Heroic Read online

  Then I felt something else.

  Not far from me. Maybe 10 or 12 meters away. Someone was dying and someone else already had. All the data flooded into me, making it hard to think. Slowly I sifted through and came to realized that I wasn’t being screamed at by a dozen people. There wasn’t somebody yelling: “I have sounded the silent alarm! I have sounded the silent alarm!”

  Neither could I feel anyone dying. It was just the security drones sending a signal to the other drones, that they had been defeated. As I began to better comprehend all the information surrounding me, I also felt that I could reach out further. I found something else as I reached out.

  But when I tried to touch it I was given a ‘slap'. Someone had given me a mental slap! What did that mean? I tried circling around the… whatever it was. I started probing it from various directions. Every time it reacted the same way. Giving me a mental slap and ignoring me. I couldn't even feel a twinge in my skinned knee, that's how absorbed I was with exploring my new power. I hindsight I probably should have realized that that was a bad sign.

  I launched myself at the slapping wall. It slapped me as I made contact. I didn’t back off this time and it slapped me again. Then I pierced a layer deeper.

  “Do you have the right access to enter?” Something from the wall asked me.

  “Of course.” That layer fell away. I could still feel it, just like I could still feel the slapping wall, getting progressively more slappy.

  "What is Access Code 1?" The something asked me. Of course, I didn't know what Access Code 1 was, so I decided to try and bluff my way through. What else was there to do?

  “But do I really need Access Code 1? We both know that I am already allowed to enter.” I acted confident and pushed on. If you act like you belong then most people would just let you through. Unfortunately, technology isn’t people.

  "You do not have Access Code 1? Then you are intruder virus!" The something said. The slapping wall changed. At first, it just felt like an itch, but for every second that I was in contact with it, I felt it get worse until it felt like it was burning me.

  Oh. It's a firewall. I realized. I was starting to feel exhausted from all the exploring, and withdrew from the firewall, and what was quite likely the bank’s protected data.

  Then I felt something snap. A suddenly I didn’t just feel weaker, I also felt bloated and heavy. Like someone had chained 50kg weights to my legs after running around all day. I decided to withdraw to my body.

  With a start, I realized that I didn’t know how to draw back into myself. Maybe I just need to find it. I thought.

  I listened, sifting through all the technology I could contact. Trying to use it to triangulate my position.

  Then I stumbled upon a camera. Things had changed. The villain was screeching and flying around the place. She had blasted out a huge section of the floor in the bank and most everyone had withdrawn to the office she had pointed out. She didn't seem to have any purpose with this act. It didn't seem like a robbery, just lording her power over everyone else.

  I didn’t immediately detect myself. I was getting quite tired lugging around all this extra dead weight. I could feel it slipping out of my grasp and I feared what would happen should I drop it.

  I swept out with my new senses towards the crowd of people. I must be there somewhere. It was filled with storage devices that were all too small to hold me.

  Nothing technological would be big enough to hold a human brain, right? I thought, scouring the office with a hint of panic.

  Wait! There. I had found myself, someone had dragged me into the office. There weren't any cameras that held the right angle, but I didn't need the cameras to see. I could feel my way along just fine. It was like dragging your hand along a wall of small cracks until you found one that was big enough to hold you. I slipped in just as easily as I would have into the crack.

  Then I passed out…

  What can I say? Technopathy is hard work.

  Chapter Nine

  “I could’ve sworn I didn't turn this thing off.”

  Those words, the first words I’d heard in a long time, pulled me out of my own mind. Something changed. The world around me changed. I had heard something, and it wasn’t a mad woman screaming.

  I could feel some part of myself waking up. Spreading myself a little more. Someone had turned on the machine I was sitting in, and it was like the relief of the construction workers lifting the wall off me.

  My awareness spread along with the machine as it turned on. The panic that had settled over me like a rainstorm, was blasted away by the power that ran through the system, now that the battery had been given free reins.

  It was weird, rising with a system, instead of sinking into one that was already up and running. It was like I could ride the startup process along with the machine itself, spreading my awareness to every piece of the machine.

  I was now certain that it was a laptop, a computer. Wrist computers and phones were common too, but most people preferred the bigger screen, especially if it was a long term project.

  Recalling the fact helped me calm down. It took me an embarrassingly short time, to really come down from my panic attack, due to one simple thing. The webcam switched on.

  Before me sat a beautiful woman. She had a well-defined jaw, framed by a beautiful auburn hair. Her eyes could pierce into my soul, and I would let them. I could tell, just from looking at her, that she was smart. Those eyes could decipher a complicated social mores, just as fast as they could decipher a budget sheet.

  Oh yea, she was also familiar. It was the woman who had been assigned to help me.

  “It’s you!” I exclaimed. I hadn’t realized that I was connected with the speakers until a garbled sound escaped from them. It sounded nothing like what I tried to say.

