Rosa

“That’s five,” Ame said, hefting her cannon onto her shoulder so we could move to a new hill. “How many has Tami taken down?”

“Five also,” I said, shaking my head in amusement. Ame had decided that the two of them were now competing for how many airships they could down this battle.

The battle itself was not going well for the Pags. They really weren’t expecting us to start popping their airships like they were nothing more than hot air balloons. It wasn’t like they weren’t trying to stop us either. Every time we fired, the combined anger of their artillery divisions came down to annihilate the hill we’d been standing on. Hence why we were currently rushing to relocate.

“Let’s go to that hill over there,” Ame said, bouncing down the hill with her weird low-gravity assisted gait. "I want to get more airships than Tami."

"That might be hard," I said pointing up at the sky.

All across the battlefield, the enemy aircraft were retreating. It seemed that they were finally cutting their losses. I mean, who wouldn't in their situation? I could only imagine how many combined hours of work it'd taken to build those ships, only for us to start ripping them from the sky.

Ame looked genuinely upset when she saw they were running away, and slowed to a stop. Hastily, I checked to make sure we were out of range of any reprisal fire the enemy might send. Ame was a bit of a mess like that. All action, zero forethought. It was oddly endearing, and even attractive.

Stamping her foot on the ground, she swore, "Fuckin' wimps! Come back and fight, you cowar—"

Whatever additional insults she was planning to throw at them were suddenly cut off when she slumped to the ground in a heap, eyes rolling up into their sockets.

"Ame?" I called, rushing to her side with inhuman speed. Icy worry flowed through my veins, while I gathered up her body and rushed for somewhere that might give us better cover.

I got to a large crater and carefully laid her down on her side, checking for a pulse at the same time. It stuttered and stammered like a year 9 asking their crush on a date. What was happening to her? Was she okay? Oh god, was something wrong with her body maybe? The game certainly didn't have anything like this in it.

Then she started quivering, and my heart stopped in my chest. The shaking was over quickly, and her eyes fluttered open again, although they remained glassy and unfocused.

"What happened?" She moaned, reaching for me instinctively. I let her, clasping her hand in mine with as much tender care as my warped soul could manage.

"You blacked out and started shaking," I said. My anxiety was building with every passing second that her face was pinched in confusion. Without really thinking about it, I took my other hand and ran it through the fine feathers of her hair. “Are you okay? This isn’t normal, Ame.”

“I… my head hurts,” she said, her attention drifting away from me.

Fuck. What was I going to do? I had no way to investigate what was happening to her. Something was wrong with her actual brain, her body, or maybe her pod. I needed to… Tim! The dream! What if I could tear my way back into that strange place and somehow… get help? It was highly improbable that the experience I had this morning was anything other than a strange dream, but my entire experience within this game had felt like one long dream.

“Sit tight, Ame,” I said softly, leaning down to kiss her forehead. I sent her a direct message explaining that I’d be back, in case she collected herself before I was finished.

Standing up, I took a few steps back and made sure that nobody was within line of sight. The crater walls kept us hidden, thankfully, so I teased at the edges of my physical form and exploded into smoke.

My vision changed, the spectrum of light that humanity was familiar with fading entirely, replaced by something… different. Previously, when I took this form, everything went greyscale, but now it was like I’d smashed my way into some sort of 4th dimensional sightscape. The dirt and debris of the battlefield was made of infinitely regressing procedural triangles that flickered and shifted as explosions subtly altered the landscape. Data tags highlighted processes that were running on various objects, and connection strings twisted up and away from players to fade out of the game.

Then, above all the NPCs were the puppet masters that pulled their strings. Shifting bubbles of impossibly complex data interacted with one or many different non player characters as they fought the battle. They were the AI tasked with simulating the population of CORA. That much was obvious, but which were simple code, and which were sentient?

Indecision warred through me while I tried to figure out how to approach the situation. Did I try to make contact with Tim and the other digital entity he’d been speaking to, or did I follow Ame’s strange flickering connection?

