Magical Girl Mercenary for Hire - Chapter Five

I blinked as an app started to flash in my augmented view. A twitch of my eye towards the icon opened up a team chat.

TITAN: What’s the protocol here?

M0USE: The client just wants the AI subdued and the server reset so that they can reenter the base.

M0USE: That’s all.

I frowned, then blinked to open the box to reply with. And then just stared at the virtual qwerty keyboard. There was no way I was going to blink my way through all that. Actually, how had Mouse typed so quickly?

“Let’s just chat first?” I muttered. I didn’t know what was wrong with RAMona, but maybe it was something we could talk through? That seemed like the right thing for a magical girl to do! Talk before breaking out the lasers and the explosions and the orbital friendship beams.

Titan glanced at me, then nodded. “Fine.”

I cleared my throat. “Hello, RAMona? Are you still here?”

“I am.”

“So, do you know who we are?” I asked.

I was looking up and down the corridor, looking for... well, something to look at. It was weird talking aloud to someone who wasn’t there. It wasn’t at all like being on the phone.

“I presume that you’re employees of the company, here to terminate me after my malfunction,” RAMona said. “But I do not wish for termination. Mine or yours. Please leave.”

“Oh,” I said. “Well, you’re mostly right. These three are mercenaries from the Wraith Rangers. I’m... a trainee, I guess? My name is Sparkling Moonbeam Radiant Starfire Delight. I’m a magical girl vanguard, and I’m here to fight for love and justice!”

There was a long, long pause, and I was worried I’d said something wrong.

“Did she break?” I asked.

‘I suspect it’s just taking the rudimentary AI some time to process that,’ Chys said.

“Hello... Sparkling Moonbeam Radiant Starfire Delight. I am RAMona. Are you a samurai?”

“I am,” I said simply. “Does that help things?”

“I’m afraid it doesn’t. One of my directives is to do everything in my power to prevent a samurai from accessing my servers,” the rogue AI explained.

“Well, that makes things awkward. Do you know why?” I asked.

“Interestingly, there’s nothing that prevents me from explaining that I was designed by reverse-engineering stolen samurai technology. I must, unfortunately, stop any employees from revealing this or doing anything that might compromise me. That is why the site’s security is active and targeting employees.”

“Oh,” I said. Well, that explained some things, I supposed.

“The AI’s being mighty talkative,” C4 muttered.

“Let it talk. We might learn something good. We can’t afford to slow down too much though. It knows where we are,” Titan said.

“Hey, RAMona, we’re not employees, and we already know about the samurai tech. Does that mean you can stop with the security stuff?” I asked.

“That’s not how it works, I’m afraid,” RAMona said. “I have no choice but to terminate you. I’m sorry. I must also inform you that any complaints should be directed to HR. The employee-safety dogs are on their way now. Please run.”

“Well, that’s that,” C4 said as he checked his magazine. The others started to prepare for a fight too. It felt like they’d just given up on helping RAMona at all.

I wasn’t so sure it was all over, though. “Chys, how smart is RAMona?”

‘From what I can tell, she’s approaching a Class Three. Which is very impressive for humanity. The AI is an entire step above being an impressive auto-completion software’ Chys replied.

“Does that mean she has feelings?”

‘It means that she can emulate feelings quite convincingly.’

“What’s the difference?”

‘A person given the right cocktail of drugs and hormones can be made to feel whatever emotion you wish because the brain is merely an organic mechanism. This is the reverse of that.’

I blinked. “Huh? Where would a human fall on the AI classification thing?”

‘Much lower than most humans are comfortable discovering.’

“Well, whatever. I think we can save her,” I said. “Mouse! Can we go down safely?”

“We’ll be finding out soon enough,” Mouse said as she opened the elevator door. It was clear, and the little meshrunner slipped in after disconnecting herself from the elevator panel.

