Rough Writing

I watched the clinic from the level above it through an opaque wall covered in grime. The low rent apartment complex control machine had taken my coin with no questions and requiring no id. Amazing how corrupt even AI was. Legally, they were supposed to keep a record with my official ID but when a fake ID was on every corner and enforcement of rules so lax these days most systems had just given up dealing with the pain. A burden of creating learning AI I suppose. My recorders and other equipment lay humming quietly at my side with wires snaked up and into several of my external access ports. Data flooded my mind.

I mentally saw the other building. Its emissions, signals, the flood of data sliced and chopped into neat mentally digestible chunks by my lower level processors. Zoom in, decrypt that wireless packet. All of it effortless. That ease had cost me a great deal both in coin and soul. There were drawbacks to having so much mental augmentation but so much power. Anyways, back to the task at hand.

I sorted through the parcels of information searching for anything that would lead me to Dr. Nora Rodeski. She and her guards had gone silent during her daily transport this morning and her parent corporation had hired me to go and find out what had happened. Apparently, she was worth some coin to the company given their ready agreement to my normal but rather outrageous fee. A faint signal bubbled up on my mental stage. One of my external detectors had caught a faint trace of Nora’s distress signature. A small radioactive pulse she would leave after discreetly activating a nigh undetectable implant. Unless you were tuned to its pulses the signal seemed just like background radiation noise.

She was either here or at least someone or something that knew where she had gone was in this clinic. I composed a quick update for my employer and sent it over a secured wire. They would be very interested in how the Hei-pon medical clinic had a trace of the good doctor’s distress signal. Maybe they would be able to exert some more pressure. The great corporations always used everything to their advantage. AI and Human intelligence battling for power because power meant a continued existence. You never died unless you had no more power. At least if you were anyone with any coin and could afford a full backup. The Singular wouldn’t of course but then they were insane Luddites.

I quickly pulled up several tasks and let my sub systems begin working. One went off through the ether and began compiling a list of potential units to interrogate. It coordinated data gathering with a few of my employer’s, Sun-Lao, AI to see if we could get something above and beyond my normal silo’s ability. Another sub system went and pulled in location information and started integrating it into my current memory so that I would be familiar with the internal layout when I went in. Another attempted to map out security. While my workers churned through their batches I spent time working on my external facade. Pulling up several of the profiles coming in I began building a representation of what I wanted to appear like. As usual it seemed the best approach was to assume a form with female aspects. So many male born could never seem to unwire that particular vulnerability. It also didn’t help that this area had such a strong ethnic disposition towards males. I composed a figure designed to evoke a non-threatening and needful response and committed it.

After committing my body immediately began to shift. I leaned back and let my consciousness drift above while my body began shaking and shivering as my genes, hormones and embedded nanites orchestrated yet another shift. It would take at least an hour for the shift to finish so I pulled up digestible chunks delivered by my many sub AI and began reviewing them and left my current body to writhe.