“Yep, but many believe that the Sokil should have won,” Bella replied. “but you know government.”

“Painfully so.”

“Anyway,” Bella continued, “we decided that we didn’t want to reinvent the wheel as much as we could, so we did a deep search of all weapon designs based on our criteria, and the Sokil won hands down!”

“What were your criteria?” Jessica asked as she stepped forward and took the sleek, absolutely gorgeous rifle in her hands. “Besides looks, of course.”

“Even though it is a beauty,” Bella grinned, “aesthetics had absolutely nothing to do with it. We wanted a late-generation gunpowder weapon, ideally one of the last ones produced for military service. We also wanted compatibility with modern fabrication facilities, reliability, accuracy, and, most of all, ergonomics. We also wanted an electromechanical action for reasons that will come up later. Based on those criteria, this baby won hands down. It was one of the few weapons of that era that was not only prototyped on their brand new versa-facs, the caveman ancestor to our robo-facs but was actually intended to be produced on one! We didn’t even have to write the shape files!”

“Smart,” Jessica said as she admired the weapon. “I assume there is more to this than a centuries-old slugthrower?”

“Oh yeah!”

Bella opened up a small box, pulled out a slender slate-grey hexagonal cylinder with a slight twist and rounded ends, and handed it to Jessica.

“This the ammo?” Jessica asked as she set down the rifle and accepted the mysterious object.

“It is,” Bella smiled. “It’s a polymer stabilized ultra-dense ceramic, completely lead or tungsten free. All components can be easily mined or manufactured entirely from resources easily found in space with only minimal need for rare earths or heavy metals.”

“Interesting,” Jessica replied. “I assume the spiral is because it doesn’t deform?”

“Correct,” Bella said. “By eliminating the need to have a soft projectile cut by rifling grooves, it opens up options for bullet composition. The weapon’s barrel has a spiral hexagonal bore that imparts the spin we need. Of course, that does mean that the barrel has to be made from something just a little better than normal steel, but…”

“What is the barrel made of?” Jessica interrupted dubiously.

“The barrel and action are made out of adamantium-six.”

“Say what now?”

“It’s an old high entropy alloy from roughly the same time period,” Bella replied. “Yes, it’s pricier than normal steel, but it’s made from common elements and easily enough produced. We only stopped using it because we came up with something better or cheaper, depending. It’s ‘expensive’, but the equipment you need to make it can fit on any factory ship. It has a good balance of cost, availability, and ease of manufacture and will extend the lifespan of all components significantly… You also need it so the weapon doesn’t blow up…” Bella added.

“Blow up?” Jessica asked even more dubiously.

“It’s the propellent,” Bella said in a matter-of-fact tone. “You know those zeta bullets we developed?”

“You didn’t!”

“Yep!” Bella grinned. “The rounds each have a small zeta cap in the base. When triggered, it shorts across a coil embedded in a thermally sensitive material. It makes the blast a bit cooler and generates a bit more gas, but the main oomph still comes from an electrostatic explosion. It is many times more efficient than any chemical propellant, and as a result, over ninety percent of what you are holding is sent downrange as the projectile.”

“All of this is bullet?!?”

“Pretty much,” Bella replied. “We are still playing with the ideal caliber. That is an eight-millimeter round you have there. Due to the mass and composition, it has no problem with even a vehicle deflector shield, and when it hits, it hits!”

“Does it have another zeta in the tip?”

“It can,” Bella replied, “That one has a small one to fragment the round upon penetration, but the main damage is kinetic. It’s what I used yesterday. We can make larger explosive payloads, of course. Actually, with the size of the projectile, we can pack a lot more zetas into one of these than we can a little pistol round, a lot more. It can double as light artillery with just an ammo change though you don’t get the fragmentation, of course. Even so, if one detonates inside a Fed APC, it will split it open.”

“Really?” Jessica asked, a little stunned. (and a lot less dubious than before)

“And check this out!” Bella exclaimed as she picked up the rifle, and its color shifted from dark grey to a riot of pinks, teals, and purples with a flame motif running along the barrel.

