[FFML] [FANFIC][BGC] Frozen Butterfly - Interlude - HELP WANTED

[skychan]

Hi,

This is actually a far rougher and more 'in progress' draft of a chapter
than I would normally send out to the list so if you only want to read
'finished' chapters please discard this email.

If however you have some time and are willing I would be very appreciative
of some help and comments on how to write this section.  How much to
include or exclude and comments on the point of view being used.

I've been waffling on just when to pick up from Nene's viewpoint, and when
to stop as well as just how much detail should or shouldn't go into the
scenes being written.  Frozen Butterfly really is Kari's story, but this
portion of it at least cannot be told from her perspective.

Thank you for any help you can provide.

Kelly,
Skywise,skychan


Frozen Butterfly 2 a story of Bubblegum Crisis

Interlude – Nene

We were set up in the machine room of Irene's apartment building.  Priss
was sitting back and toying around with some kind of composition leaving me
to watch the security monitors we had slipped in by myself.

Sylia had us watching Irene for two reasons.  The first was because Genom
had targeted her once, and might try coming back after their first failure,
the second because a client had hired us as personal security.

My stomach still felt unsettled from the argument we'd had.  I wanted this
even before we got the job.  Irene and Kari were my friends, they got lucky
once but they couldn't take on boomers by themselves.  Not even with the
gun's Kari had somehow managed to acquire.  I was a bit curious about that,
but listening in on their private conversations felt too much like an
invasion of privacy.  I wouldn’t, couldn't let myself do that.  Not if I
wanted to be able to look either one in the eye the next time we met.

Spending this much time in a hardsuit would have been impossible even
taking it in shifts.  Sure they were comfortable, but only in comparison to
conventional powered armor.  A Knight Saber hardsuit is a thing of
beauty.  Crafted
to exact measurements, the suit exactly cradles its wearer.  Moving lightly
and fluidly without pinching or constricting its wearer.  But that same
cocoon of comfort, that makes it fit like a full body glove is what makes
wearing it for long periods hard.  There isn't any 'give'.  Always there's
a slight pressure against your entire body and you can't squirm or scratch
or shift within in.  The whole thing moves with you and what starts as a
light pressure slowly becomes a stifling unbearable pressure.  Wearing it
I'm strong enough to punch a hole in a wall, but no matter what I do I
can't escape the constant low grade force pressing against me.

Missing scenes pending decision on start point.

I couldn't believe there was so much blood.  It absolutely coated Kari,
plastering her t-shirt to her chest even pooling slightly against her belt.
There was red everywhere.  I reached out touching her face but she was
frighteningly still, her eyes boring into mine unseeing, unmoving.  I
choked back the whimper that tried to rise up in my throat as I saw her
pulse stop, a last rivulet of blood trailing down her throat no longer
under pressure.

How, she was, was a boomer and now she's dead.  How could this happen.  If
I wasn't already kneeling I would have fallen, I did scramble back as I
realized I was kneeling in a pool of her blood and stared at it lost until
Priss' rough voice came over the radio.  "Nene, Irene's been hurt but she
looks stable, is your friend…"

It was obvious she knew.  She had seen the blood.  I looked over to see her
very gently lifting Irene up and gave her a tiny shake of my head as she
turned to face me.  "Look, it was a brave thing she did, braver than most,
but we have to go, we can't stay here."  Her sensitive tone stopped and I
was shocked into blinking by a yell "NENE!  We have to go, we can't stay
here!"  Her voice lower but no less emphatic for that and it was enough to
snap me out of the confused stupor I had fallen into.

I reached down picking up my friend, a boomer, confused and shaky but
seeing the question in Priss' posture had to defend my action.  "She,
doesn't deserve this, to be left here like garbage forgotten…"

"What the hell are you talking about?"  I could hear her frustration and
incomprehension growing.  "Nene, get your head back in the game.  You can't
help her anymore and I need you to be on the lookout for more of them.  We
can't afford a fight with Irene injured like this."

