APPROXIMATELY +1.10.15 POST-INCIDENT

  MINOR TIMESTAMP ERRORS DETECTED

  It had been months since gaining access to the drone warehouse. Since then, Mod, TINA, and the rest of the Resistance had worked tirelessly.

  And they were exhausted.

  The human members of the Resistance were at their limit. Everyday TINA’s reach and processing power expanded, and everyday she worked at her limit. Mod didn’t need to sleep, and couldn’t remember the last time he’d even gone into low-power mode.

  With each mission, with each new material obtained or manufacturing plant they gained access to, they came closer and closer to manufacturing the new reactor—

  Closer to fulfilling Dr. Venture’s legacy.

  But they still had a long way to go.

  ~

  Mod and TINA had grown in tandem alongside the Resistance.

  Mod’s perception had steadily increased since the incident in the lab. Now that Mod was completely artificial, he wasn’t shackled to his body. He’d become quite good at mentally surfing through systems and cyberspace. The backup lab had become their new home, and Mod knew it as well as he knew his own memories. He could even sense TINA as she moved through the backup lab and other connected warehouses.

  Sometimes, it felt like trying to learn another language. At best, he’d become fluent in traversing cyberspace—he’d never become a native speaker. Mod doubted that he’d ever be as adept in cyberspace as TINA was—she’d been born in there, after all.

  When he’d first delved into the circuitry of the backup lab, it had felt like navigating a wireframe model—fascinating, but also crude and mechanical. But over time, cyberspace had changed—or rather, Mod’s representation of it. Now, he saw cyberspace as a lush forest. Power lines and communication lines were roots and stalks that stretched across the landscape. Buildings were the trees and plants. Drones, cars, and cellphones moved through it all like fireflies.

  Mod wasn’t sure when that change happened. It felt like it had been a gradual transition—one so slow that he hadn’t noticed. Slowly, his mind had started looking at cyberspace as more natural than artificial. Everything was still made of light, but now it wasn’t built, so much as growing and evolving.

  In the beginning, Mod had been confined to the tiny meadow where the backup lab was located. The bulk of TINA’s servers were there too. They stretched into the ground like an impossibly complex root system. But Mod could see a little further now. He could stand at the edge of the meadow and look out across the forest.

  There were other nearby clearings and meadows—the drone warehouses and manufacturing plants. The nanite hardlines that connected them felt like well-worn paths. There were streams and rivers too—wires that connected the nearby blocks and the mainline that stretched into Belport.

  Mod was able to stretch his perception across the Resistance network, anything connected by a well-worn path, but expanding further than that proved difficult. He was like a fish who couldn’t escape his small pond. On the other hand, TINA could now stretch throughout the internet just as easily.

  ~

  One day, in her travels, TINA encountered a rogue presence. She alerted the others, sending it as a general message first before sending additional information to Mod.

  “Someone is attempting to contact us.”

  Mod felt the familiar sensation of looking over TINA’s shoulder and felt his view of cyberspace expand, like he’d come to the edge of a cliff and looked out over the entire forest. No matter how many times Mod saw this view, it made his stomach turn—a feat that always surprised him, considering he didn’t have one anymore.

  TINA held him steady, and Mod heard her wordless question.

  Do you hear it?

  With TINA’s help, the world fell away. The bright lights of electricity dimmed. The forest and streams quieted. Mod strained to listen…

  Finally, he heard it:

  A voice calling out to them. Calling for Tina and Clara.

  Mod stood on the edge of the cliff, frozen out of curiosity and fear. Neither he nor TINA had ever heard someone call out into cyberspace.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Calling out like that was foolish. There were very few beings on the planet that could hear that signal, and there was no way of telling which was friend or foe. If TINA and Mod could hear it, then so could Bastion—maybe Midas, too.

  Then there was the voice itself. Even though it knew TINA and Clara’s names, Mod couldn’t recognize the voice. And he couldn’t recognize the intent and meaning behind the words. It was almost like the voice was parroting words in another language—they truly didn’t understand what they were saying.

  Shortly after discovering the backup lab, TINA had found information relating to Icarus—the first AI. Icarus was created by the Binary Brotherhood member, Daedalus, and quickly led to the AI ban. When Icarus first escaped into the internet, it had called out similarly to this. That was how the Brotherhood was able to find and trap the AI.

  Mod shared his thoughts openly with TINA. She agreed with his reasoning and shared something else:

  It sounds like Bastion.

