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  “I think that went well.”

  Tabba blinked. “How did you do that?”

  Venda was perplexed at the horror in Tabba’s voice. “I did as you said. I made a limb then made another limb then made my body again. Well, I made the outline. The refinements will have to wait.”

  “You should not have been able to do that. There is far too much mass for that,” one of Tabba’s assistants blurted out.

  Venda laughed. “Do you know how heavy a standard science lab bot is? The liquid metal was easy by comparison.”

  Dr. Hemmar cleared his throat. “Don’t forget that Venda’s consciousness is possessed of a talent for occupying bionic or metal mobile structures. If it has a rudimentary control unit, she can use it for her purposes.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.” Venda was happy that he had come to her assistance.

  Tabba blinked. “Right. We were going to ease into the base programming, but I think you are capable of using a pre-set configuration. Are you ready for a second test?”

  Venda verbally confirmed. “Set me up with a body, and I will hop into it.”

  Tabba smiled slightly. “Hop?”

  “For all you know, that is how it is done.” Venda put as much smug into her tone as she could.

  The engineering group let out a bunch of giggles and went to their computers, accessing the code that let the sphere stay a sphere.

  Venda waited until she got the sign, and then, she put her awareness into the newly sculpted female form. Once she was inside it, she made it her own, and the vocal cords were not as difficult as she had first imagined. It was a vibrating tendril in a hollow tube that she controlled by flexing the tube and blowing and sucking air through it.

  The weird and eerie sound continued as she firmed up her jaw and fluffed out her hair. She finished her transformation and left her breasts on but no nipples and nothing between her thighs. It felt much more natural to be what she was, a walking, talking databank.

  Tabba and her companions were frantically recording the feedback data from her first steps, and with their permission, Venda went for a run.

  She started slow and was a blur of motion around the track. She could see her own after-image as she rounded the track again and again.

  Her control began to waver when the liquid heated up, and by the time she had reached her limit, there was no control over the form. She splatted into a puddle.

  The teams rushed toward her, but she said, “Stop. This is going to get worse before it gets better.”

  Her tentacles flailed out, and she used every lashing limb to crawl back to her podium. There were a lot of limbs.

  The sphere was impossible. She had destroyed its base program when she stepped inside, so the moment she relinquished it, it was a puddle again.

  “I am sorry about that. I seem to have wrecked your tracking and the cohesion software.”

  Tabba’s eyes were lit with excitement. “This is excellent! I understand now. You need a framework to support the nanites. Oh, this is very exciting.”

  The engineers used keyed magnets to collect the nanites and began the long process of recycling and reprogramming them. They were bizarrely delighted with the failure.

  “Why are you happy about this?”

  Tabba looked up from the readouts. “Venda, with your help, we have the chance to make the most impressive mechanical structure that no one will ever see. It is the chance of a lifetime to be on the team that makes this structure.”

  Venda chuckled. “I will leave you to it then.”

  She continued on with the puzzles that Dr. Hemmar had left her, and they forged ahead with designing an ultralight framework to use as a base skeleton to keep the nanites in formation.

  A happy afternoon was spent by all, followed by days, a week, and several months.

  Investigator Jianik arrived in the lab with a scientist carrying a box. The radiation level coming from the box had a mild but distinct signature.

  “Jianik, have you brought me a present?” Venda chuckled and trained the cameras on the new arrivals.

  The scientist looked at the mainframe, and his eyes widened. “In there?”

  Jianik nodded. “Correct. She is also speaking to us.”

  “Yes. I am. Well, I was speaking to you. I don’t know who he is.”

  The scientist quirked his lips and held up the box. “He is Dr. Hector Malic. I have in my hands the prototype for a mechanical mind. I am here to see if it will be suitable for your needs.”

  “Well, junior, whip it out and let’s see what we are working with.”

  Jianik blushed and covered her eyes. “Were they playing the vid again?”

  Dr. Hemmar came in, and he cleared his throat. “All weekend, with commentary from the experts and heroes in the area.”

  Jianik winced. “I am so sorry, Venda.”

  Dr. Malic looked confused. “What video?”

  Venda projected it on the large screen and set the audio low. She watched the last six minutes of her life, and then they watched the experts saying that the heroes should have gotten their earlier if they had taken a different route, and the heroes were saying that Venda should never have intervened.

  “It is so nice to see my last moments discussed and dissected.” Venda’s tone was grim.

  Jianik muttered, “Shit. Right, well. Dr. Malic is here to see if his technology is compatible with your mind. Would you care to try it?”

  “Sure. What the hell. May as well.”

  Jianik scowled and then seemed to have an idea. “Venda, speak with me in the consulting room.”

  Venda waited, and when Jianik was in the consulting room, she activated the camera and speakers. “I am here. I am listening.”

  “We have found one of the marauders. I also have access to a satellite route, and a bot is standing by.” Jianik fed her the information.

  “Can I go now?”

  “Certainly. Take care of the issue. It is a world with death penalties for the public torture of civilians.” Jianik smiled slightly. “Come back in a better mood.”

