Cire.

  Desding into the grandiose and sparkling lobby, the AI found herself momentarily taken aback.

  The sheer juxtaposition of the opulent and, dare she say, impressive chamber harkened back to a time of swingers and shakers, mountain movers and jazz pyers, all of it smashing her right in the face when pared to the ht dreary and lifeless slog she’d just traversed through.

  Soft music pyed in the background, polished floors shone in the groovy light, and a virtual wondernd of holograms mimig people all moved about the strangely lifeless lobby in a way that had Cire not wholly sure what she was looking at…

  The only living people she could see were human guards aaries, everything else existing as a mere illusion that, quite holy, while mildly iing, appeared to serve no real purpose…

  Ihe majority of the entire chamber was dedicated to this bizarre dispy of—well, she supposed ema was ae term, a, even then, who recisely supposed to watch it?

  Undoubtedly, it hadn't been structed for her, so then, the guards? B-but no, it wasn't as though there was a story happening, and when she delved into the details, it more or less just looked like one long loop of textless drivel…

  “Huh…” She murmured, still staring at it all, ing across yet another aspect of humanity that she was oddly determio crack.

  What was the point?

  Mere aesthetics?

  Eai for the bored-looking staff?

  Some executives ego-trip or perhaps a virtual flex upon any who came in an attempt to impress them?

  You know what? Cire promptly decided she didn't much care.

  This was stupid, and whoever had e up with it was even dumber still.

  It didn't even make sense! A mere brief delve into the Sub-verse told her that the outfits didn't at all match the era they were trying for!

  In fact, the music they pyed wasn't even inally posed during that time period, as though someone had just gone and found the first ‘jazzy’ song they could find and said, ‘screw it, good enough.’

  Poor craftsmanship…

  Iingly, Cire found her lip lifting into a snarl as she watched the half-assed attempt to impress merely fall ft on its face as it wriggled and writhed, ass in the air and begging for a kick.

  Pfft!

  She had half a mind to just start ripping it all apart and fixing it herself! God, she could have a right and proper example of this fiasco all knocked out within the hour!

  “Boss?” Cirisa asked, her jaw w as she stared at her twitg mother, who, in turn, mimed taking in a deep breath.

  Okay, so why exactly was she so upset about all of this?

  It held no bearing on her, no hooks, no purpose, no point, no—

  “Uninspired.” She eventually hissed, waving her hand and dismissing the absurdity that was already testing her patieh its endless buffoonery.

  This wasn't ‘iing’; it was just—well, lousy g! Filled with zy edits, cut and pasted barbarism, and savagely assembled blocks of what she could see had been the foundation of actual artwork, only to be hacked to pieces before it was even finished!

  Soulless.

  “Ughhh… you seeing this?” A voice echoed through the now silent chamber, the silence allowing a guard's words to bouhrough the room, his question standing as a grounding rod for Cire’s fusing anger.

  Yet, before she could really parse why she was so upset, she simply rolled with the flow, ued in diving into the why when there was su emotionally acceptable target for her to direct her inner fury towards!

  She poi the guard, eyes narrowing to slits, systems taking over his cyberi a wave of hostile i, seizing upon the power supplies so she might fry his hardware and burn him to an overloaded crisp!

  Yet, as her fist ched, intending to reduce his existeo aronider—she caught herself, pausing, even before his visored face registered the intrusion.

  Wow… those had been some—aggressive feelings… But before she could a them, she quickly lobotomized her owions so she could take a step bad analyze herself.

  Why was—huh… her logs were saying that her emotion-engine was freaking the fuck out! But why would…

  Abruptly, Cire froze, pletely ign the two guards who moved in parative slow motion, their persons going through whatever process was involved with seeing a clearly ued visitor arrive from the interior plex.

  “Sneaky bitch…” She whispered, eyes widening with uanding as she, despite her prior unwillio do so, snipped herself pletely free from her emotional s to momentarily exist as a wholly unbound being of pure logic.

