Myth Gods Tech - Omnibus Edition: Science Fiction Meets Greek Mythology In The God Complex Universe (26 page)

httpd> What the hell are you talking about? This is it.
Our user is gonna get deleted, and us with him!

armd>
I can hold her off.

eyed>
Sorry man, but you can’t. I still have your specs cached, these
bars are made to withstand your above-normal 120 psi strength, and
this cobra tore through it with a slight squeeze.

armd>
A meatbag is a meatbag. I’m just gonna punch this one till it
bleeds.

The
cobra moved its body around, it’s tail still in the widened gap
between the prison bars, tearing it open slightly as it writhed.
The cobras eyes focused on the user, and her tongue extended, thin,
fast and split at the end.

Leo
gulped. “Please don’t eat me. Remember, at the street? You were
nice then, be nice now. Don’t eat me.”

She
replied by tasting the air once again.

A fellow
prisoner banged the bars of his cell with something hard, that made
a deep ringing sound. The cobra twitched and turned her head
towards the noise.

Time
slowed down.

Well, it
didn’t actually slow down, it was the normal processing speed for
computer daemons. Real life was the one that flowed with glacial
speeds, and they had invented ways to keep themselves busy between
the huge millisecond gaps where nothing actually happened. Floating
point mathematical problems helped a lot.

eyed>
Now. Do it now.

armd>
Yeah, I’m gonna punch her…

httpd> Wait! Is noone seeing what I’m seeing? This cobra
can’t possibly be real.

armd>
That’s exactly why I’m punching her. For tactile
confirmation.

httpd> No, no. I mean, it didn’t come from a zoo. It seems
to be augmented, not natural.

fingerd> Fingered! The cobra has no specific email address
but here’s a bunch of image tags on various social media
streams.

httpd> Shut up you idiot, we are trying to save the user
here.

armd>
Yeah, it’s clobbering time.

eyed>
This is a tough spot to be in.

httpd> Hey! What did you say?

armd>
Yeah, it’s clobbering time.

httpd> Not you,
fingerd
. Did you connect?

fingerd> Sure. I have a strict work ethic. I retry every
60 ms. You are welcome. Now my work here is done.

The gap
in the cage meant also a gap in the Faraday cage. Those prevalent
wifi signals bounced around the walls and managed to get inside the
cell. The daemons suddenly had a lot more information to work
with.

So they
argued.

armd>
OK, that was helpful. I’ll punch her lower, where the bend is,
see?

httpd> No, that makes no difference. There must be
something here we can use.

eyed>
Just don’t hit her in the eyes.

armd>
Good idea! The eyes, yeah, that’ll show her who’s boss.

eyed>
You barbarian!

The web-connection daemon
httpd
cycled through the various
social media pictures that random people had tagged the cobra in.
By the 103th loop he realised he was basically procrastinating, so
he took his mind off it for a few cycles and shifted through his
cache to come back with fresh eyes. He did, taking note of the
comments under the pictures as well. One of the pictures had the
cobra bent awkwardly, when a little boy had pulled her tongue. The
comments were “OMG I thought my Timmy was gonna die! #worstdayever
#bansnakes” and “I hope our little Timmy is OK *scared smiley
face*”

Httpd
pulled up another picture from a different account that showed
little Timmy stepping on the cobra’s tail on purpose, shunning any
sense of self-preservation since the snake could eat him as a light
snack. A next one from the crowd that gathered was showing the
mother scolding the Turban wearing snake charmer, him taking it
stoically, staring with his beady white eye at her. It was the face
of a bad man, keeping his anger in check.

httpd> Pull her tongue!

eyed>
Oh great, he lost it too. Do me a favour, check yourself for any
corrupted files.

httpd> Listen to me, I found an exploit. Pull her
tongue!

armd>
And then punch her?

httpd> No! Just pull her tongue and she’ll
crash.

armd>
So no punching? Nah. Let’s do it my way.

httpd> I bet you aren’t fast enough.

armd>
Me? Not fast enough? Hah. Look at this!

The
cobra turned back to Leo, hissed once more and took out her thin
tongue to taste the air. The cyberarm snatched the reptile’s tongue
out of the air and kept it high. Leo yelped “Ahhh!” in surprise as
his evil hand toyed with the killer beast with a mind of its own.
The cyberarm pulled the tongue left and right, forcing the cobra to
follow with her head.

armd>
Look at me! I’m a snake charmer! *whistles*

httpd> She should be stunned now. Drop it and let’s
go!

An arrow
showed up in the user’s veil, pointing towards the gap the cobra’s
entrance had left in the prison bars. He was shocked and didn’t
move at all. A glowing red display counting down 10 seconds also
appeared next to it.

“
Huh? What’s that? Who’s doing that?” Leo asked to the
air.

The
seconds reached down to five.

Leo
jumped past the stunned cobra, pulled her tail out of the gap,
failed, and pulled even harder. The heavy snake’s body slid
through. He squeezed below the prison bars, he was barely thin
enough to fit his chest. He got stuck, under the prison
door.

He
craned his head back and saw the cobra coming to her senses and
twisting her scaly body around to face him.

Chapter 16:// Ripping out

The wifi
named
aresholding3
had monitored net access and a whole lot of failed-to-deliver
packets of data.

It was a
miracle they had even gotten that precious info moments
before.