  Venda didn’t hesitate. She read the data packet, got the directions and access codes, and sent her mind on a journey across the cluster. She had experimented with the satellite access before, and while she had to move through eighteen of them to get to her target world, she managed it in minutes.

  Compared to the missions she had arranged herself, this one was too easy. She found the marauder, wearing his suit. It was too much fun. She left her bot and took over his suit, cooking him with the internal systems while he screamed. When she was sure he was dead, she left the way she had come, blowing up her bot on the way.

  She returned to the lab in a much better mood.

  “I am back at full capacity.”

  Jianik blinked and nodded. “Right. We were just analyzing the vid with a lack of commentary, and Dr. Malic wishes to know if you were mentally affected.”

  “Definitely. I was slightly sober but generally good-natured person before. Now, I am hostile, defensive, and just mad most of the time. It only gets better when I am able to walk and move around in a body. I hate being stuck in the mainframe.”

  Dr. Malic turned the box on the table, and he opened it, connecting a cable. “If you would like to see how much of you fit in it, feel free to insert yourself.”

  “Well, it has been a while since a man asked me to insert myself, but I will give it a try.”

  Jianik’s expression was one of relief. “Where are Tabba and the others?”

  “It is their rest day. They are off relaxing. If this works, I will recall them.” Venda examined the storage capabilities of the matte grey orb, and when she had assured herself it had at least as much space as a bot, she started to move in.

  She was filling the space, and there was still more for her to tuck into, so she decided to test the new doctor.

  She sent the message to Jianik’s tablet, encoded, and then, she dimmed the li
ghts on the mainframe so, to an idiot, it would appear empty.

  There was only one way into the orb, and that was via the cable. She had copied herself into it. Her first backup. She was so proud.

  “Dr. Malic, I believe you have done it.” Jianik had barely spoken when she was struck. She fell to the ground and was still.

  Dr. Hemmar tried to stop Dr. Malic from taking the orb, but the younger man was exceptionally quick. He kicked Hemmar into one of the chairs and closed the box, running for the exit.

  He was near to the door when Venda began a slow clap from the newest bot body.

  She stepped down and walked toward him, a metal skeleton inside a liquid skin. Her hands continued to make a striking sound as she approached him. “Well done, Doctor. Or is it mister? Mister Hector Malic, struck off the research team for stealing proprietary equipment and the latest breakthrough.”

  She made a tsking sound. “Not very polite behaviour.”

  He was staring at her and backing away. The doors were firmly shut with riot locks engaged. She was an exotic piece of technology, after all.

  “So, nothing to say?”

  “What are you? The machine is downloaded! The mind is in storage.”

  “Oh. Oh, you idiot. No. What part of the fact that I am not a computer program or artificial intelligence did you not understand? Is it because you never finished school? Let me break it down.”

  She walked up to him and took the orb from his quivering grip. “I was alive. I was dead. Now I am here. None of that involved programming. So, the question is, do you want to surrender yourself to the law enforcement that is waiting out front, or do you want me to show you what I was doing while you were setting up for the transfer?”

  She felt the smile pulling across the bot’s silver lips. They hadn’t gotten to pigment yet.

  He suddenly looked at her and the two researchers behind her. He reached behind him and pulled a small blaster out of his pants.

  “That isn’t sanitary.” She shook her head and stepped toward him.

  He pulled the trigger and shot the torso. He pulled the small trigger over and over as she approached him.

  “So, a demonstration it is.” She reached out and grabbed his gun with her free hand, crushing it and causing a bright and searing electric discharge.

  The scream was rather intense.

  She made a tutting sound. “Screaming? Really? You watched the video. I had a mech standing on me, and I didn’t scream. I couldn’t scream. When you give in to screaming, your body begins to send all kinds of adrenalin and acids through you. You lose your grip, and you collapse much sooner than if you simply breathe into the agony.”

  Venda handed the orb to Jianik, and she grabbed Dr. Hemmar and left the room.

  Venda looked at the man who had tried to steal her, and she gave him a polite smile. “Let’s try again. Now, remember, breath into the pain.”

  He screamed, and his body bowed. He even soiled himself. This was going to take some time.

  She dumped the nanites used for biological cleanup on him and waited while they disposed of his remains.

  Jianik came in. “Is it safe?”

  “He’s being recycled, so give it a few minutes before you come over here. Wait. I will put a screen around it.” She moved the screen so that the nanites could do their work undisturbed.

  “So, what do we do now?” Dr. Hemmar came out, and he looked a little green but determined.

  Jianik nodded. “Will the unit work?”

  “It will. Can you get it legitimately?”

  Jianik smiled. “I will contact the original team and tell them that we have their unit, but that it has been imprinted with our tech... in an honest mistake. If they work with us, we can let them have the specs for their unit back, if not, we will destroy the unit, and they can start over knowing that their tech has been safely destroyed and is not being used for nefarious purposes.”

  “I can get me out of there, and I can scrub the interior.”