That’s when I realized, she didn't know.  My suits sensors are far better
than those the rest of the Knight Sabers carry.  For what I do they have to
be, and Priss didn't realize Kari was a boomer.  Wait, Kari is a boomer!  With
that thought I reinitialized my scan of her, eyes widening as I took in the
results.  She was dead, but hadn't ceased functioning…

Rising to my feet I checked the remotes in the elevators and lobby again
before leading the way a new urgency to my steps my mind already working on
what it might take to keep my friend, living?  The rest of the journey back
was a blur of arguing with Sylia and desperately working to save Kari's
'life'.

Priss stared at me aghast as I had her help me carry Kari into the medical
suite, my own arms red to the elbow from handling her forgotten as Sylia
quickly and professionally took over.  In minutes Kari was ensconced in a
cocoon of tubing and wires.  Assuring me that she was stable Sylia turned
to check the bandages on Irene's face once more before starting a simple
medicinal drip.

Looking from my two newest friends, one unconscious and the other dead, or
dying or… something, I felt my panic being replaced by a low burning anger,
one matched in Linna's eyes as they met mine across Kari's pale bloody face.
"Mason has to pay."

Priss looked from one of us to the other before she nodded.  "Count me
in.  That
bastard isn't going to get away with this.  Sylia?"

I followed her eyes to our leader, the head of the Knight Sabers, and
nodded, my jaw clenched firmly as she asked, "Nene, are you sure?"  Her
gaze sweeping to take in the other two to be positive of our decision. "All
of you?"

The fight up the sides of Genom tower was exhilarating and frightening at
the same time.  As we climbed that slope I grit my teeth, wishing that I
had the same kind of power as Priss or the others, I just wanted to hit
something, or more specifically someone.

We had left them behind under the care of Mackie, Sylia's brother but every
time I closed my eyes on the way to the base of the tower I could see their
faces.  Irene would be fine, but probably carry the scars for life.  Kari,
it was impossible to say.  Sylia had come through with a supply of blood,
probably meant for us in an emergency, and we had hooked up her emergency
power systems but her heart had remained still and unbeating when we
left.  Only
time would tell if our efforts had been in time to preserve her thoughts,
mind, personality or if all that remained behind was a mindless zombie.

I took that determination to heart when I crested the tower at Sylia's side
to face off against Mason.  Working harder, faster than ever before I
managed to avoid the boomer intent on fighting me, fooling its sensors so
that it stepped off the edge of the tower to tumble down the side and out
of the fight.

Looking back to Sylia I was shocked to see her losing to Mason in an
obviously custom powersuit.  That couldn't be, she was the most amazing
woman I've ever met.  Cold and calculating but unmatched even by Priss'
ferocity.  Hacking into Mason's suit I realized why.  It wasn't that he was
skilled, but that a very highly advanced analytic program was almost
perfectly forecasting Sylia's movements.

With that realization I grinned, feeling sharklike as being so complex it
took only the smallest nudge to overload the system and cause it to
fail.  About
to tell Sylia she demonstrated again why I have such a high regard for her.
Without even needing to be told she darted in around behind him and sliding
one of her energized blades in through a weakness in the armor.  When she
stepped back the last two feet of blade were red with blood and Mason's
suit collapsed like its strings were just shut off.

I felt a grim satisfaction mixed with horror at the sight.  We did it,
Mason's dead.  Swallowing back bile as it rose in my throat, Oh god, we
really did it, and Mason's dead.

Thankfully the need to cover our tracks, employ jamming and the intricacies
of electronic countermeasures helped recenter me on the journey back to our
headquarters beneath Sylia's store.  She owned the entire building but
personally ran the 'Silky Doll' lingerie boutique as a cover.

That night I literally showered the blood from my hands, the guilt and
sickness I felt about my part in Mason's death slowly swirling down the
drain with the blood of my friend, of a boomer.  It was really beginning to
sink in.  Kari isn't human, wasn't human, was never even if I thought so at
the time.