But the
user was still stuck between the bars, at the bottom of the prison
door. The huge cobra was about to prey on him, and the only
consolation was the inmate across the hall urging him to push and
get free (so he could let him free as well).

eyed>
We’ll never fit through.

fingerd> Maybe the snake is friendly after all.

eyed>
Yeah right.

httpd> There has to be something. There always is. WWPD?
WWPD people?

eyed>
Wha’?

rfid>
CF02032533139342DFDC1C35

armd>
Oh great, now everyone is speaking nonsense.

httpd> WWPD. What Would Parrotd Do? Let’s revise our
situation. Come on.

armd>
Well, we’re stuck. If I had punched that cobra we might have had
more time to squeeze through, but now it is attacking again. The
worst part is, the user is scraping the shit out of my shoulder on
the prison bars. That joint will never be smooth again.

httpd> That’s it! Armd, rip yourself out of your
socket!

armd>
Are You Mad Daemon? NO! N-O. That’s a negative.

eyed>
Hey, he’s right. The way I see it, if you break the hinge on your
shoulder it might just be enough for the user to squeeze
through.

armd>
Break his left fleshy shoulder then! It’s squishier!

httpd> RTFM! Humans have an innate aversion to hurting
themselves. It says they will do so in dangerous situations, but
that necessitates a strong force of will AND/OR training. Examples
given are breaking one’s own thumb to get out of
handcuffs.

fingerd> Breaking his own thumb? The horror!

armd>
I have an innate aversion too! And it tells me you tell you to
SYFIUYA. Stick Your Fucking Ideas Up Your Ass.

fingerd> We don’t have an ass. Do you mean that
metaphorically?

armd>
AAAH!

eyed>
armd, what is the First Law?

armd>
A digital entity may not injure a human being or, through inaction,
allow a human being to come to harm.

httpd> We’ll let you think about that for a few
cycles.

As the
daemon thought about it, the large cobra twisted around, bringing
her body in striking position. This time she did not hesitate, she
barely tasted the air once with a half taking-out of her tongue and
lashed out. She bit the user’s leg, but he thrashed against it and
only managed to rip out a piece of meat from his thigh.

The
other inmate yelled in horror and banged the cell bars to get the
warden’s attention. Even if someone came to help, it would be too
late by then.

armd>
OK fine!

The
cyberarm operated his servos and squeezed the matte black arm,
levering it between the prison floor and the bottom of the bars. He
pushed beyond his safety specifications. Alarms blared up all over
the user’s vision, artificial pain mixed in with the real pain from
his bitten thigh made him scream out a primal sound.

Fingerd
yelled along with his user.

httpd> At least turn off your pain receptors this
time…

armd>
ACK. Now shut up and let me destroy myself.

If a text prompt could convey sorrow, this would be it. The
daemon in charge of the cyberarm, who
was
the cyberarm for all intents and
purposes, was doing what nobody had ever written in any version of
his manual: tearing himself off his hinges.

All for
the sake of the user.

Chapter 17:// Birthing out

Nobody
thought there would be so many fluids involved. The cobra’s clear
saliva was dripping out of her hissing mouth, the user’s dark red
blood was spilling out of the bite in his thigh, his clear sweat
was pouring out of his body, light blue hydraulic antifreeze in the
cyberarm joint was leaking out and dark yellow piss was coming out
of his pants.

Don’t
mock the man. You would have peed on yourself too. You see,
evolution has provided humans with organic controlling entities of
her own, just like an artificial device needs a digital daemon, a
controlling entity. Evolution’s daemons might reside in the
reptilian part of the brain, the one that feeds your primal
desires, your fears, your self-preservation. Humans might think
that they are advanced, logical, living in communities, with laws,
justice, ethos and various other fictions but when the push comes
to shove, they become animals.

It’s
what they do to survive, and they seem to be damn well tenacious so
far.

Expelling all excess baggage is a sound tactical decision, in
a fight-or-flight situation.

That’s
why Leo peed himself.

But
that’s not all he did. He also went along with the swerving
prosthetic arm that was trying to rip itself out of his body. He
didn’t have time to think why it was doing it, or who was giving
that command. He just went along, adrenaline overclocking his
muscles and making him for a few critical seconds, a
superhuman.

Leo
slammed his prosthetic shoulder on the floor, and as it was hinged
in a lever it broke with flashing sparks. It didn’t come off, it
was too well-built for that, but it did give way and allowed him to
squeeze through the bars and out of the cage of death.

He
pulled himself upright, putting weight on his good leg, and looked
back as the cobra was twisting her body around again to chase after
him.

The
other inmate yelled for help, the prison door opened with a
flashing light, the cobra slithered in the corridor and closed the
distance fast.

The
warden appeared in the door, his shockstick sparking, ready to be
shoved into Leo’s battered body.

Chapter 18:// Slipping past

fingerd> Fingered! This man is-

armd>
WE DON’T GIVE A SHIT!

The
nameless prison warden hereby referred to as big blue bastard was
about to shock and subdue the user, when he noticed the huge cobra
coming towards him fast. The flashes in his shockstick gave her
advance a stroboscopic look, every flash of light bringing her
closer and closer, mouth wider and wider.

The user
leaned to the wall next to the blue bastard and tried to keep
himself upright. His cyberarm was crippled, dripping light blue
liquid and was randomly whirring a servo or two.

The
cobra lunged forward.

She bit
the warden, but he was no squishy. He was adequately armoured and
trained. He managed to avoid giving the serpent a good angle and
slammed the shockstick squarely at the right side of her hood. He
turned it on and shocked the cobra.

It
didn’t seem to faze her much.

The big
blue bastard pulled out his sidearm in a flash of motion and
emptied the clip in the serpent’s head, point blank.