  According to the microphone, what I lacked in comprehensibility, I made up for in noise. I wasn’t benign your average, ‘my computer is playing loudly’. No, I circumvented all the safety functions that had been worked into the Operating System of the laptop. Instead, I had connected directly to the speakers. Then I had basically told them to fuck her up with noise.

  It worked. Sorta. She definitely noticed. She immediately leapt backwards. I noticed then that she had been sitting in a chair, probably at her table. The chair was little more than splinters now. She had just leapt straight through a chair.

  “Fucking damn it!” She exclaimed, looking down at the chair remains.

  I focused hard on modulating my voice. “Sorry.” It didn’t sound right, though the volume was… better.

  “Sorry.” This time the volume was closer to normal speaking, according to the microphone. It also sounded vaguely like “Sorrrrrrrr.” Way too drawn out.

  “Sorry.” There perfect. Or perfect enough. It sounded enough like an actual language that it could be understood, and she seemed to.

  She tilted her head and looked t the computer. She didn't step any closer. “You’re alive? For how long?”

  “Since the villaii,” damn that’s a hard word to get right through a speaker, “villain attacked.”

  The squinted at me, or the computer. It didn't really matter, she looked at me. “You’re him? The guy she killed, aren’t you? How are you still alive?”

  “I guess you could say that she killed me. If you want to be generous.” I was already starting to get the hang of speaking like this. “My name is Vanys by the way, in case you were curious. Also, you’re welcome.”

  I couldn't really decipher her facial expressions since the laptop’s webcam was so shoddy. I did realize that I might have just, unnecessarily, risked my own life instead of saving hers. She was clearly able to fight and judging from how she plowed right through that chair, tougher than me.

  “I’m sorry to intrude on you like this,” I said when she didn’t respond. “I found myself in the grasp of newly gained powers, and ehh… you know” I tried to swallow, but of course, I was in a machine. In fact, this computer was completely incapable
of independent movement. “It’s just. I kind of accidentally ended up here. Since it was the only hard drive that was big enough to hold me.” I presumed.

  “Damn you Kani. Couldn’t you just keep your fingers out of my computer just once?” The woman grumbled. “My name is Val. Tha-”

  I was pretty sure that she was about to thank me for saving her, or whatever. Instead, I stopped her, by loudly yowling again, startling her once more. Something was attacking me, and it wasn’t being gentle about it like the slapping firewall. Luckily, it also seemed to have a weaker defensive system.

  “Warning Ms. Valeria Valencia! Someone has intruded upon your home security system.” A sudden voice exclaimed. I recognized it as the voice of a house AI, though it clearly wasn't mine.

  I exclaimed loud- and pained noises again. The power of the attacks suddenly rose greatly in power.

  “It’s fine, it’s fine! Stop it AI. Stop.” Valeria called. Just like that the pain stopped. “I thought I’d told you to be quiet.” She scowled in what I could only presume to be the direction of the AI core. “Could you make it back to your place?” This was directed at me.

  Could I make it back to my place? “Fuck if I know, though just making it to your laptop was really exhausting.”

  “So, probably not?” She asked.

  “Probably not.”

  She looked pensively at me. At the laptop. “You seem like a genuinely nice guy.” Ehhh, I wouldn’t go that far. Ambivalent, maybe. “I think I might be able to come up with some sort of solution for you. One, that doesn’t end with you living in my laptop for the rest of your life.”

  Nice guy! I thought, I can be a nice guy! How hard can it be? Easy-peasy.

  “2 seconds,” She said, holding up two fingers. She was about to walk away, when she said, “House AI, please monitor the intruder in my laptop.” She shrugged, at me but didn’t look apologetic, before turning and leaving the room.

  I was a little worried. I barely knew anything about her. The only things I knew, was what I could now see of her living room, and extrapolate from her behavior. She seemed friendly. Either she liked working out, or whatever her superpowers were showing themselves in her physique. Second, she lives a truly messy life.

  I could barely see the carpet in her living room. The entire room looked like she was a dragon, but instead of keeping gold, kept random tra- Is that a fucking sword?

  Over in the corner of the living room, just lying randomly under a pile of some weird cloth was a genuine sword. Silvery steel peaking up through the cloth—not clothes, by the way, just loose cloth—that had been piled atop. Just what kind of crazy is she?

  Chapter Ten

  Val cautiously lifted the trap door to the attic, making sure that nothing fell down and hit her in the face… again.

  Finally, as the door was opened enough for her to get up. Squirming carefully through the small door, she stood half crouched in the small storage space attached to her apartment. She could still remember when they weren’t necessarily directly attached to apartments, but a cellar or attic room. Once you reach 40+ floors that got kinda unsustainable though.

