『Felix Karl Grimm』
Last night after going out to drink with Rebecca was a haze, I was so incredibly tired that I just entered home and slumped onto my bed. And when I woke, feeling ever so slightly better I was greeted with a Giffany hologram using the display in front of the couches. She waved at me with excitement.
"Good morning Boyfriend! I have prepared a surprise for you, you might want to check your Agent!"
"Good morning to you too Giffany."
I slumped out of bed and wandered over to my desk and picked up the Agent as she asked, rubbing my eyes in the meanwhile as the soft morning light intruded in the apartment.
First thing I noticed was that the background of my Agent was replaced by a picture of Giffany blowing a kiss towards me. And it did not take me long to find what was amiss with my Agent.
...Last time I checked my account, I didn't remember it having that extra 12,000 Eurodollars.
12,000 is an amount most citizens wouldn't hold at once in their lifetime.
Giffany hopped onto my agent from my apartment and looked me in the eyes with a smile. Waving a wad of cash around.
"Wow, that is way beyond what I expected, good job Giffany." Positive reinforcement was important before asking questions, and Giffany definitely appreciated my praise with how she preened. "But... how?"
"Well, I spent the entire night infiltrating the network of the Megabuilding, did you know their firewalls and defenses really aren't that impressive? Not for me anyway, took me a few hours, but I got access to EVERY room in this Megabuilding, and the computers connected to them. Did you know over 20,000 people live in this Megabuilding? I'm sure most of them wouldn't mind a few Eurodollars missing from their wallets! It took a lot of time to go through each wallet individually, if I got better, I'm sure I could take 5 eurodollars from each account at once. I did get a lot better with tweaking the code of this world."
I blinked.
No wonder people fear Rogue AI.
I'd head pat the hologram if I could.
"Great job Giffany. You're the best. Let's go shopping to reward you."
She jumped up for joy, revealing her white panties with blue stripes. Which was weird since she has to deliberately project the images. But I definitely appreciated the show regardless.
"Yay! Our first date together! This will be so much fun!"
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Although I had phrased it as Date, our chosen activities were quite strange.
Our date had us end up in Kabuki Roundabout where I went into the shop I remembered selling netrunner stuff and used 24,000 Eurodollars to purchase as many quickhacks, daemons and other stuff as I could. The shopkeeper gave me a weird look for buying that many quickhacks, but I disregarded her opinion.
She wasn't the one with an AI Girlfriend to feed to take over the world.
After I left the shop, Giffany buzzed from my agent and talked through my earbuds that I bought for her.
"What a rude woman, can you believe she tried to peek into your Agent? She was pretty good too, I gave her a warning zap to send her back. We should come back here after I'm done with those quickhacks so that I can teach her a lesson and melt her brain."
Giffany crossed her arms and pouted comically while saying some real scary things.
"Calm down Giffany, we've got better things to focus on. You found anywhere that sells some Smart Glasses? I won't replace my eyes, but it would be good if I could use you better."
She nodded with a sweet smile.
"Now I have! I put on the map, there is a Kiroshi Shop in Corporate Plaza that sells a brand new affordable smart glasses model."
"Let's go then."
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I'm down to 2,125 Eurodollars. It's almost depressing. That was all of my savings accrued from killing people gone in the span of a few hours. But it was for a good cause.
"This is so much nicer for interacting! Now I can actually pretend I'm walking around with you, like that Johnny Guy."
It was quite surreal to see Giffany walk next to me as I put on the glasses. The glasses themselves were almost scarily sleek. They looked like bog-standard regular glasses, but they incredible amounts of tech somehow stuffed in there. These glasses had more ram and storage space than my previous PC. These things could do most things Kiroshi optics could do, without having to install Kiroshi optics.
The glasses cost a disgusting 28,000 Eurodollars. I had to make stops at quite a few stops to let Giffany just go into subnets and drain some cash out of them just to be able to afford it. But it was well worth the price. It even connected to my Agent too.
Now if only I could control the glasses with my thoughts without having to install a Neuroport or anything similar, but you can only win so much.
After that I went back home and Giffany slipped into my computer after I slotted every chip and shard I had into it one by one. She said she'd take some time to digest all of the things I had given her. Which was fair. I feared the monster she would become afterwards.
She compared digesting the shards to having studied something before but then having to study it again.
In the meantime, I decided to play around with something that I had never used before due to not really having a moment to take a break.
[Low Gravity]
I spent a few hours playing around with and learning its ins and outs since I have been doing nothing but using Precognition ever since I came here and honestly? I wanted to experiment a little.