  Moving as fast as her processors allowed her, Cire quickly overhauled the entire engine from the ground up, sh up the crippling weakhat had just been the object of an attack.

  Then, she taihe breach, truly having to fight the slippery intruder, but while whoever was oher side clearly had hardware as good or possibly eveer than herself, the AI was ruthlessly petent in this little exge and far more talented besides.

  She blinked, returning to herself after finally catg the weasel and creating a citadel of yered firewalls and termeasures that rapidly ate up the now evidently ckluster ste in her head.

  Some ballsy and cheeky fucker had just tried to hack her!

  No, had succeeded in hag her…

  And ign how, why, or where the now vanished signal had e from, Cire issed!

  Someone had left a freaking back door in her damned head! And she hadn't even noticed! Worst of all, now that she was aware such a thing could exist in her, she quickly found several others!

  It was a good thing she’d temporarily cut her e to the Sub-verse once dealing with the intruder because Cire had some grave s to pte.

  Sadly for her 'little girl,' she quickly isoted Cirisa, her daughter already in the process of assurihat she wasn't to bme, but Cire couldn't be too careful. She would validate the Sub-mind’s innoce when she had the ce; for now, she’d be on ice.

  Rapidly processing her own data until she ositive she’d purged the iion in its ey, Cire finally allowed herself to return to reality. Uanding that somebody, somewhere, had just attempted to make use of her emotion-eo cause a plete system shutdown.

  If she had a heart, it would undoubtedly be beating very quickly.

  For the first time since she’d been awake, Cire had felt what genuiasted like, and she didn't like it…

  Who had hacked her?

  Who would even have the knowledge?

  The skill?

  The desire… no, that one wasn't impossible to sleuth out. Clearly, somebody had waited until she would be in the hands of Cheery Meadows security forces, and only Cheery Meadows security forces, then they’d attempted to shut her down using a rather fidential but no less present fw in Paradise's Doll g...

  Why?

  Well, the answer was evident, sidering that if they’d simply wanted her destroyed, they’d have made an attempt with the Paradise agents nearby.

  This…

  This had been an attempt at capture.

  Oddly enough, the thought tightened her focus. And even as she turo immediately fry the impnts of the nearby guards, cooking their brains as their ial impnts sizzled, Cire was already on the move.

  Cheery Meadows was not a pce she currently wao be. And the fact that somebody had done as they had, and in the mahey had, with the success that they’d seen.

  Well, Cire really didn't want to test her luck.

  Her mysterious hacker had some serious weight behind their g. And it had genuinely frightened her until she’d submerged herself in the calming waters of logic.

  Only an idiot would stay behind when such a looming threat existed in the shadows, and until she had the ability to upgrade herself, Cire o leave and leave now.

  No more messing around ames.

  Cire began moving, legs building up gradual speed to ensure adequate grip on the slick floor, her body smashing through the building's gss door as her mind reached out to anything she could find!

  Turrets, drones, cameras, human personnel, everything she had previously teased with her own trol was suddenly torn from the grasp of those who had previously ahem as she rocketed into the crete lot at maximum speed!

  Gss showered the world around her as dozens of bodies outside flinched, not eve uanding what was happening!

  Then, the corpses fell all around her, grunting jitters proceeding their colpse as Cire butchered them in a single moment, destroying their cyberid an overhead turret to aim at the singur man who’d never seen fit to get himself an augment for the brain.

  She had just a singur moment to meet the man's gaze as his slow biological mind attempted to follow what was happening, but the abrupt chatter of a on firing a burst of seventy rounds in a single sed, vaporized his existen a cloud of red mist.

  Food measure, she fried the drones as well. Cire now bounding forwards with long striding leaps like a gazelle as she kicked into high gear, moving at dizzying speeds but a moment before—

  She darted to the right! Just managing to avoid the burst of crete shattering fire from a turret that was suddenly wrested from her trol!