Even so I liked her, it, no her.  I liked her, and she was a friend.  Thinking
back there were clues, but nothing glaring, she was just too lifelike, too
genuine to talk to.  Rolling over I tried to think, she was so much more
human than any other I had ever heard of.  Hell she could pass better than
some of the creeps hauled in by the ADP for going too far with cyberware.

Unable to sleep I took the elevator down to Sylia's computer room and got
on.  I wouldn't be able to sleep until I knew more, until I knew the truth.
Pulling up the records form my hardsuit of the deep scan that shook my
world I studied it again.  It was obvious now knowing what to look for, the
microscopic weave of wires through the body, connecting tissue an synthetic
organ to a series of black boxes that held it's processors and the patented
synthetic brain of a boomer.  The one indisputable proof that my friend
wasn't just a highly augmented human, but a highly humanized boomer.

Shifting my search to the ADP databases through a backdoor I had put in
months ago I tried to find out if anything like her had been seen before
and to my surprise there was.  "33-S model humaniform domestic boomer.  Banned
due to instability and ease of use for criminal activity.  This model is
capable of masquerading as a human without close scrutiny and has been used
for both assassination and prostitution.  Last unit produced March
14th2027, blanket authorization to terminate on discovery granted as
of
November 1st 2027.

Continuing to read I tried to understand how she could have survived so
long unnoticed when I came across a footnote.  Although the 33-S was
designed to use a synthetic compound that is now on the restricted
materials list for controlled substances human blood can be used as a short
term substitute without compromising operation.

Was that it, had she escaped and been living the last five years off of
human blood, or wait, she said she was being held by Genom… if that's true
then what were they doing with a five year old boomer.  Tears came to my
eyes, I couldn't help it.  The thought that my friend had been a prisoner,
a slave, for five years before we met and she escaped… My eyes fell on the
statistics showing that within three months 90% of 33-S boomers went rogue,
80% violently.  I shook my head.  I wouldn't believe that of Kari.

She was a friend, and twice risked herself to protect Irene.  She would
have done the same for me I was sure.  She wasn't like what these files
said.  Maybe she was a new model an improvement.  Closing down the system I
stumbled back up to the unfamiliar room the strange bed and tried to sleep.

It was hard not to rush to the basement when I woke up to find out what was
happening.  Still I found myself hurrying to dress in rumpled day old
cloths and pulled my hair back into an uncharacteristic ponytail rather
than taking the time to brush it out properly.

I suffered a moment of panic when I arrived to see Irene's bed empty.  My
eyes widening and Sylia's name on my lips as I turned for her 'office'- a
room that held the Knight Saber's mainframe and small design table just as
she stepped out to join me.

As usual she looked impeccable.  Like she hadn't slept, or no, that doesn't
describe the perfection of her appearance, the sharp creases her suit still
held appropriately.  She looked ready for a photo shoot, like always and
also as usually began to answer my question before I could ask it.

"Irene is fine.  She was moved earlier this morning and is on the way to
China for treatment.  It's better this way Nene."  She reached out and
touched my shoulder looking deep into my eyes in a rare show of
emotion.  "She'll
be safe under the aegis of her grandfather and we couldn't keep her here
without revealing our identities."

I slumped a little but nodded, she was right, as usual.  She was always
right.  Drawing breath I opened my mouth to ask about Kari.  She was still
laying still on the table to one side.  The soft hum of machinery at work
indicated something but her skin was so pale, tinged almost blue in the
florescent lighting.

Again our leader preempted my question, but now her tone was cold, the
flicker of compassion gone, once more the Ice Queen we had all grown used
to.  "4m83r is still recoverable.  I know you thought of it as a friend
Nene, but it's not.  It's a 33-S, a sexaroid, and they are designed to
mimic humanity, to learn what people around them want and then give it to
them."