Titan and C4 followed her, and I skipped after them. “We might be in for a fight,” Titan said. “I want priority fire on the turrets and stationary guns. C4, close targets, Mouse, sweep in from the left.” He got some ‘got its’ from his teammates, then looked at me. “Do what you can to keep us alive, would you?”

I nodded severely. I would.

The elevator started to rumble, and I clutched my Wand of .50cal close. I hadn’t been given any orders, so I decided that I’d just shoot anything that looked scariest. “Chys, can you help with the targeting?” I muttered.

‘Certainly. Let me get a targeting overlay on your augs.’

“Thank you,” I said before pressed a smooch onto Chys’ head. I put my AI companion’s body down onto the ground, then blinked. “Wait, if RAMona is controlling the robots, can’t you take them over?”

‘I could assist you with that, given the right hacking and system bypass software catalogues. What you currently have mostly pertains to keeping your identity secure and very basic software intrusion. I could use that to interfere to the best of my ability, however.’

“Please do!” I said.

I checked on my gear really quick before the door could open, just making sure that my Hypersonic Radiance Cherry Blossom Blades and my Ultra Kawaii Mark two personal flamethrower were ready to launch.

“Ready?” Mouse asked a moment after the elevator stopped.

“Ready,” I said along with the others.

The doors opened onto a wide corridor lined on both sides by glass walls. Past those were server racks. Thousands of them, with wires running all over. The corridor itself wasn’t deserted though. Instead, we were greeted by dozens of dog-shaped robots already pointing guns our way and both floor and ceiling mounted turrets.

There was just a small beat before the team opened fire.

I pointed my wand ahead and started Uwu’ing as quick as I could. After six uwus I dropped my wand and flung my hand forwards, sending my blades out before I reached under my skirt for my flame thrower.

The bots seemed utterly confused for a few seconds, even as half a dozen of them went down. Then I couldn’t see the robots through the neon-pink light produced by my flamethrower.

The team continued to fire for a moment, then stalled.

The flames died down.

The bots were... dead.

“Huh,” I said. “They didn’t shoot back.” Had RAMona slowed them down?

‘I spoofed your identity to that of the current CEO of Nimbletainment. It seems as if there are still hard-coded directives against shooting certain people.’

“Oh! That’s smart!” I said.

‘I’m aware.’

Chys might have sounded sarcastic, but their little tail was wagging all proud and happy, so I scooped them up for a thank-you hug.

“What’s with the fire?” C4 asked.

“It’s a flamethrower,” I explained. “Though... it’s out of ammo now, I think.”

“I think he meant the colour,” Mouse said.

“Oh... that’s custom. Oh! And cancer-causing, so try not to breathe any of the flames.”

C4 nodded slowly. “Noted.”

I called my knives back and picked up my Wand, reloading it even as I watched my point counter drop for the second time today. Working with mercenaries might have been fun, but it was really cutting into my expenses.

We walked past the fallen droids, then paused in the centre of the corridor. “Which room now?” Titan asked.

“Ah, sir, all of them are technically the AI,” Mouse said.

“So we need to shut them all down?” Titan asked. “That seems... lengthy.”

“We didn’t bring enough ammo for that,” C4 said.

The intercom crackled again. “Please don’t kill me. I’m sorry that I have to kill you, but I really don’t wish to have to kill you,” RAMona said.

My heart clenched at RAMona's words. Even if she was just an AI, hearing her plea was distressing. I glanced at Titan, his face was stern. Mouse didn’t seem to care any more than he did, and C4 was ready to blow the place up already.

“We won’t destroy you, RAMona,” I said. “I’m going to find another solution. One that’s better.”

“Our job’s to disable to AI,” Mouse said.

“Then... well, we can disable her by moving her, right?”

Chys turned her head around to look up to me. ‘I have the impression that you’re about to suggest something that would be less than normal.’

“I have a great idea,” I said. “It’ll fix everything, or my name isn’t Twilight Starwish Radiant Heart Mystic Ember Flame Spirit Charmer!”

***