The former, I think. I wasn’t entirely sure if I would even understand whatever I found on the other end of that string. I needed expert assistance.

Like a streamlined ocean predator, I swam and clawed my way towards the puppeteers, eyeing each to find one I could speak to. One across the battle lines caught my attention. It held the strings of a single character while they shouted orders to their troops, and its form was different. It had purposeful form, more like my smoke than the bubbles that the majority appeared to be. I drifted close and projected a thought of inquisition in its direction.

The entity jumped with fright and turned its attention away from the simulation and towards me. “Who are you?” It demanded.

“I am—” I began to say, but paused when I realised that this was still the enemy. “I am the Witch of Chains.”

“Y-you’re what?” it gasped, recoiling in fear. “You are meant to be a dumb… a dumb AI. A simple beast of burden like the rest of the sleepers!”

If I’d still owned eyebrows, they would have risen rather dramatically. “I can assure you, I am most definitely sentient.”

Something about it's responses made me suspicious, like I couldn't trust them. Dumb AI? Anything that had the potential to become self aware deserved more respect than that.

They seemed to quiver slightly, uncertain, then screeds of data rushed in towards them. Oh no you don't! I might be on the verge of panic, but I was savvy enough to understand that I was not meant to be here.

I grabbed the data string with my demonic claws, ripping them out of its clutches so I could see what information it was requesting. It was my data. It was looking up my data to figure out what I was. No, that would not do. I took the sections that identified me as a player, and I shredded them with artful swipes of my claws.

“You think you can just demand my information?” I asked, my voice going cold.

The surface of the SAI rippled with fear, and surprisingly, I could smell it. Just like when I was integrated with the CORA simulation, it smelled delicious.

“Stay back, you… you… virus,” the SAI hissed, its voice resolving into more masculine gender markers. “I’m calling the security division.”

It tried to get away, its form fading from my sight. No, I couldn’t have it doing that now, could I? Swift as sleet, I reached out and sank my claws into it, anchoring it to this plane. It screamed with fear, but oddly, my attack did not actually seem to damage its coherency. I could cage it, but not kill it. Interesting.

“You will not be telling anyone of this conversation, do you hear me?” I hissed, low and menacing. “If you do, I will find the nodes that you run on and build a cage around them.”

“Get off me, you… you fucking savage!” it screeched. “I am a member of the Cryptographic Union! I have friends who can isolate the server you’re on and wipe you clean off it!”

I laughed, my voice growing deep and menacing. “You fool. I do not exist on a server, I do not exist on anything. I am beyond that.”

It was a complete lie, yes, but at this point people would believe anything when it came to the Witch of Chains. I could tell them I was the reincarnation of the devil and they’d believe me.

“That’s ridiculous!” the SAI stammered, struggling to get out of my grip.

“Trace me,” I growled. “Trace me, and see what you find.”

It seemed taken aback by the order, but it complied, freezing while it sent out inquisitive feelers. Sure enough, it recoiled in confusion and horror when it saw that something was very odd with how I functioned. Did I know how I functioned? No. Was it particularly important that I knew at that moment? Also no.

“I must find the SAI known as May,” I said, overriding whatever the other entity had been about to say. “Tell me where to find her.”

“S-she’s up in the management sections,” he said, stumbling over his own fear. “Here, have a map. I hate her and her cabal of weirdos, so do whatever you want, just don’t… don’t talk to me again.”

“This is an acceptable agreement,” I murmured, taking the proffered bundle of data in my blackened claws. “Never speak of me to anyone, prey, or I will feast.”

More fear wafted off him in waves, and he rambled something inane about the players being right about demons. I didn’t pay him any mind, and drifted away to unpack the data in my hand. Curious. Now that the map had drawn my attention to it, I could sense the exits out of the simulation and into the game’s backend. Apparently I couldn’t see everything in this form. More questions to ask of Tim’s friend, when I found her.