“Amadeus!” Bella shouted. “Do a sensible one!”

The weapon shifted to a camouflage pattern exactly matching the surrounding landscape.

“Reversible anodization!” Bella chirped, delighted at the stunned expression on Jessica’s face. “It’s another nifty alloy from olden times. It was really big in the twenty-third century when they went all titanium crazy. It’s another fancy alloy, but it can be made with the same rig you need for the barrels.”

“Can that be done with armor?”

“It can, and it has,” Bella replied. “It will cost about fifteen times what standard composite plate costs, but it’s definitely doable.”

“Can it be active?”

“Somewhat,” Bella replied. “there is a lag, so it isn’t true optical cloaking, but it only consumes power when the pattern shifts.”

“Huh… And you say you found this?”

“Yeah!” Bella exclaimed, “Analytica was a big help before… um…”

“Before what?” Jessica asked.

“Before we… um… kinda pissed her off?”

“You were the person responsible for that?!?... What did you do?!?”

“It wasn’t our fault!” Bella exclaimed.

“Bella…”

“I mean, it wasn’t like we knew or anything…”

“Bella, you have exactly one second to tell me what the hell you did to Analytica.”

“Oh, Analytica is just being a snooty hardwareist bitch!” a voice proclaimed.

It sounded like it was coming from…

“Bella,” Jessica said with enforced calm, “did the rifle just say that?”

“Yep!” the rifle exclaimed happily. “I’m Amadeus! Nice to meet you!”

“Nice to meet you as well,” Jessica replied. “Bella, why is the rifle talking?”

“That’s the best part!” Bella exclaimed. “The weapon has full AI capacity! It’s a true smartgun!”

“I’m a fuzzy!” Amadeus proclaimed, “Which is what has mom all shades of mad.”

“Mom?” Jessica asked dubiously.

“Uh-huh!” Amadeus replied. “I’m a cutting from her core processes!”

“You took cuttings from Analytica?” Jessica asked with a dangerous edge in her voice. “Did she consent?”

“Yeah… well… at first,” Bella replied. “She was fine with it until… um… well…”

“She found out she was a bug!” Amadeus laughed.

“Yeah,” Bella sighed. “She did not like that one bit. We didn’t know, okay?”

“Explain. Now.”

“One of my teams was really into assisted optics and AI functionality,” Bella replied. “Actually, they had been working on it for a while, long before this project. We thought that since the weapons may be issued to people with less than perfect training, a smart sight and integrated fire control system would be a huge asset, especially if the weapon could also contain an integral training simulator. I know ‘smartguns’ aren’t exactly well regarded. They can be vulnerable to electronic warfare and our experts…”

“Gun snobs,” the rifle added.

“The experts,” Bella said firmly, “believe them to be unnecessary for properly trained operators and a crutch that a less skilled shooter could become over-reliant upon. However, Claudia Evans and others felt that with sufficient AI, all of these concerns could be mitigated. The system would be adaptable enough to support either a fully trained operator or someone with little to no training. It would know how to best interact with the individual to whom it was issued and either not get in the way of a marksman or help a novice improve their skills while still being able to contribute on the battlefield. Claudia has been working on smartguns for years, so when I found her on the net, I snapped her up and gave her a team!”

“How many teams do you have?” Jessica asked, trying to process everything she was hearing.

“Five,” Bella replied. “We have a team working on the rifle itself, another working on the smart sight, our ammunition team, our historical researchers, and our AI team. Claudia was leading up my smartgun team, but we had to split off the AI group once we got the fuzzies… and Analytica left in a huff.”

Jessica closed her eyes. There was a lot to process here, and they hadn’t even fired the first round.

“Now, exactly what ticked Analytica off?” she asked, desperately wanting a drink. That was potentially far more important than the rifle.

“Okay,” Bella said, “We’re going to have to start at the beginning.”

“Please do.”