  “Where is it?” She mumbled, squirming about as she carefully, crawled over one pile looking for the old robot. She managed to grab a box before it fell and landed on another pile, and started a trash slide. She was a grown woman, she could admit it. This was mostly trash. It just wasn't trash she was willing to part with.

  It took another 5 minutes before she finally spotted one of the bare legs of her robot.

  It took nearly 10 minutes to dig it out, without causing another mass extinction event in her apartment.

  Finally, she was looking upon the monster she had wrought. It was a taller robot, maybe 10 centimeters or so taller than her. It was lean and muscular, though its strength wouldn't come from the visible muscles. It was a robot after all, even if it was just made to look like a human.

  She was a little more appalled to find out what it was wearing. It had been so long since she had put him away she had forgotten what he had been wearing. It was wearing a pair of incredibly tight looking shorts, white waistband, and a black tie. Which fit its function as a cleaning robot, in a sort of depraved way. Very much like her.

  She looked down at the boxes next to it. Most of them were old boxes for attachments. A quite frankly disturbing amount of them had very little to do with cleaning. Actually, from what she could see and remember, they were more about making a mess of her.

  “I cant present him with this.” She mumbled, “First things first.” She pulled down the shorts revealing the worst offender she had gotten the robot. It also just happened to be, one of the primary reason why she couldn't just show it to this Vanys guy. She reached behind the… equipment, pressing the button for release and twisted. With a click, she now held the over-sized monstrosity.

  What did I ever inflict this upon myself? She thought, dropping it on the floor. It landed with a meaty thwack, clearly too large for any human male.

  She reached over untied the tie, before going searching for more clothes. Something that would say, he was my maid and not my sex robot. Which while technically true, was debatable.

  She somehow managed to scrounge totterer enough clothes for the robot to look decent. He was now wearing a little too wide and too short turtleneck sweater, that had definitely never been worn by a man before, and a pair of pants that were several sizes too big.

  She was about to throw him over her shoulder and come down with him when a thought struck her. Would he freak out if he no longer had a penis? Then another thought came along with, probably awakened by the resurgence of memories. Would I want him to have a penis?

  It took many a long moment of deliberation before she came to the answers. Probably and maybe. Decisive as always Val. She encouraged herself. And she dug through the old attachments. She wasn't going to give him the old tool, that was too much power for any young man to handle.

  ***

  Lifting the robot’s torso and hips over her shoulders was surpassingly easy, even without using her powers. Her powers also endowed her with natural strength, that she took great pleasure in using. The robot was also significantly lighter than a normal human of its size. Probably, due to all the unnecessary things he didn't have. Like anything that you couldn’t clean or fuck with.

  She just hoped the living computer downstairs hadn't detected the robot and seen through its eyes or something. She didn't actually know how his powers worked, so it would probably be better to not take any chances. Still, she had enough oomph behind her, to force him out of any eventual move he decided to make.

  Chapter Eleven

  Valeria returned after a while, dragging behind her a robot. I didn’t recognize the model, but a quick question and I quested out to examine it with my technopathy.

  It was hard to tell anything from what I saw. As it was turned off, all of the digital parts of the equation was completely blanked out to me. I could tell there was an on-off switch. When I pushed my will against it, I could feel genuine resistance. Didn’t budge it though.

  I had once, a few weeks before moving out of the orphanage, decided that fitness was just my style. It really wasn't. But at one point during my first days of exercising, I had loaded up the bench press. I’d gotten myself all hyped up. Slapped myself about a little, Emmet had been encouraging me. We were both just beginning back then.

  I’d gotten down under the ehh… pole. I had gotten down under the pole, grabbed it with both hands and pushed. I’m pretty certain that I sorta rattled the pole a little, but that was about the most I achieved under the pole that day.

  Trying to turn on the robot felt sort of like that. I was certain that I could, I just couldn't move the switch yet. I guess my technopathy comes with some telekinesis or the likes, but it was definitely not my strong suit.

  Already feeling a little exhausted I gave up and asked her. “What is it? Some kind of home defense robot?” I couldn't accurately portray the tone of voice
through the speakers, but I might have somehow let some show anyway.

  Valeria on the other hand snorted, and for some reason got a little red faced. “It’s uhh for cleaning. It’s a cleaning robot.”

  Then she dragged the robot over to an outlet on the wall. From somewhere along the back of the robot, she pulled out a plug and started charging my new body to be.

  Hopefully, I could change a few things about how it looked. It was dressed in a little out of fashioned clothing, and they didn’t fit at all. He did, however, have really dark, nearly solid black hair and yellow eyes. It was a little weird and too eye-catching, especially if I had to do something simple like going to work.

  Valeria went out of my line of sight. I could hear her open a door. There was some scuffling a light amount of cursing and she suddenly reappeared with a new chair. This one wasn't made of wood though. It looked like a cheap one from a discount furniture store.