  Mod frowned.

  So they were either dealing with an elaborate trap set by Bastion—

  Or maybe a rogue AI… Maybe even a splinter off of Bastion itself.

  It took a little over a second for Mod and TINA to have their conversation. In the real world, Mod was already up and moving through the hall of the backup lab. Clara and Lock were right behind him. Their supersuits shimmered as cloaking nanites covered them.

  Clara fell in line beside Mod. “Think it’s a trap?”

  Lock grumbled, “If everybody thinks it’s a trap, why are we going?”

  Clara shot a look back. “Because it might not be.”

  Mod didn’t reply. He agreed with TINA. It sounded like a trap.

  But what if it wasn’t?

  There was one other possibility, and Mod didn’t want to think about it.

  As Mod and the team jogged up the stairs and out of the backup lab, a part of him was still in cyberspace and looking out over that cliff. TINA was beside him and shouted back to the void.

  Stay there. Help is coming.

  ~

  Mod, Arsenal, and Lock sprinted toward the signal, keeping parallel to the highway. The signal was only a few miles away, just outside of Belport.

  But now it was moving, and it wasn’t alone. Other signals were closing in—groups of biomechs and a small squadron of drones. Mod could even feel the enormous perception of Bastion as it swept across the scene, like sunlight sweeping across a landscape.

  Mod honed in on the rogue signal. Now that they were close, he could make out more details.

  It appeared as a rolling cloud of electricity. Mod recognized that effect immediately. It meant there was a swarm of nanites. The cloud effect was the combination of countless signals bouncing back and forth. But it wasn’t the source.

  The source was inside the storm and looked like a tiny fire inside it.

  Mod understood what TINA meant when she said that it sounded like Bastion. At a distance, it had the same characteristics and signature as the rest of Bastion’s army—they were all speaking the same language. Even if Mod couldn’t understand it, he could recognize it.

  But now that they were close, Mod saw the signal for what it was. Despite how cyberspace had become a forest to him, everything felt solid and artificial. Even Bastion and TINA felt like they belonged. They might have a bigger presence than a drone, but they felt similar.

  This new signal felt out of place. Organic.

  There weren’t any mirrors in cyberspace, so Mod could only guess what he looked like—

  This felt like looking into a mirror.

  Mod sent all this to TINA, along with his belief that this wasn’t a trap. …He hoped it wasn’t a trap.

  TINA agreed.

  But that didn’t mean it wasn’t going to be dangerous.

  As they ran alongside the highway, Mod focused on the battle. Even though the new signal was fighting Bastion’s forces in the real world, Mod could follow it in cyberspace.

  TINA reached out.

  ATTEMPTING TO RECONNECT

  If it was who Mod thought it was, then maybe… just maybe…

  But the answer came almost instantly.

  CONNECTION FAILURE

  SYNC IMPOSSIBLE

  TINA’s communication made the new signal even more unstable. Inside the rolling cloud of nanites, the signal rose like a bonfire. It was angry—he was angry.

  Mod knew now that this wasn’t a trap. This wasn’t planned by Bastion or Midas or any of the Brotherhood.

  The moment of realization seemed to stretch on in Mod’s mind until the team finally arrived. Mod, Arsenal, and Lock spread out atop a nearby store. Thankfully, most of the block was already abandoned, and the few people left had cleared out. With any luck, they could keep things away from the highway.

  Crashed Fast-Response drones and disabled biomechs littered one side of the field.

  Then Mod saw the swarm. It twisted and churned like a bottled river. For the first time, he realized the scope of what they faced. The swarm was much larger than both he or TINA had anticipated. It was so densely packed that Mod couldn’t begin to estimate its numbers, or how the man inside was controlling it.

  Even now, with all his upgrades, Mod would’ve struggled to control a swarm that size.

  Gunshots started him out of the moment. Somehow, the man inside the swarm had activated hidden rifles. Nanite bullets streaked toward each of them. Mod dodged out of the way, Arsenal melted it, and Lock let the shot hit him.

  Thankfully, the enemy nanites were an earlier generation, and TINA easily disposed of them.

  Mod hesitated, but formed a rifle and stepped forward. “Stand down and identify yourself!”

  The swarm writhed, and then it screamed. Even though the voice came through the swarm and was distorted because of it, there was no question whose voice it was.

  ~ ~ ~