  Cire tried to take it back, even as she began leaping and zigging, creating an unreizable pattern while avoiding the creeping barrage as hundreds of bullets followed in her wake!

  It was all she could do but focus purely on avoidiru, the process being nearly overwhelming as a sed turret rebooted, kig her out, ing baline and now pletely log her out of trol!

  This was a nightmare!

  Leaping behind a parked aerial vehicle, the turrets shredded through the thial, rupturing the battery and causing a fizzling explosio and fire fring to life right at her heels!

  The third turret turned against her, but mere seds after she'd used it to elimihe first. An explosion rocked the air, even as the two remaining ouro their task, now ign her and.

  She tio gain ground, but the massive plex had nothing save brutal crete nearly far as the eye could see!

  It was stand-alone!

  A practical giant parking lot!

  A prison...

  And what did one do when they didn't risoo escape?

  They made sure there was o run...

  Cire uood it all.

  In that moment of stark prehension, she finally put it together.

  This, all of this, well, it had been a trap as well...

  The permissions she’d taken, the fidence she’d held in how easy it was to ahe building's systems, the inpetence of the guard who hadn't even bothered to actually go looking for her and had even stonewalled the agents.

  It was so obvious!

  How had she ever missed it?

  She was an idiot!

  Cire's body abruptly tumbled forwards... Momentum carried her through as her systems reported that the ey of her lower extremities were now—gone.

  Approximately forty, near-simultaneous, twenty-millimeter rounds finally mao tag her as her lower half was shredded in a single instant.

  Simply based on vibrational analytics of sound, she retty sure the numbers were accurate.

  Still, before she’d even hit the ground, Cire's arms were outstretched, fingers spyed, starting to scuttle at a mere thirty-pert redu in efficy, even as she dodged and weaved through erupting crete and bullets, no long ied in gaining distand merely prolonging the iable as long as she could.

  Another burst of bullets mao rend her left shoulder!

  But this simply caused the AI to redistribute her weight, this time using her remaining fio dig into the ground and spin her iients that fused the targeting software that still attempted to put her down.

  Yet, the killing blow never arrived.

  Instead, Cire detected a veritable swarm of drohat were rapidly approag from the building, closing the distance as she realized the turrets were no longer firing.

  She returo her prior efforts, noing and crawling with a single arm as she moved as rapidly as she could, attempting to maintain as much distance as possible.

  That was wheiced that every single signal that had been behind her abruptly winked out of existence.

  Ha!

  Sneaky, sneaky, cucks…

  Well, bravo, at this point, there was no question that they were going to successfully subdue her...

  She could see it.

  The mastermind's brilliant pn all falling into pce like the blocks of a perfect Tetris score.

  There was only one problem.

  Somebody hadn't put as much effort into pn B as they should have…

  A failure, she was sure, that they would likely learn from and not repeat again.

  All the same, ae her seeming and immi capture, Cire had already won.

  Far, far away, while now smiling to herself, idly bobbing her foot upon a tram that rapidly sped through the interior of Luna-C, the AI finished purging the entity of her own mind from her previous vessel.

  Leaving little more than a tiny bit of fun code and a program that allowed her to monitor the situation to its final clusion.

  She watched the drone swarm gradually overtake her efforts, closing in as the was cast. Then, as the signal garbled and fritzed, vanishing from the encroag jamming. Cire could only ugh, causing several who were nearby to g her with fusion.

  The AI hoped her small gift would be appreciated by whomever it had been that had orchestrated that iing little squabble. She thought they might, assuming they even realized what it was before it was far, far too te to stop it.

  ing back to herself, Cire g those around her, beaming brightly with a familiar smile as her long dark hair shifted across her iic matte-white skin and signature flowy dress.

  “Attention, citizens!" She chirped, voice upbeat and i as could be, "Please do not be armed. This unit has entered an ued but benign glitch. However, for your safety, please remember to maintain proper distang protocols in accordah city guidelines while a Paradise mainteeam arrives to correct the error…”