  Jianik held up a hand. “Let me manage it. Sometimes a polite obfuscation can really get things moving.”

  The nanites had finished their work, and they returned to her, moving up her leg in a stream and filling in her biceps and chest. Every nanite on her body could perform different tasks. Tabba and her crew were having way too much fun with her to stop making customized nanites as well as the blanks that could make more nanites from surrounding materials in case of catastrophic damage.

  They were closer to a finish but not quite there. Venda could almost taste it, and taste was another set of custom nanites that were being worked on. She loved her team.

  Chapter Eight

  The researchers who had created the orb were surprisingly helpful once the Cluster Team Project had promised to fund them for the next five years.

  Evek Daily was the head of the project, and he wasn’t charming or well groomed or even pleasant, but he knew his project.

  “When are you going to move into it?” He worked on the power cell and checked the output.

  “When I can get it installed into the bot. When will that be?”

  “This research has taken decades to perfect.”

  She grumbled. “And six months to change the colour of the housing.”

  He looked up and glared at the mainframe. “For what the team project is offering, I want to get this right.”

  “You need to produce one and a spare. That’s it. I can manage the rest.”

  She wanted to pace, to scream, to do something, anything, but her body was stuck on short range, and she needed her full faculties to use all of the varieties of sensors and nanites that had been installed. She was still basically made of liquid metal, but the skeleton had segments in it that acted as homing beacons for the nanites. They reformed into her shape when they were passive.

  “I can get this one ready for you soon, but the replacement will take time.”

  She huffed and got into her body. It was clothed in a simple bodysuit, and she felt the black suited her.

  There was a call from Jianik on her internal com, and she paused her body’s flexing and bending.

  “Yes, Jianik?”

  “We have found another one of the marauders. We ask that you bring this one into justice alive. He has a family.” Jianik sighed and inhaled. “If you manage to bring him to the local peacekeeper office, you will be required to testify at his hearing.”

  “How?”

  “You will have a body by then. You will testify as yourself.”

  Venda’s mind locked. “What?”

  “You will be legally reinstated with all rights of a citizen of M’Van. Your government has been apprised of the situation, and the Cluster Team Project has insisted on it.” Jianik smiled. “When you join the team, you will also be granted full cluster citizenship. All the worlds in our coalition will be open to you. So, stop pestering Dr. Daily and go and capture one of the marauders.”

  “Yes, Investigator. I will be on my way in minutes.”

  The file was reeled into her head, and she sent herself to the body waiting for her, via the satellite links. The body was tall, strong, and rather intimidating for a woman, but it was definitely female.

  The address was ten kilometres away, so she took the vehicle that was waiting for her, powered it up, and drove into the night.

  She had time to think as she drove through the evening mist. Did she want to hand him over, or did she want to kill him? She would have to decide when she met him.

  The vehicle glided to a halt outside a small suburban house. There were lights inside the house, and she could see small children running around and a set of parents clearing up dishes.

  With curiosity, she left her vehicle and walked toward the house. The marauder armour had been found covered with his DNA. He had to know that someone was coming eventually.

  She walked up to the door, and she knocked. She heard a man’s voice call out, “Not it!”


  The kids laughed, and the woman sighed.

  Venda stood on the stoop, and she looked at the woman when she opened the door.

  “Can I help you?” The woman looked at her, and there was a slightly nervous expression.

  “I am here to speak to Thadian Jemor.”

  The husband came forward, and Venda’s scans identified him as the one who had carried her to the top of the building.

  “I am Thadian. Do I know you?”

  She smiled slightly. “No, but we have met. Seventh of Morial, M’Van. Does that ring a bell?”

  He grew grey. “How do you know about that?”

  “I was there. I was the one that didn’t make it out.”

  He looked at her, turned, and threw up. “Oh, gods. I never meant... it was supposed to be simple.”

  She looked at the family that was assembled behind him. The woman must have been pregnant with the youngest during the hostage-taking. The other two were not yet in school.

  “I would like to take you to the peacekeeper office.”

  He blinked. “Now?”

  “Yes. Now. I no longer have a body of my own, and I don’t want to injure you. If you plead guilty to the charge, you will not suffer a fatal sentence. You have children. You still have a chance to see them grow up.”

  She cocked her head. “What will your choice be?”

  He looked at his children and looked back to her. He whispered, “What were your last words?”

  “You cry too much.”

  He collapsed, narrowly missing his vomit. He hid his head in his hands and sobbed.

  His children came to comfort him, and Venda crouched, patting his shoulder. “We can’t change the past, but we can make choices about the future.”

  Venda smiled at him. “Theeda had a healthy baby girl. She named her after me, as much as our tradition would allow.”

  He looked at his toddler. “She was pregnant?”

  “Yes, her child is the same age as your youngest.”

  There was the sound of a weapon charging up. “Get away from him, bitch.”

  Venda looked at his wife and smiled. “I do not wish to harm you. You are going to have to take care of these little ones. Nor am I going to have your assets frozen. Bills will still be paid while he is incarcerated.”