Sure, Precog would always stay on until I got another ability slot due to bullets, but it was good to know your options
The ability did what it said, wherever I wanted that I could see, I could create a zone that decreased the gravity of the things inside. Funnily enough, the zones were marked by the same things that AV's used, moving lines that indicate stay away, only purple in color.
I first experimented with cutting gravity in half which was easy enough, I could control the range and shape of the zone as I liked, circle, square, star, Reuleaux triangle, etc. the only limitation was that if I wanted it in a shape that was not basic, I actively had to think about mentally drawing lines.
Trying to increase the lack of gravity the zone exerted was like trying to pull up a weight that got heavier the higher you lifted it. The most I got to was I think 1/20th of regular earth gravity. Which was pretty good consider it would make a car go from 1500kg to barely 75kg. With more training I was sure I could reduce that even more.
It would be one hell of an entrance to make into Arasaka Tower if I sent a truck hurling through the air at them.
Still haven't gotten use out of Dress Break, I highly doubted I ever would until I either reach a world with magic armors or encounter a power armor. Would it work on Cybernetics? I had no idea. Maybe I could test it out with a gig. Leaning back I sighed and dialed Capitan.
A few rings later his mug and his godawful haircut showed up on my screen.
"Eyy, how's it going Grimm? The 6th Street are still reeling from that blow you left them. What can I do you for?"
"Hey Capitan, you got any other jobs for me?"
He nodded and smiled confidently.
"Reggie was right, you really don't rest or give a damn. I like it. I want those 6th Street rats to gather up a little before sending you in with the hammer, so I got something else for now. A little birdie told me an Arasaka convoy is delivering some experimental tech, and my friends over on Zetatech are willing to hand over some good scratch for it. You in?"
There was no reason to consider.
"Count me in, screwing over Arasaka sounds fun. Any details?"
"A merc with a bone to pick with corps? Must be a day that ends in Y. No specifics, deal with them however you want, just make sure the cargo is in mint condition 'k? Sending you the deets and the route our target is heading down."
With that, Capitan closed the call and I read over the message he sent. After a bit of research, I found a relatively closed off area I could ambush the convoy at and retrieve the cargo at in around 3 hours or so.
I looked towards the pc that showed the gif of Giffany studying. I should give her some time first before interrupting her.
So I spent around an hour taking a nap before finally calling out to Giffany.
"Hey, Giffany, I got a job, you think you are up for helping me tackle it?"
She instantly turned around and hopped into my glasses, might I note way faster than before.
"Yes boyfriend? Of course, I can! What is it?"
"It's about hitting a convoy..."
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"Giffany, are you sure about this?"
The cute girl in my glasses nodded with confidence, I chose not to wear my helmet, if I got shot in the face I'd be dead anyway so there was no need to bother, there was Precognition for that. And there was no need to hide my identity anyway since Giffany downloaded(hacked) the facial recognition fucking software into my glasses.
"Of course boyfriend! No basic AI can match me, even if my server is not that strong. The only AI I'd fear in this world is that Alt woman. Now then, let me show you how amazing I am!"
If she says so.
In the distance I could see the Arasaka convoy approaching, a large heavy duty armored truck and two smaller cars in front and behind it.
Vroooom
But just as they were about to pass my location they all braked to a sudden stop. I raised my eyebrow and took out my gun but...
"Aaraaaahh!!! Make it stop please!"
"Enemy netrunner! Fuck, we are compromised! AAAAahhhhh!!!!!"
"S-stop, I can't control my arms! F-fuck! No no no no-" -Bang!
"F-fuck, I'm burning!"
"M-my balls! My balls! RAAAAGHHGHAH!!!!!!!"
Bang!
I could only stare with my mouth agape as the Arasaka operatives spilled out of their cars in varying levels of torment. Smoke came up from the heads of several people as their eyes and neural implants overheated to a crisp, one guy's gorilla arms were hijacked, leading him to him shoving his guns against his chin and pulling the trigger. And one guy's "Mr. Studd" implant literally exploded.
To be honest, pulling out my gun and ending them felt more like a mercy kill rather than a fight. One guy even whispered thank you as I pointed the gun at his head.
The image of Giffany flickered on my glasses, her cheery demeanor not changed one bit. A sharp contrast to the carnage in front of my eyes.
"So, how was it my boyfriend?"
"...You did an amazing job Giffany."
A/N: Giffany is a scary girl that's for sure. But she needs buildup like any other, still the power of a rogue AI technopath machine spirit cannot be understated in this world. Given enough time she can become quite literally a global threat. Money? No problem, when you have her, the world is your bank.
Giffany is scary scary, and she hasn't even started pulling the advanced tricks like Blackwall Gateway. I wanted to really hammer in how scary AI in this world are. But that does not make Giffany any less of a cutie patootie. What did you guys think about Giffany? I'd love to know.
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