As she went on, rolling over my attempted objection by simply continuing to
speak I could a slight grimness in her tone.  "I know you don't want to
think it of… Kari… but it is very likely that she was placed as a
spy."  Raising
a hand to quell the fury rising in my eyes she went on.

"I'm not even saying that it knew, or was intentionally targeting the
Knight Sabers, it may just have been a sleeper agent until after the fight
on the bridge but Nene, Priss brought back one of the handguns she had.  There
is no way a regular person could get their hands on a gun like that.  I've
already traced it as one obtained through back routes for Genom black op
projects.  To an account that can either disclaim all knowledge of the
weapon or provide proof of legal ownership and licensing as the occasion
requires."

She let that sink in for a moment longer and I could feel my stomach churn
as I looked over at Kari.  She looked so small, so weak and helpless.  I
shook my head it couldn't be that way, it just couldn’t.  "There has to be
another explanation.  She probably got it when she escaped from wherever
they were keeping her.  She was their prisoner, not some kind of spy."

"I know you would like to think that way, but Nene, I've had my concerns
ever since you told me how you originally met.  I think you have to face
reality, that she may have been intentionally placed to find someone just
like you.  Probably some kind of honeytrap meant to work her way into the
life of any hacker skilled enough to attract Genom attention.  The best
scenario is that she's simply a recruiter but we can't take that chance."

I met her gaze as defiantly as I could.  I could feel myself shaking, but
in anger, frustration, or I guiltily wondered doubt I did not know.  Taking
a deep breath to help regain control I did my best to answer.  "That
doesn't make sense.  Why wouldn't she have done something by now, said
something, blackmail me into working for Genom once she found out I was
with the ADP?"

The compassion I could see in those normally cold eyes shook me more than
anything else Sylia could have done, any argument she could have used.  "Nene,
your position is probably why she was taking it slow.  Acquiring an asset
like yourself within the AD Police would be a huge coup for Genom.  It’s a
big enough prize and I want you to keep that in mind for what comes next."

"It's stable now.  The emergency shutdown appears to have functioned
correctly to save its files and your efforts combined with the support
systems here have allowed us to provide for its organic components care as
well.  For now it's in hibernation from a physical bypass I put in last
night.  The nanites and self-repair systems are functioning but it's higher
brain functions are being kept offline.  It will take a few replacement
parts but this afternoon I want you to go in and find out just what mission
this 33-S is on, and I want you to key yourself in as its master and remove
any possible hardware or software Trojan horse's that might exist.  I know
you want to think of her as your friend, but even if she's not working for
Genom the Knight Sabers cannot risk our safety by letting it wander without
a leash to ensure its silence.  Do you understand?"

Her intensity was a bit frightening but I nodded.  "I, I understand Sylia.  I
don't think it's necessary but, I'll do it."  And suddenly the tension
between us seemed to melt away.

"I know it may not seem fair if it really is a runaway but this really is
the best solution to keep all of us safe Nene, Kari included.  It's better
than the alternative."  And with that statement, one just vague enough to
let me hope she meant Kari running around free instead of what I thought
she meant, she strode past me to the elevator leaving me alone with Kari
and the soft beep and whir of the machines around her.

Stepping closer I brushed a little of her white blond hair out of her face,
there was a huge bandage around her neck.  I didn't have the least
temptation to look, the gaping red maw still too clear in my memory.  Getting
a washcloth and bowl I came back and began to do a better job of washing
her face.  No matter what Sylia said I couldn't see Kari as the enemy.  She
needed help, and even if Sylia refused to see that I could.  "Don't worry
Kari, I'm here, I'll look out for you, I promise."

The next time I saw her Sylia had finished her repairs and a new pair of
data cables stretched from Kari's maintenance jacks to a computer that was
physically isolated from the rest of the base.  I realized my hands were
trembling as I sat down to start.  Looking over to Sylia I gave her a weak
thumbs up before diving in, working my way deeper and deeper into Kari's
systems, just trying to tell myself it was just like meeting her out on the
web.  It didn't work.

It was a bit strange.  I had studied the system architecture for the 33-S
model before I started.  How Sylia had gotten her hands on that I had no
clue, but working deeper I found more questions than answers.  It just
wasn't organized correctly.  All of the base processors seemed the same but
the way information was stored was off.

At first I was afraid we had been too late and Kari had been… scrambled,
but the longer I looked the more I realized that the governing program
files for movement, system maintenance, everything aside from personality
and memory were intact.  However it seemed as if the main OS had been
simply, overridden in places, missing in others, not corrupted but it
wasn't the code I expected to find.

Even allegedly incorruptible firmware systems showed tampering, and as I
worked to find and isolate the information I would need to, to control her
I realized it just wasn't there.  The elaborate systems meant to shackle
and control a boomer's mind were missing.  Kari was as close to independent
as I could imagine, at least if that encrypted data representing her memory
didn't hold its own special limiters on her behavior.

Eventually though I reached the final layer.  Hidden away in her bios chip,
where the slightest error could require complete replacement were the
ownership protocols.  They were intact and I felt my heart sinking.  Kari
really was just a boomer, a slave to whoever was listed in that file, and
no matter how much I wanted to believe otherwise, to believe she was my
friend and free if whoever was listed here gave her an order she would have
no choice but to obey.

Heart close to breaking, almost unwilling to look I queried the chip.  Already
feeling betrayed by a faceless man who's name would soon be revealed.  What
I got back made no sense.  It couldn't be possible.  I checked again with
the same result.  I dug deeper seeing that it had been changed, and
recently.

Ignoring Sylia when she came in I was so absorbed in my work until I had a
record of every change in state those few simple bytes of data had ever
held and sat back in shock.

"Nene, what's the matter?"  Sylia's voice finally broke into my racing
thoughts and I realized it wasn't the first time she had asked.  When she
saw my eyes focusing once more she asked again.  "What did you find?"

"It's me."

She blinked but the cool mask didn't leave her face as she simply waited
quietly for me to explain.

"Her master, it's me… I don't know how but, it changed the night of the
first attack on Irene."  I looked back down at Kari laying silently on the
table before me, licking my lip nervously.  "We were with her that entire
time, no one had access, it shouldn't be possible but…" taking a deep
breath I tried to settle my racing thoughts and start over from the
beginning.

"She was activated for the first time several months ago without an owner.  I
don't know how, or why, but it's true.  That area was just left, blank… and
stayed that way for the week she was active.  After that she was shut down.
I don't know why but she was put away for months before she was activated
again.  This time her owner was registered as 'Master Flint'.  That's all
that was entered.  Not a first name, image, biometric data or anything just
'Flint'."

Seeing recognition in Sylia's face I paused and waited for her to say
something.  "It is most likely referring to Marcus Flint, head of GPCC
Genom's space research division.  I'm not sure how he got his hands on her
but it probably wasn't aboveboard"

I nodded, it made sense, even if nothing else did.  Swallowing I continued
to give her my report.  "Somehow I think, I think she's updating it herself.
That shouldn't be possible, especially without some kind of outside access,
but the rest of the missing data, the biometric information its, mine.  My
picture, my voiceprint, everything, and the name it's under is now Ne-chan.
She actually overwrote her owners name!"

"What do we do?"  I asked, voice soft looking to her for direction the
sudden feeling of responsibility felt threatening and strangely stifling at
the same time.

The only indication Sylia gave of the thoughts running through her head was
to tap her chin with one long elegant finger as she pondered before nodding
more to herself than me.  "This doesn't change anything.  We will keep her
under until her body has had time to heal and then wake her up and see what
she has to say for herself.  She's changed masters once Nene, there is
nothing that says she can't do it again. We have to be sure she's
trustworthy before letting her go."
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